Vigilante Protagonist of an Oscar-Nominated Drug War Movie Speaks from a Mexican Jail Nathaniel Janowitz - VICE News
go to original February 7, 2016

Dr. Jose Manuel Mireles, the leader of the Self-Protection Police of Tepalcatepec, Michoacan state, Mexico, speaks during an interview while he was hunting pigeons on December 1, 2013, (Omar Torres/AFP)

The documentary film Cartel Land portrays Mexican vigilante leader José Manuel Mireles as a flawed hero who stood up to one of the country's most barbarous drug cartels, but who also succumbed to the temptation of abusing his new power.

Mireles is currently languishing in prison, while the movie that he has never seen is in the running for an Oscar. VICE Media is an official marketing partner on the film.



"I want to thank the enormous effort you made alongside me for the Oscar that we are probably going to win," the imprisoned Mireles told the director Matthew Heineman in a recording obtained from a confidential source. "I wish I could see the film with you in person and be at the ceremony to receive it."

Mireles — with his easy charisma, way with words, and Marlboro Man-esque look — quickly became the most famous leader within the vigilante movement that sprung up three years ago in the Hot Land region of the state of Michoacán to fight the Knights Templar drug cartel.

At the time the Templarios ruled over the area. The cartel not only murdered, kidnapped, and extorted at will, it also ran a kind of de facto government that municipal, state, and federal forces did little to stop. In some towns cartel lookouts were paid through the municipal budget.

This changed in early 2014 when the rising influence of the militia threatened to tip the region into civil war and the government found itself under enormous pressure to prove that it could regain control of the situation. Large numbers of federal forces were deployed and joint operations with the vigilantes began that, over the course of the year, appeared to bring the Knights Templar to their knees.

Cartel Land follows Mireles at the height of his popularity rallying the support of country folk in his efforts to expel the cartel. He is repeatedly shown speaking to cheering crowds, and being surrounded by adoring and grateful locals who seem genuinely inspired by him and his movement.

But the film also highlights the moral ambiguity of both the battle in Michoacán, and of its lead character.

Read the rest at VICE News

Related: Where Mexico's Drug War Was Born: A Timeline of the Security Crisis in Michoacán (VICE News)

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