The State is not interested in unmasking the farce of justice in which we live: Diego Enrique Osorno

“The historical truth that was presented and that is evaluated in this documentary is one of the worst fictions that the State has elaborated to try to give impunity to its darkest and most nefarious networks.”,

Diego Enrique Osorno, journalist and documentary maker.

This Tuesday, the writer, journalist and documentary filmmaker Diego Enrique Osorno presented the documentary short film “The evaluation”, which is part of the official selection in competition.

In an interview with this newspaper, Osorno, also director and screenwriter of documentary projects such as “midday cowboy” (2019), “the busty doll” (2017), “1994” (2019) o “the power of the chair” (2015), shared that “The evaluation” is a documentary that tries to provoke in the viewer the possibility of analyzing, over the course of half an hour, in a very direct way, the psychological evaluations of the main persons responsible for the so-called “historical truth” about the disappearances of the 43 Ayotzinapa students on September 26, 2014.

The documentary proposes to do precisely the same with Jesús Murillo Karam, then Attorney General of the Republic (PGR), who ordered a psychological evaluation of Patricio Reyes Landa, Jhonatan Osorio Gómez and Agustín García Reyes, detained just 33 days after the facts as allegedly responsible for the disappearance of the normalistas.

When the viewer psychologically evaluates the three alleged perpetrators, as well as Murillo Karam, who was responsible for the investigation then unquestioned and is now in prison, the viewer can have a critical capacity about the case.

The film, she shares, comes to be inserted in the need to maintain the fight from civil society, both from the relatives of the victims, as well as from their fellow students, the academic communities, human rights defenders and journalists, who are, points out, those who have kept her alive despite the many attempts to cover the wound, one of many, with a shelving.

“One of the worst fictions”

“I believe that the State will never be interested in resolving the case, because resolving it would imply unmasking the farce or the fiction of justice in which we live. What interests them is to simulate. The historical truth that was presented and that is evaluated in this documentary is one of the worst fictions that the State has elaborated to try to give impunity to its darkest and most nefarious networks”, Osorno maintains.

Although 2018, with the change of federal administration, meant for the country an unbeatable opportunity for a more humane, thorough and vindicating approach to investigation of one of the (many and overwhelming) atrocious episodes in the recent history of the country, it evaluates the independent journalist, four years after the transition, yes, there is a report from the Truth Commission that tries to establish a new truth, but:

“It is evident that the absolute truth and justice are still pending and perhaps this government has already gone as far as it could go, as far as the military and the agreements with the previous president, Enrique Peña Nieto, allowed it.”

Due to all the impediments and obstacles from the Mexican army and the different levels of government in an evident systematic practice of impunity, the director considers that “the authorities that face the case are afraid of finding out the truth. We are talking about a very, very large proportion of crime and atrocity, and the fear that the State has is of that size.”

The central role of the army is omitted

The most revealing thing, not about the documentary but about the situation in which the report presented by the prosecution and the commission was presented, he says, is that it seeks to shelve the facts with two omissions that are worrying: “one is to point out the role of the army and navy in the events, moreover, within a context of militarization. The other is the responsibility of the previous president, Peña Nieto, who publicly endorsed the historical truth.”

As if that were not enough, he regrets Diego Enrique Osorno, “it must be sadly recognized that there is still a lot of indolence in the face of the facts (in a large part of society). I keep hearing many disqualifications in the public discussion and in the after-dinner conversations. I’ve heard people say: ‘they (the students) were up to something, they were into something’. In other words, the impact of the historical truth, which was stigmatizing and criminalizing students, persists”.

For all of the above, he points out, it is essential to support the relatives in their search for truth and justice, because that will be the way in which “the serious risks that this other process of militarization that has been implemented in a very unfortunate way, at least in the last 20 years, practically from President Zedillo to here. I hope that this narrative device that we made allows us to generate an appropriation of the story and a commitment from those who watch the documentary to continue searching for truth and justice”.

“The evaluation”

• Directed by Diego Enroque Osorno
• Produce: Detective Films
• Duration: 31 minutes

Diego Enrique Osorno is the winner of:

• National Prize for Journalism of Mexico (2013, dedicated to the Zapatista Army of National Liberation).
• Honorable mention of the Walter Reuter German Prize for Journalism (2014).
• Latin American Prize for Journalism on Drugs, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2011).

ricardo.quiroga@eleconomista.mx