Mark Brecke: War And Weddings

For the last thirteen years, American Mark Brecke has dedicated himself to a single project: documenting crimes against genocide. As photographer and filmmaker, he went to Rwanda and Kosovo with NATO in the ’90s. He visited the West Bank at the height of the Intifada in 2002, and was embedded with the US army during the Iraq invasion of 2003. He also went to Darfur to live with rebel groups for a couple of months. A one man enterprise he has cynically dubbed War and Weddings, he did much of it punk style, sneaking in somehow to these danger zones – if it had to be with a fake press pass. PingMag visited his home in San Francisco to hear his story…

Written by Verena

Your first documentary was about the Vietnam war…

My first film was War As a Second Language about US foreign policy in Southeast Asia. In the ’90s, Vietnam was getting very trendy for world travellers, and the communist government opened up a little more. It was bizarre, especially since for most GI vets it was pure hell in Vietnam - but for a whole new generation who didn’t experience being drafted and sent there against their will, it was fun. So what was left over from the war from ‘65 to ‘75 was a complete physical skeleton of failed policy with the Cu Chi tunnels and all the old tanks and burnt out airplanes left in the jungles to rot. Now these are tourist sights, you can go into the tunnels and shoot M16s and picture yourself next to a burnt out American tank. The government runs these tours. It’s surreal.

Mark Brecke’s Kuwait Press Pass he needed to work in the country while waiting to go into Iraq as embedded reporter. April 2003.

…and you filmed that?

I filmed the cultural and social aspects, with all these Americans interacting with the skeleton left-over machinery. I used super8 and black-and-white still photography, then pieced the film together with collected sounds of the war and news reels. There was literally a microphone and a lens covering every inch of that war. The Vietnam War was one of the most documented in history, so it’s ironic now with all this digital technology that you can sit here with satellite phones and satellite imagery as it’s happening in real time in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s all censored, it’s not as close.

But before finishing the documentary, you went somewhere else…

I started a long term project on genocide, so I went to Vietnam, to Rwanda and the Balkans in the late 90s. In Rwanda, I was there just to photograph, which was the most horrific thing I have ever seen… same in the Balkans. My idea was to put three different cultures, three different continents together, especially going into the 21st century with Darfur and the failure of the UN to step in.

When did you go to Sudan for the first time then?

At the height of the cleansing, from September 2004 to January 2005. I started on the eastern Chad border with the refugees in the UN tents. I knew, in one particular camp I would make contact with the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) - which I did through satellite phone. I was met at the border by a unit. Then, I was able to go and spend two months touring. This was the only real way to see what was happening on the ground. I’ve been doing this for over a decade and I saw the signs. You didn’t have to be an expert to see the crimes against humanity and what the government has been doing to their own people.

Please explain…

Genocide is like a finger print: There is no one like the other and everything is carried out differently. You are always looking out for a benchmark like the Holocaust, the Armenians, or even Stalin killing 20 million of his own people. Then, in Rwanda, the pace of the genocide was so rapid: In 100 days they had ended 800 000 people. You don’t realise that this was literally one to one, with very primitive farm implements, machetes, axes…

Rebels of the Sudanese Liberation Army. Now, they control about 80 percent of Darfur but the movement is fractioned. © Mark Brecke

An SLA rebel wears his collection of protective tribal amulets, 2004. © Mark Brecke

There is something they are doing in Darfur, as others like the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia did before: A man made famine is one of the oldest weapons of mass destruction. It’s been known for a couple of thousand years and it’s very effective. You just burn off a population, kill their live stock, burn their crops, contaminate the water resources and they die of malnutrition. Especially in the desert in Darfur they’ll systematically be killed.

How did you manage to get in to witness all this?

