Follow Your Nose logo, originally uploaded by LA CAMIONETA – Life and Death on the Road.
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LA CAMIONETA is now on Kickstarter!!
I’m excited to announce that “LA CAMIONETA” is about to begin post-production. So far things have gone smoothly, but there’s still a lot of work to be done before the film is finished. Check out the link to a short sample video on our new Kickstarter page and please consider donating to the project, friending the film on Facebook, or at least spreading the word to anyone who might be interested! DVDs are available for all donations of $30 or more!!
I get to fly home today. I fly home to the United States of America – a place where the majority of the people in the film have expressed interest in moving to for better employment opportunities and to escape high levels of violence and injustice. I have the privilege of flying home today, but the day-to-day reality here will continue to go on with or without me. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day of Guatemalan Independence, a long-anticipated holiday and well-celebrated holiday here. Many will have the chance to take part of the day off to celebrate in the streets with friends and family, but soon afterwards will return to the daily grind. Geronimo will continue with his junkyard business, Ermelindo will continue working his coffee finca and taking care of his two camionetas, and Mingo will continue his journey back from New Jersey with yet another bus.
Although we were always moving, I made my way down here slowly, and with my feet on the ground. Living the life of a transmigrant for the better part of a week and spending days on end at junkyards, conversion workshops and bus terminals. Now, in a matter of hours I’m going to magically land in Atlantic City and be quickly rushed into my life as a graduate student in New York.
As I sit on the plane I realize just how sudden of a transition this is going to be for me. Before I know it, I’ll be comfortably dropped off into another world. Although my flight is not nearly as dramatic or colorful, for some reason I’m reminded of the “Star Gate” sequence in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” For those who aren’t familiar with the film – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou6JNQwPWE0
I look back on all I’ve gone through and I am incredibly grateful. I’m grateful to Andrew for his always-unselfish companionship, support, and commitment: I’m grateful my friends, family, classmates and professors that have supported and encouraged me throughout the process of putting this film together: I’m grateful to all the incredibly helpful and knowledgeable folks I met in Guatemala during the course of production: and I’m grateful for everyone who opened up and shared a part of their life and their story with me.
Although I’ll now have a day or two to breathe freely, I can’t help but feel an enormous sense of responsibility – not just to myself, but also to the people that made this all possible and to the people that invited me into their lives for a few short weeks. Everyone has given so much!
The flight went by quickly and our landing was one of the smoothest I can remember. After a brief taxi, the plane reached the gate and came to a stop.
I sat still.
Here I am – back in the USA in just a matter of hours. I’ve taken morning taxi rides into Guatemala City that took longer than this.
How does it feel? Am I really ready to be back?
I stood in my seat, turned around, and watched the rest of the folks on the plane gather their things and begin to de-board. I think back to how nervous and on-edge I felt back in July before crossing the US border in Brownsville – how many people on this plane were feeling the same way, making the trip up North on a dollar and a dream? For how many of them would this be their first time? I’m not sure if there’s any way to know for sure, really, but I stood and watched as they filed out one-by-one and tried to imagine where they might be headed next.
An old Guatemalan woman grabbed her bags from the overhead bin and let out a huge smile as she walked past me towards the front exit. She had a twinkle in her eye and sure seemed happy about wherever it is that she was going.
My journey has come to an end for now, but something tells me her journey is just beginning. Long live the days when yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream!
09.13.10 / 10:49PM / Guatemala City, Guatemala (GUATE) / 8534 m
Posted: September 16, 2010 in Uncategorized
Over the course of the past week I got to know a man named Arturo Albizures who lives and works in Guatemala City with an organization called COMUNICARTE – the Association for Communication, Art and Culture. He and the organization have their beginnings in the roots of the social struggle here in Guatemala – he began as a member of the guerrilla group FAR (Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes – “Armed Rebel Forces”) during the internal armed conflict, and has since turned to using a new weapon to advance his cause – the camera.
