January 16, 2012

[On Guatemala: Documenting The Iron Fist]

“I pray to God for a true reconciliation. I pray that my generation is the last of war and the next one is the first of peace.” – President Otto Perez Molina, inauguration address.

I wish I had changed my shoes. We had managed to grab fifteen minutes with Guatemalan President-elect Otto Perez Molina for Al Jazeera. He was due to meet President Calderon of Mexico that evening. We were to be his last interview of the day. Doors opened, a lush apartment. A cacophony of ornaments adorned a fireplace. An ivory parrot perching atop a gilded shelf caught my eye. I sat facing his empty chair waiting. ’What do I call him,’ I thought out loud,  ’Mister President perhaps?’ – ‘No,’ came an answer,  ’just General Molina – he’s not President yet.

Even still, these shoes had no place among such finery.

- Notes December 15th 2011

Mano Dura

A grim story had led us to these dusty climes. We were in Guatemala City to shoot a piece for Al Jazeera’s Listening Post strand. A journalist, Lucia Escobar had gone into hiding after receiving death threats from those she had named as complicit in an article about the disappearance of a man in Panajachel, a town in the department of Solola. We arrived a month after General Otto Perez Molina of the Partido Patriota (Patriot Party) had won an election for Guatemala’s Presidency. His tanned, silver haired effigy could still be spotted across billboards in Guatemala City. An ex-military man who had run on a security ticket, made promises of a sweeping ‘iron fist’ or ‘Mano Dura’ to tackle Guatemala’s horrific crime rate and the increasing penetration of Mexican drug cartels.

A skim through any number of publications, Time, NYTimes, Guardian will yield howls of disapproval. Why would Guatemala have chosen a military figure when its past was so littered with grotesque episodes? A bloody history, filled with ‘iron fists’ that had summarily choked the country of its freedoms. Indeed, the last time a military man was in office was during a military dictatorship. Efrain Rios Montt fell in 1986 after what the UN, in a 1999 truth commission report claimed, was a period where 93% of atrocities during a 36 year old civil war were carried out by the military, police and paramilitary groups. A period which the same report found that a systematic genocide against Mayan peoples took place, where at least 200,000 people were killed, over 4,000 people disappeared, more than 600 massacres took place and over 1,000,000 people were forcibly displaced. Otto Perez Molina – a high ranking military official at the time – was in charge of Nebaj, Quiche military base during the worst atrocities. Is this the kind of ‘mano dura’ Guatemalans had elected to highest office?

Yes, 57%.

Guatemala falls into that dark fringe where impunity pervades a society that refuses to look back. The veins of violence run deep under the canopy of corruption which runs back toward time immemorial. The battered body of Guatemala has in turns been raped, pillaged and consumed by conquistadors from one century to the next, Gringo ventriloquists turning it’s head this way and that, a gasp of freedom in the 1950′s when Jacobo Árbenz assumed his brief Presidency until ousted by a CIA backed coup, a Marxist uprising surged for its throat in the 1980s but were crushed by stronger fists. Military dictatorships followed all but suffocating the last breaths of democracy until the 1990′s. Its face lies now, tongue flailing, gurgling, diseased by brutal drug cartel violence pummelling it from beyond the Mexican border. Guatemala has a history that reads of passive, unequal, bordered societies, apathetic to powers manipulating its whims. A phantom state now exists, sucking up all its limited resources, a funnel in full view, siphoning moneys into pockets unknown. Everyone knows, no-one speaks, only shrugs of malcontent. After so much subjection is it no wonder small voices calling for democracy, accountability and fundamental institutions are swatted away by bullies, drug-lords and jack boots while lawmen look the other way?

