La Línea Borrosa

That one event can morph into several different events.

... until finally the perpetrators are guilty of all manners of evils up to and including selling the H-bomb to the Ruskies. That is when vigilante justice can emerge. Rob is of the opinion that the locals won't do anything about the violence. That is hard to believe. Eventually, if people feel that the authorities won't do their job, they will take the law into their own hands.

Unfortunately, most locals are transplants with no roots here and no community identity, particularly the folks who helped themselves to the Zona Ecológica above the 70-meter mark on our hillsides. They're not afraid to steal things such as land, especially when they can convince foreigners to help them, but most are too cowardly to take the law into their own hands. And the only thing the foreign residents will do is leave and sell. Very few people here would take the law into their own hands, and most of them who do are considered criminals, such as local taxi unions when they block federally-licensed drivers from being able to do their lawful jobs. No one here would even consider forming a vigilante group. The bad guys are armed to the teeth and have more money to spend than the local authorities.

I never cease to be amazed at how little people know about the area so many have decided to become landowners in, and others who spend months here at a time without really knowing where they are. There has NEVER been law and order here. There USED to be a small community where everyone knew each other, most folks were honest, many folks were related, and any bad apples were known among the community, but that ended decades ago when construction companies brought in thousands of workers from other places whom they later abandoned here when the projects were finished. I watched this happen over and over. Then began the theft of the hillsides around the turn of the century with the help of foreigners who swear now they are no longer helping land thieves (though the damage is done) as they smile in photos with one of the local politicians who uses the poor squatters as political fodder.

Most of Guerrero remains a no-mans-land. In neighboring Petatlán communities are terrorized by bomb-dropping drones operated by organized criminals trying to run people off their lands and out of their communities so they can take over the area. The military remain largely impotent in such matters unless they actually build a military base in the area, as both the Marina and the Ejército have done here in Zihuatanejo. But Petatlán also has a military base that didn't seem to stop the narco cacique Rogaciano Alba Álvarez from becoming the mayor in Petatlán, though he was eventually arrested and jailed where he died of Covid-19 3 years ago.

Though there are many citizens like me who have clamored for increased military presence for decades, there are a lot of people here who also still don't trust the military, especially the Ejército, particularly because of the Guerra Sucia as well as for their alleged involvement in the disappearance of some of the students from Ayotzinapa. I don't blame those folks at all. I still recall what it was like living here during that period. The outrage people felt (and still do) at the disappearance of loved ones at the hands of the government under PRI leadership. Facts we should never forget, especially when a PRI mayor gets paid millions of pesos to refurbish one of the most garish and well-known monuments to PRI corruption: El Partenón de El Negro Durazo, one of the most corrupt public servants ever who extorted a prime piece of land from my wife's family.

There is no justice in Guerrero. No law and order. Just a very thin line that's getting blurrier with age.