11 Year old Child; "She was the First" Part 1

Borderland Beat  by Sanjuana Martínez for Nexos, translation by Chivís

“I would rather walk with my people. When there was food we all ate the same, when there was illness there was a brotherhood so strong that I would say: I don't have four brothers, I have a thousand brothers."

She was the first

The 11-year-old, with the body of a woman, starred at him. Bewildered, she asked him:

“What is this?”

Her bulging belly, seven months pregnant, she arrived at the Health Center displaying a reality that nobody wanted to see.

Dr. José Manuel Mireles again asked: “When was your last period?”

She replied: 'What's a period?'

The young girl returned to the medical center three months later with a baby in her arms.

She was the first.

Later followed an apocalyptic pilgrimage of pregnant girls, girls who were mothers:

"In three years, I only took care of pregnant girls. The oldest was 14 years old. I supervised the pregnancy of 200 girls. Until I said; enough is enough!  Are there no men in this town to defend their girls, their women? "

Doctor Mireles takes a deep breath, tall with Gray hair, thick mustache, thin, weather-beaten hands from the sun and work.  Remembering the past still makes him tremble angrily.  He reminisces on the helpless feeling in that moment, when he did not know what to do, when he was sure that the town, the place where he lived, where his parents were born, where their children grew up, could not continue this way;

"We had two years of planning on how we would take up arms to fight, but we never had the courage," he says tight-lipped.

The stories of abduction and rape of wives and daughters were increasing.  How many women raped? How many missing? The image of that first pregnant girl was recurring, like a nightmare.   Recalling her innocent face, her sweet voice:

She told me she did not know who the baby's father was. Her father is a farmer and her mother worked in ironing. She was alone and as soon as the bastard Templarios arrived, they raped her.  She never knew who the father of the child was.

Then came the straw that broke the camel's back.In the month of October alone, during the afternoon shift, he took care of 14 pregnant girls; six of them friends of his daughter at the secondary school.

Time passed and for the month of December, the number of pregnant girls rose to 24.

Christians run slower than a goat

At that time Dr. Mireles  was the president of the secondary school Parents Association and he called a meeting:

"What are we doing?",  he asked  them.

Each of the parents started to talk about their own tragedies. Through tears they recounted how their daughters, wives, sisters had been raped.  

The lucky ones had already sent their women to live in the United States.

After they described the hell of kidnappings, extortions, murders and disappearances, which they all experienced,  Dr. Mireles got to the point:

"Damn it!" ...

"Won't we even stand up for dignity? Do you believe that what is happening is OK?" 

Silence froze the room in that moment. No one spoke for five to 10 endless minutes.  Again, the convener of the meeting took the floor:

"If  here in Tepeque there are 25 thousand men, clearly, we are the majority.  There are not more than 90 of those guys.  Why don't we take down the people on top? What are we waiting for?"

The passion of hunting  was shared by the majority of his neighbors.  He reminded them of what nobody had taken into account:

"We're all good to shooting game from afar and running."

 One of the attendees intervened:

'It is very hard to kill a Christian.'

"It's not hard. The Christian is taller and runs slower than a goat,  Mireles replied bluntly."

At that moment, he thought of a strategic reinforcement to unite the contingent of parents.  Coming from a farming and livestock family, he was part of the powerful Asociación Ganadera [Farming Association] with 1800 members:

"I went to speak with them. And so on 24 February 2013 we began what is now known as the Movimiento de Autodefensas [Movement of Self-Defense]".

In 2000 drug trafficking changed drastically

Drug trafficking was a part of everyday life in this town. The capos had codes and did not interfere with civilians. The town was a place of drug smuggling.  But in 2000, things changed drastically.

The marketplace" was changing ownership.  First came los Golfos (Gulf Cartel), then after came Los Zetas (" Zs") and then later, the Sinaloa Cartel. With them came a new economic activity: Piso, collecting “protection” money.  Then, the booming kidnapping industry seized the region.

With the arrival of Felipe Calderón to Los Pinos,  the war intensified. Everyone fought over the territory from La Familia Michoacana (LFM) and later, their splinter group, The Caballeros Templarios.

With fire and sword, organized crime was leaving a trail of pain and suffering.  

In June of 2011, it was Dr. Mireles' turn:

"They took me out of the hospital at 10 am.  Nobody realized that they took me.  They gripped my arm and said to me":

'The boss wants to talk to you.'  