Small Voices

There is a name here, besides Lucia, that we hear about constantly. A woman with an echo for a name; Claudia Paz y Paz, the thorn in the sides of the crooked. Guatemala’s first female Attorney General is doing something unprecedented. She’s putting people away, lots of people. The week before we touched down at Guatemala City, Paz y Paz had successfully convicted among the most imposing of names; General Hector Mario Lopez Fuentes, an intellectual author of genocide against the Ixil people during the civil war. Another, Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez, head of military intelligence accused of genocide was also arrested in October. Yet another, 70 year old former military head of state, Oscar Meijia Victores is now in military hospital under evaluation for his ability to stand trial. In a country where memories are silent, hers is a voice that hollows the hearts that hide. However, despite his pronouncements of reconciliation, Molina has yet to publicly admit that a genocide even took place – it’s a position that has protected him until now but one that looks ever more vapid given that his contemporaries have now been convicted of the same.

Molina himself does not escape Paz y Paz’s sights. U.S military documents from the mid-90′s show him disappearing or ordering the disappearance of leftists guerilla leader Efraim Bamaca during the civil war. Bamaca was married to a Harvard-educated lawyer Jennifer Harbury. Harbury initiated a case against Molina in March 2011 on behalf of her long thought dead husband. There is also a story that refuses to go away; another report, this time conducted by the Catholic Church in 2008 put forward a raft of further allegations against the military of its conduct during the war. The night before this report was due to be released, Bishop Juan Gerrardi  who was head of he investigation was bludgeoned to death. Two military officers were sentenced for the assassination at the end of last year, yet there are conflicting reports that place Perez Molina himself at the scene of the crime. Time will tell. These reports provide compelling reading and episodes inherent make grim portents for the future.

Indeed Molina might find it difficult to keep his past buried. Here is a clip of from a remarkable documentary by a Finnish filmmaker Mikael Wahlforss. Skip to 7:55 and you will see a young Perez Molina, in fetching red beret, speaking to journalist Allan Nairn. Bloodied corpses are on display behind them:

Further Cycles

Human rights organisations are concerned that Molina’s inauguration heralds a new cycle of state sponsored violence. Those who pry open the passages of Guatemala’s history risk pulling threads that lead to powerful enemies. Much depends on how far the new President is willing to extend his iron fist. For example, Molina could choose to fire Attorney General Paz y Paz as soon as he begins his term, but doing so would mean alienating allies he can ill afford to lose. The indomitable human rights lawyer enjoys considerable international support and Molina has already extended a hand to the U.S for aid in his fight against the cartels. He has to keep them onside. Paz y Paz herself was awarded the Stephen J. Solarz award for Commitment to Peace, Justice and Security from the International Crisis Group in December. Awards provide precious cover, time and a reputation. If she were to disappear, she would now be missed.

The ‘Mano Dura’ this time, takes its lead from other nations in the region who have chosen to fight fire with fire. Both El Salvador and Mexico have experimented with repressive policing with varying degrees of success. But it is when we view Guatemala through the prism of transshipment that the complexities of this narrative begin to reveal themselves. Frank Smyth, a journalist who has spent years covering the region claims that:

“…every government since the military regime fell has been marked by two trends. 1) The on-going influence of different, sometimes rival cliques of military intelligence officers, 2) The endemic lawlessness that has given rise to violence and Guatemala’s increasing role as a transshipment point and now also a production point for U.S bound illegal drugs.”

According to a disclosed Wikileaks cable, Molina is identified as part of the “Operators” clique who together with the another group calling themselves “The Brotherhood” have “developed their own vertical leader-subordinate network of recognition, relationship and loyalties.” Molina has already claimed that he will use the notorious Kaibil forces to help tackle the drug cartels, and has installed former Kaibil commanders as heads of the military and police. The Kaibiles are Guatemala’s elite forces and have in the past been linked to one of the nations grisliest episodes where 200 civilians were slaughtered at Dos Erres, Peten in 1982. That these groups are to be entrusted as Guatemala’s vanguard against the cartels should give us real cause for concern. Molina’s iron fist might well resemble a vice come the end of his term. Those voices for truth, accountability and the promotion of civilian institutions might wake up one day finding themselves as collateral in an ever tightening grip.

