Published May 18, 2011
| Fox News Latino
AP
A local masked men stands next to a barricade in Cherán, Michoacán State, Mexico. The men there started taking security into their own hands last month by setting up checkpoints at the entrance of town with tires and sandbags and using guns they stole from local police after loggers, who residents say are backed by cartel henchmen and local police, killed two residents and wounded several others. (AP Photo/Miguel Tovar)
Not in our town, drug cartels!
That’s the message the men of a Mexican town – masked, wielding rifles and standing guard at makeshift blockades – delivered to drug traffickers. The would-be defenders, the indigenous Purépechas of Cherán, are protecting themselves against illegal loggers, whom they believe are backed by notorious drug traffickers.
This town, surrounded by mountains of pine forests and neat farmland, is where loggers allegedly killed two residents last month and wounded several others.
A local masked men stands next to a barricade in Cherán, Michoacán State, Mexico. The men there started taking security into their own hands last month by setting up checkpoints at the entrance of town with tires and sandbags and using guns they stole from local police after loggers, who residents say are backed by cartel henchmen and local police, killed two residents and wounded several others. (AP Photo/Miguel Tovar)
“There is no fear here,” said one young man, defiantly peering out between a red handkerchief pulled up to his dark eyes and a camouflage baseball cap riding low over his brow. “Here we are fighting a David-and-Goliath battle because we are standing up to organized crime, which is no small adversary.”
Nearly all residents in the town of 16,000 in the southwestern state of Michoacán spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns.
Tom Tancredo 