Chapter LXIII:
Yesterday
Asunción, Paraguay
September of 1968
“General”
“General”
A voice said a second time as the man in question continued to walk around the small pond, immersed in his own thoughts. He was, despite the title by which he was still referred and by which he had been referred for the last 20 years, wearing old khaki pants and an old pale shirt, which were amongst the few belongings of his that he could bring with him given the haste with which he had left his home some four years ago, and despite the fact that he was past the 70s and fast approaching the 80 years of age, he remained as far as anyone could tell, a lucid and intelligent man.
“General” the voice said a third time
“I’m listening, son, didn’t you have a question?”
“Ah, yes” said the young man, visibly confused as he took another look at the man standing a few steps from him and the pocket notebook in which he kept his notes.
A small grin appeared on the General’s face as he approached the new arrival. Few people visited him in his new home away from home. His good friend, the President of the Republic of course came from time to time, as did the occasional minister or prominent local figure in search of an intriguing and rather curious political and one day historical relic. Few countrymen came to the General’s home, most of them having escaped the authorities back home and that now came either for help or urging the general to take the reins of command once more. After a few months, those visits stopped and now the General was willing to welcome any change to the crushing monotony of his exile.
“Tell me, Santucho was it? From your first questions I take that you’re not here to pester me about what happened four years ago, are you?”
The question took the young man for surprise for a second, but he quickly replied:
“No, general, in fact I have a few questions about the war. I’m researching for the University of Buenos Aires and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.”
“Ah, so you’re a historian, I suppose” said the General somewhat sardonically
“Do you have a problem with history, General?”
“No, I don’t have any problems with history, only with those who intent to write it”
After a few minutes of a dry and cold silence, the General continued
“So, you had a question?”
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Buenos Aires, Argentina
September of 1995
The President of the Republic took a hard look at the mirror as he fastened his tie. Still young, or relatively young for a politician, he was somewhat upset as he first noticed the wrinkles under his eyes and the receding hair lines. He wasn’t a vain man, but he knew that it was the office that had aged him. Four years in power and over 20 years in politics have taken their toll, but it wasn’t until now that he noticed that the effects went beyond the stress and headaches.
He went through the motions as any other normal morning at the Quinta de Olivos: breakfast, some inane chat with his wife and reading of newspapers and being reminded of the days’ schedule. Nothing was particularly new in the world this day. The Christian Democrats did well in Italy and were bound to not do so good two weeks later in Germany; Paraguay continued negotiations to join the Economic Community and the American President closed another useless base in Japan. No, there was nothing new in the world. The big day was reserved for Argentina.
Preparations had taken months, for both the Government and non-Government organizations involved in the event. There was a surprising amount of unity and cooperation, especially for an electoral year, but the UCD and UCR have shown great degree of civility to each other, and both historical and current figures of both parties had made a point of highlighting Unity and fraternity for the anniversary ceremonies.
The inaugurations of the Monument to the Fallen in Cordoba and the Museum for Truth and Memory in Buenos Aires had seen rather good turnouts of prominent politicians and veterans of the Civil war, and at no point was there room for political rivalries or bickering. This was a solemn occasion and everybody knew it.
But today was the biggest test, the big day.
Three former Presidents and dozens of prominent figures who had seen and lived the Civil War would be there for the main anniversary ceremonies. The last time the former Presidents had met was to commemorate the passing of President Frondizi last December, also the first time in which Juan Carlos Pugliese and Roque Carranza could put aside their differences with Alvaro Alsogaray. Now they were all passing or approaching the 80 years of age, and after a lifetime of service to the public and politics, they had perhaps gained a measure of perspective.
Having finished his morning routine, the president kissed his wife goodbye, as she would only meet him for the main ceremonies later that night, and was escorted to the sober but elegant black Kaiser Carabela, the pride of the Argentine auto industry.
Inside the car, his chief of staff and his chauffeur greeted him good morning as they drove to downtown Buenos Aires.
Despite what the somewhat luxurious car just taken out of the Kaiser-Di Tella factory might suggest, the President was no friend of unnecessary spending or a lavish lifestyle one might associate with a head of state. He had in fact gotten rid of the Presidential helicopter and would often travel using spare vehicles from the army rather than spend money on luxury or comfort.