Amplifying Dissent

“He appeared from the curated garden, hands in pockets, deep in discussion. He gave us a wave and apologised for keeping us waiting. Okay, I thought, trepidation pierced, let’s do this. Sometimes what a man is willing to broach on camera reveals what he intends to get away with. I took my seat, smiled at my shoes. - Notes 15 December

Heidi and I were here to paint a picture of media freedom in Guatemala. The consequences of the transition of power to a regime governed by a mano dura was to be the canvas. The questions I asked in the fifteen minutes we had with the man were in relation to journalism. Al Jazeera’s air date forbids me to enter into specifics of his answers here. But beyond our narrative, beyond the story of Lucia and those other small voices being trampled upon by the megaphone of collective interests, we were there because we knew that after we had finished telling the story we wanted to tell – further chapters laid await. But this time, for the time, this particular iron fist has many eyes watching him. Our eyes act as binders. We live in a world where the ubiquitous nature of social media is merging with the voices of the many. Previous iron fists has never had to deal with this. The very act of being there, asking these questions, demanding his answers means that President Molina cannot enjoy the canopies of the past. The price of democracy and liberty is eternal vigilance and for the first time because of people like Lucia Escobar, Claudia Paz y Paz and our ability to be connected to stories worth telling, there are less dark corners of the world to hide dark acts. The power we have is that we can shine spotlights upon those places that still remain dim. With this documentary for Al Jazeera we had the chance to ask questions of Molina, questions that had him state – on camera – that fundamental human rights, such as freedom of expression will remain un-encroached under his presidency.

Both Lucia and Claudia are on Twitter. Here are their handles: @liberalucha, @Mpclaudiapaz. Follow them and give them a message from CODOC; Their new President pledged to protect them. They are not alone and we will help them make sure he keeps his promise.

–

CODOC’s piece for Al Jazeera’s Listening Post will air in early 2012. Subscribe to this blog or visit www.codoc.org. The content of this article is my own and not that of any of my employers.

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January 6, 2012

[On Guatemala: Documenting Lucia's Story]

“This sardine-can cab ride back from Pacaya is jeopardy. It’s all I can do to not look down to see pebbles ricochet off the wheels of our jalopy and skip down into the abyss below as we skate along a snaking dirt track to Antigua. The ink above scattered with stars are all that staves my heart from jumping into my mouth. Those stars above are a drug – distracting me from the brain chatter. Heidi snoozes on my shoulder, deservedly. No wonder the Maya looked up for solace. ” – Notes December 17th 2011

At it’s initiation CODOC had a mission which transposed two inter-dependent dynamics at it’s heart. To combine smart, direct storytelling with a distinct aesthetic together with an honest, transparent approach to journalism. Our first film, a feature documentary on Sri Lanka’s civil war had just won us an award and by the end of the year we were given the opportunity to take our concept to an international broadcaster.

Finding Lucia’s Story

 

We first heard of Lucia from one of our contacts at Amnesty International in London, England. During a meeting he had pulled out a brief pertaining to the stories of two journalists in Guatemala, one of whom we heard had fled her home town of Panajachel after receiving death threats because of an article she had written for elPeriodico, a Guatemala City-based daily. In her article, Lucia points to the disappearance of a local man named Luis Tan. Tan had ‘suspected links’ to one of the local drug cartels currently ravaging the rural north and east. Because of Guatemala’s lack of an effective police force, various ‘citizen-security’ forces had been springing up in rural villages to fill the void. One of these ‘Safety Commissions’ – essentially vigilante groups dispensing justice as they saw fit – were allegedly behind Tan’s disappearance. He is still missing.

In her article, Lucia brazenly calls out the members of the Safety Commission and accuses them of using extralegal measures to enforce their own code of conduct. She goes on to claim the town mayor and state authorities as being complicit with the Safety Commission by their indifference. It was a striking story and one my producing partner Heidi felt we could tell. Guatemala had recently elected a former military general to the office of President, Otto Perez Molina. This would be the first time the country had elected a former army-man since the military dictatorship fell in the 1980′s –  a time when the regions human rights record was at an all time low. A compelling canvas to tell an emotive story.