For the past 25 years he and a group of colleagues have been documenting the social and political movements within Guatemala from the grassroots level, traveling across the country to document the testimonies of individuals and communities about issues or injustices that are not covered in the national or local news media. They also live and breathe these same social and political movements, so their lives and their work are one and the same. Part of the mission of COMUNICARTE is designed to empower campesino and indigenous communities to do similar work – they give training workshops to these groups on how to document their own stories and create their own videos. Their work is very similar to a group I worked with in Bolivia a few years ago called CEFREC – the Cinematography Education and Production Center – whose director is the Bolivian filmmaker Iván Sanjinés, son of the famous Jorge Sanjinés.
Like those affiliated with COMUNICARTE, indigenous peoples who have worked with CEFREC in Bolivia have noted that, “in the current era of trade liberalization and globalization, the dominant society has used mass media to flood indigenous communities with commercial and cultural messages that are incompatible with their lives. CEFREC and the media makers seek to counteract the messages of mass media, which tend to devalue indigenous culture, and find ways to harness media as a powerful tool for self-determination” (from Smithsonian’s “Native Networks”).
We quickly realized that we knew some of the same folks – sometimes the world is so small.
On one of my last nights I met up with Arturo to trade DVDs and go check out a party a few blocks away in Zone 1. There I met and talked with lots of his friends, including Gad Echevarria – an activist and musician that was performing as the headlining act that night. As he sang a few of Silvio Rodriguez’s songs onstage, his friends bragged a bit about him to me. “Gad is the real thing, man. He sings it and he lives it. When Pablo Milanes came to perform in Guatemala he asked Gad to back him up on stage. He’s got a lot of respect around here, and he’s very talented. You should talk to him about doing music for the film!”
Thirty minutes later, Gad and I are sitting in the balcony of the warehouse between sets, sharing ideas and talking about the film in detail. It was incredibly lucky that I had my laptop in my backpack with a few still photos to show him to accompany my somewhat over-excited description of the project. After talking for a while, he headed back on stage. But before he did, he offered to put me in touch with a friend of his named Joaquin Orellana, an avant-garde composer who has built and developed his own series of instruments derived from the marimba and other indigenous folk instruments, which he uses in some of his compositions that deal with the social strife of present-day ethnic groups. At the time I wasn’t familiar with him or his music, but Gad’s description of him as a kind of uncelebrated “mad scientist” made me intrigued to learn more about him when I got home the next morning.
Arturo’s 93-year old father had died just days before we met. He was a bricklayer and construction worker that traveled around the country with his bag full of tools and built houses in cities, on farms, and in residential neighborhoods. It was interesting that, although neither of them work in construction, both of his sons continue to “lay bricks” for a new Guatemala in their own way – Arturo’s brother, Miguel Ángel Albizures, is a Guatemalan human rights activist and newspaper columnist and is currently the spokesperson for the Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH) in Guatemala City. Both he and Arturo have been the target of frequent death threats.
On one night in 2007, a group of armed military officers invaded Arturo’s office in downtown Guatemala City in an attempt to scare him out of continuing to tell the stories he has been telling. During this clandestine raid, approximately 300,000 Quetzales (roughly USD$37,500) worth of gear was stolen and/or destroyed. In a country where the average annual income is $2,400, this event had the potential to be devastating. But shortly thereafter, through a combination of donations and support from the international community, he managed to get COMUNICARTE back in operation. Fortunately, they keep copies of their film archive in clandestine locations off-site and it was not harmed during the attack.
This past year the attacks began again – about six months ago, 80 bullets were fired into the walls of Arturo’s house in Guatemala City. The message was clear. Fortunately, he and his family were not home at the time. It was inspiring to see how calm he appeared in the face of all this danger, and it made me realize how fortunate I’ve been to have remained safe throughout my journey all summer. I am humbled to have met him, inspired by his commitment to justice, and thankful that tomorrow I have the privilege of returning home.
09.07.10 / 7:35PM / Guatemala City, Guatemala (GUATE) / 8426 m
Posted: September 10, 2010 in Uncategorized
Today was another day of transitions. With all the changes happening on a day-to-day basis, it’s been really nice to at least be able to count on having a steady place to live. Moving into a new hostel wasn’t a big deal, but it took a fair amount of energy to make it all happen and it felt disorienting at first. This morning I was planning to move into Guatemala City – what would hopefully be my last move before I return home.
