Hero or villain? Mexico remembers the revolutionary Pancho Villa

Thousands of Mexicans on horseback rode Thursday through the streets of the town where Francisco “Pancho” Villa, the fugitive turned revolutionary and which has inspired numerous legends.

Wearing cowboy boots and clothing, including a hat to protect themselves from the scorching sun, the riders filled the streets of Parral, in the northern state of Chihuahua, on Wednesday, the first day of the commemoration of the centenary of his death. This Thursday, the ambush in which he died was also recreated.

Amid shouts of “Long live Villa! Long live Mexico!”the procession stopped before a statue of the bushy mustachioed icon before making its way through town, where various bands played to the delight of the crowds gathered in the street.

Thus ended a ride that for some riders began more than two weeks ago, some 600 kilometers to the north, near the border between Mexico and the United States.

Others joined along the journey through the vast plains of Chihuahua to honor the man known as the “Centaur of the North”emblematic face of the Mexican revolution along with Emiliano Zapata, “The Warlord of the South”.

“He was a hero. Others consider him a villain and others a murderer. But it’s not like that. I feel very proud to be present on this day.”says Javier Baca, 55, a resident of Parral who came dressed as Villa, with a wide-brimmed hat and bandoliers across his chest.

“Great military leader”

Villa was one of the leaders of the 1910 Revolution that initially rose against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, exiled in Paris in 1911, and led to the adoption in 1917 of a new constitution that is still in force.

“Villa was the great military leader of the revolution in the second stage,” explains the Hispanic-Mexican historian Paco Ignacio Taibo II, director of the state Fondo de Cultura Económica.

This revolutionary has generated among historians “a combination of admiration, revulsion, fascination, fear, love, hate”writes Taibo II in his book “Pancho Villa, a narrative biography”.

The love life of “Centaur of the North” He has also been targeted: 27 women are known to have had a marital relationship, marrying the vast majority taking advantage of the scant control of the civil registry at that time. She had at least 26 children.

This son of sharecroppers came to be seen as a Mexican Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to give to the poor, before becoming a talented military man, a revolutionary general with a social vision.

But other accounts portray Doroteo Arango, his real name, as a bandit, cattle rustler and cold-blooded murderer who joined the revolutionaries despite having no real ideology.

“There are legends of Villa the Robin Hood, Villa the Napoleon of Mexico, Villa the ruthless assassin, Villa the womanizer, and Villa as the only foreigner to attack the continental United States since the War of 1812 and get away with it.” wrote the Austrian historian Friedrich Katz, considered one of the greatest biographers of the revolutionary.

“There is widespread agreement among friends and enemies that Villa was capable of both great acts of generosity and equally great acts of cruelty.”adds Katz in his book “Pancho Villa”.

“He helped the poor”

Villa’s life and death inspired a host of popular ballads, as well as Mexican and Hollywood films.

In the United States, he is best known for his attack on Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916, for reasons that have been the subject of conjecture and debate.

In response, the United States sent troops under the command of General John J. Pershing on an unsuccessful mission to capture Villa, adding to his fame in Mexico.

“Well, here in Mexico he was a hero. Because no one has existed to ‘atore’ (declare) the gringos to war. And only him, Pancho Villa ”, says Rubén Palma, a 25-year-old engineer.

The fate of the revolutionary was finally sealed on July 20, 1923 when, at the age of 45, he was ambushed by armed men while driving to a baptism, an episode that was recreated this Thursday in front of hundreds of spectators.

While the revolutionary was walking down Gabino Barreda street -where today a museum in his honor is located- an accomplice of the hit men, pretending to be drunk, yelled “Long live Villa!” as a signal to the gunmen on the prowl.

The car was left under a hail of bullets, leaving a bloody Villa in the driver’s seat and his men dead or wounded in the street.

According to Katz, there are indications that in the midst of the struggles between the military chiefs, the government of then-President Álvaro Obregón, also a revolutionary, “He was not only implicated in Villa’s murder but probably organized it,” because he feared that he might participate in another uprising.

Villa was buried in a Parral cemetery. In 1976 his remains were exhumed and deposited in the Monument to the Revolution, in Mexico City.

“For some he was a very good person and for others bad”, explains Gaby Armendáriz, a 45-year-old housewife who came to see the parade. “What I hear here is that he was a brave person, who helped the poor”Add.

Source: AFP