Vigilantes Gather for One-Year Anniversary in Tierra Caliente

Vigilantes in the western Mexican state of Michoacan celebrated one year of service on Monday with a mass and parade in La Ruana, a small town of approximately 10,000 residents just east of Apatzingan, which was until recently considered a stronghold for the Knights Templar cartel.

The mass was symbolic for the "autodefensas" as it was held in a church that was built on the site of what was once a shrine built by the cartel to honor its founder. The shrine has been replaced by the Virgin of Guadalupe.

"Today marks one year since the struggle to end the oppression that the residents of this place endured, as well as the humiliation, disappearances, extortion, kidnappings," Catholic Priest Jose Luis Segura said, according to the AFP. "It is also time to remember our friends who fell in the struggle."

The priest was referring to the 16 members of the local vigilantes who had died in fighting with the cartel.

Afterward the vigilantes paraded through the streets with their weapons in a united show of force.

"I had been trying to do this for about three years, but I didn't have much luck," vigilante leader Hipolito Mora told the Associated Press. "Everybody was afraid."

But after financial support from the local business community and ranchers materialized, the movement gained momentum quickly.

Now with a semblance of calm in the area, and the vigilantes working within the confines of an agreement with the official government authorities, the task has turned to dealing with people who had formerly worked with the cartel itself.

The civilian defense militias are trying to turn around some of the less dangerous cartel henchmen who had performed tasks as lookouts or couriers, forcing them to perform labor as a method of "community service."

"The order is to hold them for three months under my watch and simply convince them psychologically that they have to take the correct path," vigilante member Comandante Patancha told the AFP. "If they escape, they may not be pardoned,"

The workers under Patancha's supervision told reporters that they were happier under vigilante control than when they worked for the cartel, where beatings and intimidation was common.

While progress is claimed in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacan, Knights Templar leader Servando Gomez (aka "La Tuta") remains at large.