Given the 40 year anniversary of the Civil War, many sympathized with the President’s
New found Spartan approach to power.
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Asunción, Paraguay
September of 1968
“All day and all night trapped in that old bunker under the Ministry of War, you could say some of us were out of touch with the war, but in fact, we knew pretty much everything about it except for how bad it had gotten for the regular people…that I found out later”
“Indeed, but I have to ask. Following the, ah, events of June 1955, first you declared the Justicialist Revolution to be over and sought conciliation before the War. Was the post-war state a post-Revolutionary state? Was it the culmination of the Justicialist Revolution and in scene a Justicialist State?”
The General let a small grin and a somewhat ironic expression appear on his face before calmly replying:
“We tried. Some of it got lost in the post-war mayhem; other measures had less to do with ideology and more with salvaging what we could from the war. In 1956, 1957 and all the way to 1960, it was more about bringing some measure of stability and order rather than continuing what we tried to do in the 1940s, but it was all part of the same model, you could say ”
“But how do you reconcile some of the measures you took before and after the Revolutionary, eh, Civil War in 1955?”
“The revolution is very fluid, and permanent. There’s no reality other than the voice of the people, and ultimately, what’s best for the people it’s best for the country”
“But, for example, following the war you took the country closer to the United States, after pursuing a more independent position in the 1950s”
“The Yankees were a necessary evil, and everybody should know that. Maybe not better or worse than the Russians, but they’re what we got, they’re the toughest kid on the block. After the war, we needed help, and even before the war we needed it. Now, Frondizi, after spending years yelling and complaining about our deals with the American government, their companies and oil industry, he’s doing the exact same thing, and the country is the best for it, because it benefits us. And please, don’t forget, that the Yankees were glad to see me gone four years ago, they just didn’t show it” continued the General in a somewhat humorous and dry tone, amusing both his guest and himself.
“So you don’t think you contradict yourself?”
“No, I’m not that much of a politician. I’d even admit my own mistakes and regret them, rather than blame them on my rivals or the circumstances”
“You’re of course referring to the current government?”
“And their opposition too. I don’t think there’s the slightest difference between them. They were a unified clique in Montevideo and they remain a unified clique today, even if they’re opposed to each other in public. That’s how politics work”
“You said that you’d be willing to admit your own mistakes and regrets. Is there any particular mistake that was particularly worth of mention? Like the National Accord of 1964, calling for elections or not staying to fight that year like you had in 1955?”
“No. In fact, I believe that had I left in 1955, much bloodshed could have been avoided. The war might have just stopped right then and there had I took off for Paraguay like I did four years ago. But after what happened in June, I was caught in the storm. I couldn’t back down; I thought that would have destroyed the country, the sectarian division and the lack of a strong leadership. Now it’s been 13 years and I think that the country could have made it”
“So you think that leaving in 1964 was the best decision?”
“It was, no doubt. I wish I could have left the country to a better generation, leave it in good hands, but of course, it’s hard to find good hands if the only arms reaching out are those of politicians”
“Even if your revolution had to be sacrificed?”
“By 1964, there was no more revolution. There was a state and a state bureaucracy, but the people had left us and our ideas. There can’t be a revolution if the people are not willing. If our movement had to die for the people to realize that the status quo was not the best, that compromising our Independence, sovereignty and social justice for the sake of change or a false sensation of freedom and security, then it was necessary for the revolution to be sacrificed, if only for people to learn to appreciate what we did and what we tried to do”
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AGREEMENT REACHED WITH BRITAIN OVER SOUTH ATLANTIC TREATY
By Juan Jose Cabral
An exultant air of celebration can be sensed today in Buenos Aires as an agreement with the British Government over the South Atlantic territories and their natural resources, which have been disputed between both countries for decades, was reached today in Washington.
By the new South Atlantic Treaty, the territories between the 25° west, 63° west, 52° parallel south and the Antarctic circle, in addition to the territory between 30° west, 47° west, the Antarctic Circle (66° 33’ south) and 60° south, will become the South Atlantic Economic Commonwealth Area.
The new Treaty will assure both nations have equal rights in the economic exploitation of the new common area, which is to be demilitarized and be considered separate from both the British and Argentinean governments, which renounce to their monopolist claims to the region for a period of 10 years, in which the area will be jointly administrated and exploited.