I checked in to my new room at a friendly hotel in Zone 1, and after a quick shower I gave Alberto a call over at the National Police Archives to see if today would be a good time to come by to do some follow-up shooting inside the archive itself. “Sure,” he said. “Come at 2:00pm, but there will be another person taking the tour as well so I’ll give it to you both together.” My first thought was that it might be better to try to get my own time slot, so I’m not holding the other person back and vice-versa. But then I realized just how few my days left really are at this point and decided to go ahead and check it out today. It’s 1:40pm – better get a cab, quick.
I hail down the first cab I see pass by in front of the hotel. The driver doesn’t know about the archive, but I give him the address and we start heading in that direction. The archive itself is housed next to an active police compound in Zone 6, so as you enter into the archive area you have to pass by the National Police Academy and then through a security checkpoint. When the man at the gate asked for both of our names the cab driver got nervous. I could feel the mistrust and the memories surfacing. As it turns out, he probably could have given him any old name, as the guard didn’t ask for ID and didn’t seem to write down the names we gave him.
I arrived just after 2:00pm, but fortunately I wasn’t holding up the other guest(s) that had already arranged an appointment with Alberto. I sat with him by the doorway and waited for them to arrive. Two people got out of a car and started walking towards the building – was this them? They exchanged friendly greetings with Alberto and then signed in. I was curious what their story was – lots of interesting folks do all different sorts of research and investigations here – what brought them here?
Soon enough, we started talking in the lobby. Fate must have had a hand in this day, too.
It turns out that our interests were surprisingly intertwined. “He” was Guillermo Escalon, a native Guatemalan who was one of the filmmakers who flourished during the “cine guerro” movement in El Salvador in the years during the civil war. He formed a group with Manuel Sorto called “Cero a la izquierda (Zero at the left),” which made several successful docs and features during that period. Most recently, he was the Director of Photography on “La Isla: Archives of a Tragedy.”
“She” was Donna DeCesare, a really talented and inspiring photojournalist that now teaches at the University of Texas – Austin. She is currently on sabbatical and taking some time to Her latest project includes documenting the narratives of loss and survival among those who have suffered paramilitary violence in Columbia, but Donna is most widely known for her groundbreaking reporting on the spread of Los Angeles gangs in Central America, particularly in El Salvador and Guatemala. Much of this work is now available on this interactive multimedia site – www.destinyschildren.org .
Guillermo took off after introducing Donna to Alberto, but I spoke with him for a few minutes and told him about what I’ve been doing here. It was yet another surreal moment on this journey.
Alberto gave Donna the same introductory run-down on the story of the building and the current state of things that I had gotten the other day. Afterwards, we set off for the archive, cameras in hand. The archive is such a visually-rich place that it felt like I could have spent all week in there documenting the documents. But our time was short and we had about 30 minutes to walk though the space, meet some of the folks working there, and shoot a bit of how things work. As we left, we both said we’d come back sometime to do some more thorough shooting and investigating of our own.
Last stop of the day was the offices of the CTGT – the General Guatemalan Workers’ Center, a trade union that represents workers in all different kinds of industries, but that has its roots in the struggles of the campesinos. I interviewed Victoriano Zacarias, the General Secretary of CTGT who works with the bus drivers’ syndicate and has been a community organizer for years. Before working as an organizer he was a bus driver in Guatemala City, so he shared some of his personal stories and perspectives with me about what’s going on here.
Once again, I found myself talking and shooting until the building closed down for the night. Afterwards, Victoriano gave me a ride home in an old, converted pick-up truck that CTGT now uses as an ambulance.
09.06.10 / 9:09PM / Guatemala City, Guatemala (GUATE) / 8417 m
Posted: September 9, 2010 in Uncategorized
don’t look back, originally uploaded by LA CAMIONETA – Life and Death on the Road.
The “maiden voyage” has a number of traditions and superstitions associated with it, and most of them are not pleasant – the most famous maiden voyage being that of the Titanic. But, to me, the first day of the bus’s new life didn’t warrant such concerns. I was more curious to see what kinds of people would ride the bus and how well the bus would do given that, when it gets assigned its schedule from the terminal master, there won’t be time to let passengers know. If anyone rides the bus it will be because they’re already standing there waiting.
