Documentary brings big crowds
Film about Mexico drug wars shown twice because of number of attendees
BY MADELINE LEWIS - MLEWIS@VICAD.COM
December 30, 2008 - 11:21 p.m.
Members of Mexican drug cartels who carry out kidnappings and assassinations “call themselves security,” Rusty Fleming said.
The Dallas-area filmmaker would know. Since 2005, Fleming has spent a lot of time in Mexico or near the U.S. border investigating Mexican drug cartels for a book and documentary. The film, “Drug Wars: Silver or Lead,” screened twice Tuesday night at the Leo J. Welder Center for the Performing Arts in Victoria.
“Drug Wars” was originally slated to show only once, but an additional screening was held to accommodate the large number of people who came to see the film. Afterward, Fleming led a panel discussion with the audience.
A former cocaine addict and alcoholic, Fleming began working at the Rhema Ranch drug and alcohol rehab center in the Dallas-area nine years ago. In 2005, he observed a new trend among some of the young adults getting treatment at the center.
“I started noticing all these young kids, 18, 19, 20 years old, coming into rehab all torn up,” he said. “I had used for 20 years and I didn’t look as bad as they did.”
Many were addicted to ice, or crystal meth. Fleming decided to investigate the source of the methamphetamine. He initially planned to do a short film on the crystal meth supply in Texas, but his focus soon expanded to the Mexican drug cartels.
Since that time, Fleming has interviewed cartel members, law enforcement and victims of cartel violence, including William Slemaker from Laredo, who also attended the film screening Tuesday.
Four years ago, Slemaker’s 27-year-old stepdaughter, Yvette Martinez, and her friend, Brenda Cisneros, disappeared in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Slemaker found Martinez’s pearl white Mitsubishi Galant, but not his stepdaughter nor her friend. He hopes that they are still alive.
Cartel members kidnap some women to force them into prostitution or give them as gifts to their leaders, he said. These women are often just innocent bystanders.
“I hate it when people say that this only happens to people involved in drugs,” Slemaker said. “That is the biggest misconception that people have.”
Slemaker participated in the film because he believes it might help the effort to recover Martinez.
“To me, it means an avenue for someone out there with power and the means to help me find my daughter,” he said.
The Laredo man’s story inspired Fleming to continue the project after he was close to giving up.
“To know that so many people are missing and nobody’s looking, I had to get this story out,” Fleming said.
From his research, Fleming has concluded that law enforcement and American citizens are wrong to view Mexican cartel members as simply drug dealers.
“The number one thing the American people need to understand is what this problem is or they’ll never get to a solution,” he said. “This is a whole new generation of very smart, very powerful criminal minds and they are not drug cartels. They are narcoterrorists.”
To find out more about “Drug Wars” and future screenings of the film, go to the Web site, http://www. drugwarsthemovie. com/
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