Posted on 05/03/2003 12:44:58 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
BOGOTA - (AFP) -- Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa criticized Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez on Friday, calling him ``a writer who is a courtesan of Fidel Castro, whom the dictatorship holds up as an intellectual alibi.''
''And he so far has come to accept very well all the abuses, the trampling of human rights that the Cuban dictatorship has committed, saying that secretly he helps some political prisoners get released,'' Vargas Llosa told Caracol radio during a visit to the Bogotá book fair.
`NO SECRET'
''It is no secret to anyone that Fidel Castro hands over some political prisoners to his courtesans once in a while,'' Vargas Llosa said.
``That is how [García Márquez] keeps his conscience clean. To me it sounds more like repugnant cynicism.''
Vargas Llosa challenged García Márquez to ''intellectually'' explain his support of Castro, but added: ``I doubt very much that he will.''
García Márquez recently condemned the death penalty ''anywhere and for any reason,'' in reply to American writer Susan Sontag, who said she was troubled that the writer had not condemned recent executions in Cuba.
García Márquez, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982, and Castro have long been friends. His signature was among 164 intellectuals from several countries on a letter asserting Cuba was the victim of a worldwide campaign of ''harassment'' that could serve as a pretext for a U.S. invasion.
Sontag, also on a visit to Bogotá's book fair, said last week that while she admired the Colombian writer as an author, it did not seem right to her that he had not addressed the issue of Cuba executing three men who tried to hijack a ferry to the United States.
NO REPLY
García Márquez told the newspaper El Tiempo ``as a rule I do not reply to unnecessary or provocative questions, wherever they come from, even if they come from -- as in this case -- a person so deserving and respectable.''
''As far as the death penalty is concerned, I have nothing to add to what I have said in private and in public for as long as I can remember: I am against it, anywhere and for any reason,'' he said.
The April 11 executions in Cuba came shortly after Cuban courts jailed 75 dissidents for up to 28 years in jail after they were accused of threatening state security.
In 1953 when I entered the University of San Marcos my country was a military dictatorship, as were many Latin American countries. I entered a university where many teachers had been in exile or prison. There was no political activity-all political parties had been banned. Censorship, supposedly for the security of the state, muted criticism. So it was very difficult if you were young and living in those circumstances not to become aware of the importance of politics in life. Even if you wanted to be a writer and only a writer, politics was there presenting you with all kinds of difficulties and obstacles and challenges to the exercise of your vocation.
So I was pushed to participate first of all in the political debate and then in political action. I have never considered myself a politician. Even during the three years when I was involved in practical politics and running for office in Peru I thought of myself first of all as a writer, who for special reasons was morally obliged to participate in a political campaign in defense of values and ideas that are indispensable to the progress and development of our society.
About 10 years ago, I was more optimistic about the future of liberty in Latin America. It seemed to have embraced at last the two essential tools of civilization: political democracy and free markets. Military dictatorships were disappearing and being replaced by civilian governments born of quasi-free elections. For the first time there was practically a continental consensus in favor of democracy as the framework within which to fight against poverty and underdevelopment and for progress. The idea of Marxist revolution was fading away; it remained popular only among very small circles of academics and intellectuals.
For the first time also it seemed that in Latin America the idea of free markets, of entrepreneurial spirit, and of open borders to integrate international markets was taking root. The old, damaging ideas-economic nationalism, import substitution-were viewed as anachronisms that were a major reason for our failure. So it seemed that, at last, Latin America would become the continent of the future as Stephan Zweig once predicted. But if we look at what has happened in the last decade, we must accept that those expectations have not been totally fulfilled. Democracy hasn't taken root.
Unfortunately, it was in my own country, Peru, that democracy first collapsed. As in the past, it collapsed because of the military. The difference is that in 1992 it collapsed with the elected president an accomplice in its destruction. But what was even more worrisome was that this coup was popular. That was really unusual in Peruvian history. We have had many military coups, but none in the past had garnered the strong support that the coup of 1992 did. Perhaps the circumstances-terrorism, the insecurity that terrorism created, the economic crisis that the populist policies of the previous government had produced, hyperinflation-had something to do with it. Only an active minority of Peruvians protested the collapse of the most precious good for our society-a democratic system, a system of freedom and legality.
