Corona wins the Presidential elections of Dominican Republic

  

Yes. Corona is the last name of the winner of the presidential elections of Dominican Republic held on 5 July. Full name is Luis Rodolfo Abinader Corona.  But he is popularly called as Abinader or Luis Abinader. The last part of the name ‘Corona’ comes from his mother’s side. He had tested positive for the virus on 11 June and spent most of the crucial campaign time  in quarantine. His wife also had also tested positive at the same time.

Abinader’s  first challenge as President is the Corona virus pandemic.  The Dominican Republic (DR) is one of the worst-affected countries in the Caribbean, with more than 38,000 confirmed cases and over 800 deaths. The election was postponed from May because of the virus. Understandably, the voters turnout was less and it was only 49.6%. However, the voters were smart enough to avoid a second round by giving more than 50% to the winner in the first round itself.

 Abinader, who is from the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM), won with 53% vote. Gonzalo Castillo, the candidate  of the ruling Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) got  37.7%.  PLD has governed for the last sixteen years, having won four consecutive elections since 2004. Castillo was the public works and communications Minister in the outgoing government. Former President Leonel Fernández, who left the ruling party and ran for the presidency as a member of the new People's Force party got just 8.8% of the votes.

But the change of party does not mean any drastic change in the direction or major policies of the country. Abinader’s PRM Party is also centre-left as the outgoing PLD. Abinader, aged 52, is pragmatic and balanced in his politics and avoids controversies and extremes. He is an economist with Masters degrees from US universities. He is a businessman who has never held elected office, although he was the losing candidate in the 2016 elections. He is of Lebanese origin and his business group hasinterests in hotels and cement besides other sectors. His father was a senator and presidential candidate three times in the eighties and nineties.

Incumbent President Danilo Medina was ineligible to stand for re-election, having served two consecutive terms since 2012. But Mr Medina tried a maneuver to get a third term, not allowed under the constituition. It is rumored that the US Secretary of State Pompeo called and advised Medina strongly to desist. It is believed that Leonel Fernandez was behind this US string pulling. He was the one who promoted the candidature of Medina in 2012, considering him as a protégé. But the disciple tried to outsmart the mentor and earned the wrath. There are allegations of irregularities in the primaries held in PLD which made Fernandez to quit the party and form a new one. These developments combined with corruption charges against the government were the main reasons for the loss of the ruling party. The voters chose to give the opposition a chance. 

   

The economy of Dominican Republic with a population of 10.6 million has done very well in the 16 years of the PLD rule from 2004. The cumulative GDP growth is 96.8% meaning an average annual growth of 6%. This is among the highest in the Latin American and Caribbean region. DR’s growth rate of 4.8% in 2019 and 7% in 2018 were the highest among the 19 Latin American countries. The inflation has been low at 2.5% in 2019 and 1.2% in 2018. The other macroeconomic fundamentals of the country are also sound and healthy. However, the country will face its first GDP contraction in 2020, like all the countries of the region. Tourism, a major foreign exchange earner, is being hit hard by the pandemic. Revival of the tourist industry will be a crucial challenge for the new President.

Dominican Republic is better known in India because of its popular and charismatic ambassador Hans Dannenberg Castellanos. He opened the embassy in 2005 and has been here for the last fifteen years. Initially he struggled to get Indian business interested in the distant and unknown Caribbean island nation. But the proactive ambassador promoted his country by organizing numerous visits of business delegations, reaching out to chambers of commerce across India and offering fast track business visas. He arranged a successful visit of President Leonel Fernandez in 2010 which opened the eyes of the Indians to the potential for business with the DR. Thanks to his relentless campaign, the exports of DR to India has reached 567 million dollars in 2018-19 (April-March) from an insignificant 2.7 million dollars in 2004-5. Today, India is the third largest destination of DR’s global exports after US and Haiti. In fact, India is the largest market for DR’s number one export, gold. 