There was this window of opportunity: There is a man named Sulieman Jamous who is now under UN protection in Darfur. He is kind of the unsung hero of this whole crisis. He was humanitarian affairs coordinator for the SLA, being responsible for granting and organizing safe passage for NGOs and journalists through Darfur. That came to an end in 2006, when he was under arrest by Sudanese Liberation Army leader Minni Minnawi. Now things have changed drastically on the ground. But at the time in 2004, we were attacked by government troops and I knew if things went really wrong in Darfur that the rebels would throw me on top of a camel and smuggle me to the border of Chad.
I was always careful to present to the media that it started as a very humble people’s movement, not another military. They were school teachers, architects or doctors that gave up their very comfortable lives to fight in this desert. History doesn’t always show that these movements will stay real: Now the rebels have factions. The peace deal was rigged by Minnawi. Today, they would even shoot someone like me.
[More about the ongoing Darfur conflict here].

But still, did you want to go back?

Since my return I’ve had opportunities to go back, which I intend to do. But it was more important to do this film, They Turned Our Desert Into Fire, and I’ve been on the lecture circuit for the last two years crisscrossing America. When I came back from Rwanda earlier, no one would want to look at those images. But then, for the first time, you had student groups with “Save Darfur” protest activism. Then Hollywood jumped on board, for better or for worse. Darfur has been turned into an industry.
[Also, more about Darfur celeb activists: George Clooney addressing the UN security council, Steven Spielberg’s letter to the Chinese president or, recently, Mira Sorvino’s effort to raise awareness through ad campaigns.]

An industry?

Hollywood has been up here and wanted to research an area of my work and there were ideas to make “Hotel Darfur” [after the Hotel Rwanda movie]. I’ve had computer game companies wanting me to sponsor or endorse their shit. It’s so pathetic. Timberland made Save Darfur boots and from every sale, a percentage goes to MSF. It’s getting competitive… This has been the focus of my life for many years so I’m a little sensitive. There’s a fine line between awareness and crossing the line into exploitation.

Mark’s KFOR Press pass authorized by NATO to work in Kosovo. June, 1999.

Now, you’ve given so many lectures about your work - and out of that came your last documentary, They Turned Our Desert Into Fire?

Actually, I was asked to speak on Capitol Hill by senators. But you have to pay for this yourself as the tax payers are not going to pay and I don’t have much money. So I would take public transportation. A local radio station asked me to record audio to do a radio documentary.
I thought, if I have to be on this train for three days, I will bring my actual photographs and show them along the way and do this one-on-one powerpoint to twenty-four passengers in the end. Basically, I wanted to tell this very tragic story which is still being played out to twelve strangers. You take that public transportation of that train and you drive it right through the complete story of Darfur along with the beautiful landscape of America from the East coast through to the West coast, juxtaposed with the harsh conditions of the desert in Darfur. Also, we used six talking head experts to give a better perspective.

How do you finance all your travels?

My work is funded 100 percent overseas and there is no paycheck at the end. I prefer that, as I can do whatever I want with the information and I have complete control and copyrights. When I came out of the avant-garde fine art culture, it was more do-it-yourself hands on. Going to these places, I have learnt how to live extremely cheaply and be resourceful. I make a living shooting sometimes and working as a still photographer on movie sets and feature films. I live a very simple life: I don’t have a car or any credit cards and my computer is second hand. I have designed my life to work in this way.

How does it effect you when you come back to San Francisco - does it feel real?

I thank God that the majority of the world is of good faith and I’m coming back from the minority - the conflict zones. It makes you appreciate what you have. Also, you have to find a way to deal with a lot of angst and anger - take those energies and put them into something positive or you’ll just burn out. For me, I still have the right balance. I’m still in the fine art world and most of my work is shown in galleries. I couldn’t do this full time, just once or twice a year. I’m not a photojournalist that hops to all these hot spots. It’s also very dangerous…

…and very addictive. War Photographer, the documentary about James Nachtwey, showed very well how he always had to go back.

