Uncovering crime and corruption - Anabel Hernández takes on Mexico's drug cartels | DW Documentary

my name is john dunda i've been working as a journalist for the last 40 years now and i have paid almost every price of being a journalist in a country like turkey i was threatened i was jailed i was attacked and i was exiled in the end and i've been living in exile for the last five years now [Music] there are more people like me out there and i will be meeting them to see how they cope with the situation corruption is the problem in mexico people are flying every day [Music] they want to kill me and they try many times they kill some of my sources just because they talk with me [Music] she's been digging the country's soil to find out the truth [Music] [Music] so [Music] hello hello annabelle hi good to see you how are you doing uh we are we are fine and how are you yeah not bad we had a small trouble with the security because i have to inform the german authorities about my trips for security reasons so i did and they said they have to check if there's a kind of agreement for the exchange of criminals like me and if my name is on the interpol list for red warren so they can take me into custody yeah yeah that's why they said they couldn't guarantee uh my security so you know all those things you know so yeah every time i arrive so yeah you know sometimes it's just this is terrible how our work work became this when you go to work it's like go to work exactly that's exactly what we want to talk to you about yeah [Music] annabel hernandez is a very important journalist who put a light on the drug trafficking issues in mexico not only the drug cartels but also she found documents and enlightened the relationship between the officials and the drug cartels so it's important and of course at the same time it's dangerous and that's why she had to leave her country [Music] now she's been living in exile where she's safe but she keeps traveling to mexico to research her stories my home country turkey is a dangerous country for journalists but at least they're only putting germans in jail but it's uncomparable with mexico instead of putting them in jail they just simply kill them mexico is the most dangerous country in the world for journalists so [Music] glad to hear we're the small see unbelievable it's great to have you [Music] you're great so what do you think about my country inspiring chaotic difficult did you did you did you read on the news that just two journalists were murdered just in these days when you were here of course this is how this happens all the time and my family has been calling me did you see the news everyone can hear you everywhere it's really scary it is scary now i understand better yeah when you became a target it's really it's really difficult because it's so violent and unsafe in mexico in general that when one journalist is murdered everyone said ah it's because the country is like this it's not because you are a journalist it's because it could be you or could you be anyone someone else yeah it's not because you're joining us that's a point i have a lot to talk to you [Music] when i go to mexico i have to be with bodyguards and i go to the health because i go to visit most of the time the worst people in my country [Music] one of the most difficult things with annabelle is filming her investigations because if you show it openly you may put people in danger so we wanted annabelle to take us with her and explain how she works [Music] in mexico this corruption is everywhere [Music] i had to prove that one official has money has properties has a life that doesn't correspond with the salary with the declaration of taxes you know all these things i have to go there take photographs confirms that just the document of the property correspond to the characteristics of the house i couldn't stop until now because every time that i discover new things i have new questions how when who is involved journalist is not it's not to know already everything is make you questions and try to search answers to these questions no matter which is answered [Music] we decided to meet in palermo because this is a symbolic place for a journalist who is working on mafia and this city has a huge mafia history of course and it was really interesting smelling the stories around [Music] i like to write i should prefer to not write about these stories because they are very painful yeah but um in mexico the impunity is is is terrible i mean the 90 96 of all the crimes in mexico all the crimes small ones big ones are impune there is no justice sometimes the only justice that one victim can get is c the true publish yeah i remember that i did my first research about drugs when i was just 23. i discovered a wire of people that used to sell drugs in corners in a very dangerous place in mexico city called tepito that notice that report was my first eight columns in the in the newspaper and then something terrible happened in my life my father was kidnapped a murder in december 2000 i was already a journalist he was kidnapped a murderer just for money he was a medium class businessman and for us until now was impossible to get justice and that changed forever my point of view of life my point of view of justice and my point of view of myself what is my role as a journalist so i really since 2000 i really