Read Latin America Diaries Online
Authors: Ernesto Che Guevara
Latin America Diaries (7 page)
I made a lightning visit to Palo Seco, where an American Jewish couple has been living for 20 years. They don't seem particularly informed, but they devote themselves exclusively to the sick.
Rubén DarÃo Moncada only got it half right. The driver turned out to be worse than a motherfucker and on a bend when the brakes failed, we went flying. I was on top of the truck, and when I saw the disaster coming, I threw myself as far away as possible, then rolled a little further, until I came to rest with my head in my hands. When the hubbub had passed, I got up to help the others, realizing that no one but me had a scratch on themâI escaped with a grazed elbow, torn pants and a very painful right heel.
I slept the night in the truck driver Rogelio's house. Gualo stayed on the road looking after our things.
The next day we missed the 2 p.m. train and resigned ourselves to one leaving at 7 the next morning. Arriving at Progreso, we then had to hoof it to the Costa Rican coast,
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where we were received very well. I played football despite my bad foot.
We left early the next morning, and after losing our way we found the right road and walked for two hours through mud. We made it to the railway terminal, where we got talking with an inspector who, incidentally, had wanted to go to Argentina but hadn't been given leave. We reached the port and pressured the captain for the fare. He conceded, but not on the question of accommodation. Two employees took pity on us, so here we are installed in their rooms, sleeping on the floor and feeling very content.
The famous “
Pachuca
,” which transports
pachucos
(bums), is leaving port tomorrow, Sunday. We now have beds. The hospital is comfortable and you can get proper medical attention, but its comforts vary depending on your position in the Company.
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As always, the class spirit of the gringos is clearly evident.
Golfito is a real gulf, deep enough for ships of 26 feet to enter easily. It has a little wharf and enough housing to accommodate the 10,000 company employees. The heat is intense, but the place is very pretty. Hills rise to 100 meters almost out of the sea, their slopes covered with tropical vegetation that surrenders only to the constant presence of human activity. The town is divided into clearly defined zones, with guards to prevent unwanted movement. Of course, the gringos live in the nicest area, a little like Miami. The poor are kept separate, shut away behind the four walls of their own homes and restrictive class lines.
Food is the responsibility of a decent guy who is now also a good friend: Alfredo Fallas.
Medina is my roommate, also a decent guy. There's a Costa Rican medical student, the son of a doctor, as well as a Nicaraguan teacher and journalist in voluntary exile from Somoza.
The “
Pachuca”
left Golfito at 1 p.m. with us on board. We were well stocked with food for the two-day voyage. The sea became a little rough in the afternoon and the
RÃo Grande
(the ship's real name) started to be tossed about. Nearly all the passengers, including Gualo, started vomiting. I stayed outside with a black woman, Socorro, who had picked me up and was as horny as a toad, having spent 16 years on her back.
Quepos is another banana port, now pretty much abandoned by the company, which replaced the banana plantations with cocoa and palm-oil trees that gave less of a return. It has a very pretty beach.
I spent the whole day between the dodges and smirks of the black woman, arriving in Puntarenas at 6 in the evening. We had to wait a good while there, because six prisoners had escaped and couldn't be found. We visited an address Alfredo Fallas had given us, with a letter from him for a Sr. Juan Calderón Gómez.
The guy worked a thousand miracles and gave us 21 colones. Arriving in San José we remembered the scornful words of a joker back in Buenos Aires: “Central America is all estates: you've got the Costa Rican estate, the Tacho Somoza estate, etc.”
A letter from Alberto, evoking images of luxury trips, has made me want to see him again. According to his plan, he'll go to the United States in March. Calica is destitute in Caracas.
We're firing blanks into the air here. They give us
mate
at the embassy. Our supposed friends don't seem to be good for
anything. One is a radio director and presenter, a hopeless character. Tomorrow we'll try to get an interview with Ulate.
