Lorenzo made Chile his permanent home in early 2000, where he carved a life for himself as a photojournalist. The country’s 17-year dictatorship created an ever-growing appetite for social reportage that was born of a need to come to terms with the scale of Pinochet’s human rights abuses. “I became involved with two inspiring Chilean photojournalists – Rodrigo Gomez [Rovira] and Claudio Pérez – who were collaborating with Agence Vu in an effort to help bring South American reportage to nations overseas.”
For his next project, he documented the Chilean police – the Carabineros. He patrolled the streets of Santiago with a team of Carabineros for six months, armed with a bullet-proof vest and a camera, photographing crime scenes and, at times, crimes as they were being committed. “But when I was invited to accompany the Minister of Defence at the time, Michelle Bachelet [now president of Chile], on a visit to Haiti shortly after the civil war of 2004, I accepted without hesitation. That visit lasted only a couple of days, but I knew I wanted to return, so I contacted Bachelet’s office and asked for clearance to allow me to document Chilean soldiers in Haiti. Before long I was boarding an Antonov plane transporting helicopters and supplies to Port-au-Prince.” For three weeks, Lorenzo lived on a Chilean military base in Cap-Haïtien, and in his official capacity as a reporter gained a unique insight into Chile’s peacekeeping operations.
“There were images everywhere in Haiti,” he says of the country’s social and political landscape. “One night, the soldiers were called out to supervise a voodoo ritual. It was 40 degrees and we were buckling from the heat, in our bullet-proof vests and riot gear. We drank six litres of water that day while patrolling hordes of Haitians in the streets drinking rum, shouting and dropping to floor in a trance.”
Lorenzo travelled to Haiti several times over the years, and like all freelance photojournalists with no assurance of military protection, he was responsible for his own personal safety. There was an international military police presence in Haiti at the time, trying to help quell the violence in Cité Soleil. “On my third trip to Haiti, I was out on patrol with gendarme from Canada, Serbia and Chile. I saw a man lying face down in the street, his feet bound. He was dead. Discarded.
“There was lots of confusion outside a local market one day. From a distance I saw a guy wielding a machete. Two of the officers I was with jumped out of the patrol car and drew their weapons. The crowd dispersed, leaving behind, in full view, a smoldering corpse in the middle of the road. Some people watched us, defiant, without uttering a word. Then a woman shouted out, ‘That’s what happens to thieves!’ Apparently the man had stolen food from one of the stalls and was stopped by the locals. They cut off his hands, wrapped rubber tyres around him and burned him alive.
“I will never forget that day: the Chilean policeman scrambled for some rope to try to drag him away. The Serbian soldier started vomiting behind a car. The smell was unbearable. What I remember most, though, was watching the people watching us, as if we were clearing rubbish from the street.”
The road from jurisprudence to reportage was circuitous, and extraordinary – and Lorenzo discovered himself en route, due in no small part to that angry wave that destroyed his video camera on his first trip to Easter Island. But had he not been raised the son of a grafter, had he not had the determination to complete his studies, to fulfil his military obligations, to find his way back to Easter Island via the hull of a ship transporting sacks of root vegetables, he might never have found himself – regardless of the wave.
“After six years of studying law I did find some pleasure in the vaulted courtrooms and in the routine of it all – having to wake early, dress smartly, prepare a case. Sometimes I can still feel the sting of my parents’ eyes on me. I’m married now and a father of three, and while my income is variable, and at times even nonexistent, nothing compares with my life today.”
For more of Lorenzo Moscia’s work, go to his website