just were focused on organized crime corruption and impunity [Music] when you see those your news in papers how do you feel i'm glad that i still be alive to be able to publish these stories because i think that people deserve to know people needs to know what is happening there going outside mexico city with annabel hernandez was too dangerous for us but still we want to understand the conditions under which she's been working and that's why we went to the state of guerrero where she researched her most important story it's a symbolic place to search for the relationship between the narcos the government to understand the difficulties the risks the fears of people and we wanted to feel it uh this is my first time in mexico and that is everywhere here from the headlines of the papers to the paintings on the walls i realized in the day of death that this is the way they cope with the feeling of that you can see that they respect that people they want to remember them to keep their memories alive and the day of that is kind of the climax of this admiration [Music] they are celebrating with music with eating and comparing our culture which is just warning about to death just crying it's a good way of coping with the death otherwise you are always in pain it's the same every we lay year for the deceased and dig into the soil to loosen it up my father is here [Music] but there is no grave for my son christian there is nowhere nowhere i can set up an altar for him or place a cross none of us really believe that our children are dead [Music] on september of 2014 43 kids disappeared in mexico and i try to not see i try to i don't care okay that happened there so there are other journalists there are other people someone have to take care about this but i started to see that the government started to say really ridiculous hypothesis about what happened and i started to see some contradictions about the witness and i start to investigate at the distance [Music] foreign [Music] this sadness of their son was everywhere so his pictures were everywhere and they've been living with this pain and they all they need is a grave to visit and they don't have it and i wonder if they still have the real hope that one day they can hug him again or they are just searching for the truth hey [Music] you begin to see the injustices what we know is that the police and the military took our children but there are so many things that the state won't tell us they can't say my child is dead that he's been murdered to me my child is still alive because they took him alive i said to the authorities when you took my child he was alive you didn't take him in pieces so i want him back just as he was and if you say that my son is no longer alive that he's dead then i want his whole body not just pieces of him [Music] i discovered that the students were attacked and disappeared by the federal police and the army because the issue is that apparently the students took two buses that were charged by heroin because in galrero is one of the places that produce heroin in mexico they didn't know that the drug was there and apparently the chief of the criminal group called to the general of the 27 battalion and called to the chief of the federal police as asked them i want my drugs back i don't care what you have to do anabel hernandez supported her research pointed to various officials so she began to speak out about it and that helped us now [Music] um [Music] you realize how important investigative journalism is because you are joining a family to search the destiny of a son and it's not only him but 42 others but then thousands of others and annabel hernandez she's in the lack of functioning justice system in some countries like mexico or turkey the journalists had to wear the costume of a prosecutor i'm afraid and behave like public prosecutors fighting for justice searching for truth in the name of [Music] public ah [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Applause] good afternoon please come in [Music] gracias por abrega and i thank you very much for your trust this will be an off-the-record interview of the record i do not know you nor will i publish your name and i strongly suggest that you tell no one absolutely no one that you spoke one of the most stranger things is that the criminals talk to me and reveal their crimes not to the judge not to the attorney general to a journalist because they trust more on me to tell me the truth about their stories [Music] 2007. was it in a house an apartment on a ranch in what context did this take place it was a meeting with his associates that's where some of them just want to talk about nice things about them but most of them really confess their crimes i think sometimes that they try to clean themselves maybe they feel so guilty confessed yes yes you are the priest kind of yeah interesting feeling interesting so you are getting a lot of information thanks to this yeah yeah so maybe they want to win you in their side no they cannot yeah they cannot because i want to destroy them and i don't pretend to to be friendly [Music] yourself in a hotel room with a criminal and putting your life and your loved ones at risk just to reveal the truth that's what she's been doing for the last 20 years now such extremely dangerous works forced her to leave her country the new president