VICE (2013) s06e25 Episode Script

1 SHANE SMITH: This week on Vice: Violence and impunity in Mexico.
(DIEGO OSORNO SPEAKING) GIANNA TOBONI: Who is hiring you to kill these people? (HITMAN SPEAKING SPANISH) Jesus Christ.
SMITH: And then: bringing Trumpism to Europe.
(CHEERING) MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: You're looking around for kids to give Donald Trump reelection stickers to.
I literally have no idea what's going on.
- (CLAPPING) - We love Trump! Migration, national identity We didn't care about that in Sweden, but that is what is going on right now with the Bannonization of politics.
(CHEERING) (THEME MUSIC PLAYING) (CROWD SHOUTING) They're saying that right now, it's time for change.
(INDISTINCT SHOUTING) 2018 is on track to be Mexico's deadliest year on record, with over 20,000 homicides so far.
While major cartels are splintering and infighting, local governments have been corrupted by drug gangs, making the violence widespread and systemic, with more than 90 percent of crimes going unsolved.
We sent Gianna Toboni to Mexico to meet the people risking their lives in an attempt to make their civil society work again.
(WOMAN SPEAKING SPANISH) (ENGINE RUMBLES) TOBONI: This is Marcela.
Her 30-year-old son, Dorian, disappeared from their neighborhood six years ago.
Since then, the authorities have done little to investigate it.
So, every day, she wakes up, and she looks for him, and each person here today does the same.
Is this your son here? (GRUNTS) So, Marcela's at the bottom of the well right now, and she's just starting to dig.
You can see her getting just pieces of the ground-up dirt and whatever else is down there.
(SPEAKING SPANISH) (MARCELA SPEAKS) (SPEAKING SPANISH) (MARCELA SPEAKS) - (CARLOS SPEAKS) - (MARCELA SPEAKS) (GRUNTS) (PANTING) TOBONI: What if you found your son Dorian here? Do you think that you'll find him here? (SIGHS) (SPEAKING SPANISH) (SIGHS) TOBONI: No remains were found in the well that day.
Over the course of two years, Solecito Colectivo has uncovered more than a hundred mass graves.
But so far, they still have no answers on their own family members.
May 2018 was Mexico's bloodiest month on record, with one person killed every 15 minutes on average.
While cartel violence is nothing new, the relationship between organized crime and local government has only become more entrenched.
In a country where those investigating crimes are often the ones committing them, the last line of defense is local journalists.
We're in a town right on the border of Oaxaca and Veracruz.
This is the deadliest place to work as a local journalist.
We're visiting this newspaper.
It's one of the most acclaimed newspapers in Mexico.
It's also one of the ballsiest when it comes to reporting on cartels and on corrupt politicians.
(WHIRRING) TOBONI: Pedro Tamayo Rosas was murdered by two men in his home, while under police protection.
After Pedro's death, El Piñero has only one remaining crime beat reporter, Betillo Carmona.
Are you concerned that you could share his same fate? (SPEAKING SPANISH) If you know you could be killed doing this job, why do you do it? Why is it so important to you? - Jesus Christ.
- (VIDEO PLAYING ON PHONE) This person is dismembered.
Their head is cut off.
I mean, it's completely the most brutal thing you can imagine.
Holy shit! Jesus fucking Christ, that's insane.
This person is completely dismembered, but they're still alive.
(SPEAKS SPANISH) TOBONI: In the middle of our interview, we were told cartel members were repeatedly circling the block on motorcycles.
(SPEAKING SPANISH) Okay.
Vamos.
Gracias, Betill.
TOBONI: Since we started reporting this story in 2016, 27 journalists have disappeared or been killed here, making Mexico the deadliest place to be a reporter outside of war zones.
On our first trip, we met journalist Diego Osorno.
For almost 20 years, he's reported on corruption and cartel crime in Mexico.
One of his most prominent investigations dealt with corruption in the state of Coahuila, much of which was controlled by the infamous drug cartel, Los Zetas.
At the height of their reign here, they murdered and disappeared thousands of people, operating with complete impunity.
