The National Organization of the Anvil or simply El Yunque (in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

: The Anvil) is the name of a purported secret society

Secret society

A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...

 of Mexican regional origin but alleged to now be a national political force and whose purpose, according to the reporter Álvaro Delgado

Álvaro Delgado

Álvaro Delgado is a Mexican political investigative journalist and author.-Biography:Delgado studied journalism at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and has worked in the Mexican national newspapers El Nacional, El Universal, and El Financiero, as well as the political newsmagazine...

, "is to defend the Catholic religion

Catholicism

Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....

 and fight the forces of Satan

Satan

Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...

, whether through violence or murder" and establish the kingdom of God

Kingdom of God

The Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven is a foundational concept in the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.The term "Kingdom of God" is found in all four canonical gospels and in the Pauline epistles...

 in the land that is subject to the Mexican Government

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 to the mandates of the Roman Catholic Church

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 through the infiltration of all its members at the highest levels of political power. The organization was allegedly formed in Puebla in the early 1950s.

Wealthy businessmen and politicians (mostly from the National Action Party

National Action Party (Mexico)

The National Action Party , is one of the three main political parties in Mexico. The party's political platform is generally considered Centre-Right in the Mexican political spectrum. Since 2000, the President of Mexico has been a member of this party; both houses have PAN pluralities, but the...

) have been named as alleged founders and members of The Anvil. The father of Ricardo Salinas Pliego

Ricardo Salinas Pliego

Ricardo Benjamín Salinas Pliego is a Mexican businessman and one of Forbes World's Richest People since 2000. He serves as President and CEO of Grupo Salinas and Grupo Elektra, two holdings with interests vested in telecommunications, media and retail stores, among those TV Azteca, Elektra,...

, owner of Televisión Azteca

TV Azteca

Azteca, is the second largest Mexican television entertainment. It was established in 1983 as the state-owned Instituto Mexicano de la Televisión , a holding of the national TV networks channel 13 and 7 and was privatized under its current name in 1993 and now is part of Grupo Salinas...

, and one of the wealthiest men in Mexico, Hugo Salinas Price

Hugo Salinas Price

Hugo Salinas Price is the founder of Mexico's Elektra retail chain. The current head of Elektra is his son Ricardo Salinas Pliego. Elektra began as a workshop assembling electronic appliances for the Salinas Y Rochas chain a small regional retailer of appliances. Elektra then set up a direct sales...

 describes sponsoring and supporting Movimiento Universitario de Renovadora Orientación (MURO) a supposed Yunque front group, in his autobiography. It is unclear to what extent the sponsors of MURO knew of the supposed organizational structure and goals of its theoretical affiliation to El Yunque.

One of the most prominent critics of The Anvil, investigative reporter Delgado (see References) says that The Anvil was founded to "defend the Catholic religion and fight against the forces of Satan, even by force and murder". He also claims that top members of the National Action Party (PAN)

National Action Party (Mexico)

The National Action Party , is one of the three main political parties in Mexico. The party's political platform is generally considered Centre-Right in the Mexican political spectrum. Since 2000, the President of Mexico has been a member of this party; both houses have PAN pluralities, but the...

 and former President

President of Mexico

The President of the United Mexican States is the head of state and government of Mexico. Under the Constitution, the president is also the Supreme Commander of the Mexican armed forces...

 Vicente Fox's cabinet are also members of El Yunque. PAN president Manuel Espino Barrientos

Manuel Espino Barrientos

Manuel Espino Barrientos He was the 18th President of National Action Party On November 11, 2006 he was elected president of the Christian Democrat Organization of America....

 talked in an interview in 2002 without inconvenience about the membership to El Yunque of some acquaintances of his. Members of PAN have condemned Delgado's claims as "pure fiction", comparing it to the mythical monster, chupacabra

Chupacabra

The chupacabras is a legendary cryptid rumored to inhabit parts of the Americas. It is associated more recently with sightings of an allegedly unknown animal in Puerto Rico , Mexico, and the United States, especially in the latter's Latin American communities...

, and saying that El Yunque has nothing to do with the party. A former PAN Presidential candidate and party head, Luis H. Alvarez, says that the organization is real but has infiltrated only a negligible portion of the party.

Since it is allegedly a secret organization, most reports about it comes from its critics and ex-members. One noted ex-member is the former mayor of Puebla, Luis Paredes Moctezuma who has led demonstrations against the organization, demanding the expulsion of all heads of PAN who are also affiliated to El Yunque. Paredes Moctezuma has also explicitly pointed current party leader Manuel Espino Barrientos as a yunquista. He has said that El Yunque played a role backing Vicente Fox

Vicente Fox

Vicente Fox Quesada is a Mexican former politician who served as President of Mexico from 1 December 2000 to 30 November 2006 and currently serves as co-President of the Centrist Democrat International, an international organization of Christian democratic political parties.Fox was elected...

's campaign in 2000.

In 2007, Paredes claimed the group controlled four state governments in Mexico and that it establish cells in the United States in the early 1990s, saying, "They're in Dallas, in Boston, in Washington, D.C., in Los Angeles, in Miami."

Parades claimed The Anvil was formed in the early 1950s as a reaction to anti-Catholic sentiment

Persecution of Christians in Mexico

The modern history of Mexico has often been characterized by deep conflicts between the government and the Catholic Church, sometimes including outright persecution of Catholics in Mexico.- Beginning of Anticlericalism and Persecution :...

 under the Institutional Revolutionary Party. He says it attracted religious students who sought to the leftist influence reflected in the Cuban revolution and communist China and Russia. He says the group opposed Calderon's Presidential candidacy and is thus in a poor position to influence him.

According to Andres Manuel López Obrador

Andrés Manuel López Obrador

Andrés Manuel López Obrador , also known as AMLO or El Peje, is a Mexican politician who held the position of Head of Government of the Federal District from 2000 to 2005, before resigning in July 2005 to contend the 2006 presidential election, representing the unsuccessful Coalition for the Good...

 and his supporters, El Yunque was specifically pointed as the mastermind behind the organization of the highly successful march against crime in Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

 (June 27, 2004); because of this supposed connection, the leftist mayor of Mexico City

Head of Government of the Federal District

The Head of Government wields executive power in the Mexican Federal District.The Head of Government serves a six-year term, running concurrently with that of the President of the Republic....

 at the time, Lopez Obrador, saw the march as a political attack against him by El Yunque and downplayed its importance.

According to its critics, the secret organization of El Yunque was supposedly paramilitary

Paramilitary

A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....

 in nature, performing its actions (including political assassination mostly through a set of front organizations, and, according to the magazine Contralínea, this included the student organization MURO at the National Autonomous University of Mexico

National Autonomous University of Mexico

The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México is a university in Mexico. UNAM was founded on 22 September 1910 by Justo Sierra as a liberal alternative to the Roman Catholic-sponsored Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) (National Autonomous...

in the 1960s.

One political commentator dismissed claims about the group as an easy way to smear political opponents, "I have never found anyone who admits to being a member of El Yunque. All I see are attacks from the left. It's an easy way to dismiss someone."