Peña Nieto amends strategy for Michoacan before key elections

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has dismantled one of the pillars of the strategy orchestrated a year ago to restore legality to the state of Michoacan after a new outbreak of tension months before key elections in the country.

In a public event held Thursday to evaluate the federal strategy for this southwestern Mexican state, Secretary of the Interior Miguel Angel Osorio announced the president’s decision to withdraw Alfredo Castillo as federal security commissioner for Michoacan.

This move comes a few months before the June elections when the state will go to polls to elect a governor, the state assembly and the governments of 113 municipalities in the state.

The same day, voters throughout the country will elect 500 new members of the Chamber of Deputies, the governments of nine states and 1,532 local officials.

Praising Castillo’s work, Osorio said the excommisioner would take on a new role in the government.

The government also appointed a special security envoy for Michoacan, Gen. Felipe Gurrola Ramirez.

Peña Nieto named Castillo the head of the Security and Integral Development Commission of Michoacan a year ago amidst armed clashes between organized crime and civilian selfdefense groups.

The vigilante groups were formed in 2013 to confront the Knights Templar cartel engaged in drugtrafficking, extortions, kidnappings and other crimes.

Throughout 2014, the government captured or killed several Knights Templar leaders but the gang’s current boss, Servando Gomez, is still on the loose despite a $2 million reward for his capture.

Last May, Castillo announced the legalization of the selfdefence armed groups through their incorporation into the Rural Force, a police agency created for that purpose.

Despite the blows dealt to the cartel, there have been some difficult moments for the government such as the recent clash between two former leaders of the civilian vigilante groups which left 11 people dead.

In the aftermath of the encounter, opposition legislators called for a revision of the state’s security strategy as well as Castillo’s removal.