Federal Commissioner Alfredo Castillo, An Anachronism and Horror

Proceso: Javier Sicilia*

Translated by Jorge A. Borrel-Guzman

In The Communicating Vessels of Tradition and the Return of the Sinister (Los vasos comunicantes de la tradición y el retorno de lo siniestro, Sin embargo magazine, July 9th, 2014), Tomás Calvillo makes an important and accurate determination regarding the presence and conduct in Michoacán of federal commissioner Alfredo Castillo:

“More than a figure of the republic, the commissioner resembles a royal visitor [agent] of the colonial period,” specifically “José Gálvez.

Similarly to visitor Gálvez, who was sent in 1767 by King Carlos III to Michoacán to re-establish his authority, commissioner Alfredo Castillo was instructed by Enrique Peña Nieto, in January 2014, to fulfill the same purpose. Just like Gálvez, Castillo also intends to control the rebellions that erupted in that state. 

While Gálvez tried to control the rebellions derived from the expulsion of Jesuits, Castillo tries to control those derived from the atrocities of organized crime. Just like the royal visitor, Castillo uses jail and summary judgment. Unlike Gálvez–because today it is politically incorrect–, he doesn’t apply the gallows, lashes, or exile. Instead, he applies pressure, intimidation, falsification of evidence, and authoritarianism as a mark of government.

But although Gálvez’ conduct was comprehensible –he lived in the 18th Century, the epoch of absolutist States and the absence of human rights–, Castillo’s conduct is not. His conduct, apart from being anachronistic and contrary to all republicanism, is, consequently, atrocious. 

During his nearly seven months on duty, he has not been able to re-establish the authority of the republic. On the contrary, he has made an unlawful and perverse use of it. His appointment has resulted in an authoritarian and criminal use of power, or as defined by Tomás Calvillo, sinister.

This word is accurate. It expresses the obscure, the dark, and the atrocious. The most recent evidence of this repeated behavior is the incarceration of José Manuel Mireles. Dr. Mireles, just like Hipólito Mora, was incarcerated, not because of the crimes attributed to him, which, based on the proofs provided by Mireles’ defense, are fabricated, but because of his unwillingness to align himself with such an obscure abstraction that asserts that the legitimate use of force is exclusively exercised by and under the control of the State. 

For commissioner Castillo, that’s what is important–as he appears to reduce the existence of the State to such an idea–and not the crime per se.

That is the only way to explain such things as Hipólito Mora’s liberation, the lack of investigation against former governor [Fausto] Vallejo despite the serious suspicions of his links with The Knights Templars, and against other public figures. That is the only way to explain that, despite all the military intelligence resources available to Castillo, La Tuta [head of The Knights Templar cartel] remains at large and Mireles is in jail.

Mireles’ crime is his refusal to agree with a corrupted State that has failed to re-establish the true rule of law, a failure that he has put in the public spotlight.

We don’t know if the weapons carried by Mireles’ self-defense groups–the only real crime for which he’s being charged–were provided by some drug cartel. Nobody has proved it so far. However, we know that his fight, considering the conditions of violence and corruption of the government of Michoacán, thus far is legitimate and with deep ethical grounds. There is a fine congruence between his words and his actions.

On the contrary, the commissioner, under the cover of the impunity of the State, keeps betraying his word, fabricating crimes against Mireles–weeks before his arrest, Castillo accused him of showing off with the head of a human being–, of imposing, just like a royal visitor in colonial times, an authoritarian order, of violating Michoacán’s sovereignty, and of making policy under the rule of submission or the club. His conduct, as a representative of a government that intends to restore its authority, is disgraceful.

There is no possibility of reaching agreements when political confidence and the ethics on which they should rely are built on defamation, a wrong interpretation of the purpose of the State, and the incarceration and humiliation of the moral leader of the self-defense groups. Because of this, we should ask ourselves if Peña Nieto is, in reality, an authoritarian ruler who, just like Carlos III, sent his agent to serve interests different from security, peace and justice, or if he is a president who, deceived by his government machinery, is being used against the republic.

 Whichever it is, the conduct of commissioner Castillo raises doubts about the federal government and exalts the figure of Mireles. While Mireles, incarcerated and treated as a criminal, grows as a champion of the rule of law, the government becomes undermined as a simple manager of sinister interests and a transgressor of dignity. Is there any way out?

Of course: replacing the commissioner and releasing Mireles. Castillo said it himself on July 11th before the Mexican Employers’ Association (Coparmex):

“Michoacán doesn't need caudillos [political strongmen]. It needs sound and strong institutions, led by peoples with ideas and thoughts.”

He’s right, but such institutions will not be built without Mireles and without the dismissal of the commissioner who has become something worse than a caudillo; he has become a colonial agent during times that are in need of republicanism and all the civic morality that still remains inside us.

*Javier Sicilia (Mexico City, 1956) is a well-known activist, poet, essayist, novelist and Mexican journalist, contributing to such Mexico dailies as La Jornada and Proceso. Following the murder of his son, Juan Francisco, together with six friends, by drug gang members on March 28, 2011, he founded the Movement for Peace With Justice and Dignity, which has organized Caravans to the North and South of Mexico in 2011 and to the United States in 2012 and 2013, in order to give voice to victims’ stories.