On Friday 4 September, the Frontline Club hosted a screening of Cartel Land, a fearless and revealing documentary that portrays the violent influence of Mexican drug cartels and the vigilante groups fighting to end their reign of terror. The screening was followed by a Q&A with the film’s director Matthew Heineman.

Cartel Land takes place in the border state of Arizona in the USA, and in the Mexican state of Michoácan. The latter has been overrun by a number of cartels, including the brutal Knights Templar, who have taken advantage of high level corruption and an absence of legitimate state presence in order to take control with increasingly violent tactics.

The film follows Dr José Manuel Mireles, who Heineman described as “the single most interesting man I’ve ever been around,” and his newly-formed Autodefensas: a rapidly growing group of armed civilians who are determined to force out the cartels and bring peace back to their towns. Just across the US-Mexico border in Arizona is Tim “Nailer” Foley, who leads a group of armed patriot vigilantes in patrolling the border. While Foley’s original intentions were based on a staunch anti-immigration ideology, his motives expanded to include the defence of the US border against Mexican cartels.

The film was very well received by the audience, with many keen to learn more about Heineman‘s experience of working in the notoriously-violent state of Michoácan. The filmmaker told the audience that he had no experience of working in conflict prior to Cartel Land; his previous film focused on healthcare in the US. While there was a constant threat of witnessing a violent confrontation in Arizona, this never materialised. In contrast, the violence in Mexico was “visceral, it was real”:

“I’m not a war reporter… so it was terrifying. I’d never been in a place where there was gunfire going off, I’d never been in a place where people were being tortured, so I had no idea where this film would lead me.”

The film vividly portrays the extent to which gunfire has become commonplace in cartel-led towns across Mexico. This is not dampened by the presence of the Autodefensas, who are themselves heavily armed. As the movement grows, the corruption, acts of intimidation and misuse of power that they claim to be fighting also begin to appear and spread within their own group.

@mheineman premiered his #sundance #winner #documentary at the @frontlineclub and it was #amazing #london #journali… pic.twitter.com/M5Pcy0GG5o

— Annabelle Azade (@AnnabelleAzade) September 4, 2015

An audience member asked whether Heineman was hopeful that the situation in Michoácan would improve. He responded that, despite the Mexican government implementing new measures of reform and legitimising the Autodefensas as a state force, the situation has worsened. “The violence has continued, kidnappings have continued. The thing that everyone feared all along, revenge and anarchy, has played out.”

Heineman told Frontline Club audience members that while he considers himself an “eternal optimist,” he doesn’t view the situation with hope. Mexican government institutions continue to fail to “provide basic safety and security for their citizens.” Heineman extended this criticism to Mexico as a whole, “especially at the local level… [there is] direct collusion between cartels and local government. We see that all throughout Mexico. But the biggest thing is us, is Americans: we’re funding this war through our consumption of drugs.”

In terms of the filming process on the ground, Heineman explained that he had intended to spend two weeks filming in Mexico, but ended up staying for nine months. As a result, he was able to develop close relationships with many high-level Autodefensas leaders.

“They were risking their lives and dying fighting for what they believed in and we were tagging along with them, so I think there was a level of respect that came with that.”

Heineman recounted one particular incident in which his lengthy commitment to the project resulted in astounding access. As detailed in the opening and closing sequences of the film, Heineman gained accesses to an outdoor operation producing meth, where ‘cookers’ openly admit that profits from the sale of the drugs feed directly into the Autodefensas.

Cartel Land is currently showing in cinemas across the UK. More information can be found on the film’s website.

Iain Overton

By Will Worley

On Wednesday 22 April 2015, the Frontline Club welcomed investigative journalist and director of policy and investigations at UK charity Action on Armed Violence, Iain Overton for a discussion on his latest book, Gun Baby Gun: A Bloody Journey into the World of the Gun. The event was chaired by ANC former politician and author Andrew Feinstein, who has written extensively on the global arms trade.

Overton began by reading an extract from Gun Baby Gun, describing the aftermath of a brutal shooting in Brazil. Soon after witnessing this event, he visited a basement gun repository in Sao Paulo, where he found “thousands and thousands of guns across the walls, a bit like a horrific library, where every sort of gun seemed to have a background story.”

This “basement of horrors” led Overton to realise that every single gun present “told this story of disconnected realities.”

The ignorance of arms manufacturers and dealers as to the eventual fate of their guns “made me think how the gun is separated in all of its different segments.”

Overton elaborated on the many aspects of the gun covered by his book: “its dead, its wounded, the suicidal, the killers, the criminals, the police, the military, civilians, hunters, traders, smugglers, lobbyists, manufacturers.” The relationship between gender and the cult of the gun is even explored in a chapter aptly titled ‘Sex Pistols.’

“Every single isolated group around the gun is seen through my eyes as part of a whole.”

Guns are the biggest killer in war – 90% of deaths during conflict are a result of guns. They are also the biggest killer in armed violence – 60% of all violent deaths are by the gun. In the USA, 20,000 people commit suicide every year with a gun. Although the National Rifle Association (NRA) claims that gun deaths in the US have fallen significantly, this is down to significant advancements in trauma care, largely developed as a result of the experiences of the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. What is not often taken into account is the colossal rise in the numbers of those wounded by guns annually.

The ubiquity of guns in some parts of the world and the resulting violence go largely unreported internationally, despite huge numbers of casualties. Central America is a particular case in point, as El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico witness huge levels of violence as a result of the ongoing US-led ‘war on drugs’.

Overton also pointed out that many Central American cartel members have their guns made to order north of the border in the United States.

Great night at the @frontlineclub w/ @iainoverton & @andrewfeinstein on people’s relationships people with guns – pic.twitter.com/f1UyB2iwwW”

— Jenny Marc (@JennyLMarc) April 22, 2015

In many instances of violence globally, the presence of a gun has become an assumption, rather than a newsworthy element of the story. “The gun has just become a background noise in violence.”

Overton went on to highlight the transformative power of the gun. There is a “very physical transformation that occurs in a man when he picks up a gun.” Being in possession of a gun emboldens people to the point of recklessness, he added.

“It transforms power, it transforms situations. And for the people who are in the midst of despair, it doesn’t take a lot to pick up a gun and end your life.”

“I don’t think the book is anti-gun,” concluded Overton, as the discussion drew to a close. “If someone has their life dictated by going out hunting at the weekend, they see the gun as purely a tool to take down a deer.”

There are 12 billion bullets produced every year – almost two bullets for every person on the planet. Guns kill as many as 500,000 people every year. Tearing lives apart, they impact not only the dead, the wounded, the suicidal and the mourning, but have far-reaching effects on society and communities.

In a hard-hitting exploration, award-winning investigative journalist Iain Overton journeyed to over 25 countries, from South Africa to Iceland, Honduras to Cambodia, to try and understand the true impact of gun crime.

From porn starlets who appear as snipers in XXX films, Zionist anti-terror gun trainers, El Salvadoran gangland killers and South African doctors soaked in the blood of gunshot victims, Overton tells the harrowing and sobering stories of lives directly affected by guns.

Iain Overton will be joining us in conversation with writer and author of The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, Andrew Feinstein, to discuss what he has learnt about the impact of gun crime, the relationships we have with guns and the place they occupy in every day life.

Iain Overton is Director of Investigations at the London-based charity Action on Armed Violence and an investigative journalist who has worked in over eighty countries around the world. Reporting from the killing zones of Colombia, Iraq and Somalia, he has made films for the BBC, ITN and Al Jazeera, as well as working with The Guardian, The Independent and The Sunday Times. He was founding editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and is author of Gun Baby Gun.