View a larger version of the timeline: 2013: A year in review
One year ago this week we published the Foreign Office Digital Strategy, looking at how we would make the most of the opportunities of digital in our work. The Strategy set a clear vision – making use of digital tools in every element of foreign policy work; and moving to provide our services digitally by default.
Looking back, it’s been a heck of a year with activity across the FCO contributing to the strategy’s implementation. Some of the highlights for me personally:
Looking ahead, 2014 looks set to be even more exciting and even more challenging as we continue to use digital tools and technology to improve our services, policy and communications. For now, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Onwards!
London, UK
A blog by the FCO’s Digital Transition Leader | Follow Adam on Twitter: @adamwbye
Social media has changed the way we see the world. It has changed the way we communicate and interact at all levels. Tools like Twitter and Facebook now allow global interconnectivity that goes far beyond countries borders, political systems, and ideologies. But social media is only the most visible part of the shift currently weaving into the fabric of foreign policy.
Governments are now looking for a higher level of engagement that goes beyond social media and at the same time harnesses the power of digital tools to open a dialogue with more than just official entities and diplomatic elites. It is a phenomenon that has brought to the international stage new non-state actors, including citizens, networks, government agencies, regional entities, businesses, foundations, non-governmental organizations… and the list goes on.
“Diplomacy has traditionally been depicted in literature and movies as intrinsically secret and full of intrigue, carried out by few actors, with public opinion playing a passive role, if any,” wrote former Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi in his preface to the book, Twitter for Diplomats. “This description was quite true in Talleyrand and Metternich era and partly throughout in the XXth century. Over the last decade, however, the widespread use of the Internet, and particularly social media, ushered in a new era,” he continued.
Today, it’s not only about restricted bilateral meetings, or ministerial summits. Now world leaders and foreign ministers are tweeting, Facebooking, Instagramming, Youtubing, and blogging. Of course, face-to-face traditional diplomacy is important, but it has evolved: Governments are now proactively searching for sources of engagement and dialogue and at the same time they’re gauging and analyzing new emerging actors. It is a global conversation that has shifted vertical hierarchies into horizontal webs, thus forming a conversation where all players interact with each other and where governments are part of the game, rather than the one exclusively controlling it.
The current diplomatic, social, and economic environments are ripe with examples of how interconnectivity plays out: Davos, a global forum that brings together world leaders, corporate tycoons, academics, and bloggers on one stage; the Clinton Global Initiative, running alongside the September high-level meetings of the United Nations in New York; the Social Good Summit, a live-streamed three-day global forum encompassing events all around the world to discuss ideas and innovative solutions to the most pressing challenges; or even the TED conferences, devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading,” as per TED’s motto.
Partnerships and grassroots networks are also becoming prevalent. It is the idea behind the TechCamp program at the U.S. Department of State, an effort to galvanize the technology community to assist civil society organizations across the globe by providing capabilities, resources, and assistance to harness the latest technological advances in order to build their digital capacity. Similarly, the European Commission in Brussels has implemented programs — and provided funds and grants — to encourage partnerships between governments, local authorities, and non-state actors to get more involved in development issues.
It is a new web of networks — it might sounds at first an oxymoron but it seems to fit the description well — in which both governments and non-traditional actors look for partners to achieve common solutions, face common challenges, and at the same time fulfill their agendas. This is what Princeton University Professor Anne Marie Slaughter, a former Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State, calls the “Lego World.”
Indeed, the power of ideas solidly stands behind this new global interconnectivity. It is what sustains it. Ideas have been given a true platform strengthened by different levels of engagement, dialogue, and interactions.
“If we are going to have a dialogue — as opposed to I am going to talk at you and you are going to talk at me — then you have to sense that I am listening,” writes Professor Slaughter, recently named President of the New America Foundation, in the Journal of Law and International Affairs of the Pennsylvania State University. “If you sense that I am willing to be persuaded, you will be much more willing to be persuaded yourself. Leadership in this context often requires a willingness to change your own mind, to alter your own preferences within the broad parameters of the common mission.” This is a very different form of power than command or controlling agendas or shaping preferences. Both exist. I do not think there is any structure in the world that does not have some hierarchy and some web.
The Arab Spring is possibly the first instance where a new sense of global interconnectivity — while not absent before — became more evident. Social media exponentially increased a complicated web of interactions where a new, very visible actor clearly emerged on the international stage: the Arab people. Thanks to mobile technologies they rapidly organized in networks and communities, while reshaping their own future through grassroots organizing.
