No Moral Coherence - Human Trophies

Miami Herald ^ | May 21, 2003 | CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Gabriel García Márquez's support of Fidel Castro takes the novelist down a bitter street. A wave of denunciations against the comandante, unleashed by the West's most important intellectuals, has swamped the Nobel laureate.

It all happened as a result of the recent executions of three young men, shot dead ''to prevent an American invasion'' -- as if Castro had become an Aztec priest who conjures fate by means of human sacrifices.

Suddenly, the mutiny was directed at García Márquez, the prior of Latin American literature. ''Where is García Márquez's signature, in the face of this limitless cruelty?'' everyone asked. The author first said that he repudiated the death penalty but then made clear his inalterable affection for the dictator.

Murderers also have friends, and García Márquez wasn't willing, like José Saramago, to break with the old tyrant just because of a handful of new victims and some fresh blood on the execution wall.

Susan Sontag reproached the attitude of the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude. Mario Vargas Llosa called him ''a courtier.'' Zoé Valdés, impassioned like a volcano, insulted him, but later, after she calmed down, withdrew the affront. Mexican intellectual Enrique Krauze, with the precision of historians, wrote a formidable article in which he dug up an astounding amount of flattery and absurd praise spouted by the Colombian in honor of Castro.

Only Peruvian writer Alfredo Bryce Echenique, who has no sympathy for Castro, came out in García Márquez's defense. He used a questionable argument raised by the Colombian writer himself: that friendship with Castro had enabled García Márquez to save thousands of captives or to win the exile of many Cubans.

Bryce's statement elicited another open letter and other expressions of indignation. Cuban writer Nicolás Pérez, who was a political prisoner for many years, collected 1,000 signatures from former fellow inmates to support his argument that García Márquez and Bryce had lied shamelessly.

In any case, even if it were true, how can you bestow your affection on a despot who imprisons thousands of people and later releases them only as a gesture of cordiality to a passing crony or as a strange expression of courtesy to the latest visitor to knock at the castle's gate? Where is justice in that Stalinist banana republic, where the caudillo kills or pardons depending on his all-powerful whim? How can you not feel profound rejection toward a leader who keeps his compatriots trapped in the country against their will?

Nevertheless, I know of a least two instances, in which García Márquez did intervene to aid victims of the dictatorship. One was a labor leader, kept for more than 15 years in Cuba's worst prisons, and the other a writer who had been linked to the regime's security apparatus and was not allowed to emigrate. In both instances, Castro granted García Márquez's requests, and those two persons were able to go into exile.

However, on a much more dramatic occasion, according to the testimony of relatives, García Márquez did not persist with sufficient fervor: when his friend Tony de la Guardia, a kind of Cuban James Bond, in 1989 was selected by Castro as a scapegoat to rebut allegations that Havana engaged in drug trafficking.

It is possible that a vigorous intervention by the Colombian might have saved De la Guardia's life. Apparently, he didn't dare speak out, and De la Guardia was executed under his friend's indifferent gaze.

Yet García Márquez is not the only person to have left Havana with a political prisoner under his arm. Castro has ''presented'' prisoners -- the way someone hands out bottles of rum -- to Felipe González, Fraga Iribarne and Jesse Jackson. Moreover, Castro shrewdly has perfected this ceremony as a way to give luster to whoever approaches him in a friendly manner.

How can someone justify the huge moral concession of traveling to Havana to support or show affection for the oldest of the Latin American executioners? Very simple: by rescuing one or two captives and, if possible, returning home with them in a suitcase and exhibiting them as a great diplomatic success.

García Márquez's literary glory suffers as a result of these dangerous liaisons. Since the 18th Century, Western intellectuals generally have sided with freedom and opposed oppression.

That's a history that begins with Voltaire, Rousseau and Thomas Paine and becomes a tradition with Lord Byron, Victor Hugo and Emile Zola.

García Márquez himself, who signs manifestos and is militant in civic affairs, enjoys throwing his literary prestige in support of popular political causes. But to become effective, it's necessary to show some moral coherence. One can't be on the side of God and the devil at the same time. Not even García Márquez.

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[Cincinatus' Wife]

President greets freed Cubans - Slams Dictatorships*** At mid-afternoon at the White House, Bush met with 11 Cuban exile activists, one-time prisoners and their relatives. The meeting was closed, but the exiles emerged to the driveway to speak to journalists. ''He said categorically that the embargo is supported by this administration,'' said Angel de Fana, who spent 20 years in Cuban prisons before leaving for exile. ``There is no way that he is going to reduce the pressure on this oppressive regime.''

`SATISFIED' Another exile, Isabel Roque, broke into tears as she approached a microphone. ''We leave here satisfied,'' said Roque, sister of dissident economist Martha Beatriz Roque, who was given a 20-year jail term in a sweeping crackdown last month. ``He [President Bush] will not abandon us. Rest assured that this president is on our side.'' White House aides said the scheduled half-hour meeting stretched to a full hour. ***