News from El Salvador for
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French filmmaker who exposed El Salvador gangs slain
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| Published on Friday, September 4, 2009 | Email To Friend Print Version
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SAN SALVADOR -- A Franco-Spanish journalist has been brutally murdered in El Salvador, weeks before the release of his latest documentary on the violent drug-running gangs that blight the country.
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| Christian Poveda has been assassinated |
Christian Poveda, 54, was found dead near his vehicle on a road north of the capital San Salvador on Wednesday, with what an autopsy later confirmed were four bullet wounds to the face, police and doctors said.
He had been filming in La Campanera, a suburb of El Salvador's capital where gangs known as "maras" pervade.
Investigators said it was not clear if he was the victim of a robbery, or was killed by members of the gangs whose lives he had meticulously documented.
"We can't link his death to any particular hypothesis," said Marco Tulio Lima of the police department's homicide division.
Others said robbery appeared not to have been a motive, since Poveda's car, cameras and recording equipment remained untouched near his body, along with spent nine-millimeter bullet shells.
Born in France to a family of Spanish origin, Poveda covered El Salvador's 1980-1992 civil war and moved here permanently in 2003. He was married to a Salvadoran woman.
"La Vida Loca," his film about the Mara 18 gang, whose heavily-tattooed members engage in drug trafficking and extortion, is set for release in Europe on September 30.
His other documentaries have been broadcast around the world and featured at film festivals.
But his work appeared to have earned him disfavor among some gangs and death threats had been issued against him, according to local media.
"The most probable thing is that he was the victim of one of the gangs he was investigating, a murky underworld that even the local authorities have no handle on," said Jean-Francois Julliard, head of Reporters Without Borders.
El Salvador's President Mauricio Funes, a former journalist who knew Poveda, said he was "dismayed" by the death, which he "strongly condemned."
Funes said he gave "precise instructions" to Justice and Security Minister Manuel Melgar and National Police chief Carlos Asencio over their investigation of the crime.
The murder "has shaken" the country, Funes said, adding that the filmmaker was presenting to the world an "objective" view of gang life.
"We don't understand the reasons for the assassination," the president said.
He said the crime should be "cleared up as quickly as possible" and those responsible "put behind bars," while urging Salvadorans to unite to "combat" the scourge of gang violence.
"It is a sad loss," said Juan Jose Dalton of the Foreign Correspondents Association of El Salvador. "The cruel hand of violence has taken him from us."
Tributes to Poveda poured in from around the world.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists lauded Poveda's "powerful inside look into youth violence in one of Central America's most dangerous regions," and urged authorities to carry out "a prompt and exhaustive inquiry" into his murder.
The French foreign ministry described him as "a great professional who did not hesitate to take great risks in the service of freedom of information."
In Spain, organizers of the San Sebastian Film Festival paid tribute to Poveda, where "La Vida Loca" was first presented last year.
The festival organizers condemned Poveda's murder and said "the best tribute that can be done is to see" the film.
Poveda spent 16 months filming in La Campanera to show the drugs deals, thefts, killings and police raids that fill the daily lives of the "maras," gangs who have multiplied in several Central American countries in recent years.
In an interview with AFP in 2008, Poveda said he wanted to draw attention to what he considers a "social phenomenon" and not just a "problem of delinquency."
Alain Mingan, a journalist and friend, paid tribute to "a great professional, widely respected in the world of photojournalism and documentary-making."
"He wanted to show what remained of humanity in this world of violence, and he has paid the price for it."
The French embassy said his remains would be transferred to Alicante, southern Spain, where his family lives. | | | | Reads : 913 |
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