In the case of the Arab uprisings, the role of social media tools certainly accelerated the process, rather than causing it.
A new study by the Pew Research Center suggests that in that instance faith in social media wasn’t misplaced — users in Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan still take to social networks to discuss politics at nearly twice the rate of their Western counterparts.
“Expressing opinions about politics, community issues and religion is particularly common in the Arab world,” reads the Pew report. “For instance, in Egypt and Tunisia, two nations at the heart of the Arab Spring, more than 6 in 10 social networkers share their views about politics online. In contrast, across 20 of the nations surveyed, a median of only 34 percent post their political opinions. Similarly, in Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon and Jordan, more than seven-in-ten share views on community issues, compared with a cross-national median of just 46 percent.”
A new wave of innovation — for some nations a veritable proactive search for innovative tools — has also forced diplomacy in to a new adaptation cycle that is still undergoing. In a way, it is as if the DNA of diplomacy altered: a sort of genetic adaptation to new ideas that is transforming traditional diplomacy into “social” diplomacy.
We now live in an era where the “social” character of foreign policy has not only entered governments’ agendas, but in some cases it has become a driving force of change and recalibration. Forming communities, being part of networks, being able to recognize and getting involved in grassroots dynamics is now more vital than ever before, whether online or offline.
“The geometry of global power is becoming more distributed and diffuse even as the challenges we face become more complex and cross-cutting,” former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote last summer in the New Statesman. “That means that building coalitions for common action is becoming both more complicated and more crucial.”
We all have to recognize that technology has become a formidable foreign policy tool to facilitate and expand global interconnectivity, what back in 2010 Clinton called a new “nervous system for our planet.” It has become an important factor when analyzing how the world is reshaping itself to avert risks and map new challenges. But technology has certainly not been the focus of foreign policy, nor the mean. This is an area where innovation — rather than technology per se — has a central role in diplomacy’s new set of mind.
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Foreign policy is evolving and adapting in front of our eyes, not only to new technologies but also to the different personifications of power and influence. Thanks to social media and the advent of digital diplomacy, this transformation is happening very fast and affects the very DNA of how governments interact with each other and with their publics.
New non-state actors are emerging quite rapidly, reshaping the international landscape and forcing foreign policy practitioners to rebalance their focus so to accommodate new priorities, engage with civil society, and democratize the diplomatic process.
“Every day, technological innovations are giving people around the world new opportunities to shape their own destinies,” former President Bill Clinton said commenting The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business, the new book co-authored by Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, and Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas and adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and in publication. “Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen draw upon their unique experiences to show us a future of rising incomes, growing participation, and a genuine sense of community — if we make the right choices today,” the former president continued.
Technology and innovation have been key elements in this process, deeply impacting the past 20 years of foreign policy in a way we have not experienced before. For centuries, ambassadors and diplomats have embraced the traditional way of practicing diplomacy and receiving instructions from their home capitals. The modernization of the postal service and the invention of the telegraph — and later the telephone — sped up communications but didn’t affect the interaction outside of the elitist world of foreign affairs.
“Everybody sees change now,” Secretary of State John Kerry wrote recently. “With social media, when you say something to one person, a thousand people hear it,” he continued.
From the Internet to Twitter and Facebook, technology has injected new life to diplomacy. The change has been fast and quite sudden if you think that early diplomacy — as we intend it now, with permanent envoys and embassies — can be traced back to the Renaissance and the royal courts of Europe. Today, cabinet ministers, diplomatic bureaucracies, and ambassadors have embraced all new media, often very effectively, and certainly not without risks.
But is the rapidity of the process cheapening diplomacy, transforming it into what I would call ‘fast diplomacy’?
While at the beginning, early digital diplomacy practitioners might have been inclined “all too willing to sweep the dangers of Twitter diplomacy under the rug,” as The New York Times reported back in 2010, today the need to put in place a veritable system of checks and balances is clear in order to minimize risks and avoid incidents, ambiguities, and misinterpretations.
In April, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo temporarily shut down its Twitter feed following controversial tweets, the second time the American Embassy in Egypt was engulfed in an incident involving the use of social media. On September 11, 2012, the Embassy’s Twitter feed put out a series of comments seeking to calm the protests outside their walls.
