one mexican town revolts against violence and corruption (and the women shall lead them)

[niyad]

The town of Cheran in Mexico's Michoacan state has thrown out politicians, cops and the mayor to relieve itself from violence and illegal logging.


Checkpoints staffed by men with assault rifles, camouflage and body armor greet visitors at the three major entrances to this town. The guards are not soldiers, police officers, drug enforcers or vigilantes. They are members of homegrown patrols that have helped keep Cheran a bastion of tranquillity within one of Mexico’s most violent regions. The town of 20,000 sits in the northwest corner of Michoacan, a state where authorities say at least 599 people were killed between January and May, an increase of almost 40% compared with the same period last year. Cheran hasn’t had a slaying or other serious crime since early 2011.

That was the year that residents, most of them indigenous and poor, waged an insurrection and declared self-rule in hopes of ridding themselves of the ills that plague so much of Mexico: raging violence, corrupt politicians, a toothless justice system and gangs that have expanded from drug smuggling to extortion, kidnapping and illegal logging. Six years in, against all odds, Cheran’s experiment appears to be working. “We couldn’t trust the authorities or police any more,” said Josefina Estrada, a petite grandmother who is among the women who spearheaded the revolt. “We didn’t feel that they protected us or helped us. We saw them as accomplices with the criminals.”

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Josefina Estrada, a petite grandmother who helped lead the revolt in Cheran. (Cecilia Sanchez / For The Times)

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As at the beginning of the Cheran rebellion on April 15, 2011, a man rings church bells in a tower high above town. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times)

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Residents walk through the central plaza of Cheran, Mexico. (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times)

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Instead of the traditional mayor and city council, each of the town’s four barrios is governed by its own local assembly, whose members are chosen by consensus from 172 block committees known as fogatas — after the campfires that came to symbolize the 2011 rebellion.Each assembly also sends three representatives — including at least one woman — to serve on a 12-member town council.The town receives all the funds — the equivalent of about $2.6 million per year, officials say — that are its due from the state and federal governments. Salaries of 200 or so town employees max out at the equivalent of roughly $450 a month, leaving money to help fund the municipal water system and other services, including a trash recycling program that is a rarity in Mexico.



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Students at Erandi (meaning "Dawn" in Purepecha language) elementary school in Cheran, Mexico. State, (Liliana Nieto del Rio / For The Times)
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Not that Cheran doesn’t have its problems, including poverty, lack of opportunity, petty crime.
“But the problems of today don’t compare with what it was like before,” said Estrada, the rebellion organizer. “Now we can go out at night. Before the community felt a great fear: Everyone went inside at 9 o’clock at night and shut their doors.” With slayings, kidnappings and extortion plaguing areas just outside of Cheran, all here are aware that it would take little for turmoil and conflict to reemerge. The governor of Michoacan has publicly threatened a court case to reverse the town’s system of self-government. “We in Cheran remain vigilant,” said Juarez Gonzalez, who, six years after her husband’s disappearance, is now a fogata coordinator. “We all know the criminals are close by, and may try to return any time.”

http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-cheran-20170710-htmlstory.html