The official ceremonies and signing of the treaty is due to take place next month in a meeting at Montevideo between President Pugliese and British Prime Minister John Smith, with the presence of several foreign heads of state.
President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle of the South American Economic Community (CESA) has expressed his satisfaction over the peaceful and diplomatic resolution to a decades long territorial struggle and declared this to be a “great victory for South American unity and fraternity, as well as world peace”
[
Article to La Nación, December of 1988]
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Buenos Aires, Argentina
September of 1995
“What a long day”
“It just never ends”
And they were still making the preparations for the main ceremonies. After that there was more shaking hands, some more speeches, there were pictures to be taken and people to meet, mostly veterans and victims of the War. And that was without taking into account that while this was the ‘big day’, the entire month had been spent in similar events in Cordoba, Bahia Blanca and Buenos Aires.
The Casa Rosada was seeing a frantic frenzy that’d soon resemble a maelstrom as politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers, media figures, civil rights and human rights movement figures, foreign diplomats and heads of state wandered around the building, looking for the President or a relevant figure in search of shaking hands, having a photo opportunity or just engage in inane chatter while waiting for the big moment. Thus, the President took five minutes from his busy schedule to hide in his Chief of Staff’s office.
Apart from his wife, this man was the only one with which the President of the Republic could talk freely. One of the hazards of the Presidency: isolation.
If his four years in power had taught the President anything, it was that his Chief of Staff was the one man in which he could trust. Sergio Karakachoff had seen and done everything, mostly with him: the rise of the new Student Movement and the Radical Youth in the 1960s and 1970s, the return to Democracy and the rise of the party from the ashes, the Frondizi years and the Change and Renewal revolution of the 80s, the bitter campaign of 1991 and the Constitutional Reform of 1992.
“What do you think, Ruso? What if I just jump out of the window and you take my place?”
“I don’t know. On one hand I’d get to use that fancy presidential band and baton, but on the other I’ve seen your paycheck”
The two old friends let a good laugh out, certainly a stronger laugh than the one the joke deserved.
“It could be worse” said Karakachoff “you could be running for reelection”
“Well, at least if I was, I wouldn’t have to meet with every empty suit, brownnose opportunist and provincial caudillo that thinks he should be the next president. Remember when our party stood for something and we had actually good people and leadership?”
“No”
Suddenly the conversation stopped as they heard the door being opened and they saw a familiar figure entering the room.
“Ah, Ruso, Leopoldo here you are. I’ve been looking for you all over the place”
Both the President of the Republic and his Chief of Staff stood up and greeted the former President of the Republic with all the respect that such a venerable party figure could deserve. Roque Carranza was glad to see that a difference of 30 years in age and political experience would still command respect in the new generation in charge of his centenary party.
“We better get going, boys, or we’re gonna be late”
And with that, the small reunion was over.
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MEMORY AND THE END OF HISTORY
By Mario Roberto Santucho
The Argentinean Nation stands today, in the final days of said century and fast approaching the 21st, has as a whole been the product of two profound and complex historical circumstances: the Civil War of 1955 and the 18 years long Peronist rule from 1946 to 1964. A minor but nevertheless very relevant third circumstance could be the Revolution of 1964 and the return of Democracy in 1967.
To what degree has our history been shaped by events that took place three and four decades apart? We may walk by memorials built in the memory of those who fought and died during the war, on streets named after events and people of those times, hear the occasional mention on the radio or from a relative, but little do we realize about what have these events meant to our history.
We may transit on one of the national roads and highways built by the Peronist Government in the 1960s in an Argentinean made car, and take a look at the industrial centers of Cordoba and Buenos Aires and never realize that these were part of the legacy of the Peronist Regime, all of them renamed, others rebranded and rebuilt under the guise of anti-peronist enterprises in the 1970s. Even during the privatization and economic opening period of the 1970s and early 1980s some industries such as the auto or energy sectors would not be touched, even as private capitals were allowed.
The political effects still persist as well.
To this day General Peron is associated with the worst repression of the regime in the late 1950s and early 1960s, with authoritarianism, inefficient government bureaucracies and even fascistic overtones. Some have even likened the figure of Peron with that of Franco in Spain or Stroessner in Paraguay, when he is not compared to a well known Argentinean caudillo and historical villain, Juan Manuel de Rosas.