“We’ve had some glitches with the way the Twitter feed has been managed. This is regrettably not the first time,” said Victoria Nuland, then State Department spokesperson, announcing that the Twitter feed of the Embassy in Cairo was back up. “I’m calling a glitch the fact that they obviously put up something that they later took down, that they took down the whole site, which should not probably have been the way that went, and that in the past there has been differences between the Twitter team and senior post management.”
Nuland went on: “From the Department’s perspective, we want to see all of our embassies have active Twitter feeds. We want to see post management, ambassadors and their deputies, decide what will be most impactful in terms of conveying the views of the U.S. government in terms of having a direct dialogue with the people of the country. So it was from that perspective that we thought that the right approach was to make editorial decisions that were in line with posts’ views, but not to take down the feed altogether.”
Because social media exponentially multiplies a message and its reach, mistakes often occur in sudden and unexpected fashion. This is why risk management needs to become part of a digital diplomacy strategy — not just crisis communications. Foreign policy is not risk-free — both traditional and less traditional — and it will never be. What we can control is the output, insuring quality and clarity while still keeping a fast pace.
While the need for real-time news and updates has increased to a point where screens, checks, and balances almost cease to exist, the challenge has now become how to achieve a balance. On one hand we need a mechanism to monitor the digital diplomacy activity. On the other hand we need to perfect the use of social media tools in order to better engage with our publics — both at home and abroad — so that we’re not cementing ourselves in a one-way dialogue with ourselves.
“We’re living in a monitory age. People feel they have the right to monitor decisions. There’s now surveillance as well as surveillance,” said Daniel Korski, Special Advisor on Communication to EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Catherine Ashton. “Some of all this change has negative effects, for example governments are more risk-averse. The modern world has so many actors, and issues are so complex, that the notion that bureaucrats have all the answers and information is absurd,” he argued.
Indeed, bureaucrats and diplomats don’t have all the answers, but they are now provided with tools to better the way governments and embassies communicate.
In this landscape, fast diplomacy is certainly not the goal, but rather a lapse in the search for a stronger presence in social media and a better engagement with all social diplomacy actors, traditional and less-traditional.
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In 1994, rumors circulated that President Bill Clinton would nominate James Hormel, the openly gay American philanthropist, to the post of U.S. ambassador to Fiji. While the reason Hormel was not nominated was never clear, some argued that the White House did not pursue his nomination because the Fijian Penal Code criminalized homosexuality at the time. Others opined that opposition from Republican senators would be unsurmountable. Nearly two decades later, appointing openly gay people to ambassadorial posts overseas has gone from an unthinkable act to an unremarkable one, and the shift has made U.S. foreign policy stronger.
It took a special executive action for Clinton to circumvent the Senate confirmation process and appoint Hormel (pictured, left) as ambassador to Luxembourg in 1999—a post that Clinton had nominated him for two years earlier. His 1997 nomination prompted a conservative Christian response, and Republican then-Senator Chuck Hagel declaring that being “openly, aggressively gay” would inhibit Hormel from effectively representing the United States abroad.
After Hormel’s appointment in 1999, the vitriolic atmosphere seems to have calmed. Only a few years later, Ambassador Michael Guest (pictured, right), who represented the United States in Romania from 2001 to 2004, was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate. At his swearing-in ceremony, Colin Powell, then secretary of state, publicly acknowledged the presence of Guest’s partner, a historic moment for the recognition of gay individuals in the U.S. foreign service.
Fifteen years after Hormel’s appointment, President Barack Obama has included five out gay ambassadors in his newest class of nominees, all of whom have been confirmed. Whether ascending to the post as career diplomats or political appointees, each ambassador will fulfill their mandate in their host country by attending high-level meetings and appearing at state functions — and many will do so with their partners.
Acting as the president’s representative abroad, openly gay U.S. ambassadors have impacted more than domestic politics. “A few weeks before I arrived in Romania in 2001, the government repealed Article 200 of the Romanian Penal Code, which criminalized same-sex relationships. I am told that the timing was not coincidental,” says Guest, now senior advisor to the Council for Global Equality. In an effort to advance U.S. foreign policy’s focus on democratic inclusion, he continues, “I tried to give local LGBT advocacy groups more visibility by including their leaders in events that I hosted; I wanted to make it clear that they were a legitimate part of Romanian civil society.”
Now, the new class of ambassadors will serve in the foreign service after the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act and overturning of California’s Proposition 8. Most importantly, these ambassadors assume their role after then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that gay rights are human rights and that LGBT issues would be reflected in Obama’s foreign policy agenda.