felipe calderon started his government on 2006. and he supposedly he declared the so-called war against drugs in mexico and he said i will combat all the cartels i will liberate mexico [Music] so but what i discovered is that the president and one ship of police very close to him genaro garcia luna they wasn't fighting against the cartels they decided to protect one cartel the sinaloa cartel and use the army the federal police and all the power of the state against the other cartels and of course the other cartels get very angry and they start to fight against the government and the cineloa cartel and i was able to document to discover these two documentaries how that that war that was real because was a war between the curtains were creating a lot of murders many people disappeared and i started to document and focus hey he is not a war against drugs the government is involved and my voice was the only one because the people was very scared the the journalists didn't want to talk about that and on 2010 i was able to publish all my research so that became very dangerous for the government and for this group that a policeman so they want to kill me and they tried many times they killed some of my sources they disappeared so me of some of my sources they put in yell some of my sources just because they talk with me [Music] thinking about your mother your loved ones would you think that maybe i shouldn't publish this one because it's so dangerous for them yeah almost every time yeah it's the most difficult part you can be brave for yourself but for endangering the others is so much responsible that's that's why i have to left mexico just that is that is why i have to left mexico so one day 11 gunman arrived to my house my bodyguards were outside they took the control of all the area this this 11 gunman they took to my bodyguards away my house didn't has a number okay so they entered to the house of one neighbor they put the guns in the head and they asked where is the house of annabelle hernandez and my my neighbors have to say is there i wasn't there i wasn't there [Music] facing with a gun can change your life i know this feeling because i faced with this gun [Music] two things can happen one you gave up and you don't want to face with it again second thing is you understand the result of it and you never scared again so i guess she's the second type [Music] what happened i just fell playing soccer [Music] so are you learning the song by ear or looking at the notes i always look at the notes a little ah so you wrote it down i have a piece of paper with notes i wrote them down remember you can practice at home yeah great my son was just one year and months when all these nightmares start so he started to live with bodyguards before he started to walk by himself [Music] i move principally for my kids i try to build a new life for them [Music] i think the best part for me to try to reveal my part of my life here is the opportunity to my son to learn to be happy and i think i feel this obligation to help him to learn to be happy because life is not just suffering yes yes ma'am i don't want to be a victim i also want to learn to be happy it's sometimes hard [Music] [Music] so when you go to mexico don't you feel scared or don't you feel you don't you can you cannot have this feeling because you are not able to go back to turkey but every time that i took that airplane i asked myself what i'm doing why i'm doing this taking the rescue yes and you are saying goodbye to your son everyone every time that i depart i left to my partner all the documents of my son the passport you know the birth certificate all the things because in this way he can protect him he can move him i mean every time i said goodbye to my son and like you never see him again because it's a possibility i mean and it's not just a possibility for me it's also possible is it's happening every day in mexico i i i know i understand that this seems uh crazy but people are flying every day in mexico because this corruption and this cartel so it's a reality but why you are going still because for me my country still be my home it still be my home is i love my country i love the people that live there i every time that i do an interview to a big team i feel that i have to do something else so but is it more important than being a mother sometimes yeah [Music] i don't see any mother who is brave enough to say this this sentence shows us how dedicated those people are to their work and how passionate about their profession [Music] [Music] all right this is a sit-in for the 43 students from ayotsinapa who disappeared it's a permanent protest camp that is occupied 24 hours a day [Music] on december 2014 several organizations decided to set up this protest directly across from the attorney general's office [Music] and we also want to see justice we want these abuses to stop we don't want any more young people to simply disappear [Music] we want the truth and we want justice we want to know what happened we want [Music] in mexico can exist in many cases like this for me what really is incredible is that these relatives don't get tired of fighting is the dignity of these parents even they are very poor they're strong their voices asking for justice until now make the difference [Applause] [Music] [Applause] over here bang this over there