Florencio Medrano Mederos (27 October, 1945 – 26 March, 1979), better known as Florencio "El Güero" Medrano, was a Mexican peasant leader, social activist, and Maoist guerilla fighter active in the 1970s during the Mexican Dirty War. He is known for being the founder and leader of the "Rúben Jaramillo" Proletarian Colony in the state of Morelos and for being a leader of the United Popular Liberation Army of America.
Early life Florencio "El Güero" Medrano was born on October 27, 1945 in the locality of Limón Grande in the state Guerrero into a peasant family. He was one of the seven children of Ángel Medrano Núñez and Joaquina Mederos Ocampo.
During his childhood, Medrano's family moved to the locality of Palmar Grande, in the municipality of Tlatlaya, Estado de México. Here, the Medrano family would experience great poverty and conflicts with the local political authorities, including an occasion in which Florencio Medrano and his father were hanged upside down from a tree by the local military forces for various hours due to their family ties with some peasants who were disputing agrarian conflicts with the local political authorities.
Because of these living conditions, at the age of 16, Medrano decided to move to Mexico City alongside his sister. Nevertheless, Medrano was unable to find a job, and would soon move instead to the city of Cuernavaca in the state of Morelos, where he would remain until 1963, when at the age of 18 he would decide to enlist himself in the Mexican army as part of the presidential guard. It would be during his stay in the army that Medrano would learn to manage fireams and learn to read and write, however, he would later decide to leave the military due to his disagreement with their procedures.
After his time in the army, back in the locality of Palmar Grande, Medrano joined a group of peasants that organized and attempted to forcefully take possession of some swaths of land. Nevertheless, this organization failed to achieve their goal, and they would soon be evicted and arrested by the military on the 27th of May of 1966. By the 2nd of June of that same year, however, due to an intervention by the Independent Peasants Union Campesina (Central Campesina Independiente), the group of peasants, including Medrano, was set free.
By 1967, Medrano would decide to move back to Cuernavaca. In this city, he would soon meet and become a friend of Rafael Equihua Palomares, a peasant and an active figure in the local politics of the region. Through him, Medrano eventually met a member of the Revolutionary Party of the Mexican Proletariat (RPMP), a maoist party, which both Medrano and Equihua would soon find themselves joining.
Revolutionary Party of the Mexican Proletariat By 1969, the Revolutionary Party of the Mexican Proletariat had around a dozen members in both Mexico City and Cuernavaca. In order to develop the political line of the organization, Javier Fuentes Gutiérrez, one of the leaders of the RPMP decided to have the members of the party, including Medrano, take a trip from May to December of that same year to the People's Republic of China.
On this trip, the Chinese embassy would provide both the funding and the necessary documents to make such a trip possible. On their arrival to China, they were received by a group of military personnel and interpreters who took them to the city of Nanjing in order to receive political and military training.
After his experience in China, Medrano, alongside the rest of members of the RPMP, had become convinced of the maoist doctrine and were eager to establish a revolutionary proyect in line with his political vision on Mexican territory. However, soon, after the Federal Security Directorate captured and tortured a group of members of the Comité de Lucha Revolucionaria, who gave information on the members of the RPMP, the members of the Mexico City cell of the party were ambushed and imprisoned.
This event would mark the end of the RPMP, however, in 1972, Medrano, who had escaped to the locality of Acatlipa in the municipality of Temixco in order to avoid capture, decided to continue by himself the organization of the RPMP. During this time period, Medrano would organize talks and meetings with the local peasant population, and would distribute maoist literature amongst the population such as Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong.
Rúben Jaramillo Proletarian Colony
Foundation of the colony Soon after the beginning of his meetings with the local population, Medrano would be told about a recent issue in wich authorities of the local government had taken away and occupied plots of land from the local population. These plots of land were mostly located on the outsides of Acatlipa and had been taken by the family of Morelos governor, Felipe Rivera Crespo, who were planning to use these plots in order to build a housing development project of vacation homes, that would have the name of Villa de las Flores.
After hearing of this story, Medrano was said to spend weeks analyzing the situation, investigating the legal status and the geographic and hydrographic conditions of these plots of lands before taking a decision. However, after these considerations, Medrano would choose to forcefully invade these plot, with the plan of taking possession of the property and afterwards dividing it into lots and give them away to people who lacked a home or a place to live.