India is also indebted to Ambassador Castellanos for opening DR’s market for Indian business. India’s exports have increased from 24.7 million in 2004-5 to 215 million dollars in 2018-19. Today, India's exports are more to this distant (14000 km) island country than its exports of 196 million to the neighbouring (3500 km) market of Cambodia and 143 million to Kazhakstan, just 1600 km away with a population almost double that of DR. Pharmaceuticals and vehicles are the main exports of India to DR.

Indo-Dominican Republic  trade has gone up from a mere 24.7 million dollars in 2004-5 to an impressive 782 million in 2018-19 and is all set to hit a billion dollars, the target of Ambassador Castellanos.

The only unfinished agenda of Ambassador Castellanos is to get India to open an embassy in Santo Domingo. He has been trying so hard for this at all levels. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs has promised him that Dominican Republic would figure in the top of the list of new embassies to be opened in Latin America in the not too distant future. 

Ambassador Castellanos’s current priority is to organize visit of his new President to India as soon as the Corona travel restrictions are lifted. He is also keen to put Dominican Republic in the itinerary of the Indian Prime Minister or President to Latin America during their next visit to the region.

With his long stay, Ambassador Castellanos has become the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in Delhi. He is considered as a Guru by new incoming ambassadors who seek his expertise in dealing with the intricacies of Indian bureaucracy, business sector and visa seekers. He is known in the cocktail circuit for his Latino liveliness, inimitable sense of humour and incredible imitation of Indian English accents. 

The article has been published in Financial Express of 9 July
https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/corona-wins-the-presidential-elections-of-dominican-republic/2018230/

Born to die – book by Colombian writer Alonso Salazar

Colombia had four kinds of violence: 

Political violence - The conflict between conservatives and liberals at the national level went out of control and plunged the country into a deadly violence lasting for ten years in the period 1948-58.  Colombians call this simply as the period of  ‘La Violencia” ( the violence). It was one of the darkest chapters in the history of the country. This was the starting point for the culture of violence in the next seven decades.

Drug violence - from the seventies to the nineties when drug cartels indulged in an orgy of violence with bombings, assassinations and kidnappings.

Guerilla violence - from the armed movements of FARC, M-19 and EPL groups to overthrow the government. They started with genuine political principles for social justice and utopia but deteriorated into criminal activities in most cases. 

Neighbourhood violence - localized violence in poor barrios (neighbourhoods) of the cities where street gangs got into crimes. They mostly terrorized their own neighbourhood.

Alonso Salazar’s book is about the last category of violence in the poor barrios of the city of Medellin. The book has a series of poignant stories of how adolescents took to crime and violence. The stories are narrated by gangsters, mothers, friends, the corner shop owners and the priests. There are confessions of criminals, witnesses and victims.  There is vivid description of the origin, evolution, manifestation and consequences of violence. 

The poor kids in the marginalized areas of Medellin city born into dysfunctional families had no educational and employment opportunities except to pursue criminal activities to earn a living. Some boys were forced into it by peer pressure. When the streets were full with criminal characters it was impossible for innocent boys to avoid and escape from the gangs. In a few cases, boys turned to crimes after traumatized by seeing the brutal killing of their families and friends. These boys from the barrios were small timers with very limited resources and reach. They were known as Chichipatos (small-time scum) and cochinos (pigs). They became sicarios (contract killers), mules and errand boys for paramilitary groups, drug cartels and some times for political and business groups too. 

The boys of crime enjoyed the reputation of being feared and becoming notorious. Gangs from different barrios killed each other for territorial control, business deals and revenge. Some kids started enjoying their killing jobs and became monsters. The boys found the violence as their own anaesthesia and lost feelings. Seventy per cent of the people who died violent deaths in the city of Medellín were in the age group between 14 and 20.