bang another one [Music] four people here another cross look what four around here here three they killed three people here it's hard to believe every corner he's pointing out someone is dead every corner on that road was a crime scene mafia is controlling the roads for drug trafficking stories from relatives who disappeared out all around but almost none of the cases is ever sold mario has been searching for his brother for the last nine years es me [Music] my sister magda had prepared food that day and she was expecting us but my brother never showed up we didn't know he'd been kidnapped until that night when we received a phone call demanding 300 000 pesos in exchange for his life we started negotiating with them three days later we had the money together but they did not return our brother to us [Music] mario has been searching for his brother in the surrounding hills [Music] it must be such a desperate thing to do and he's been doing it with just with a hammer and a stick and he's just digging the soil of mexico trying to find his brother [Music] so the rod sinks into the ground easily like here it goes down deep which indicates that the earth is loose this is how we search for our missing relatives by trying to locate that intense smell yes the smell is so strong that at first it's overwhelming it stays in your nose sometimes we could already smell the dead from far off the smell is carried on the air long before you see anything now we're happy to smell that smell it used to be painful but now we are glad when we come across [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow it's really unbelievable smelling the debt but then i realized that this is exactly what anabel hernandez has been doing she's been digging the country's soil to find out the truth and her stick is her pen [Music] [Music] hola this is a colleague from turkey he doesn't speak spanish his name is jan he's also a journalist who's faced persecution like me but he spent time in jail she says that you look spoiled is [Music] it's friday this coming friday but he can't visit her because he's not able to travel to turkey otherwise he would get arrested he lives as a refugee in berlin oh how horrible okay [Music] [Laughter] sorry she's 82 not three i made a big mistake she just want to see you yeah okay sorry annabelle so yeah so she will be hosting you yeah okay computers so i need him [Laughter] she said that it's great that she can you can do this i'm telling her that we can do this but my mother don't want to use any more cell phones no i mean no i don't like to use a cell phone because then those other people call me and tell me things about you and i get scared and nervous get get them she just said that she don't want to have a cell phone because sometimes she receive phone calls people threaten her saying that they kidnap me [Music] that she was pregnant she was she was pregnant of my little sister does she read your books to les miserables [Laughter] how does she feel about this question is my first thought is to worry because i know it will cause you trouble but then i think that you are a very brave woman annabelle does she say to you stop don't do anymore it's dangerous does she say that no no no no the only thing i ask is that you take care of your kids that your kids have nothing to do with this and that you take good care of them and i hope you don't go out on the street too much so they won't take you by surprise does she want her grandchildren wants to be a journalist questions foreign one is enough in the family [Music] um she's still kind of lucky that she can go back to her country she can hug her mother she's still you know going back to her home and at least enjoy some of the environment of her country which is impossible for me i don't know if i could be able to survive without going there i decide to go back and i can do it for me it will be like like be dead if i'm not able to go to see to my mother to to to my sisters to to to the country that i love so have to be very very difficult [Music] do you have any hope that one day you can come back and live in mexico in a free as a free person i will absolutely i will but first i have to work more to clean the house i want to go back to a clean house yeah i don't want to go back to a dirty house as is this country now i want to i have to clean i have to take the garbage outside [Music] so [Music] [Music] imagine they are taking your roots to another place so without your own soil without your own sun you cannot be sure if you will survive there wherever you go it could be the best place in earth it's not your soil that's why i guess every exile wants to go back one day where the roots are [Music] [Music] hey [Music] you

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 697,082

Keywords: Documentary, Documentaries, documentaries, DW documentary, full documentary, DW, documentary 2022, Mexico, drugs cartels, corruption, #DWGuardians, journalism, Press Freedom, anabel hernandez, documentary 2022 crime, corruption in Mexico, Guardians of Truth, guardians of truth, drug cartel, mexican cartel, drug cartels mexico, dw documentary, dw anabel hernandez, anabel hernández, journalism in exile, mexico drug cartel, war on drugs, mexican gangs, mexico cartel documentary

Id: HYm7aJqXK8A

Length: 51min 55sec (3115 seconds)

Published: Tue May 03 2022