I have a lot of respect for him. It’s one of the most addictive professions, I think. And when I have been working in war zones, I would say I was addicted to it. However, for me, my approach has always been very different, especially with not considering myself a journalist.
This is how I worked all these years: I never go in as a journalist, and if I do I make fake press passes and keep it very low key. Using photocopied money and making my own visas to get into these places, this is real rogue, punk rock mentality which came out of the experimental film culture in San Francisco. This is my background and how I have applied it to more serious subjects. So, sometimes it takes from you and you don’t take from it when you come back. Psychologically it never leaves you. When I lecture in art schools and journalist schools, I’d never recommend it to people. But if you go down that road, it’s 100 percent commitment and there is no turning back. You see a lot of people doing it for the wrong reasons, especially when I was embedded during the invasion of Iraq.

When did you go there?

Twice. I was imbedded with the Marines and the Navy in the March invasion. Then I had to go back on my own, which is what it’s like now - but nobody was really writing about it in November 2003.

Rebel recovering, 2004. © Mark Brecke

What was being embedded like?

I said to a radio station here in the US: I don’t think it’s healthy to live in the desert with men for three weeks with or without a war, and it was an interesting process for me. I had never been with military and I have a lot of respect for the actual soldiers who have to fight in this unjust war. They are from tough neighbourhoods just trying to get ahead. I had protested the war here in San Francisco – and within a week I was in it!
In some ways it was very restrictive. I’m used to working on my own and if I’m with military it’s always paramilitary or rebel groups, nothing formal. The U.S. Marines took the city of AN Nasiriyah and I was with the Navy SEA BEES pulling up the rear. Two of our guys were killed, young kids of just 19 years old. It’s very easy to be against wars and, of course, as a war photographer, I definitely am: It works for the weapon manufacturers and some of the politicians. But when you are under attack, you hope these guys know how to do their job. Because if they don’t you are going to be killed or we are going to be captured. This is how the pentagon rigged it: How can you write subjectively about that when you get back from that day? When these guys that you’re embedded with literally saved your ass, you’re not going to say anything negative. You just went through a fire fight, so how can you sit there and criticise it? You can’t, and that was planned, of course.

How did you get along with the troops?

I think they put us in with the most motley crew: You had skateboard punk rockers from Phoenix who snuck in their skateboards and listened to Dinosaur jr. Then you had rednecks from West Texas listening to country and western, with American flags draped over.
There was a lot of down time at night, so they asked me: What do you think of the war? Today, because of the internet, information is so fast to access. So, they knew things and were kind of suspicious, asking: Why are we going to Iraq when there are no weapons of mass destruction? There were a lot of GIs against the war and they really talked to the French papers about this, like: I go onto YouTube and I see our boss Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in 1982, what was that about? You didn’t have that in previous wars… The morale was low when I was there. Now it’s probably ten times worse.

Thank you so much, Mark, for giving us a wider perspective.

Screenings of They Turned Our Desert Into Fire:
The movie will make its world premier next week at the Sao Paulo International Film Festival,
and in two weeks at the International Film Series in Boulder Colorado.

58 Comments

1. Wow, amazing work.

   Posted by: HELEN on October 12th, 2007 at 11:52 pm

2. It’s really amazing how to combine art in different scenes.

   Actually, I’ve seen pictures about war that are used with artistical purposes and all of them try to express a message.

   Nice work

   Posted by: oscar on October 12th, 2007 at 11:55 pm

3. God,plz bless us!

   Posted by: gwk on October 13th, 2007 at 1:24 am

4. This is sad. Really sad.

   Posted by: Akai on October 13th, 2007 at 2:13 am

5. great reality

   Posted by: krenk on October 14th, 2007 at 12:43 am

6. important work, thanks for including it in ping mag

   Posted by: Antony on October 14th, 2007 at 10:33 pm

7. Thank you for this.

   Posted by: James David on October 15th, 2007 at 2:25 am

8. Thank you

   Posted by: Ally on October 15th, 2007 at 3:09 am

9. please help Africa

   Posted by: alali on October 17th, 2007 at 1:39 pm

10. thanks for the insight,
    amazing work!

    Posted by: Alice on October 18th, 2007 at 12:36 pm

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