They took to wearing fancy clothes, impressed their girlfriends with gifts and even helping the families and the barrios with their money. They sang  and danced salsa and valleanato in  all-night street parties. The young criminals knew that their life could end any time. So they took life fatalistically and were prepared to die singing Willy Colon’s salsa song

Pronto llegará el día de mi suerte,
la esperanza de mi muerte seguro que mi suerte cambiará 

My lucky day will be here soon as I wait for my death
I’m certain my luck will change too 

The gangs held elaborate funeral and burial ceremonies of drinking, music and dance for colleagues who were killed. Some of the gang leaders gave instructions when they were still alive, on how they wanted their burial ceremonies and what songs they wanted to be played in their funeral. 

The young criminals had faith only in the virgin Mary whose blessings they sought for their protection and success of their jobs. The people of the barrios had no faith in the police who themselves were involved in extortion and in illegal selling of weapons to the gangs. They feared jail more than death. There was humiliation of rape and more violence within the jails. Those with money had safety and could bribe the judges to get out before completing the term.   

The book does not have a conventional end of the story nor does it have any climax . The author Alonso Salazar has chosen a hybrid form of storytelling combining fictional characters with documentary-style comments. At the end, he has pleaded for action to stop the violence.Salazar is also a journalist, social activist and political leader besides being a writer. He was actively involved in community work in the violent neighourhoods. So what he has written is what he saw with his own eyes.

Salazar was elected as Mayor of Medellin city in the period 2008-11 and had brought down crime and improved the lives of the poor. Medellin city was lucky to have more visionary mayors and political leaders like him in the last three decades. He had earlier worked as advisor to Mayor Sergio Fajardo (in the period 2003-7), considered as one of the architects of the transformation of the city which was known as a narco crime and murder capital of the world during the days of Pablo Escobar. 

In the last two decades, the city has managed to transform and reinvent itself into a safer and more inclusive and prosperous place. Crime and poverty have decreased dramatically. It has one of the best quality of life among the Latin American cities. The city has built a metro cable transport through the poor barrios reaching out to them, facilitating their travel and importantly making them feel as part of the society with dignity and honour. There are numerous parks, libraries and city squares to provide a sense of ownership and inclusion in the city’s public spaces. With the extensive use of IT, the city has become a smart city and the Silicon Valley of the Andean region. Medellin has now become an international benchmark for urban transformation and social innovation. The city of more than two million inhabitants has lived upto its reputation even during this covid19 crisis time by containing infection and dealing with the crisis through its smart IT network and solutions.

There are a number of Indian IT companies and professionals in Medellin.There is a Gandhi Peace Foundation in the city run by Harivardhan Shah, who has collaborated with the City and NGOs in spreading the message of Gandhi on non-violence and peace. My blog https://latinamericanaffairs.blogspot.com/search?q=medellin

In Latin America, Colombia has suffered the worst from violence with several hundred thousand killings and displacement of millions in the last seven decades. At one time, the American media tried to stigmatise the country as a ‘failed state’. Now Colombia has decisively and irreversibly put an end to the ignominious chapter of violence with the 2016 peace deal signed with FARC. Although, a few FARC rebels, the ELN group and some drug cartels continue with some violent activities, these are likely to be contained in the coming years. The country will certainly not go back to its bad old days of Pablo Escobar or loss of the control of almost half the territory to FARC guerillas. However, cocaine supply to US will continue as long as millions of US consumers continue to pay billions of dollars for the drugs. It is a demand driven business from US. The drug war should be fought within US to stop consumption. This is the only solution.

While Medellin has come out of its tragic past dramatically, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras as well as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo cities still continue to suffer from crime and violence. There are any number of books and films about the gruesome violence in these.

The secret of success of the Medellin Miracle is the fact that it was a collective project of the city’s government, academics, professionals, businesspeople and civic leaders. They came together around a shared vision to invigorate the city’s poorest neighborhoods through science, technology, innovation and culture. They studied and learnt from the best practices of other cities such as Barcelona and Singapore. The transformation of Medellin is called as “Social Urbanism”. It is a role model for other Latin American as well as Indian cities which are struggling with large slums of poverty and marginalization.