On March 31, 1976, Medrano along with a group of people convinced by him, invaded the plots of land of Villa de las Flores. By the next day, around 60 people, including Medrano's own family, had moved to these plots. During the next few days, pamphlets were printed and distributed among the local population of various towns in the state of Morelos incentivizing unhoused people to move in and promising them plots of lands, and by April 2, 1976, around 300 families had started inhabiting the terrain, with people from as far as the state of Guerrero having moved in.
Governmental opposition to the colony From the very first days of the land occupation, the Rúben Jaramillo Proletarian Colony had met opposition from various sources. On April 6, 1973, governor of Morelos Felipe Rivera Crespo told the local press: “They can stay there as long as they pay me ten pesos per meter of land; otherwise, I have enough power to have them removed.”
By the second week, a representative of the state government arrived in the town with the intention of speaking with the leaders; however, upon arrival he was intercepted by the settlers who were guarding the entrance and wouldn't let him through. The official retorted, demanding that they leave the property, saying: “Would you like it if someone tried to break into your house?”, to which one of the settlers, replied: “Well, your example doesn’t apply to us because remember that none of us has a house—that’s why we’re here.”
Although Rivera Crespo was advised by his close circle to use the military in order to clear the terrains, he decided that confronting such an amount of people would be no easy task, and therefore decided to try other methods. On May 12, 1973, Rivera Crespo would try to sneak undercover along with general secretary of the Cuernavaca Single Union of Garment Industry Workers, Jesús Adame Giles, and a few of his bodyguards. Nevertheless, they would soon be discovered by the settlers, and the governor would be forced to sign documents in which he recognized the legal status of the plots of lands of each of the settlers, as well as an article prohibiting the selling of alcohol near the colony, for the settlers had agreed to make the colony an alcohol-free zone. Nevertheless, upon leaving the scene, Rivera Crespo would keep trying different methods of harassing the settlers during the following days.
Consolidation of the Rúben Jaramillo Proletarian Colony During the following weeks, the colony would continue growing and organizing. The name "Colonia Proletaria Rúben Jaramillo" (Rúben Jaramillo Proletarian Colony) was chosen in honor of peasant leader Rúben Jaramillo, and a commission called Comité de Lucha (struggle committee) was established in order to better organize the distribution of land. The whole of the terrain was divided into plots of land and these were distributed among the people who had begun to arrive, so long as they fullfilled two conditions: that they were people who clearly had nowhere to live and that they settled on the land within 72 hours. As soon as they arrived, those who asked for a plot were investigated, and if the commission found out they had lied, the land could be taken away and given to someone else.
By June of 1973, in order to ensure that the members of the colony would commit to the measures that had been established, a decision was made to draft a set of internal regulations. The one-page document, which was printed using a mimeograph machine donated by the independent Nissan union of Morelos, was distributed among the residents, who signed it to demonstrate their commitment to the organization. The document contained the following:Colonia Proletaria Rúben Jaramillo
Given my financial circumstances and the fact that I did not own a piece of land on which to build a home for my children, I applied for a lot in this neighborhood, accepting the following conditions:
To submit to an investigation to verify that I do not own any lot, house, or material assets that would prevent me from receiving such benefits, and, if I do own any, to accept the responsibility and the charges that the Comité de Lucha imposes in this case. To fulfill the obligations—such as patrol duty, community service in the colony, personal contributions, etc.—that the Comité de Lucha deems appropriate for the smooth operation and progress of the colony. I agree to the following rules regarding my lot: I may not sell it, rent it, lend it, transfer it, or pawn it, as it is my property and part of my children’s future; should I violate these rules, I agree to be expelled from the neighborhood. I accept as my rights within the neighborhood the freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of constructive criticism, freedom from personal attacks, and the right to speak and vote in both meetings and assemblies. I may not consume, bring into the neighborhood, or sell within it any alcoholic beverages or intoxicating substances, and if I do, I will be expelled from this small patrimony Any transaction I enter into without the consent of the Comité de Lucha is null and void, and if I do so, I will be expelled from my small patrimony.By July of 1973, the colony had as many as 15,000 inhabitants, and had consolidated itself as a working-class town with a strong political presence in the region, with implications and influence even at the national level. During this period, the colony would receive support from various political and peasant civic organizations from the region. The colony would also receive visits from important figures, including bishop of Cuernavaca Sergio Méndez Arceo and singer-songwriter José de Molina, whom Medrano would later convince to lend his support to the United Popular Liberation Army of the Americas and who would later write a corrido in honor of Medrano, titled Corrido a Florencio Medrano.
Military intervention and fall of the Rúben Jaramillo Proletarian Colony