I woke by 5:30am to get to Geronimo’s yard by 8:00am. When I arrived, Ermelindo was there with Geronimo’s cousin David and two guys I had not yet met – Mario and Andres. They turned out to be the driver and ayudante that would be taking the bus into their hands from here on out.
We take the bus to the headquarters of Rutas Quetzal – a long, narrow parking area in a not-so-good neighborhood filled with a few dozen off-duty buses. Many of the buses were painted red, white and blue, while others (like ours) remained yellow and black. After putting the stickers for the necessary permits and insurances clearly visible on the front windshield, we headed to the Trebol to begin the route. We were assigned the 11:00am departure slot. The ride filled up quickly along the city’s main drag and we arrived in Ciudad Quetzal around lunchtime – a perfect chance to dump some footage onto hard drives and grab a bite to eat.
I was thankful that both the ride there and the ride back were relatively uneventful – just like any other bus ride I’ve been on here. We caught a heavy rainstorm on our way back into the capital, but it passed within an hour or so and I moved on.
From here, I split a cab with Ermelindo, who was heading back to the bus station to catch a ride Chimaltenango. He hopped out half-way back and I went to the Municipal Firefighters building and met with someone there who I was told could help me out with my search for archival images. I also gave him the letter I had typed up requesting to come along with them one day to film. He had a brief stint in journalism before becoming a firefighter 15 years ago. Now, he joins the two passions by writing a newsletter for the Firefighters. After we met and hung out for a few minutes, he offered me a ride to the bus station home – he had to go that direction to pick up some copies of the latest newsletter and could drop me off on the way.
He goes inside and ten minutes later comes rushing out – no copies are in his hand. What’s the deal? Without hesitation, he jumped in the car, said a few words into his CB radio and we flew out onto the road, sirens blaring. “A bus driver has just been shot and killed in Zone 7 of San Miguel Petapa,” he says to me as we start weaving through traffic. I guess this means he’s approved my letter to come along and film…??
When we arrive at the scene of the crime, a team of police and the Ministerio Publico are wearing rubber gloves and identifying each of the 10 bullets lying on the pavement surrounding the bus. Yellow tape closed off both sides of the narrow street and crowds of people stand behind them – some crying, some chatting quietly, others just curious to see the action. I followed my guide’s lead and dipped underneath the “caution” tape to get a little closer to things and catch a clearer view. I felt eyes on me, but had no reason to feel that I should be afraid – I’m here under the supervision of the Fire Department.
My guide has to leave, but before he puts me in the hands of a team of journalists from Nuestro Diario, so I stayed close to them and began to shoot the scene.
As the body of the pilot is pulled out from the bus by 4 officers in white rubber gloves, the murmurs and shrieks from the crowd began to increase. The family members were grouped together about 20 feet to my left and I could hear them all begin to lose control when they actually saw the man’s body laid out on the pavement. A large red pool of blood stained the center of his chest and soaked through his plain, white T-shirt.
Although I was aware of the fact that I just plopped into this situation on a whim and with no connection to anyone at the actual event, I still found myself at times wanting to point the camera in the direction of the best storytelling shot. Some things felt fine, other things didn’t feel quite right. For the first time this whole trip I felt like I was shooting images and not shooting people. It was something I became conscious of once the bus driver’s body came out and the real drama began. One of the other journalists assured me that family members usually really appreciate an opportunity to talk and voice their feelings on camera. I asked if he’d go along with me and he agreed. But once the body came out, our opportunity had passed. It’s not appropriate to just throw my camera in someone’s face during a time like this. So, I grieved with them in silence and we headed out shortly thereafter.
09.05.10 / 8:19PM / Antigua, Sacatepéquez (GUATE) / 8373 m
Posted: September 9, 2010 in Uncategorized
mingo CU, originally uploaded by LA CAMIONETA – Life and Death on the Road.