"Upon leaving, I saw three trucks  of armed people and they placed me in the middle. They put a black hood over my head and tied my hands behind my back.  I said to them. "In the pocket of my shirt I have my check for 2-weeks’ pay. It is 8000 pesos. This is what I earn."

'Yeah, buddy, we already know that you are here as a watchdog,  but don’t worry, we know who is going to pay and we already talked to him.'

Indeed, an uncle of Dr. Mireles paid seven million pesos [588,460USD]:

"It was terrible, took me to a hill and  removed the black hood. I immediately recognized the place. They collected seven million.  Here there are only two ways off this hill;  through the bank or through the mausoleum.  There is no such thing as law. The good thing is they did not kill me."

The reasons to "take up arms" were accumulating for Dr. Mireles who refused to take to the hills, clinging to his white coat and stethoscope as refuge.

The nightmare continues

But another blow was coming. They kidnapped his wife's nephew.  It was a long and painful process. Finally the amount of the ransom was paid, but nothing happened:

"After paying, they did not return even a fingernail.  I offered 50 thousand pesos for them to tell me where they had left him. One of the kidnappers said":

 'We put him in trash bags. Tomorrow we will tell you where.'

The next day he called them and the leader coldly replied:

'Look, tell your wife that if they continue fucking with me, I am going to kill another relative.'

"We had to make an empty grave at his house full of flowers. Can you imagine how we felt?  Everyone was crying."

Dr. Mireles gets emotional.  He cries. He drinks from the cup and says,  "I even choked on the water".

Then came other family horror.  

They kidnapped his little sister and then his older sister. The rescue processes were equally long and very costly.  His mother suffered a lot and became very  ill.

Time was of the essence. On February 24 he decided to "take up arms".  He went to talk to his 86-year-old father and explain his plans to him. The man, still attached to his orchard, said to him:

'They stole my 48 cows. I've already lost the cows. I don't want to lose a son.’

The doctor insisted:

“Give me a chance father”, he said to him. “I have a lot of courage.  My mother had already died because of the kidnapping of my little sister. The kidnapping of my older sister was resolved with money but it all affected my mother.”

His father nodded and gave him the blessing.

He bid him farewell.

 "If I meet the people who caused the death of my mother, the perpetrators responsible for the kidnappings of my sisters,  I, yes,  I will devour them,  without asking for anyone's permission.  This fight is for what they have already done to all the people, including me! It is not a personal vendetta."

Moving from the office to the battlefield

Dr. Mireles finally exchanged the office for the battlefield. At first, it wasn't easy.  Despite being an accomplished hunter and proven in marksmanship, in the battlefield, things were different.

The Templarios, who would previously chase the citizens, began to run with armed citizens in pursuit. The autodefensas discovered the weaknesses of the Templarios, for example, the majority is young with no experience in weapons.

They walk around drugged-up; they don't aim for accuracy, just fire away; that was the case for those who died here. They were drugged and when they arrived, they were mouthy and obviously our colleagues are alert and know how to defend themselves."  

The Autodefensas learned communication techniques.  Everyone carries interconnected radios [nextels] where they announce the danger or the problems in each area.  Whenever Dr. Mireles called his companions, the response was immediate.

[This part of the article goes into a Q&A;  I have defined by S for  Sanjuana Martínez and M for Dr Mireles]

S: “How many shots could be made in a fight?”

M:“I initially teased my companions when they were shouting":

‘Help, help, they are attacking us, and we ran out of the park.’  I was talking on the radio and in five minutes we had two thousand people from La Ganadera, armed and ready to support, and we were in hiding.  But as I had not been in a shoot-out,  I told them:  “you don’t hold back for anything.”

S: And how was your first battle?

M: "The day that I had my first conflict, the first ambush on the Fierro Bridge, I killed the target on a hill with a straight shot; I think he is dead, because it has not moved since."

S: You didn't have good aim?

 "Yes, but this time I was fearful. It was the first time. I remember how terrible I felt.  One minute under fire is like an eternity.  When the damn shooting ended, a reporter came and asked me how long the fight had lasted, I said two hours, and I could hear my security yelling to me:

 ‘No, boss, it was 15 minutes’.

He adds: "It was a road full of bullet casings and an Army colonel came and told us:

 'Bastards! You look like federales, and look; the entire bridge is full of bullet casings.'

