"But almost 20 years ago, just a few blocks from the town square where the mayor was gunned down at point-blank range, another event occurred that marked the country's recent memory. In the early morning of September 6, 2006, about 20 hooded men with assault rifles, dressed in police uniforms, stormed into a nightclub, firing shots. Before leaving, they took five human heads out of a bag and left them on the dance floor."
"That year, the police collected 17 severed heads from the streets, and homicides doubled. Six thousand soldiers arrived in Michoacan to confront the cartels. During the following six-year term, Enrique Pena Nieto extended the strategy. And then Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador distanced himself further, but without returning the military to their barracks. The historical figures for violence in Michoacan over these years speak volumes. In 2006, the number of murders approached 700. There was some reduction in the intervening years, but"
The assassination of Uruapan mayor Carlos Manzo sparked a social protest rarely seen in Michoacán and drew a response from the federal government. Weeks before in the same area, the September 6, 2006 nightclub atrocity involved about 20 hooded men in police uniforms who left five severed heads on the dance floor. That incident preceded President Felipe Calderón's deployment of thousands of soldiers and the opening of military barracks in Michoacán, beginning a militarized war on drugs that generated tens of thousands dead and missing. Successive administrations maintained or modified the strategy without fully returning troops to barracks, while homicide figures rose sharply.
Read at english.elpais.com
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