They even used Piedras Negras prison as a dumping ground for bodies.
What happened in this location here? (SPEAKING SPANISH) TOBONI: But in his years of reporting on crime in Mexico, and many death threats later, it isn't the cartel that Diego fears most.
(SPEAKING SPANISH) TOBONI: We're at an undisclosed location, on a rooftop.
We've managed to track down one of the hit men that's carrying out some of these killings.
How long have you been doing this? (SPEAKING SPANISH) And how many people have you killed? Mm-hmm.
Who is hiring you to kill these people? Who are your victims? Who does he want killed? How do you do it? How do you make sure no one sees you? How do you get away with it? Have you ever killed a government official or government employee? Have you ever killed a journalist? Have you ever killed a politician? TOBONI: In the last year, more than 170 politicians were assassinated.
We met back up with Diego in the weeks following the 2018 election season to see what effect this level of corruption has had.
(SPEAKING SPANISH) TOBONI: Politicians like Fernando Purón are being killed across Mexico.
In Tenancingo, we met Mayor Gabriel Gallegos, who received death threats while campaigning earlier this year.
- Muchas gracias.
- (APPLAUSE) (MAN OVER PHONE RECORDING SPEAKING SPANISH) Wow.
I mean, that's terrifying.
Why didn't you drop out? (SPEAKING SPANISH) Hmm.
TOBONI: After the July election, all eyes are on the newly elected government to address these problems.
One of the main players of the administration is Olga Sanchez Cordero, a retired supreme court justice and current senator.
She's recently been nominated as the new secretary of interior.
As a leader in the federal government, how will you break that link between organized crime and politics? (SPEAKING SPANISH) TOBONI: It's what much of the country is asking for, a peaceful society with moral law enforcement.
But when you ask journalists here, it's a near-impossible task for one administration.
(OSORNO SPEAKING SPANISH) Steve Bannon, the political operative who many consider the mastermind behind the election of Donald Trump, was ousted from his post as White House chief strategist.
But Bannon, and, more importantly, his influence, didn't just go away.
This past year, Bannon has been popping up across Europe, throwing his support behind nationalist parties, who are now having historic successes.
We sent Michael Moynihan to Europe to see how this global nationalist movement is changing the face of the continent's politics.
(CROWD CHATTER) (APPLAUSE, CHEERING) (MAN SPEAKING IN SWEDISH) (CHEERING) (CHEERING) (CHEERING) MOYNIHAN: So, we're in the center of Stockholm, a couple of days before the election, and there's a far-right rally over here, which has been canceled by the government, but they showed up anyway, and a lot of angry protesters, and more police than I've ever seen in one place in Stockholm.
(CHEERING) MOYNIHAN: The overlap of all the people here, and the Trump agenda, people talking about Trump on stage, wearing Trump hats, using Trump slogans everywhere I mean, this is, kind of, the Swedish mirroring of the alt-right, and they love Donald Trump.
MAN (IMPERSONATING TRUMP): I just love that person.
Isn't he a high-energy person? - I think so.
I really think so.
- (CROWD LAUGHING) - (LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE) - We love Trump! (SPEAKING SWEDISH) (CHEERING) When I see the kids, I, you know, "Put this on your dad's car.
" - That's what I usually say.
- Yeah.
You're looking around for kids to give Donald Trump reelection stickers to.
I literally have no idea what's going on.
MAN: They just want some change, any change, almost, just because they gotta stop the mass immigration, and Trump brings about that change.
We will recapture Europe, and we will drive out the Islamic invaders.
- Hail victory.
- (LAUGHTER) (CHEERING) MOYNIHAN: This fringe group of Trump fanatics have little political power, but they think Sweden is trending towards their worldview.
For more than a hundred years, politics have been dominated by the left-wing Social Democrats.
But the far-right Sweden Democrats have grown dramatically over the past decade, becoming the country's third largest party.
It caught the eye of Steve Bannon, who told a Swedish newspaper that he, quote, "studied the Sweden Democrats" and was inspired by their transformation from pariahs to political kingmakers, under the leadership of the boyish Jimmie Akesson.