Two months later we were pitching to Al Jazeera’s news magazine show The Listening Post. We would have Lucia as the central figure, through which we could talk about the broad state of media freedom in Guatemala and what it would look like once General Perez Molina takes office in January. The Listening Post commissioned a six minute piece from us and two days after we were given the go-ahead we flew out to Guatemala City. It happens that fast.

Process Matters

We had learnt early on that the process by which you produce stories is just as important as the content. When Heidi was interviewing formerly abducted child soldiers in Pader, Uganda – this became clear. As filmmakers, journalists we parachute into a story, capture what we can – what we need – and leave. Those are the mechanics of the job that at times hides an inconvenient truth. Which is that when we leave, lives continue. The stories we elicit have further chapters long after we lose interest. We learnt this in Uganda with those children. They had one too many times told the same stories, shed the same tears to the same cameras. Our cameras. When the day came for us to interview Lucia we remembered this lesson and our responsibility.

My notebook went everywhere with me. It drew in scribbles on the road. Random thoughts, conjecture, interview questions and more. Every so often these snatches of words would form themselves into something cogent. This is what I wrote the night before our interview with Lucia:

“In Lucia’s last e-mail she wrote something that has stuck with me:  ”Yo también soy periodista … mi voz, mi palabra es lo único que tengo para expresarme y hacer mi trabajo.” It roughly translates: “I am also a journalist. My voice, my word is the only thing I have to express myself and do my job.” This is courage. For some there are ‘jobs’ for others there are vocations. I look forward to meeting her tomorrow.” - Notes, December 13th 

Lucia’s Voice

Lucia was dressed in a Guatemalan textile – one of those rainbow coloured hand made fabrics that we had seen market sellers trade. She had a pierced right eye-brow and a notebook much like my own. Around her neck she wore a garland made of soda can openers. Hippie-cool, a free bird confined to a cage.

She sat where the best light could be found. Through our translator she told her story at great depth, with great heart. She told us she had crossed a line that journalists in Guatemala seldom cross. She named names. This was her crime according to threats she had received. What had compelled her to do so? Some sense of duty or justice? Did she feel anyone would hear her, would anybody care? No, she said, she did so out of frustration. She did so out of sorrow at seeing her home town disintegrate around her.

She spoke honestly, with a set jaw. Stern, fixed eyes. She also thought she would have been protected. A naive sentiment as it turned out. “That’s how come I’m here at my ‘refugio temporal’” she says, “instead of with my children.”

Indeed, no help came from the authorities. There was no public outcry. Then she showed us the YouTube clip. It’s a chilling piece of theatre, a hurried scrap of rage. Shot, we were told, by a woman with an iPhone and later posted up on online. It shows a recording of a televised rant by Juan Manuel Ralon and Victor Anleu the very same members of the Saftey Commission that Lucia had named in her article. The pixellated clip shows Ralon speaking directly to camera, clutching his microphone, jabbing a finger at the lens accusing Lucia directly of being a drug-trafficker. He is saying all this on a talk show which, she tells us, is hosted by the other man she named as being complicit; Panajachel Mayor and public personality Gerardo Higueros. These are twelve minutes that capture explicitly the braided twine of violence and impunity that has Guatemala in a choke hold.

Below, as if speaking directly to Lucia, Ralon claims that she is ‘trash that should end up at the bottom of a heap.” This was in direct reference to Lucia’s article, the last line of which reads: ”If the next person to rest at the bottom of the world’s most beautiful lake [Lake Atitilan] with rocks holding them down is me, you will know who to blame.” Ralon, it seems, felt the lake was too good for her, offering the ‘trash heap’ as an exchange.

Here is another YouTube clip. Some sinister mash-up of a television appearance Lucia had made shortly after her case went public. An attempt to ridicule her, make her look ‘crazy’ as Lucia says. It plays like an absurdist regurgitation made all the more creepy when Lucia tells us that she suspects the Safety Commission as being behind it. There is venom in this comedy.