“At this point, what is extraordinary is that out gay ambassadors are not that extraordinary,” said a modest David Baer after returning from an event he had attended as the recently posted ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. “Sure, you walk into a room and everyone knows that you are gay, but that dissipates quickly. Public diplomacy is about representing the United States, a job that requires all U.S. ambassadors to promote the general interests of the United States abroad.”
However, some parts of the world may not be as ready as others to accept openly gay ambassadors. Upon James “Wally” Brewster’s (pictured, left) recent nomination to the post of ambassador to the Dominican Republic, the country’s religious leaders called upon their congregations to protest. Notably, the Dominican government refused to back the protesters. Brewster was confirmed by the Senate to the ambassadorial post shortly thereafter.
Whether by inspiring young U.S. foreign service officers or by promoting human rights through their diplomatic efforts abroad, openly gay U.S. ambassadors are adding a new aspect of diversity to the face of the U.S. diplomatic corps.
With a proud smile, the newly confirmed ambassador to Denmark, Rufus Gifford, added, “When Obama nominated us to serve as diplomats, he was saying to the world: ‘This is everything it means to be American. This is part of our country’s struggle to recognize civil rights for all.’…That still gives me chills.”
MADRID – The Geneva II Middle East peace conference, to be held on January 22, will take place against a backdrop of singularly appalling numbers: Syria’s brutal civil has left an estimated 130,000 dead, 2.3 million refugees registered in neighboring countries, and some four million more internally displaced.
The stakes at the conference are thus exceptionally high, both for Syria and for its neighbors, which are straining against severe destabilization. Lebanon has taken in more than 800,000 Syrian refugees. Jordan and Turkey have more than a half-million each. Iraq has received more than 200,000, and Egypt has nearly 150,000. These figures, a result of three years of civil war, are simply inacceptable.
What seemed like a new phase of the Arab revolts in early 2011 has become the worst conflict so far this century. Meanwhile, the international community has been disastrously divided. Since the fighting began, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has had Russia’s explicit international support. But while Russia’s strategy, from the outset, has been coherent and well-defined, the West’s has not. The United States and the European Union have remained hesitant, establishing no clear aims regarding the conflict. This vacillation contrasts starkly with the position taken by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar, which have steadfastly supported the Sunni opposition to Assad, and that of Shia Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, which have been equally resolute in supporting the regime.
Syria’s civil war has crystallized the complex geopolitical problem that has long characterized the region: the Sunni-Shia cleavage. The sectarian divide underlies the latent struggle for regional control between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The radicalization of Syria’s opposition, however, has complicated the situation even further, nesting one problem within another – much like Russian matryoshka dolls. The Sunnis are divided, with the more moderate forces opposing the radical Al Qaeda affiliates. In fact, in just the last few days, internecine clashes have left more than 700 dead.
The turn for the worse followed last year’s chain of events, which started with the United Nations’ accusation that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons and ended with the US-Russia brokered agreement to destroy the regime’s chemical arsenal (thereby avoiding a poorly planned and ill-timed Western military intervention). Indeed, it is now clear that the agreement’s chief side effect has been to breathe new life into the regime, thereby frustrating the hope of the more moderate rebel groups and allowing Al Qaeda-linked forces to gather support and strength within the opposition.
The consequences of this radicalization are spreading throughout the region and worldwide. Syria is now a problem for global security. The main concern now seems to have shifted to defeating Al Qaeda, rather than Assad. The region is in turmoil, and the presence of groups affiliated with Al Qaeda is an enormous risk for everyone. Indeed, ten years after the start of the war in Iraq, groups affiliated with Al Qaeda have taken control of key Iraqi cities, including the symbolically important city of Fallujah.
The Geneva II conference offers an opportunity to address these dangers. But risks abound. We still do not know who will represent the Syrian opposition, or if the Syrian National Council ‒ which demands that Assad step down unconditionally ‒ will even be there. The regime, for its part, wants the conference to focus on combating the growing extremist presence within the opposition, which it refers to generically as “terrorist.”
Nor is it known whether Iran will participate. As a key actor in the conflict, Iran should have an important role in its resolution. And, despite the resistance of Saudi Arabia and the Sunni opposition, the US and the EU currently seem more inclined to accept Iran’s inclusion in the Geneva II negotiations, especially now that advances are being made in the implementation of the international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program concluded in November.
The top priority at the conference must be to secure a ceasefire. This is the only way to return to what should be the international community’s main concern: ending the suffering of the Syrian population, restoring their country to them, and offering them the chance to construct the peaceful future they deserve.
