behind the new wave of violence in Michoacan

Source: BBC behind the new wave of violence in Michoacan Alberto Najar The Knights Templar star in new violence in Michoacan Police ambushed in rural communities, roads blocked by buses and cars burned, dissolved civil protest dead by armed groups. Life is a part of Michoacan, west of Mexico, which for months seemed to regain peace after six years in a war between cartels. The state is experiencing a new wave of violence that according to experts and officials is part of the dispute between two drug cartels, which adds the rise of civil defense groups. The federal government applied to the area a new operation involving the deployment of hundreds of soldiers, Marines and Federal Police. So far their presence has failed to prevent the confrontation between the groups, nor attacks on police convoys. Specialists like Jose Reveles say organized crime challenges the authorities. But the Security Cabinet spokesman, Eduardo Sanchez, says it's an act of desperation. "I hit severely the pocket and the economic interests of criminals operating in that state," he told local media. History Violence now lives in Michoacan has several chapters and characters, experts and officials say. One is the battle waged for two years the Jalisco New Generation cartels and the Knights Templar, who seek to control drug production and trafficking routes in the mountainous southern state, known as Tierra Caliente. The first group is a splinter group of the Sinaloa Cartel, which was removed after the death of one of its top leaders, Ignacio Coronel, El Nacho. The Templars emerged from the internal fracture of La Familia Michoacana, which stripped the call control hot earth, a mountainous area south of the state. Another chapter is the emergence of civil defense groups, that in towns like Tepalcatepec Coalcomán Carrillo Puerto or seeking protection of the Knights. For some time, the band lived in relative peace with the people of Earth as offered to expel drug traffickers who were still in the area, and ensured respect to communities, recalls José Manuel Mireles Valverde, general counsel Tepalcatepec Self Defense Council . "Civilians said while not mess with me all is well and honestly saw them through the streets, well armed, several trucks with armed but many people like ghosts," said Mireles to subversion, Autonomous Communication Agency. Paying to live Thousands of soldiers and police have been deployed in Michoacan But peace was lost when the Templars broke their word. The gang went to kidnap farmers, entrepreneurs and farmers, and even started charging fee for all agricultural production and commercial activity in the region. "Crime began to extort all people messed with a lot of money as farmers, avocado growers," he told BBC analyst Jose Reveles. "They have a list of how many kilos of lemon, avocado meat or produce, the meter that measures your home. Thereafter charge them. If people want to live you have to pay. Therefore were filled." But the recent activity of the self-defense is only part of the problem. Specialists as Ricardo Ravelo remember that for months the federal government practically skipped the state, which allowed the advance of the posters. Now they want to calm things down with a strategy that has been tried, said Jose Reveles. Since 2006, when from Michoacán then President Felipe Calderon declared war on drug trafficking in the state have deployed thousands of soldiers, sailors and police. "It's more of the same, that did not work," he says.