The state of Oaxaca is a charming place known for a few things: cop corruption, repression, poverty, blood, mezcal, and machetes. The last rash of events included a high dose of political conflict provoked by social inequality that was so intense that federal law enforcers had to intervene with weapons to take back the city. On a recent visit to this gruesome underworld we had the opportunity to meet the legendary “El Diablo.” We talked to him about living and working side by side with the Grim Reaper.
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Can you imagine yourself doing this until the day you die?
I would love to. Before getting into nota roja journalism I owned a very big and famous bike workshop here in Oaxaca, but then I heard the calling, and I can’t see myself doing anything else. Nota roja is my “thing.”
What’s up with your nickname? Everyone calls you “El Diablo.” That seems a little mean.
I inherited it from my father. Even if some people say that I’m the Devil because I’m the first to show up when there’s an accident, like I have this death sense and know who is going to die. I show up here and there, and suddenly I’m the fucking Devil.
I can imagine your everyday life. Have you become desensitized to human suffering?
Dead kids still give me the creeps; I’ve developed some immunity to adults. But dead kids, well, you never get used to them.
What about murderers, rapist, and criminals? Have you picked any of their habits?
Not really, but I have befriended them. Some of them threaten to harm me when I take their pictures. I get worried when someone of influence, no matter what he’d done, gets out of jail; because you can be sure that the next day they’ll go to your house. Even so, criminals are more polite here; if you run into one of them they’ll usually say hi. Cops tend to be a little bit more aggressive.
So the criminal element treats you with respect?
I don’t know about that, but if I walk into a bar and there’s a band of delinquents, I feel pretty safe. The cops are the one that scare me. But well, that’s Mexico for ya.
Has anyone tried to bribe you?
Yes, but they can’t bribe El Diablo, death is on my side. This one time, they were offering me a brand new truck so I shut up about this child rapist, son of a very influent person. I didn’t gave a shit about the truck and published the story on the ¡Alarma!, in the end he got away with bribing the judges.
We did a documentary about ¡Alarma!. Have you seen it?
Yes I did and I believe that ¡Alarma! Is the best nota roja magazine. In fact, Miguel Santos called me before filming it, because I’ve been in one. I’ve been helping the magazine for ten years now, sending pictures at first; they liked them and the director came to meet me. And to tell you the truth, that magazine is written with blood, all my respect goes to them.
Tell us about your documentary.
It all started when John Dickie heard about this crazy bastard taking pictures of dead people and always showing up in the bloodiest places of town. He recorded the whole deal, and had a very good reception in Latin Film Festivals.
At some point in the documentary it is mentioned that the nota roja is a necessary evil, something to sell more newspapers. What do you think about that?
Yeah, that’s what directors usually say. In reality, the nota roja is a measuring instrument for the people. It’s cold, harsh journalism and it is necessary in a place like Oaxaca. For example, there was a riot in an Oaxaca jail; I sneaked inside to take some pictures, the dead count rose to 17 inmates and the cops canned me. Everyone thought that I was done for, surrounded by all these criminals and all that, but instead they asked me to cover the story. And let’s be honest for a moment, if you end up in a nota roja tabloid it’s because you did something terrible. Also, I have started to receive international prizes for my work.
But it is also known that big brands pay a lot of money to get publicity space in your magazine, thus making them untouchable.
Yes, brands like Pepsi and ADO (Autobuses del Oriente) do that sort of thing; when that happens I just send the story to ¡Alarma! and that’s when they lose all their privileges.
Back to the documentary, a person in it claimed that you ruined his life and other one said that you published in full color the picture of her daughter after killing herself with a shotgun. Don’t you think that maybe nota roja journalism can damage third parties?
The guy that claims that I ruined his life is now my friend and, thanks to the documentary, has become famous. As for the mourning father, he even asked for a copy of the DVD. I will give him one, though not right now because they’re sold out.
Tell us about your favorite cases. Which one is it? Rape? Murder? Car crashes? Serial killers?
There’s many. I remember this one train wreck near a town named Tomellin. There were arms, legs and heads scattered all around, it looked like a field of bodies ready for the reaping. Then I get close and see this body with his eyes popped out of his orbits, one of the wagons of the train squishing half of his body. That is something I will never forget. Then this other time we went to a motel because they found a decomposing corpse. The smell was so awful that I just started to puke. Also there’s all the stuff you’ve already seen in the documentary, drowned people, dead kids, the old man that visited the red light district and had a heart attack in the middle of sex – we titled that one “He didn’t come, just passed away.” There’s lots of folklore involved. And finally the public favorite: couples having sex on the streets.
During the 2006 riots against the governor you probably got very good material. Tell us about it.
It was the opposite, in fact. Think about it: you had the APPO (rebel forces) on one side and the army and federals on the other. The APPO kicked the shit out of me, my wife, and my son, and also broke my camera and hit me in the head with a fucking bat. It was terrible, working at the barricades was almost impossible, and you had to be on the lookout for any fire.
We noticed that you’ve been on the two sides of the coin. You appeared on the front page after an accident and so did your wife and brother.
That’s right; you can’t see it coming. Sometimes the cops set you up for it, but you can’t do anything about it.
Death is your thing and people call you “El Diablo.” Do you believe in the Santa Muerte?
Death is my lover, companion, and thanks to that I can feed my family. People are all, “Please, let them be fine,” when there’s an accident, but I pray for the contrary, because that’s my job. But no, I don’t believe in Santa Muerte, I just respect her.
And what are you up to right now?
I got all these projects going on. We want people to see us working through the internet on real time. And I’m working with John Dickie in a project about the riots of 2006 and the levantotes (kidnappings) in Oaxaca.
Vice is read in the entire world. Any useful advice for tourists that want to visit Mexico and Oaxaca?
Just watch out for the cops.
ALEJANDRO CRISTOBAL and PAVEL ACEVEDO
Photos of alive people by PAVEL ACEVEDO; photos of dead people by ALEJANDRO VILLAFANE
More Diablo and nota roja.