That bad example, as you know, has had imitators elsewhere in Latin America. To my great surprise, people are once again thinking that they need a caudillo-a strong man-to rule their country. Since 1992, in many Latin American countries I have visited, I have heard people say, "What we need is a Fujimori. What we need is a man with pantalones. A man to fight corruption. A man to send home the totally inept politicians." The Peruvian coup was imitated in Guatemala, and the coup there failed because democracy was stronger than in my country, but it was still an attempt. And since then other developments that have impoverished (if not contributed to the destruction of) democracy have occurred in Latin America and in some cases, such as Venezuela, with great popular support. A regime doesn't have to be democratic to be popular.
There are many reasons for the enthusiasm for a "strong man." Corruption has been terrible. It is very demoralizing for a society to see that politics can be a shortcut to enriching yourself. And the way in which the democratic government wasted the national wealth and created expectations that were unrealistic makes the disillusionment with democracy somewhat understandable.
If there is a word that leaps from Mexico to Argentina today, it is not freedom-it is corruption. Corruption has become a key feature of the Latin American political scene. It is true that in some countries corruption has been reduced to "normal" proportions, but in many Latin American countries corrup-tion has grown so much that it has distorted important social and economic reforms.
I suppose that the example that is in the mind of everyone is Argentina-a very interesting case of a president whom no one would have ever imagined capable of reforms. But many of his economic reforms have been handicapped and sabotaged by corruption, which has been a major issue in elections. Corruption not only undermines reform; in the medium and long term it erodes the very idea of democracy, the vision of what a democracy is. That can have very negative consequences in the future.
Actually, we have had political democracy in Latin America, but democratic institutions in many countries are still very weak or nonexistent. For example, the legal system is still very undemocratic everywhere in Latin America. Justice is a privilege for only powerful Latin Americans. The great majority of the people do not have access to real justice because they have neither political nor economic power. And without justice-tribunals and judges who are really independent-it is very difficult for markets to function and for political democracy to enrich the lives of all citizens. You can have free elections, but if you feel that you can't go to a judge if your rights have been transgressed-because you know that justice can be manipulated by political power-then your faith in the democratic system will weaken or disappear.
Sadly, many economic reforms have been deeply undemocratic. Privatization, for example, was an extraordinary tool for increasing the number of holders of private property. If you don't have widespread ownership of private property-if private property is concentrated in the hands of a very small minority, and the great majority of society has no real access to private property-how can democracy be meaningful for the majority of the people? So, privatization of the enormous public sector that we had in Latin America was an extraordinary opportunity to spread private property among Latin Americans who had had no access to property. But that has been done in very few cases in very few countries.
Chile was one of the exceptions; on most of the continent, privatization meant the transformation of public monopolies into private monopolies. It was a way to enrich the state, to give it tools for populist programs and investments, and also in many cases to enrich friends and partners. So the idea of privatization in many Latin American countries has been associated in public opinion with corruption, with dirty tactics.
Why are people in Latin America so pessimistic when you talk to them about the advantages of democracy? I had this experience when I was a candidate and I went to poor villages and to poor neighborhoods in the cities. I talked to the people about democracy. I tried to explain what democracy meant for the advanced and prosperous societies of the world. But I could see skepticism in my listeners' eyes. They were looking at me as if I was from another planet. "What are you talking about?" is what they seemed to be thinking. "What do you mean democracy? If someone steals my cows and I go to the judge and I cannot bribe the judge, I know that I will be defeated in the tribunals. This has been happening since I was born and it is still happening. So what kind of democracy is this?" I think that if anything can really change the pessimistic attitude of many Latin Americans, especially poor Latin Americans, toward democracy, it is an improvement in justice. When people understand that there is an institution to which they can go to request compensation for damages and abuses committed against them, that improvement is possible, that they can have a better life, then they will support democracy in principle as well as in practice. [End]
I think it's because they were, within days, given a one day trial, had no right of appeal, no legal representation, no last farewell with their families, no nothing. Just a bullet.
So the "due process" of keeping them locked up for a few years before executing them is what is so important? It's not like Castro would change his mind about killing them, and it's not like they would ever get anything more than a show trial.
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