Thursday, September 29, 2016

Reflection on Cartel Land

The documentary I chose to summarize was Cartel Land, directed by Matthew Heineman. The reason I chose this documentary was because I felt like I had some sort of background knowledge on the violent crimes happening in Mexico.

      The scene that stunned me was the interview with Nicolás Sierra Santana. In his interview he mentioned how he was one of the leaders of the vigilante group los Autodefensas, a leader of the Rural Defense Force, and also a member of Los Viagras. It was an eye opener to see how corrupt the police force must be, to have a cartel members be involved.

            It surprised me to see that this is the kind of corruption taking place in Mexico. The documentary tells stories of some on the crimes the cartel commits and it honestly scares me to the core. Mostly because my family and I are from Michoacán, where the documentary takes place. Now I have that constant paranoia every time one of my family members fly out there.

            As I said before, I had some sort of background knowledge of what was going on in Mexico. However, I never had the full details. After seeing this documentary, I question how corrupted the government must be. As well as what is the president doing in this situation? I’ve heard of Mexico being corrupted, but I didn’t imagine it like this.


Some of the problematic concepts I saw in the film was obviously, how are the cartel members able to have positions in the police force? During the film, there are scenes where the President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, speaks on behalf of the violence. However, none of the citizens take him seriously. I question what is the President doing about the crimes and why do Mexicans hate him so much? One of the main characters in the film was Dr. José Manuel Mireles who was the one who started the vigilante group Los Autodefensas. He was put in prison for weapon charges but some believe the government put him there in a way to shut him up.  In addition, I would like to do further research on human drug trafficker’s in the border, since the documentary also touches base on that.

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