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News reports say a French documentary maker who spent years filming a brutally violent Salvadoran street gang was found shot in the head inside a car in a gang-riddled El Salvador neighborhood. El Salvador's top prosecutor said gangs were suspected in the killing of 53-year-old Christian Poveda, the maker of La Vida Loca examining the violent lives of gang members who fuel El Salvador's high homicide rates. The documentary filmed gang initiations, drug use, tattoo sessions, shootings, beatings, and funerals. On the day of his death, the filmmaker had set out to arrange an interview with female gang members for journalists from a French fashion magazine. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner praised the former war photographer's work, calling him "a respected journalist, a professional who never hesitated to take great risks in the name of freedom of information." Poveda had recently begun touring with La Vida Loca.
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Thank you for covering this story, Nikki. This guy was more than “respected” or “professional”, he was carved out of wood in a way that most respected professionals in Hollywood (including myself!) will never approach. Poveda had huevos.
Am surprised the drug gangs allowed to live this long. Meaning even drug thugs become seduced by the camera.
At least until they think it blinked on them.
and with drug cartels thugs now killing people in drug rehabs…life is getting even cheaper.
It would nice if their government really took to ending this, but and sadly, most are active, if behind-the-scenes, participants.
Before you condemn those countries, people who live there blame the enormous US appetite for drugs as the cause of the corruption of their governments. And they are the ones really living with the consequences.
vermontfudge:
To say that America’s appetite for drugs is the cause of political corruption in El Salvador is ludicrous.
The only people to blame for political corruption are the corrupt politicians themselves, period.
it’s like grizzly man.
Those countries like to blame the U.S. for their problems. But really the blame game on their end is just to cover up their government’s lack of crack down. Those governments are generally corrupt. And their economies depend on drug trade, even with the gangs.
WE blame the United States for raping our nations since 1820. WE blame the U.S. for being irresponsible and putting the entire region in jeopardy at the hands of their own greed. If you need to be educated in this subject, I suggest you pick up a book.
You mean after the Spanish raped it for 250 years?
Gangs that are in El Salvador now were created in the U.S. then eventually brought back to this country so yes, I could see how the U.S. is to blame in this particular case.
the “war on drugs” claims another victim. great.
Gee do ya think it might be gang related??
RT
http://www.privacy-web.pl.tc
Another argument for legalization. Of course in Latin America they would still be killing each other over something,(probably women).
Malparidos! Me da angustia sabiendo que esto es lo que representa mi pais en el mundo. Que es esto!?
Honestly, every time I see a story about these gangs, the violence and the impotence of the Salvadorian Government, I want to rip my eyes out. It’s an embarrassment… Our country is still recovering from the Civil War, and from the way things are going I see us walking right into another one.
What a surprise…some Frenchman hangs around a gang and he gets shot by some savages. Why are they praising him? Such stupidity warrants admonishment, even to the point of speaking ill of the dead.
But he was a Spaniard, wasn’t he? Both of his parents were Spaniards but he was born in Algiers.
Well, Spanish-French.
Wow, I can’t believe it! This is such a shock.
That’s a shame. Poor guy was an artist of his trade and some low-life killed him. Yes, he took some risk but how are we ever going to know the truth without some risk taking.
SimAlex2000 Here Here! “The War On Drugs” is killing more people. The War on Drugs is B.S.
The sad part is that MS-13 (and 18th Street gang) of El Salvador (MS-13 being the most violent gang in the world) originated in the US when Latinos felt they fit in neither with the caucasian, asian, or african american gangs and decided to start Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). They became a problem when the US government began deporting these criminals in custody back to El Salvador where they held no criminal records and were released to the streets to recruit members of their gangs. The prisons are now segregated with members of one gang not being allowed in a prison holding strictly members of the opposing gang. Prisons are also run from the inside not by the wardens but by the gang bosses. This is just a small peek at how bad the gang situation is in El Salvador.
Dear readers
Recently, many gang related documentaries have been aired throughout the world, but sometimes, you cannot just watch a video and pass judgment on people and a country before fully understanding the nature of the problem..
El Salvador is going through a drastic cultural change , and the said change is taking us through the path of fighting crime with all we got, just like the united states has done throughout its history.
What el Salvador needs, is not bad press, nor prejudiced comments, its needs a buddy system, meaning, a group of countries with the knowhow and funds to eradicate the issue at its roots.
Yes, i know, it is in fact a an ideal and utopist dream, but it could in fact work.
if we say that what we have is a socio-cultural problem, then let’s start by fighting the first part of this socio-cultural problem, not the end product. What we need is,
1- identify-analyze and create a solution for each of the items found, such as;
* lack of parental supervision
* lack of family unity
* lack of work training related programs
* lack of police brutality supervision
* lack of abuse protection laws and its enforcement.
* lack of mental health services for those” so called children of war”
Putting gang members in prison is just the temporary solution to the problem< when you put a gang member in jail, we perpetuate the cycle of abuse and violence talked about by many professionals, what we need is to stop. Think and process the right solutions.
The recent documentaries in gangs are close to 1% of the real truth of el Salvador, because it could only show the street value of the gangs, it did not show the professional and corporate value of the same gangs. it is in those levels that has to be stopped first. but off course, it is impossible to stop it at those levels, but it could be reduced to lower levels.
to those judging el Salvador based on this recent documentaries , I ask you to create instead of destroy the image of el Salvador.
Look for funds outside el Salvador, and create programs that could in fact create a solution for it.
Think and look for ways of supporting programs to assist these gang members on their way out of the gangs.
for people that have reached a higher level of professionalism and have ventured into politics. Help push for AID programs for el Salvador. But not programs ran by locals, they have to be programs ran by foreigners willing to give all for the cause and to keep them effective until the end.
Let’s create an international agency, to focus on developing programs (specifically for gang related individuals and gang affected communities)
As government they are doing what they can, but as citizens, we as well are responsible of helping end this problem, or at least, just at least find a common ground for all of us.
lets think and créate