This English version of this book published by Penguin (SEA) is available for sale only in South East Asia for the time being. However, the original Spanish edition published in 1990 is available in Kindle store for Indian readers.

The English translation of this book “No nacimos pa’ Semilla”, has been done by Sharmila Bhushan from Gurgaon. She has done an excellent job of translating the esoteric slangs and local jargon used in the Colombian crime world. 

The choice of an Indian translator for a Colombian book by the prestigious publishing house Penguin (SEA) is a recognition of and testimony to the translation talents of Indian professionals.

Spanish has overtaken French as the most popular foreign language in India. Spanish is taught in many schools, universities, management and technical institutes, besides language academies. The increasing professional pool of Spanish language translators and interpreters helps India's business with the 18 Latin American countries which speak Spanish, besides Spain.

Here is the link to the book https://penguin.sg/book/born-to-die/

Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story Of Fidel Castro – book by Georgie Anne Geyer

  

Georgie Geyer, the author, had interviewed around 500 people in 28 countries from Cuba to India. Her interviewees include defectors from Cuba, Castro's lovers, members of his extended family, ex-spies from US and Soviet Union, guerrilla leaders, presidents, ministers, diplomats, historians and psychiatrists. She had interviewed Castro himself four times in the sixties. Based on these, the author published the book in 1990, when the cold war ended and the principal Cuban benefactor Soviet Union collapsed.

The book has lot of information, gossip and stories about Castro.  There are different perspectives on Castro by his admirers, lovers, enemies and victims. 

The author starts the story from Galicia in Spain, where Castro's father Angel Castro was born and brought up in the poor province but with a proud local spirit and tradition. She traces some characteristics of Fidel Castro from his Gallego origin and quotes a Galician author Alvaro Conqueiro, " The Gallego..lives from the land and the sea and continues being a dreamer, a lover of secrets, believing that not everything that is buried is dead"

The author divides Fidel Castro’s rule into three phases: first, when Cubans called him as “Fidel” in adoration of the revolutionary; second, when the people respectfully referred to him as “Castro” distancing themselves cautiously from the powerful man; and third, when he was called as “El” (He) out of fear and frustration with the miserable conditions of life.

There has been an inconclusive debate as to when did Castro become a communist and if he was pushed into communism by the bullying US. The author says, “ The truth is that Fidel Castro never "became" a Communist as one becomes a Mason, a Catholic, an SS officer, a Hare Krishna, or a Zoroastrian. He did not adapt himself to an ideology; he found an ideology to adapt itself to him. His "Communism" was not — could not be — an act of faith, because his only faith lay in himself and his "noble" intentions”. I agree. He saw the rigidity of communists in Cuba as well as from Soviet Union and did not want to be stuck in that framework as yet another follower. Castro followed his own path which had drawn elements from Marx and Marti among others. 

But what is clear is that Castro had a huge and unrelenting battle with the US which wanted to overthrow Castro’s government by hook or crook. The CIA made so many assassination attempts and took even the help of mafias. So he had no other choice but to seek protection and help from Soviet Union, the other super power. But Castro went beyond. He inspired, instigated and supported armed revolutions in Latin America and Africa and challenged the power of US. This was audacious and took an unusual courage. He paid a heavy price. The US inflicted even more pain for Cuba. 

Castro's encounter with US starts when he spends his honeymoon in New York, paid for by his father- in- law. His second visit to US was to collect funds for his Sierra Maestra expedition from Mexico. He travelled from Florida to New York giving speeches to Cuban expatriates and collecting money from them, just as Jose Marti did. His third visit was a few months after the triumph of his revolution in 1959. He went to Washington DC at the invitation of the Association of Editors and spent 5 days meeting senators, journalists and administration officials including Vice President Nixon. From there, he went to Harvard and Princeton Universities where he received a hero's welcome. His next visit was to address the United Nations in New York, when he decided to stay in a small hotel in the poor black neighborhood of Harlem causing a sensation.

