In western Mexico, a small group of soldiers with about six trucks and sandbag turrets stood guard on a country road

Two people were killed in a shooting between suspected rival gangs near a Mexican resort

Agilla, Mexico-In western Mexico, a small group of soldiers with about six trucks and sandbag turrets stood guard on a country road. In one direction, almost impossible to hear, a drug cartel set up a roadblock to blackmail farmers. In the other direction, a hostile cartel carried out an armed patrol on a truck with its initials.

The Mexican army has basically stopped fighting drug cartels here, and instead ordered soldiers to guard the boundaries between gangs’ territories to prevent them from invading each other’s turf — and turning a blind eye to the illegal activities of cartels hundreds of yards away.

At the first roadblock, set up by the Viagra gang that had long ruled Michoacán, a truck was parked across the highway, and sandbags were piled up to protect the cartel gunmen.

Every few hours, the gunmen would back up to let the farmers pass, but they would question each passing driver how many boxes of limes-the most valuable product in the area-or bull heads were shipped to the market. The answers are written in one book.

Local farmers say that Viagra costs about US$150 per truckload of limes. They weigh and charge each cow separately. Further north, every box of fruit delivered by avocado growers has to pay a similar protection fee.

"Be careful what you post," the person in charge of Viagra roadblock told reporters passing by. "I can monitor you on Facebook and I will find you."

Driving along the same road for about 3 kilometers (2 miles), one person officially entered the territory of another cartel, marked by a team of armed men and pickups and the original homemade armored truck with the letters "CJNG". This is Harry The Spanish acronym for Sco's New Generation Cartel.

There were soldiers standing between them, and they did almost nothing.

The Jalisco-based cartel is invading neighboring Michoacán, causing thousands of farmers to flee, some seeking asylum in the United States. Although reporters saw few public threats in the newly-occupied town of Agilia, Michoacán, Jalisco, local residents reported that gunmen in Jalisco had kidnapped and possibly killed people they suspected of working for rival gangs. young people.

General Luis Crecencio Sandoval, the Minister of Defense of Mexico, publicly stated that the soldiers came here to prevent the Jalisco Cartel from invading Michoacan.

"We managed to get one of the cartels to retreat to the border of Jalisco," Crecencio Sandoval said in October. The federal and state governments did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the strategy.

The Lazaro Cardenas Seaport in Michoacán is regarded by the Cartel as an entry point for the precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamine and fentanyl in China. Its avocado orchards and iron ore mines are also the main targets of Viagras' extortion. The group is named after its founders' extensive use of hair spray.

Nemesio "El Mencho" Oseguera, the leader of Jalisco, wanted to take over all this and regain control of his hometown; he was born in the small village of Michoacan in Chira.

Security analyst Alejandro Hope said that the government’s strategy is clearly "some kind of non-aggression treaty."

"There is an increasingly clear attempt to manage conflict," Hope said. "They (soldiers) are not to disarm the two sides, but to prevent the spread of the conflict. The problem is that we don't know where the army's bottom line is and what they are willing to accept."

How passive the army has become, and how much abuse will it suffer? In the mountain town of Aquilila, now controlled by the state of Jalisco, nearly 200 soldiers were blocked by angry residents at their command post for four months.

Since the citizens blocked the two entrances to the barracks with graders and bulldozers in late June, the army has been using helicopters to transport food for the troops. This is part of a growing trend in Mexico: soldiers are held hostage by citizens because they know that under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policy of “hugging, not bullets” , The army will not even defend itself.

Residents of Agilia said that they will not let soldiers leave their barracks until the army has completed the work of removing Viagra roadblocks, which make medical, food, fuel, electrical or telephone repairs impossible or expensive. Some residents died as ambulances were blocked or delayed at roadblocks.

"The most shameful thing is the absence of the government. In this war, the government is just a bystander. This war has caused so many deaths and so much destruction," said Gilberto Vega, the local pastor of Aquilia. Pastor Gilberto Vergara said when describing the lives of the residents. Frustrated by the army’s reluctance to fight either of these two cartels.

