Charlie Minn has done it again. His new documentary, The New Juarez, has his viewers riveted, revolted and reimagining their participation in the future of border politics.
The film, which shows the complex interweaving of politics, business, police affairs and personal lives along the U.S.-Mexico border, screened January 25 in the Schoening Center at Arizona Western College.
During the subsequent question-and-answer session, Minn was as direct as he is in the documentary. Clearly, his total involvement in making the film has deeply affected his life and career. His passion is to educate members of the public and involve them in preventing the drug cartels from gaining control over territories in Mexico.
Last year's murder statistics reflect that three people a day were being killed just in the city of Juarez, directly across the border from El Paso, Texas. Minn's previous film, 8 Murders a Day, which screened last spring at AWC, referred to the fact that eight people a day were being killed in Juarez.
The new documentary raises a number of questions: Why have the numbers declined? Are the statistics factual or contrived, and what are the political implications? How are the two governments influencing the situation? What is the involvement of the federal and local police? How are the Mexican people reacting? Most importantly, what is the role of the drug cartels?
Minn's facts are disturbing. Whereas the mainstream U.S. media are sometimes accused of providing a one-sided version of the story, this documentary interviews affected people on several sides of the issue.
For example, the police chief and the mayor of Ciudad Juarez are seen as providing a united front to bring peace to their streets. However, a seedy undercurrent becomes apparent in interviews with educators, journalists, U.S. politicians and citizens of both countries who understand the cartels' influence on both sides of the border.
Images of the heavy hand wielded by local police, graphic photos of bodies fresh with blood, stripped and bound, lying in piles on the street, and the grief of the families who have lost beloved members depict an immense problem that lurks along the border waiting to explode into the U.S.
Minn provides thought-provoking verbal and visual documentation designed to awaken everyone in Mexico, the U.S. and the entire world to the problem -- for example the fact that the U.S. has provided guns to Mexico in the misguided attempt to help the situation. Also, the average Mexican cannot own a gun for protection and so is at the mercy of heavily armed and oppressive local and federal police who sometimes have questionable motives.
It appears that some Mexican government officials are in bed with the cartels, and innocent bystanders are dying by the thousands and end up in mass graves when they dare to speak out against the tyranny that has emerged from having a powerless lower class. Tragically, many parents will never see their children, spouses or parents again.
This documentary teaches us a number of lessons, such as that the U.S. government needs to stop sending loads of guns into Mexico, and Americans need to quit using drugs so that the cartels have no market. Among other things, if the "Juarez" situation spreads, we too might be living with fear and violence.
Photo by AWC Photo Services
