Posted on 05/26/2015 8:22:13 AM PDT by OK Sun
Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat
In January 2014, in the state of Michoacán, Mexico, a conflict known as the rising up of the autodefensas breaks out. Citizens, farmers, and civil professionals tired of the abuses from drug traffickers and the obvious complicity of government structures, decide to take up arms and form a community police in order to address the problem directly. A group of them decided to move towards the coast, but they are not alone, they are accompanied by two independent journalists, Rafael Prime (México) and Nicolás Tapia (Chile). Everything that happened during those turbulent days were recorded on their cameras and now they take form in “Recuperando el Paraíso”, a documentary that seeks independent support through crowd funding in order to finalize their project.
El Ciudadano spoke with Rafael and Nicolás, who gave them more details about this incredible story.
Nicolás: It actually all happened a bit by chance. We met covering the protests of the teachers in the Federal District (Capital of Mexico) in 2013, trying to prevent a photographer colleague from being taken away by the police, we didn’t manage to avoid his arrest, but that event led us to know each other and establish a relationship of mutual trust. From there, I started to participate more actively in the movement of the free media in Mexico, that’s what they call the community press here, and when the armed uprising of the autodefensas in Michoacán broke out, Rafael and I didn’t think much of it and we headed towards the conflict zone in order to cover the conflict from a community perspective. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at borderlandbeat.com ...
Good thing Mexican citizens are limited to crappy calibers and small pistols in their homes. Otherwise it might be a dangerous place.
Well, at least they’re trying to defend themselves. One of the problems is that serious attacks by the police or military on the gangs is immediately politicized by the left and thus the “official” defense forces end up hamstrung. So an armed citizen’s gotta do what an armed citizen does.
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