A day half wasted. Ulate was very busy and couldn't see us. Rómulo Betancourt has gone to the countryside. The day after next we'll appear in
El Diario de Costa Rica
with photos and everything, plus a big string of lies.
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We haven't met anyone important, but we did meet a Puerto Rican, a former suitor of Luzmila Oller, who introduced us to some other people. Tomorrow I might get to visit the Costa Rican leprosy hospital.
I didn't see the leprosarium, but I did meet two excellent people: Dr. Arturo Romero, a tremendously cultured man who due to various intrigues has been removed from the leprosarium board; and Dr. Alfonso Trejos, a researcher and a very fine person.
I visited the hospital, and just this morning, the leprosarium. We have a great day ahead. A chat with a Dominican short-story writer and revolutionary, Juan Bosch, and with the Costa Rican communist leader Manuel Mora Valverde.
The meeting with Juan Bosch was very interesting. He's a literary person with clear ideas and leftist tendencies. We didn't talk literature, just politics. He characterized Batista as a thug among thugs. He is a personal friend of Rómulo Betancourt and defended him warmly, as he did PrÃo Socarrás and Pepe Figueres.
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He says Perón has no popular influence in Latin America, and that in 1945 he wrote an article denouncing him as the most dangerous demagogue in the Americas. The discussion continued on very friendly terms.
In the afternoon we met Manuel Mora Valverde, who is a
gentle man, slow and deliberate, but he has a number of tic-like gestures suggesting a great internal unease, a dynamism held in check by method. He gave us a thorough account of recent Costa Rican politics:
“Calderón Guardia is a rich man who came to power with the support of the United Fruit Company and through the influence of local landowners. He ruled for two years until World War II, when Costa Rica sided with the Allies. The State Department's first measure was that land owned by local Germans should be confiscated, particularly land where coffee was cultivated. This was done, and the land was subsequently sold, in obscure deals involving some of Calderón Guardia's ministers. This lost him the support of all the country's landowners, except United Fruit. The Company employees are anti-Yankee, in response to its exploitation.
“As it was, Calderón Guardia was left with no support whatsoever, to the point where he could not leave his house for the abuse he was subjected to on the streets. At that point the Communist Party offered him its support, on the condition he adopt some basic labor legislation and reshuffle his cabinet. In the meantime, Otilio Ulate, then a man of the left and personal friend of Mora, warned the latter of a plan Calderón Guardia had devised to trap him. Mora went ahead with the alliance, and the popularity of Calderón's government soared as the first gains began to be felt by the working class.
“Then the problem of succession was posed as Calderón's term was coming to an end. The communists, in favor of a united front of national reconciliation to pursue the government's working-class policies, proposed Ulate. The rival candidate, León Cortés, was totally opposed to the idea and continued to stand. At this time, using his paper
El Diario de Costa Rica
, Ulate began a vigorous campaign against the labor legislation, causing a split in the left and Don Otilio's about-face.
“The elections saw the victory of Teodoro Picado, a feeble intellectual ruined by whisky, although relatively left leaning, who formed a government with communist support. These tendencies persisted during his entire period of office, although the chief of police was a Cuban colonel, an FBI agent imposed by the United States.
“In the final stages, the disgruntled capitalists organized a huge strike of the banking and industry sectors, which the government did not know how to break. Students who took to the streets were fired on and some were wounded. Teodoro Picado panicked. Elections were approaching and there were two candidates: Calderón Guardia again, and Otilio Ulate. Teodoro Picado, opposing the communists, handed over the electoral machine to Ulate, keeping the police for himself. The elections were fraudulent; Ulate was triumphant. An appeal to nullify the result was lodged with the electoral commission, with the opposition also requesting a ruling on the alleged violations, stating it would abide by the verdict. The court refused to hear the appeal (with one of the three judges dissenting), so an application was made to the Chamber of Deputies and the election result was set aside. A giant lawsuit was then launched, with the people by now roused to fever pitch. But here a parenthesis is needed.
