Did the government turn a blind eye to a gangster training-camp in Jalisco?
On a sunny Saturday afternoon last week, the cafes here were crowded and the Jose Cuervo distillery bustled with visitors. As evening fell, the sidewalks and the main cobblestone thoroughfare filled with young people in cowboy hats mingling to strains of ranchera music. A full moon rose over red rooftops. Mexico was living up to its folkloric image.
But some 12 miles away, the other Mexico had raised its ugly head again. On March 5, in the municipality of Teuchitlán, burned human remains and piles of personal items belonging to perhaps hundreds of missing persons were discovered on an abandoned ranch. The find was made not by local officials or the National Guard but by a nongovernmental organization known as the Warrior Searchers of Jalisco.
