FEDERAL troops killed at least three people in the Mexican state of Michaocan yesterday as they moved to end firefights between vigilante groups and drug traffickers that erupted over the weekend.

The confrontation started late on Monday night in the town of Antunez, which had been taken over by the vigilantes recently. At least three people died at the hands of soldiers.

Townspeople were invited to meet a convoy of soldiers after being told they were coming to disarm the vigilantes.

Witnesses said the vigilantes were not carrying guns, but as they blocked the military convoy in the road, soldiers fired into the crowd.

“They opened fire on civilians. How can that be justified?” furious vigilante spokesman Estanislao Beltran asked.

He claimed that only one of the dead people had been a vigilante group member and that the confrontation had been with about 60-80 soldiers.
But Mr Beltran added that the vigilante groups have no plans to put down their arms.

“We don’t have confidence in the government,” he said. “We’ve asked for help for years and have received none. The government is compromised by organised crime.”

Mr Beltran had previously said that his group would not give up until the government captured the leaders of the cartel.

There were widely varying reports of casualties, but journalists saw two bodies and spoke to the family of a third person who was killed.

The Mexican attorney general’s office said that it could not confirm the number of dead and the Interior Ministry insisted it had no information about reports that soldiers had fired on an unarmed crowd.

Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said that federal forces and Michoacan state police would continue to patrol the Tierra Caliente area, alleged home base of the Knights Templar drug cartel.

“Be certain we will contain the violence,” Mr Osorio Chong warned.

Contingents of federal police and troops have been in the region for some time, but have generally not intervened in confrontations between vigilantes and cartel gunmen.

The federal attorney general’s office said later that it had sent 11 helicopters and 70 investigators and officers to help return order to the state.

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