(SPEAKING SPANISH) (CHEERING) JOHAN NORBERG: They're not the normal kind of anti-immigrant party.
They have their roots in the Neo-Nazi movement in Sweden.
So, people didn't really expect them, and I didn't expect them to grow that explosively in Sweden.
They are not a Nazi party, but they are the party of Nazis.
I mean, how do they exist on the Swedish political spectrum? So, it seems like we've got, generally, polarization along a new kind of dimension.
That's the story here, is polarization.
That's the big story, and not a left-right polarization, because it's not really economical issues.
It used to be that everything was about taxes or socializing Swedish businesses.
And then migration, national identity, culture we didn't care about that in Sweden, but that is what is going on right now with the Bannonization of politics.
MOYNIHAN: So, this is an old Swedish political tradition.
The day before the election, all the parties get together, hand out their materials.
People can talk to them about their positions, but the Sweden Democrats is pretty much the focus of all the attention in this election.
That word, våldtäktsman, just means rapists.
So, the implication being, if you vote for them, they will make Sweden secure, and they will prevent rape, so Which they associate primarily with immigrants.
Sweden's liberal immigration policy has become increasingly controversial.
This nation of nine and a half million people took in 163,000 migrants in 2015, the highest per capita rate ever recorded in the EU.
When a rejected asylum seeker carried out a terror attack two years later, anti-immigration forces pounced.
Breitbart News, where Bannon was once editor, has published more than 400 articles on Sweden since.
On election day, we asked Mattias Karlsson, the Sweden Democrat's second in command, why the world's gaze was fixed on Sweden.
People are kind of obsessed with this election, outside of Sweden.
Why do you think that is? I think Sweden's become like a battleground and a symbol, for both the left and right, because Sweden has been viewed as some kind of left, liberal utopia.
And now the there's starting to be cracks in the image, and conservatives have, all over the world, has pointed to this and said, "Look, this is how bad it can get, if you let the left and the liberals rule too much.
" Because everybody knows that the rise in many of these crimes are connected to immigrant gangs.
I mean, do you see any kind of parallels between what's happening here, and what's happening in the US? Ordinary, working-class people are feeling they're feeling not at home anymore, in their own country.
They don't feel that the elites are representing them or defending their interests, so they want to see something new.
I am one of those people who feel that my identity is slowly being taken away from me, and my sense of home is disappearing, and I can really relate to those people who vote for me who feel the same.
(PEDESTRIANS CHATTERING) MOYNIHAN: So, the polls close in the Swedish elections in about an hour, and when that happens, everyone gets together and gets drunk and celebrates their victory, or has some mournful time about their loss.
The Sweden Democrat party was teeming with supporters, foreign journalists, and excited political pilgrims, who had come to watch left-wing Sweden lurch to the right.
If we will not unite, I mean conservatives, Europe is gone.
Christian history and culture this is who we are.
It's just madness.
It's a cancer of 21st century.
(CHEERING) MOYNIHAN: SD racked up victories in areas traditionally held by the Social Democrats.
And while it was just shy of becoming Sweden's second largest party, SD saw a significant increase in support, winning 13 new seats in parliament.
MOYNIHAN: You know, it's pretty surprising.
If you had told me 10 years ago that Sweden would have a populist, right-wing party, that has 18 percent of the vote, almost a fifth of the voters, I would've said you were crazy.
Because things have really changed in Sweden.
- (CHEERING) - Sweden's political shift mirrors a larger populist trend.
Bannon has been on a never-ending Euro trip, supporting far-right parties across the continent, and he's preparing for a long war to be waged from a 13th century abbey in Collepardo, Italy.
Benjamin Harnwell is the founder of the Catholic think tank Dignitatis Humanae Institute, a conservative order that took over the monastery last year.
What is it that you're doing here? I mean, politically, not religiously.
We're setting up this academy called the Academy for the Judeo-Christian West, which is a vehicle to defend and promote the Judeo-Christian foundations of Western civilization.
Steve Bannon's a principle part in that.
The goal here, for teaching people here, is to get them out into the political system, to have them change the system, I mean, what is it? First and foremost, to let people know that they can be an actor in their own destiny once again.