I slept in super late yesterday and it felt great. A new room, new bed, and new beginnings. There was nothing set in stone for the day, so I started off by doing a few menial tasks that I’ll need in the days to come – printing off some more release forms and typing out a letter to the Municipal Fire Department to see if they’ll let me come along and film one day.
As I was walking home from the internet cafe I got a call from Mingo. He’s leaving tomorrow for yet another journey up to New York to retrieve another bus – today is my last chance for an interview.
I stopped what I was doing, swung through my hostel to grab my gear and took a cab out to Chimaltenango. We sat on the roof of his new house (which is still under construction) and talked for an hour or so. Two boys from the neighborhood had wandered upstairs and decided to come stand beside me as I interviewed him. They watched the image on the flip-out LCD screen as he spoke.
We agreed to cross paths sometime in New York and then took off on our separate ways. He went back to his aldea in Rosario Canajal and I headed out to Tecpan for the night. Along the ride there I saw a bus on the side of the road, completely smashed and safely pulled into a parking area with at least 20 people standing around it. Within five minutes, as we proceeded up the hill, most of the passengers on board the bus began rubbernecking out the windows, peeking at what was there. When I looked I didn’t see much, just some dirt on the roads. But the reaction of the locals gave me reason for concern. I quickly put two and two together – there had been a landslide of some sort. After arriving safely, I got online and found out that at least 12 had died from the landslide that landed on top of the bus as it passed by just hours before our bus took the same path. I really hope the rains start to cool down a bit, but it’s unlikely things will change. This year is supposedly the worst rainy season in Guatemala’s history and it’s going to continue to get more intense as October and November approach.
Today I got a call from Ermelindo, who said that the bus will be ready to start its new route tomorrow. After almost two weeks of back-and-forth and changing dates, I was really psyched to get his call. He sounded confident and his confidence was contagious.
According to a few of the taxi drivers I’ve talked to over the past few days, the route from Guatemala City to Ciudad Quetzal is one of the most marginal and dangerous extra-urban routes that exists (the routes within the capital city are far more dangerous). Last month I began looking into the option of having an armed police escort come along in plain clothes to accompany me for the shoot, and the spokesman for the National Police willingly agreed to have someone available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. But something about it just doesn’t feel right.
I suggested the idea to Ermelindo a week or two ago and he seemed unsettled by the idea, but I’m not sure why. He assured me that he and the other members of his collective have been paying the extortion money regularly and that there won’t be any trouble on the route. He’s not the type to speak beyond his means, and at this point we’ve spent enough time together that I feel like I can trust him So, we’re set to meet at Geronimo’s junkyard at 8:00am and will take things from there – tomorrow will be the maiden voyage…
09.03.10 / 8:53PM / Guatemala City, Guatemala (GUATE) / 8341 m
Posted: September 9, 2010 in Uncategorized
PNC archive exterior, originally uploaded by LA CAMIONETA – Life and Death on the Road.
Andrew took off this morning and is going to stop off in Nahuala and Puebla to visit friends and previous host families on his way back to the States. I really can’t thank him enough for coming along on this crazy trip and for all of his help and support along the way, but I tried to nevertheless. Thank you, dude!
After moving into my new room a few blocks away in the middle of a big rain storm this morning, I hopped in a cab and headed into the capital with my gear. I swung through a few places to follow up with contacts I’d been given the past few days and had mixed results. The first place I looked for no longer existed and nobody in the building could tell me where they’d gone. The second place I searched for was there but the person I sought to visit wasn’t available. Sure enough, the third time was a charm, but if I had come 6 years earlier this place wouldn’t have even been on the map. In fact, the very suggestion of its existence would have been denied at all levels by official sources.
On July 5, 2005, officials from the Guatemalan government’s human rights office entered a deteriorating, rat-infested munitions depot in downtown Guatemala City to investigate complaints about improperly-stored explosives. Just a week or so before there had been an accidental explosion that sparked the need to make sure there weren’t other unexploded bombs nearby. When investigators arrived at the site they could hardly believe what they found – instead of a bombshell, they found papers and documents sitting in the windows of the building and on the verge of complete decay. The files belonged to the National Police, the central component of Guatemala’s security apparatus during the civil war, and an organization so inextricably linked to violent repression, abduction, disappearances, torture and assassination that the country’s 1996 peace accord mandated it be completely disbanded and a new police institution created in its place. Over 45,000 people disappeared during this time and there is still no official story as to what happened. There’s hope that this archive can help change that.