"It just stands there and watches, and at a certain moment, when it can't do anything else or when one party seems to win, it will act," Vergara said. "But this is not the rule of law."

This is the only actual operation of the army in recent months: in September, after the Jalisco Cartel launched an attack on the nearby town of Tepalcatepec, which resulted in the beheading of 5 local militias, the army dispatched helicopters, reportedly equipped with rotating barrel machine guns. , Can fire thousands of bullets per minute, pushing Jalisco back.

Since then, the army has taken up positions around Tepalcatepec, but did the same thing as on the road to Agilia: nothing was done.

"Why don't the army advance? Why don't they send helicopters over again?" said a farmer in the small village of Taixtan near Tepalcatepec as he walked along a dirt road towards the sorghum field , He was unable to harvest the sorghum field because the Jalisco Cartel gunmen stationed in the nearby mountains could hit the sorghum field with their .50 caliber sniper rifle.

"Since they (soldiers) came, they have not shot," said the farmer, whose "self-defense" team often exchanged fire with Jalisco. Like most others interviewed, the farmer refused to reveal his full name because he was worried that he would be recognized and killed by the gang.

Most farmers in Tepalcatepec felt that they were isolated against the invasion.

The locals do not rely on soldiers, but rely on their own World War I-style trench warfare, combined with 21st century technology, such as drone explosions.

On the top of a mountain near Tepalcatepec, the vigilantes built a bunker consisting of concrete, steel beams and bricks, covered with more concrete to prevent drones from invading. They approached the bunker called "Achicumbo" through a trench that was one metre deep to avoid the snipers from opening fire.

A farmer there showed shrapnel from a drone, still stuck in the bumper of his truck. These devices can cause horror, mainly because they are unexpected and feel indiscriminate. Throughout the area, the impact of drones launched by both parties can be seen on the metal roof of the structure that opened like a tin can. Each party found a "drone" to operate these equipment.

No one will ask too many questions about where the Tepalcatepec security team got their bulletproof car and AR-15 rifle. Rumor has it that the Sinaloa Cartel has sent help as part of the cartel’s national war with its main rival, Jalisco. The only evidence is a "dronero" from Sinaloa.

Pedro runs his family’s ranch in the nearby small village of Plaza Vieja. He gazes at the fertile valley where his family has kept livestock and crops since his grandfather’s time, and vowed "I will not leave." ".

"My umbilical cord is buried here," he choked. "We are not invading anyone's land. We are just defending our things, the things our grandfather built."

An old woman said that after the Jalisco Cartel gunmen showed up and told them that they had two days to leave, she was forced to leave her house and farm in a nearby small village in mid-September.

"Everything here belongs to el Señor Mencho," the gunman told her and her husband, who kidnapped them and later released them. "I cried as I walked and drove my cow in front of me," she said.

The acquisition of Aquilia by Jalisco brought at least a bit of peace; a small amount of gasoline can go through, and plastic cans on the street sell fuel. The only gas station in the town remains closed.

Those responsible for overseeing the blockade of the Aquilia Barracks more or less reflected Jalisco Cartel’s views on the conflict.

"Look, there is a conflict between two cartels here," said the man who claimed to be Jose Francisco. "If needed, the army should do its job and fight the two cartels. But it should not be on the side of one of them."

Since 2019, Lopez Obrador has been seeking to avoid conflict when he ordered the release of Ovidio Guzman, the son of jailed leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman', to avoid gunmen in Sinaloa from taking to the streets And started shooting to win the bloodshed after victory. The young Guzman was released.

But the government's strategy of avoiding conflict forced residents to choose to stand aside.

"If the government is absent, then the cartel will take over. It's not that we choose one, but we want this or that. There was a war between them, and they divided up the territory," Pastor Vergara said. "If they are here, we must live with them. This will not make us accomplices, or applaud them, or say that one person is better than the other."

24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events