“In Guatemala, Arévalo's presidency had led to the formation of what came to be known as the Socialist Republics of the Caribbean. The Guatemalan president was supported in this by PrÃo Socarrás, Rómulo Betancourt, Juan RodrÃguez, a Dominican millionaire, Chamorro and others. The original revolutionary plan was to land in Nicaragua and remove Somoza from power, since El Salvador and Honduras would fall without much of a fight. But Argüello, a friend of Figueres, raised the question of Costa Rica and its convulsive internal situation, so Figueres flew to Guatemala. The alliance came into operation; Figueres led a revolt in Cartago and with arms swiftly took over the aerodrome
there, in case any air support was necessary.
“Resistance was organized rapidly, however, and the people attacked the barracks to obtain weapons, which the government was refusing to give them. The revolution had no popular supportâUlate had not participatedâand was doomed to failure. But it was the popular forces headed by the communists who had wonâa conclusion extremely disconcerting for the bourgeoisie, and with them, Teodoro Picado. Picado flew to Nicaragua to confer with Somoza and obtain weapons, only to find that a top US official would also be at the meeting, and who demanded, as the price for assistance, that Picado should eradicate communism in Costa Rica (thereby guaranteeing the fall of Manuel Mora), and that each weapon supplied would come with a man attached to itâsignifying an invasion of Costa Rica.
“Picado did not accept this at that time, as it would have meant betraying the communists who had supported him throughout the struggle. But the revolution was in its death throes and the power of the communists so frightened the reactionary elements in the government that they boycotted the defense of the country until the invaders were at the gates of San José and then abandoned the capital for Liberia, close to Nicaragua. At the same time, the rest of the army went over to the Nicaraguans, taking all the available ammunition. A pact was made with Figueres, underwritten by the Mexican embassy, and the popular forces actually laid down their weapons in front of that embassy. Figueres did not keep his side of the deal, however, and the Mexican embassy was unable to enforce it because of the hostility of the US State Department. Mora was deported. It was pure luck he escaped with his life as the plane he was traveling in came under machine-gun fire. The plane landed in the US Canal Zone, where the Yankee police arrested him and handed him over to the Panamanian chief of police, at that time Colonel Remón. The Yankee journalists wanting
to question him were expelled, and then he had an altercation with Remón and was locked up. Finally he went to Cuba, from where Grau San MartÃn expelled him to Mexico. He was able to return to Costa Rica during the Ulate period.
“Figueres was faced with the problem that his forces consisted of only 100 Puerto Ricans and the 600 or so men who formed the Caribbean Legion. Although he initially told Mora that his program was designed for a 12-year period and that he had no intention of surrendering power to the corrupt bourgeoisie represented by Ulate, he had to make a deal with the bourgeoisie and agreed to give up power after only a year and a half, an undertaking he fulfilled after he had fixed the election machinery to his benefit and organized a cruel repression. When the time was up, Ulate returned to power and kept it for the appointed four years. It was not a feature of his government to uphold the established freedoms or to respect the progressive legislation achieved under the previous governments. But it did repeal the anti-landowner “law on parasites.”
“The fraudulent elections gave Figueres victory over the candidate representing the Calderón tradition, who now lives as a closely monitored exile in Mexico. In Mora's view, Figueres has a number of good ideas, but because they lack any scientific basis he keeps going astray. He divides the United States into two: the State Department (very just) and the capitalist trusts (the dangerous octopuses). What will happen when Figueres sees the light and stops having any illusion about the goodness of the United States? Will he fight or give up? That is the dilemma. We shall see!”
A day that left no trace: boredom, reading, weak jokes. Roy, a little old pensioner from Panama, came in for me to look at him because he thought he was going to die from a tapeworm. He has chronic salteritis.
The meeting with Rómulo Betancourt did not have that history-lesson
quality of the one with Mora. My impression is that he's a politician with some firm social ideas in his head, but otherwise he sways toward whatever is to his best advantage. In principle, he is solidly with the United States. He spoke lies about the RÃo Pact and spent most of the time raging about the communists.