Secondly, to help prepare the narrative on which that fight is gonna take place.
- Is Steve gonna be a part of that academy? - Yeah, he is.
Yeah, yeah.
In Steve's 2014 Vatican speech, he mentions three things which are the great threats to Western civilization, yeah? Radical jihadi terrorism on the outside, militant secularism on the inside, and a distorted form of capitalism.
We're at the very beginning stages of a global conflict, in that if we do not bind together as partners with others in other countries, that this conflict is only gonna metastasize.
They have a Twitter account up today, ISIS does, about turning the United Stats into a river of blood HARNWELL: Here's one of Steve's insights: Is that when you have this international nationalist movement, you get the sense behind you that you're actually now on the side of history.
You're actually now on the side that destiny's moving in.
You get the feeling, you know, that there is really a global change now.
These are all different nationalists, focusing on their own countries, working together on an international level.
MOYNIHAN: Like Sweden in the past several years, Italy has received historic numbers of economic migrants and political refugees.
In the city of Macerata, three Nigerian migrants were arrested for the murder of 18-year-old Italian Pamela Mastropietro.
A local far-right activist responded by shooting six African migrants at random.
Despite the fact that you got shot in Italy, it's still safer here? (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE) MOYNIHAN: Matteo Salvini, the Trump-like leader of the populist far-right party The League, used the murder to agitate on social media.
These online campaigns would help propel him into government as Italy's powerful interior minister.
Since the migration crisis began, Italy has undergone dramatic political realignments.
The League now governs in coalition with the populist far-left party, the Five Star Movement.
The Italian government, which formed in June, is a rather odd coalition of far-left populists and far-right populists.
This is kind of the fantasy of American political strategist Steve Bannon, who was here for the victory and here consulting with both of the parties.
It's a melding of what he always wanted: the Bernie Sanders left and the Donald Trump right, both populists from different poles, together in one big coalition.
We went to the Hotel Raphaël, where Bannon stays when he's in Rome, and sat down for pizza with Marcello Foa, a far-right journalist newly installed as the head of Italian state television, and Armando Siri, Salvini's economic guru.
When Bannon visited Rome ahead of the election, he paid Siri and Foa a visit.
Tell me a little something about that meeting, what that was like.
(SPEAKING ITALIAN) Why is he so interested in Italy? The unthinkable happened.
The unthinkable was that two so-called "populist" parties could win the elections and could run the country together.
(SPEAKING ITALIAN) FOA: He see Italy as the first big country that really voted against the establishment, which is, in fact, and he is right, this is historical.
And, of course, he believes that from Italy can start a larger, you know, revolution that can change the face of European Union.
MOYNIHAN: Earlier this year, to help that revolution along, Bannon founded The Movement, an organization whose stated aim is uniting Europe's disparate populist parties.
So, Steve Bannon started the movement with a right-wing Belgian politician named Mischaël Modrikamen, and they're running the entire operation out of this rather opulent house in the suburbs of Brussels.
What is The Movement? The Movement is first a club where we will put under the same tent, okay, like-minded leaders from all over the world, to see that we are not alone, and to be able, eventually, to help each other, like polling, social network strategy We'll try to help national movement to develop whenever they ask for it.
Trumpism is the dominant political ideology in America.
Is that, kind of, one of the things that you hope to achieve with The Movement? The initial idea was, eventually, that Trump would bring his official support, and ultimately, I hope, he'll be part of it.
- He himself? - Yeah.
Why not? For every populist leader, it's not easy.
At a certain stage, you say, "We have to do it.
" MODRIKAMEN: Certainly, Mr.
Salvini has become an icon all over the world because of action.
And he just proved with his action, closing the harbors, that it was possible - (SHOUTING) - to stop the invasion of Europe by the migrants.
So, it's action.
Same with Orbán.
He closed also the borders, also from these migrations, and also he's fighting for the Christian values.
And so, I think it is, indeed, a big battle prevailing for the soul of Western civilization.
Because this feeling of alienation from the ordinary citizen is deep.
Very deep.