Over the past few years there has been a lot of progress being made to access, preserve, and use this information in the pursuit of justice and the recuperation of the nation’s historical memory. These archives have been the subject of a PBS Frontline piece called “Guatemala: The Secret Files” and, more recently, a beautiful documentary by the German filmmaker Uli Stelzner called “La Isla: Archives of a Tragedy.” But for me, they serve a different purpose. The National Police had already been disbanded by the time that the spree of murders of bus drivers began happening, so it’s highly unlikely that any of the records would yield any information about what’s been happening since 1997. Rather, for me they serve two purposes – 1) to provide a means for visualizing the nation’s history of a search for justice and 2) to help contextualize and understand how the machine of terror operated in Guatemala during those years. Although certain changes have been made, the feeling of terror here and the mistrust in authorities is far from gone.
When I got to the archive I met with Alberto Fuentes, a long-time human rights worker who had originally come here during the munitions search to make sure nearby civilians were safe. Since then, he’s been an integral part of the efforts to preserve, organize, and digitize these records and now serves as its caretaker. The archive is home to 80 million documents and 70 rolls of microfilm that contain approximately 30,000 images. They now have a staff of over 100 people and are partnering with a firm from Silicon Valley called Benetech to digitize all the records. At the end of each week, copies are encrypted and sent to Benetech servers in the USA. Due to a recent partnership with the Swiss government, a full copy of the digital archive is also being kept in the Swiss national archives. The message is clear – these records are here to stay.
I talked with Alberto for almost two hours and, before we knew it, it was time for the building to close. I willingly agreed to come back in a few days for an official tour of the archive.
The next stop was the headquarters for the Municipal Fire Department. Apparently, the firefighters are the first to arrive at the scene of the crime and usually document the events with photo and video equipment. So, I went in search of archival material regarding the killings of bus drivers.
When I arrived, I was surprised to learn that, if you submit a written request, they’ll allow journalists to come along with them for the day to take their own photo/video.
On my way to the last stop of the day, my taxista Rolando and I pulled off the main road to grab a quick bite to eat at a shopping mall. It was a really high-end mall, fully equipped with a gated entrance and security guards who wore ear pieces. While my tacos were cooking, I curled up in a corner between two nice department stores and sat down. I reached into my dingy book-bag and pulled out a labyrinth of cables, adapters, memory cards, and chargers and began to connect them to my laptop in a flurry. I didn’t think twice about doing it because it felt totally normal and because I needed to empty my memory cards for the final shoot of the day. But to the rest of the folks in the mall, it might easily have looked more like I was some creepy unabomber, curled up in a corner with a multi-colored laptop keyboard and hell-bent on destruction. A security guard came over and said that it wasn’t permitted to plug in in the middle of the hallway and to sit in the middle of the floor to use the computer – she suggested I try one of the lounge areas. Fortunately, within a few minutes my cards were cleared and I just packed up and went on my way in search of tacos.
It began to rain again as we left the mall. I closed out the night by following up with someone I met last week at a bar through some friends of mine. When I mentioned the film, he started philosophizing about buses, life on the road, life as movement, and all kinds of other ideas that I had wished I could have gotten on camera that night. So, we stayed in touch and I went by his office to follow up. At times it felt odd to abstractly talk about the components of my film as metaphors, but some of the ideas and lessons contained within those metaphors might really have some resonance when spliced into the final piece. But now’s not the time to think about editing – it was an interesting conversation over a few beers and it feels like a psychological victory to have crossed one thing off the list of “things I wished I had filmed.”
09.01.10 / 8:42PM / Guatemala City, Guatemala (GUATE) / 8306 m
Posted: September 8, 2010 in Uncategorized
Another early morning in hopes that we can make it to the tribunals again. This time, though, we somehow timed it so that we didn’t have to wait at the Guatevision office at all. As we came up the steps, our guide was walking out of the office and waiting for the elevator. It felt like a good start to the morning…
I felt much more comfortable shooting at the tribunals this time, having familiarized myself a bit with how things work last time we were here. Today, the big event taking place is one that means a lot to many Guatemalans and human rights activists around the world, although it doesn’t directly tie in to our story.