There are other YouTube clips. She clicks through them on her laptop as we record her responses. At turns she scowls, grimaces at the words spoken about her. We ask her what she feels when she watches these back – she sighs. That these lies are spread about her, of her cartel links, of her being a trafficker – on television, now on YouTube. The lies have become international, she says, a tear escapes her eyes as she speaks about what would happen if her children heard these words. It’s a poignant moment, I heard the whirr of the camera as Heidi’s eye’s peered through the viewfinder to capture it.

Lucia spoke about why she wrote but also admitted regret at having done so. She felt it was rash, perhaps somewhat irresponsible on her part. Her’s is a voice though that refuses to be extinguished and the flip-side of these YouTube videos is that the clip of Ralon had contributed toward his arrest. If Lucia’s case reaches a conclusion, however, it would be without precedent.

“Hearing Lucia speak of her children has sown a few telling glances between Heidi and I. We have no children yet to be concerned with on our jaunts. We have chosen this profession and have committed to it so far. Hearing her talk about her regret, her irresponsibility – it’s the shade of courage we don’t see – the self-criticism that seems to have nurtured her into a mother and perhaps now a better journalist. There will always be a pinprick of doubt when you write, tell these stories. It is the same for us when we shoot, capture these sad tales. How far would we go? What story would be worth your life? – Notes December 14th.

[On Guatemala: Documenting El Mano Dura]

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December 21, 2010

Debut Doc Locked & Clocked//First Etchings Of The Next


 A giant day. ‘The Truth That Wasn’t There’ is finally locked in at 85 minutes.  A hard graft no doubt, a years worth of hermetic dicing have produced a piece I feel to be exacting in capturing the collective story of Heidi, myself and Phil’s sojourn into the heart of darkness in Sri Lanka’s north in 2009. The editing of this, my directorial debut and the first in Codoc’s brand of open-ended participatory documentaries has been a laborious and at many times a daunting summit to clamber up. We’ve had faltering steps and have tripped up on our own indulgences – I’m sure the cracks in the paving will show up still here – the messy hairlines, the discrepancies of inexperience. But now, pressed and locked we send it out to breach beyond the confines of this editing room, a room that devolved into an unforgiving cave on many a day. Today we received the final sound mix from the good people at Koalamouse, a talented troupe of soundscapers from snowy Lewisham. The ambience still rings in the hollow parts of my lower dome from the first listen. The sound-mix is always seen as the final flourish but truly a good sound man is much like giving an alchemist a copper canvas. A sketch acquires a fuller frame. I am thankful for having my game raised.

My embattled other half has been the one holding my nerves while I learnt to cradle this film into flight. And now it looks as if I will be reciprocating; work has finally begun on her own directorial debut, ‘Forgive Me Mother’ which will be Codoc’s follow up documentary about Uganda’s former child soldiers, their struggle to make peace with their pasts whilst sowing an uncertain future. It looks to be a reflection on the  spirit of perseverance and forgiveness, themes never more fitting for the lady.

Trolling through the glorious Canon 5D footage she displays a patience I barely mustered when doing the same with my own debut. It is a strange funk we both find ourselves in as young filmmakers, in a swirly space where we both have proven we can manage the rigour of carving out stories for screen, believe in the material as having worth and our talent in its creation,  yet awaiting the reception of those who don’t know it yet. It’s a knowing arrogance that we only tolerate in each other save for the fact that our lofty ambitions demand an ego large enough to keep us afloat. I watch her meticulously scratching at her notepad, only pausing when her ideas need to escape her fleeting mind to employ mine as a sounding board. She is only at the beginning of her path but in many ways she’s far beyond me as a filmmaker. I’ve now learnt that much of this game is intuitive; how long a shot lingers, how much or how little you pull a thread in the narrative, it’s like dowsing for subtleties. Heidi has always known how far to reach and so much of the little nuances in ‘The Truth That Wasn’t There’ I owe to that precious umbilical chord of hers. So with this film then, tackling  such subject matter as child soldiers, the maternal bond for child as victim and child as perpetrator, for a film that attempts to give voice to people who are scarred by past wrongs, I can’t think of anyone more suited to the fragility of it all.