“After each battle,  some Autodefensas are injured or detained. This time, the boys caught hold of a Templar and brought him down.   Two of my companions, brothers,  had him, one on each side, and he had become wounded in the foot.  I put in a splint, it stopped the bleeding. I set the bones more or less, as much as possible."

When more soldiers arrived, we wanted to surrender  him,  and they said,

 'Hang the son of a bitch.'

We tried delivering him to  the  Federal Police and the reaction was the same:

'They don't want him either.’

They say;  ‘these dogs need to be buried'.

I said to them, “If I hang him, I become what they are and we will never become like those who we are fighting!"

For the first time Dr. Mireles realized what he had been told many times:

"That the army or police finish-off the various survivors of the confrontations.  But he wanted to make things right and he looked for a way to bring the boy to his family."

"We arrived at la Guaje with him and a brother of his,  mother was there. We called him and the man did not want to come and get him.

I told Frutos from Aguililla: 

"Take him home and give him to his mother, but make sure you deliver him alive.  And so it was.  They took him, but neither his mother nor his brothers wanted to receive him and he bled to death in his home. I didn't find out until five days later".

S:  And then you improved your marksmanship?

M: "Yes, but now I don't use weapons, I use them for hunting." 

A friend asked me:

'Boss, why do you never bring a weapon?'

 I don't think to use  it. And they say that one day they are going to kill me.

And I say, And you, what will you do?  The day that they kill me is because you are already dead.

S: What is the best military strategy in combat?

M: If it is daytime, respond immediately and protect yourself.  This is what one learns in battles. When we arrived in Pareo, one kilometer before, I stopped a man to ask him how things were and he said;

'They're waiting at the gas station, many trucks of armed men.'

 I grabbed the radio and told them that they were waiting a kilometer away.  If they were to greet us with bullets, immediately get out, look for a natural barrier, trees, stone walls or roll under  their vehicles. 

We had barely arrived, when I saw that the truck that was in front was about half a meter away,  ready to attack, carrying hand-grenades.  They were advancing intensely.  And I begin to feel the shots from here and from across the street.  They only raised the sand up to our feet.

I clung to a concrete wall. This was at 7 o'clock in the evening.  I thought that two hours had gone by and it had only been a 17-minute gun-fight.  I had more than 100 trucks which were driven into the avocado orchards.

When the fighting ended, people led by Dr. Mireles were looking for food and water, all businesses were closed, nobody wanted to open for us, when we came to a portalito, a man opened his  and I said:

"We are very hungry."

He said to us:
'I don't have anything, only coffee and Maruchan soup.'

So, we drank coffee and ate soup.

 Later, a woman opened her restaurant and invited us to come eat.  She quickly cooked eggs for us. There were about 300 of us.  I said to the little old woman,:

"Give me the bill, we will pay for everything."

She stood there looking at me and said:

 'Look sir, here you and your people will have free food for a month.  Don't worry. I've got it covered.’

Dr, Mireles responded,
"No, ma'am, you need the money, you have it harder than we do."

But she refused.

Those are the things that move me. That's the benefit of when we clean a village; people start to see us with respect and appreciation.

Dr. Mireles goes down and gets into his truck. He allowed me to accompany him in his vehicle for four days.

He lives in a modest house in a working class neighborhood, a property belonging to his father. His garden is equally simple. Money talks, he realizes, and Dr. Mireles doesn't have it.

On the contrary, he and his team have trouble paying for gas and food. It is visibly tense. You think your head has a price.  And therefore you cannot stay long in one place. He moves constantly. His truck is a clear target for one or the other: the government, The Templarios and now his former companions.

It was almost 1 am when we arrived at one of the houses; any noise is significant. The screeching tires of a truck passing at high speed, the creaking of the door.  On the entry table, instead of a vase is a AK-47, on the dining table a R-15:

'You should know how to use them,’ suggests one of the escorts, offering me the Goat Horn. 'In case someone comes and attacks us.’

Dr. Mireles' escorts carry R-15, Kalashnikov and nine-millimeter handguns.  And the companions that form the Movimiento de las Autodefensas have similar weapons.

end of part 1 to be continued............

written by Sanjuana Martínez Monterrey journalist who writes for La Jornada, Nexos and Proceso and others
Source: Nexos from The Battles of Doctor Mireles