Gang Documentarian Killed in El Salvador

By PopEater / Wire Services Posted Sep 4th 2009 07:54AM

The film world is in shock after a French documentary maker who spent years filming a brutally violent Salvadoran street gang was found shot to death in a gang-riddled El Salvador neighborhood. El Salvador's top prosecutor said Thursday the involvement of gangs was under consideration in the killing of Christian Poveda, a former war photographer whose latest film takes an intimate look at the violent lives of gang members deported back to the Central American country after serving time in U.S. prisons.

Salvadoran Attorney General Astor Escalante declined to provide more details of the ongoing investigation.

"It is our duty to do everything we can to find those responsible," he said.

Poveda, 53, was found Wednesday inside a car in the rural Tonacatepeque region north of the capital of San Salvador. He was shot in the head.

The day of his death, the filmmaker had set out to visit the gang-dominated area of Soyapango, just outside the capital, to arrange an interview with female gang members for journalists from a French fashion magazine. He told an Associated Press photographer about the outing before leaving.

Gang violence in impoverished El Salvador fuels one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America.

Poveda practically lived among members of one gang, the Mara 18, to create "La Vida Loca," filming gang initiations, drug use, tattoo session and funerals. Pirated copies of the film are sold on the streets of the capital, and even Salvadorans consider the documentary to be a shocking glimpse into gang life.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner praised Poveda's intrepid work, calling him "a respected journalist, a professional who never hesitated to take great risks in the name of freedom of information."

In April, Poveda told the Los Angeles Times that despite the drugs, shootings, beatings and cruelty he captured on the film, he had sympathy for many of the gang members, whom he described as "victims of society."

"As savage as they can be, they're people of their word. The gangs are very well-structured organizations and the decision made by a gang is the final one. From the moment I understood that, I had no problems," he said.

Poveda, who lived and worked as a filmmaker and photojournalist in El Salvador during the civil war that began in 1980, had recently begun touring with "La Vida Loca."

Salvadoran Public Safety Minister Manuel Melgar called Poveda's slaying a "repugnant and reproachable criminal act" and said police would work "tirelessly" to find the killers.

The French ambassador in San Salvador said France would support the Salvadoran investigation.

Reporters Without Borders board member Alain Mingham, a friend of Poveda's, said the filmmaker was able to be committed to and involved with his subjects without taking sides.

The son of Spanish Republicans who sought refuge in France, Poveda reported from Chile under the Pinochet dictatorship, and also covered the civil war in Nicaragua in the 1980s, Mingham said.

During his 30-year career, Poveda wrote for a variety of publications including Time and Newsweek magazines, Paris Match and Figaro, from posts in Latin America, Iran and Iraq, Sierra Leone and the Philippines.

"His humanistic convictions went hand-in-hand with a great deal of professional rigor," Mingham said.

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Tags: Christian Poveda, ChristianPoveda, el salvador, ElSalvador

Comments

(66)

Tuesday 08 September

By Reagan

Vote down Vote up Report this

This is like the story of "Grizzly Adams"; except sad.

By JAMIE

Actually Deborah was right with her first comment. One of the biggest Spanish Gangs MS-13 orginated on the streets of Los Angeles. It flourished when its members we're deported after serving their time in US prisons. So we taught them how to do it sent them to fertile ground to grow and then got mad when they came back.

By web

If Bush took their oil...............

Thursday 10 September

By Alfredo Morfin

Society is to blame for the gang's in our country and all over the world, first we must stop our polition's on commiting crime against our own people,we must ctiticaly overhaull all our American system,There are hundred's of violation's in the white house commited by American polition's, crime's that are ignored by Congress,we are in a ressesion headed to a depression all because polition's of america are in serious and fatal violation's of our American Law's violation's of international law;s, invasion of Iraq,Violation's of the Constution of the United States and violation's of there secreat oth office, There for WE THE PEOPLE VOTER'S OF THE UNITED STATES WHO PAY POLITION'S, FROM TAX PAYER'S MONEY WANT TO STOP THIS CRIME'S OF ACT'S BY POLITION'S IN WASHINGTON,WE WANT TO ENFORCE OUR AMERICAN LAWE'S AND BRING TO JUSTICE ALL POLITION'S WHO ARE IN VIOLATION'S UNITED STATE'S LAW'S, LIKE THE ILLEGAL WAR'S KILLING INNOCENT AMERICAN;S AMONG ATHER INNOCENT PEOPLE SPENDING BILLION'S OF AMERICAN TAX PAYER'S MONEY TO COMMIT MURDER. WE THE PEOPLE SHALL BRING HONESTY AND JUSTICE TO AMERICA. WE THE PEOPLE.

By jeanne

i just don't understand why everyone in the film world is shocked. Really? Why? It's not like he was out filming school plays. Did they think he would be under the protection of one of the many thugs he filmed? I have not seen any of his films but maybe when the glory didn't go to the right gang they took him out. I feel paying attention to any gang is a waste of time. Let the cops do it. Don't give the gangstas any more notariety or facetime by letting them mug for the cameras.

By jim

They should deport more out of US.

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