Arguably, the worst and most frequent incidents of human rights violations took place during the dictatorship of Gen. Rios Montt during the years 1982-1983. Montt has, at times, had close relations with the United States who gave him aid to fight against the left-wing guerillas. His “scorched earth” policy has been documented to have involved the widespread massacres, rape, torture, and acts of genocide against the indigenous population. A few incidents stand out as being particularly egregious, and one such event was the Dos Erres Massacre that took place in December 1982 in the department of Peten.
A contingent of Kaibiles was sent to Dos Erres a few months after a successful guerilla attack was made on the army convoy there. Their orders were to disguise themselves as guerillas and kill the inhabitants. They bashed the smallest children’s heads against walls and trees and killed the older ones with hammer blows to the head. They raped women and girls and ripped the fetuses out of pregnant women. The bodies were dumped in a well. Those responsible have gone unpunished until now.
Today, two of the Kaibiles that were involved in the Dos Erres massacre were going to have their trial.
Lots of reporters followed the action as they were led from one room to the next. In the meantime, I couldn’t help but look into eyes of one of them from safely across the room, wondering what it was that was going on inside his mind that could have provoked him to take part in something like this. I wondered what he was capable of doing. What lay behind his calm demeanor?
Once the proceedings started up, I walked downstairs and shot a bit outside the front of the Supreme Court, where the families and friends of those murdered on that day had gathered with posters and photos. Some of their hand-made posters read, “Truth is also a (human) right” and “Historical memory is also a (human) right.”
After a break for lunch, we headed back to the Organization of Widows to meet with some of the folks we didn’t have a chance to speak with last week. While maintaining hope that the rain would have mercy on our schedule, we managed to interview all three folks that were there – Norma (a middle-aged woman and mother whose whole family works as vendors on buses selling gelatins to passengers), Luis (a jack-of-all-trades who loves to sell anything and used to be a driver himself), and Rene (an enthusiast of natural medicine who was a clown, a magician, and fought in the Lucha Libre earlier on in life before becoming a vendor aboard the public buses).
The last stop of the day was in Zone 10 at the offices of FLACSO – the Latin American Social Sciences Institute. FLACSO is an autonomous inter-government organization founded in 1957 by an UNESCO initiative and is currently comprised of 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. They publish all kinds of interesting research and their work has become an important part of the investigative social sciences throughout Latin America.
I had been in touch with folks there via phone and e-mail regarding the possibility of acquiring some archival images and/or footage from them, but this was to be the first trip there. I had a chance to meet a few people in person, talk about the project in a little more detail, and discuss the possibility of coming back for an interview sometime in the next week or so.
This is the last night in our apartment before the new tenants come in.
08.30.10 / 7:25PM / Guatemala City, Guatemala (GUATE) / 8278 m
Posted: September 3, 2010 in Uncategorized
The weekend was great – no filming was scheduled and, instead, we took two full days to ourselves to enjoy doing absolutely nothing but hanging out and partying with friends. We’d been planning to have some sort of cast party/wrap party since we first got here and have been mentioning it to folks along the way in hopes that we’d be giving enough notice that they could make it. It promised to be a totally random and potentially awkward night. We’d invited pretty much everyone that we’d met, befriended, or had filmed during our time here – mechanics, taxi drivers, bus drivers, junkyard workers, journalists, activists, friends from the States, and even our real estate agent that helped us find the apartment we’ve been staying in for the past month. Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep…
We woke at 5:00AM and slept most of the cab ride into the capital. It was a huge relief that, once we got to Guatevision’s office, there was no immediate rush to head out – there was time for some breakfast and to gather my thoughts. After a little while, Alberto came through with his cameraman and we headed down into the parking garage. On the way there he told us the latest news – yesterday, 26 leaders of the MS-18 had been arrested and some of them might be where we’re headed. Also, a group of Los Zetas was scheduled to have the opening proceedings of their trial up on the 13th floor.
