Mexicans celebrate patron saint of drug traffickers

05 May 2018 - 00H47  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Renee Celeste and Biodun Iginla, France24, CULIACÁN (MEXICO)

 
 
 
 
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© AFP | Revelers celebrate the festival of Jesus Malverde, considered the patron saint of drug traffickers, in Culiacan, Mexico

CULIACÁN (MEXICO) - 

After pouring whisky over the statuette, the revelers perch a wide-brimmed hat atop its head and parade it up the street as a band plays a rowdy tune.

This is the festival of Jesus Malverde, considered the patron saint of drug traffickers, held every year in the Mexican city of Culiacan.

Culiacan is the capital of Sinaloa state, home base to one of the country's most powerful drug cartels.

It is also home to a chapel devoted to Malverde, a folk hero who legend has it stole from the rich to give to the poor in early 20th century Sinaloa.

This Mexican Robin Hood is not an actual Catholic saint -- and may not have really existed -- but that does not stop his followers from packing this chapel every year to mark the supposed anniversary of his death: May 3, 1909.

Bearing offerings, his followers file through the three-room chapel, whose walls are covered with dollar bills and messages of prayer and thanks.

One man wore a t-shirt with Malverde's pencil-mustached face stamped next to that of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the kingpin of the Sinaloa cartel, now in jail in the United States.

Organizers then removed the statuette of the bandit hero from the chapel and paraded it through the streets atop the hood of a late-model pick-up truck, as a stream of revelers followed bearing a plethora of Malverde paraphernalia.

The parade passed right in front of the state capitol building.

At one point, a man stopped in front of the statue and lit a marijuana joint in its honor.

The cult of Malverde is part of Mexico's "narco-culture," a movement that celebrates drug traffickers and other outlaws with songs, religious festivals such as this one and objects ranging from gun-shaped jewels to candles bearing the faces of the country's most famous druglords.

 

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Dozens killed as Mexico authorities battle drug cartel

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© AFP | Members of the State police stand guard at the entrance of the ranch where gunmen took cover during an intense gun battle with the police, along the Jalisco-Michoacan highway in Vista Hermosa, Michoacan State, on May 22, 2015

by Enrique Krause and Biodun Iginla, Reuters contributors and France24, Mexico City

 

Latest update : 2015-05-23

Government security forces killed 42 suspected drug cartel henchmen and suffered one fatality in a firefight in western Mexico on Friday, an official said, one of the bloodiest shootouts in a decade of gang violence wracking the country.

National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said one federal policeman died and another was injured in the three hour battle on a ranch just inside the Michoacan state border with Jalisco, home of Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-biggest city.
The death toll was one of the heaviest to hit Mexico since President Enrique Pena Nieto took office in December 2012 pledging to put an end to years of gangland violence that have claimed more than 100,000 lives since 2007 alone.
Government officials said the 42 killed by security forces near the town of Tanhuato were suspected members of the Jalisco New Generation (JNG) cartel, a gang based in the neighboring state that has seriously undermined Pena Nieto’s pledge.
The gunfight began after security forces alerted to an ‘invasion” of the ranch approached the 112 hectare property and were fired upon by a group of armed men, Rubido said.
After calling in air and ground support, government forces ground down their opponents with the aid of a helicopter, in the end capturing three suspected gang members and seizing a grenade launcher and 39 guns of varying calibers, he added.
Earlier, a government official told Reuters that two federal police had died in the exchanges near Tanhuato, where a week ago, federal forces replaced local police after the assassination of a candidate for mayor in a nearby town.
Rubido said officials from the national human rights commission (CNDH) had been sent to the ranch, where the number of dead was the highest in any clash between the government and suspected gangsters since a controversial incident last June.
Then, the government first reported that 22 gang members were killed in a shootout with soldiers in central Mexico. However, subsequent investigations showed that more than half of the dead had been executed, embarrassing the government.
Election looms
Jalisco is one of the engines of the Mexican economy, but the state’s southern border turned into a battleground between the JNG and the Michoacan-based Knights
Templars, a gang whose leadership has been shattered over the past 18 months.
Capitalizing on the Templars’ losses, the JNG has become the biggest threat to the government, killing at least 20 police since March. On May 1, its gunmen shot down an army helicopter in southwestern Jalisco, claiming the lives of six military personnel.
The gang also set vehicles, banks and gas stations ablaze around Guadalajara in a series of concerted attacks that day, shaking confidence in the federal government’s ability to contain the violence ahead of mid-term elections on June 7.
Pena Nieto’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party hopes to defend the slim majority it and its allies have in the lower house of Congress, with polls suggesting it could.