Beyond the geopolitical risks that Syria’s civil war has created, the suffering of millions of human beings cries out for an end to the violence. After three years of war, a ceasefire is currently the best path to peace. For that reason, Geneva II is an opportunity that must not be wasted.
As Egyptians took to the polls to vote on a new constitution, Alhurra Television and Radio Sawa provided audiences the latest news, expert analysis and reaction from the street.
In the week leading up to the election, Alhurra aired a daily program called Constitutional Referendum. The series addressed such topics as personal freedoms and human rights in the new constitution, the role of the military, international monitors during the vote, the rights of women and Copts and the future identity of Egypt.
During the two days of voting, Alhurra expanded its reporting to include more than 15 hours of live coverage. Reporters in Cairo, Alexandria, Giza, Minya, Sharqiya and Suez interviewed Egyptians from all walks of life as they expressed their feelings about going to the polls for the second time in 13 months. They also spoke with Egyptian political activists who voiced their opinions on whether to ban religious parties from political office and the question of how much power the military will have. Alhurra also reported on U.S.-Egyptian relations, the future of military and economic aid to Egypt and the impact the referendum vote will have on future presidential elections.
Alhurra also interviewed Amr Moussa, president of the committee that amended the Egyptian constitution and the governors of Suez, Minya and Alexandria, about their expectations for the vote and the future of the Egyptian constitution.
Alhurra’s daily talk show Free Hour was expanded to two hours and featured guests Muhammad al Menshawi, Middle East Institute; Egyptian writer Mohamed Sotohi; Bashar Abdel Fattah, Democracy Magazine; and Sebastian Gorka, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Radio Sawa also extended key newscasts to report on the Egyptian referendum voting, on both the Egyptian stream and the pan-Arab streams. Radio Sawa’s correspondents reported from more than 15 locations over the two days and their coverage included a look at the Muslim Brotherhood’s call to boycott the vote and the role of international monitors.
Alhurra’s Facebook page asked its users what there the expectations were for the referendum vote. Some expressed hope that the constitution would be passed, while others claimed the vote was illegitimate.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences unveiled a homegrown operating system called COS (for China Operating System) this week, which it called a crucial national security initiative in light of revelations about pervasive online surveillance by the US National Security Agency. But China’s 618 million internet users aren’t buying it.
Software developer Shanghai Liantong Network Communications Technology said the OS will be used on smartphones, set-top boxes, and PCs, and is “intended to break the foreign monopoly in the field of infrastructure software” (link in Chinese). The Linux-based software can supposedly run over 100,000 apps.
COS’s creators were unsparing in their criticism of the mostly US-developed software that now dominates the market. At an event launching the product, the head of the software division of the Chinese academy “criticized iOS for being a closed ecosystem, while Android has the infamous fragmentation problem, and both Windows plus Android are let down by poor security,” Engadget reported.
Chinese internet users, who have watched previous government-developed software come and go, were mostly unimpressed. They took to social media in huge numbers to to deliver some resounding critiques in over 170,000 posts on COS.
“What does COS stand for? COPY OTHER SYSTEM?… But it really does look like a fusion of the Apple, Android, Symbian, and Blackberry operating system,” wrote one Sina Weibo user.
“Google’s market is called Google play, while COS’s market is called cos-play,” another wrote, referring to the practice of dressing up as sci-fi and other fictional characters, which, he noted, is “comparatively more western than Google play.”
If the system is really as good as it’s advertised, perhaps the government should start using it first, others said: “This is good. I strongly recommend that all party members, cadres, and leaders throw away their iPhones and have them replayed by our superb homemade operating system – the COS system!” a Sina Weibo user said.
Jennifer Chiu contributed reporting.
The expansion of self-defense groups in Mexico has presented problems for President Peña Nieto, who is trying to turn the page on cartel killings and turf wars associated with his predecessor.
Correspondent /
January 17, 2014
A vigilante channel-surfs on a plasma TV while sitting in the living room of the house of a Caballeros Templarios drug lord, who fled with with his family following an uprising in Nueva Italia, Mexico, Thursday.
Jorge Dan Lopez/Reuters
NUEVA ITALIA, Mexico
Townspeople gathered at dusk in the central square of this city of ranches and lemon groves, planning to pick a committee to support and oversee the activities of a recently arrived self-defense group here. The vigilantes gained acceptance when they recently ran off a cartel accused of everything from extracting extortion payments to making people it didn’t like in the community disappear.