So here we are at the end of a taxing, intense, glorious and liberating year. Heidi ends it clutching a dense books to frame her future vision and with myself nursing tired eyes whilst labeling padded packages with a little DVD worth a lifetime.

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December 19, 2010

‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Repealed In The U.S – Finally.

The ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy asks gay soldiers who serve in the US military to keep their orientation private in exchange for not being asked about it in the first place. It was the brainchild of the Clinton Administration and after numerous attempts at getting it repealed, today it was:

I’ve been following this story since we were in San Francisco, we graced Castro Street when we had our premiere back in November. Rainbow banners adorned every street lamp and little pooches scurried and yapped at booted heels the whole way. Naked sun bathing on street corners too  - which wasn’t odd at all, oddly. It’s a weird and crazy other world out on the West, and the ‘dont ask, don’t tell’ policy always seemed to contradict the parts of America I had frequented. I found most of the sights, sounds, people and places to reflect that smiley type of liberalism I had come accustomed to from the media I most often gravitated toward. But when you are out there and curate opinion, the same pessemistic reflection always crops up when you ask about  this issue. It was as if it were a conservative constant that would remain ever present in at least one aspect of American society no matter how liberal the mainstream zeitgeist got – the military. What should be acknowledged as discriminatory and undermining is simply accepted as part of the military’s make-up; “It’s just the way it is”, they’d say. And that, to me, seems pretty rich for a country that asks these people to fight two wars on their behalf. Years of persistence paid off here and that’s good news. It was only in 2000 that the UK repealed its own ban on openly gay soldiers and that pretty much came down to the remarkable sustained pressure from those who had been discharged and had challenged the policy –  it culminated in a suit with the European Court of Human Rights. This is a human rights issue and that’s why this recent repeal is encouraging but it baffles me how we are on the lazy end of 2010 and are still having this conversation.

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December 18, 2010

WikiRebels – The SVT Documentary

This is by far the most in-depth piece on Wikileaks out there currently. It goes through the organisation’s entire history and has a lot of archive including a young pony tailed Assange.  The ‘Collateral Damage’ video, the Afghan War Diaries, Iraq War Logs right up until where we are now with the Diplomatic Cables, rape allegations and Openleaks split. Compelling stuff. Journalism itself and the wider political landscape enter 2011 with a world turned outward on itself. An incredible story.

In its entirety above or alternatively here:

PART 1:

PART 2:

PART 3:

PART 4:

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December 17, 2010

AUDIOBOO: In Studio With Paul Mixing Our Doc

My first AudioBoo. Nice. We were in the studio in Lewisham recording final V/O for our Sri Lanka documentary with our indomitable soundscaper Paul Anderson. He lives in his rather homely studio full of speakers and foam walls.

He has an impeccable tympanic membrane. I urge you all to employ him: www.koalamouse.com

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December 16, 2010

Two Scenes From Our Sri Lanka Documentary

Here are a couple of scenes from our documentary on the fallout of Sri Lanka’s civil war. The aim with The Truth That Wasn’t There was always to focus on the humanity of those involved on the ground and at its periphery. Hopefully through the telling of our stories more voices can be raised that can contribute to the bigger picture.  And in the long term I hope, if nothing else, the film serves to at least pull focus for a short time upon our common ignorance.  The images of the battlegrounds we captured on film were of utter desolation, of settled debris and parched praries.  This war ended without witness. So you’ll find no expose here. Our only submission as filmmakers is that whatever narrative or perspective anyone prescribes for this war, no-one can claim the ultimate truth because there isn’t anything left to ground it upon.

I hope the following clips illustrate this and perhaps provides our perspective too.

MENIK FARM:

THE ROAD TO MULLAITIVU:

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