We pull into the basement parking garage of the Torre de Tribunales and are immediately struck by the huge number of armed guards everywhere. The parking garage spirals downwards, and with each corner we pull around, a group of gang members is revealed, handcuffed, watching and waiting. Our guide stopped as we pulled in front of one of the leaders of the MS-18, Daniel Rodriguez, and says hey. It seems that they’ve known each other for a little while, as he casually says he wants to speak with him for a few minutes before he heads upstairs.
I had asked as many questions as I could on the way over, to get a sense of what might happen and how, but I still really had no idea what to expect. After his interview, our guide said a few words of confidence to Daniel and he agreed to talk to us. We had ten minutes, max. I decided not to hesitate and to just jump right in and give him the floor – “Tell me how you see things, man,” was more-or-less my approach. He opened up to me a bit, but didn’t really talk about bus drivers or extortion issues. After a few minutes, he was taken away in chains. One of the leaders of the MS-13 (one of their main rival gangs) was standing in chains across the way, waiting for Daniel to be on his way. As Daniel walked away, he started cursing him and tried coming after him but was held back by a group of armed guards. All he managed to do was throw his half-empty Poland Spring water bottle in Daniel’s general direction. Daniel turned the corner and we didn’t see him again.
In the Torre de Tribunales (Tribunal Tower), the higher up you go, the more serious the cases are that are being held. I didn’t get an exact count, but there are probably 15 stories in the building. When we got into the elevator, our guide asked the attendant to press number 13. As we enter into the courtroom, nine men are sitting in chains (hands and feet) along a bench, their backs to the courtroom window that looks out onto the traffic circle and fountain below (which happens to have a sculpture of two human hands opening to give flight to a dove of peace). Another two men are visible on a low-quality projection screen displayed over the shoulder of one of the judges. They are watching and participating in the proceedings remotely from an even higher-security area upstairs. Five armed guards with masks over their faces stand behind them with folded arms. I’m pretty sure they weren’t tech support.
The Zetas is a criminal organization that was originally founded by a group of ex-members of the Mexican Army Special Forces that deserted the Army to create their own security group. As elite paratroopers and intelligence operatives, they began as the private mercenary army for Mexico’s Gulf Cartel. More recently, its members include corrupt ex-police officers, as well as ex-Kaibiles from Guatemala. The Kaibiles are the Guatemalan Special Forces responsible for many of the counter-insurgency massacres that took place during Guatemala’s internal armed conflict (1960-1996). Their motto is “If I advance, follow me. If I stop, urge me on. If I retreat, kill me.” As of this past February, the Zetas split from the Gulf Cartel and are now operating as their own drug cartel and organized crime unit. They are considered by the United States DEA to be the most violent paramilitary enforcement group in Mexico.
This particular group of Zetas had been arrested, their weapons had been seized, and they now stood on trial. Aside from the comedy show that some of the Zetas were putting on amongst each other, the proceedings were insanely boring. After almost an hour of listening to someone read off a list of the thousands of pieces of evidence being introduced from a huge binder that sat on the desk before him, we walked out. Maybe some climactic moment would come, but we’ll take our chances and come back later. Besides, despite the connections to the weapons trade and world of narcotrafficking in Central America, this case doesn’t specifically have anything to do with our story. It’d be foolish to hang on every word.
Instead, we called and reconnected with Carmen Aida from the Movimiento Pro Justicia and went in search of a quiet place to shoot an interview with her later this afternoon. Once again, we didn’t have much luck. Remaining hopeful, we grab a bite to eat and wait for her to arrive. We meet in the Supreme Court building, which is adjacent to the Torre de Tribunales and connects to it through a series of underground tunnels.
After some difficulty finding a place to talk, we managed to find a few minutes to interview her as the building was closing up. The guards were kind enough to not interrupt us, and even used subtle hand gestures to help try to quell some of the noise from the legal teams that were walking the hallways after the day’s end.
I wish I could have had more time talking with Daniel, but I’m probably lucky to have had the chance to speak with him at all. Maybe we’ll see if there’s another way to come back sometime…