After these visits, Castro realized that US was going to be the greatest danger to him, as evidenced soon by the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Castro  was at times pragmatic and cynical. For example, he agreed to release the 1113 prisoners he had taken after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in exchange for  fifty-three million dollars' worth of medicine and equipment, the equivalent of forty-eight thousand dollars a head.

While Castro is remembered and revered as a great revolutionary, he has left Cuba as a poor and miserable country. The country is waiting to join the rest of Latin America as a democracy and become a prosperous one as it was in the beginning of the twentieth century. 

During his trial in 1953 after the Moncada barracks attack, the young 27-year old Castro declared prophetically, "History will absolve me". History might absolve him but not the writers who will continue to interpret, analyse, accuse and adulate Castro through hundreds of view points. This book is one more addition to the list of the 600 books already published on Fidel Castro.

In search of Klingsor – novel by Mexican writer Jorge Volpi

Jorge Volpi is one of the five young Mexican writers who founded the Crack Movement  in the mid- nineties. These rebels, called as the ‘Crack Generation’ wanted to break with the regional trend of Magical Realism dominant in the twentieth century. They issued a Crack Manifesto in 1996, setting out the groundwork for a new path for writing. Ignacio Padilla, one of the founders of the Crack Movement said, “ It is the Crack novel’s role to renew the language inside of itself, that is, feeding it with its oldest ashes”. Another cofounder Ricardo Chavez Castenada said, “ The crack novels create their own codes and take them to their last consequences. They are self-centred cosmos, almost mathematical in their buildings and foundations”. Volpi himself is focused less on the language and more on the actions of characters and research into academic topics especially science and history. Although the Crack Movement did not get a region-wide traction in Latin America, it was a source of inspiration for many young writers who felt burdened by the magical expectations of readers.

With this introduction, I tried Volpi’s novel “ In search of Klingsor” with much curiosity.  Until this, I had been thoroughly soaked in Magical Realism by many  of the “Boom” writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Julio Cortazar, Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, whom I adored. Volpi did not disappoint me. He has, in fact, exceeded my expectations. I enjoyed the novel savoring it from the beginning till the end. It was so entertaining and engrossing that I could not stop till I finished it. It was a novel of intrigues, suspense, romance, ideas, philosophical provocations, scientific explorations and mathematical analysis. None of the characters in the novel is Mexican. Nor is there any link or reference to Mexico.

The story is about an American scientist Francis Bacon from Princeton who is recruited by the US army and taken to Germany to search for and interrogate the leading German scientists who were developing weapons for the Nazi regime. His main goal is to identify Klingsor who was the chief advisor of Hitler on scientific research, especially on atom bomb and who had the final authority for financial approvals for the projects. Klingsor is not a real name but a code name. It has been taken from the name of the magician in Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal. He was a mysterious figure and was not known to the public nor even to most of the scientific community. So there were only rumours and conjectures. Bacon takes the help of Gustav Links, a German mathematician who gives various clues and leads Bacon to meetings with a number of scientists.  Links was arrested for his involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944. The judge, who was about to pass sentence, was killed when the ceiling of the court building fell on him from Allied bombing. Links survives and lives to tell Bacon, the stories of other scientists. Bacon falls in love with Irene, a Soviet agent looking for the same Klingsor. She convinces him that it was Links who acted as Klingsor and persuades Bacon to hand over Links to the Soviet agents who smuggle him to East Germany and detains him in a mental asylum.

Volpi has mastered physics and mathematics and has given lessons by taking the readers through the labyrinths of  Theory of Relativity, Theory of Infinite Sets, Theory of Transfinite numbers, Set Theory, Continuity and Irrational numbers, Theory of Variables, Uncertainty Principle, Quantum Theory and other such theories. He has included life stories of famous scientists such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Otto Hahn, Erwin Shrodinger, Max Planck, Von Neumann, Johannes Stark and Werner Heisenberg. The book should be even more interesting for the students of maths and physics.