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“We don’t want any more missing persons. On every block there are one or two missing persons,” says Gloria Ayala, a retired chemist taking part in the town meeting.
“People here have more confidence in themselves than the government,” Ms. Ayala says.
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But after a confrontation between government soldiers and vigilantes nearby left at least one person dead, questions are swirling as to how the government allowed armed civilians to take on the cartel-orchestrated violence across Mexico that federal forces are supposed to be fighting – and how President Enrique Peña Nieto is going to contain the violence associated more with his predecessor, former President Felipe Calderón.
The rise of these so-called “community police” forces has been largely welcomed in Nueva Italia, where townspeople say they get little support from local police or the federal government when it comes to shutting down organized crime in their back yards; and the government’s crackdown on crime and drug cartels over the past seven years has produced few visible results.
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The vigilante organizations have gained ground, marching on at least 15 municipalities in Michoacán and also rising up in communities across neighboring Guerrero state. Mexican newspaper Reforma in March reported a presence of vigilantes in 13 of Mexico’s 31 states.
But when the federal government sent soldiers to seize weapons from self-defense groups in Michoacán earlier this week, an initial attempt near Nueva Italia Monday resulted in a confrontation that left four civilians dead, according to locals (the government has confirmed one death).
“There is no doubt: the self-defense groups are illegal and should not be delegated the responsibility of combating organized crime,” security analyst Eduardo Guerrero wrote in Reforma.
such as energy, education, and telecommunications.
Improving Mexico’s image abroad has been one of Peña Nieto’s top priories, and analysts say speaking of security problems could complicate the president’s message.
“Something the Calderón people found out … is that it’s very hard to control [the security] agenda, because they don’t control the other side,” says Federico Estévez, political science professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, referring to crime and drug cartels.
“The other side is capable of mayhem at any time and at inconvenient times and at times when they could extract a heavy price in public opinion against the government for what it’s doing.”
Peña Nieto promised in his campaign to crackdown on crimes such as kidnapping and extortion, and to start a gendarmerie. The gendarmerie is not coming together as planned and anti-crime groups say kidnapping has increased over the past year.
Knights Templar cartel has meddled in everything from methamphetamine labs to extortion to exporting boatloads of illegally mined Michoacán iron ore to China. The group takes its gang-status a step further than most cartels, teaching from its own religious text and building shrines to its supposedly slain founder.
The recent confrontation between government forces and armed civilian groups here creates a confusing scenario for some: Are these vigilantes the good guys, or the bad?
“The government response has been contradictory,” says Erubiel Tirado, a security investigator at the Iberoamerican University.
Senior government officials previously spoke well of the self-defense groups’ leaders and even met with them.
Talks continue between the government and self-defense group leaders – who promise not to march on any more towns, but won’t lay down their weapons until senior Knights Templar kingpins are detained.
The self-defense groups say they are popular with the people, and that their arrival is applauded. They say they have no ties to rival criminal gangs – something the Michoacán government and opponents leading protests against them allege.
“To say [self-defense groups are] purely people that want to protect themselves is an exaggeration,” says Father Patricio Madrigal, parish priest in Nueva Italia. Rival cartels certainly have reason to want to see the Knights Templar weakened, and could be taking advantage of the situation. But Father Madrigal adds that to his knowledge, any offers to vigilante groups by Knights Templar rivals have been rejected.
After Monday’s confrontation, the local bishop, Monsignor Miguel Patiño Velázquez – whose priests have supported the self-defense groups – issued a blistering pastoral letter saying, “The army and the government have fallen into discredit because instead of pursuing criminals, they have attacked the persons that defend them.”
Locals, many fearful to give their names, speak of crimes commonly carried out here before the arrival of self-defense groups, such as extortion, kidnapping, and rape.
Farmer Calixto Álvarez says he paid 1 peso per kilo of lemons [approximately $0.10 for every 2 lbs] he took to the packing plant and 3 pesos per kilo for each kilo of meat he sold to a slaughterhouse [about $0.25 for every 2 lbs].
“It got to the point that they couldn’t take deliveries anymore,” Mr. Alvarez says.
He supports the self-defense groups and, like many, says he wants them to stay armed and patrolling the region.
“The community is angry,” Father Madrigal says. He fears that if the government can’t keep citizens safe and simultaneously crack down on self-defense groups, “We could see a generalized uprising. We could see war.”
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