This is another effect of the regime and the Civil War: a radicalization of politics that has seen a polarization of politics between two bureaucratic, technocratic and constricting structures, the UCR and the UCD, that to a degree have imposed a bipartidist and unrepresentative system that forces the people to choose between two sets of bureaucrats and party people, whereas other options are relegated to a provincial level, as are the neo-peronist parties in Corrientes, Neuquen and Salta, the Democratic Socialist Party, the Workers’ Party and the Bloquismo in San Juan.
Thus in our zeal to erase and rebuild the past in the image of the winners of the new generation, we repudiated Peronism in its entirety: the good and the bad. Something similar happened after the fall of Rosas in 1852 and Mitre’s triumph over the Federalists in 1860. Our national narrative once again stood by the side of the victors, who either destroyed or appropriated everything that stood behind and beneath them.
The Civil War also shaped the people: the greatly polarized divide of the 1950s became apathy and monotony in the post-war nation, and growing in this apathy was the youth that modern historians and sociologists refer to as the “baby boomer” or Generation W, which today forms the backbone of our political leadership and economically active population. Thus the later years of Peronist Rule saw the regime wither and collapse as the generation in power lost the will to fight and the new generation acquired the will to change the world around them.
This new generation has led us to the 1990s and to a new crossroads in our history; the question remains: what have we learned and what have we took from our tumultuous and tragic past? We suffered, we survived, we got back up and we prospered, but to a degree I believe that the cost has been our collective memory. We remember the war, but not why it started, and we certainly do not know how to avoid it, and we remember the peronist regime, but not for what it was but for what we’ve been told it was by its enemies, the victors of history.
At the end, I’m forced to remember.
Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.
[
Taken from…La Nación, October of 1995]
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Asunción, Paraguay
September of 1968
“Does history repeat itself?” replied the General incuriously, but somewhat bemused
“I believe so, if we don’t learn from it and repeat the same mistakes”
“Do you think I am Rosas? Or the Spaniards? No, no…it was Rosas, that’s what they’re saying. I guess that in that case Frondizi would be Urquiza, or Mitre”
Santucho kept quiet for a second, pensive and a bit tired. The conversation had been going on for hours but neither man was willing to end it or give any sign of weakness or of giving up.
“Does it surprise you than this old soldier knows his history, which is the history of his nation?”
“To the contrary, General, I’ve been told you were quite acquainted with history and were a well educated person in general”
“I’ve always believed in the value of knowledge, and I showed it too. Thanks to us every child in the fatherland can now enjoy the benefit of a free and thorough education, and even that they won’t acknowledge. They’ll keep everything I did and rename it, and that’s how they’ll make the people forget me, forget us, forget the movement”
“But Frondizi has been adamant in his quest to deperonize the country, how could he keep the slightest part of your program, which has been branded as revolutionary, dangerous and even fascistic?”
“Come on, boy, I know you know better than that. They couldn’t dismantle the whole system; it’d be like dismantling the country itself. Take one cog and the entire machine will come tumbling down” the general said as he suddenly stopped and cleaned the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. “They wouldn’t dare to change it, and that’s how our revolution will live on, in complete and perfect anonymity.”
“Sounds unfair, doesn’t it General?”
“Life has always been unfair. Politicians have always been like, well, like that. I wasn’t expecting any less.”
“Indeed you shouldn’t have. Many parts of your program were part of earlier socialist and communist initiatives, and others from the UCR”
“But they couldn’t make them work, and I did. They didn’t have a program, an ideal, an objective or the means to carry them and see them through, and I did. Life is not about ideas, not about who thinks what and when, but about who acts, who makes things happen”
“That’s a rather cynical way of looking things”
“It’s the only way of looking at things”
“I have to ask, I hope you don’t mind”
“We’ve gone this far without me complaining, what do you want to know?”
“How do you think you’ll be remembered?”
The General stood besides the man questioning him for several seconds, his hands behind his back, a serious look dominating his face, which had an expression of calm and joviality throughout the interview. Finally, not without a degree of melancholy and reflection, he said:
“I’ve seen the present, and frankly, I’d rather not be remembered at all”
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Finis
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