  

Volpi has weaved the theories and scientific debates into the stories of love, betrayal, loyalty, politics, war, morality and history. The scientist characters use their mathematical calculations and theories of physics to analyse day to day affairs besides the larger issues of state policies, religion and global affairs. 

Volpi has described how Nazism had infected the scientific community and divided them based on their religion and political affiliation. The pro-Nazi scientists advanced their careers by denouncing Jewish scientists and driving them out of Germany or into concentration camps. They had unleashed a vicious campaign to eliminate the “Jewish elements” from German science. Since Einstein, an eminent Jew, had escaped and gone over to the American side, he was vilified and his theory was questioned.  Those supporting the Theory of Relativity were labelled as disloyal to the Fatherland and slandered as “white jews”. Some great scientists had stooped to very low levels as malicious men. 

   

Volpi has portrayed a vivid picture of the German society under Hitler as well as the atrocities of Nazis based on actual persons and events. He has narrated German legends, folk tales,  literature, music, schools of philosophy and history which had influence on Hitler and his henchmen. He uses typical German phrases and words to emphasise the authenticity of the German characters.

Volpi has narrated the love stories of Bacon and Links through the chaos of Nazism and violence of the war. Bacon loses both his American lover and fiancée in Princeton. He falls in love with Irene in Germany but disillusioned to find that she is in fact a Soviet ‘honeytrap’. Bacon is initiated into romance by his friend Heinrich who introduces his girlfriend Natalia and her friend Marianne. Bacon marries Marianne and both of them fall in love with Natalia after Heinrich goes to serve in the army. Later, Bacon switches his love to Natalia from Marianne. Himmler executes Heinrich for his role in the assassination plot against Hitler and does not spare even Natalia’s life. Bacon’s wife commits suicide. Poignant stories of love, betrayal and tragedy in which the two brilliant scientific minds of both Bacon and Links get lost in the mysteries of love.

There is one similiarity between Volpi and some of the writers of the “ Boom Generation”. He also got a diplomatic assignment like many of the magical realism writers. The Mexican government posted him as cultural attache at their Paris embassy. This is an interesting tradition of the Latin American governments who have honoured many writers by posting them as cultural diplomats and ambassadors. Octavio Paz, the Mexican poet, was ambassador to India in the sixties.

In the end, I cannot help but feel a bit of irony. Volpi had chosen to write about Europe in this novel as part of his Crack Movement’s aim to break free from the Latin American Magical Realism of dictatorship, killings, torture and exile. But in this novel, Volpi narrates the monstrous atrocities of Nazis and the traumatisation of Europe. This tragedy is infinitely much worse and incredible than what happened in Latin America. Munich suffered longer than Macondo which faced rains lasting for four years, eleven months and two days. The Nazis sold more fantasies to the Germans than the gypsies did in Macondo. So, Volpi has just exchanged one magical realism for another, at least in this novel. 

Transmission Towers export success to Latin America at this time of transmission of corona virus

  

An Indian company, Karamtara Engineering Pvt Ltd,  have just won a contract of USD 8 Million for the supply of Transmission Line Towers from ENDE the national electric utility company of Bolivia. The towers will be made at their plant in Tarapore, near Mumbai.

Karamtara is already executing another contract in Chile for the supply of towers worth 5 million dollars. Since 2014, Karamtara has supplied towers to the tune of 67 million dollars to Colombia and Peru. 

The 80 million dollar supply contract to Latin America in the last five years is impressive in view of the fact that the region has been going through slow economic growth and political uncertainties.

So what is the secret behind this success? 

The secret has a name. It is R L Keshwani, who has a rich experience of having dealt with Latin America for the last 23 years. He had lived for 14 years in the region, most of it in Brazil. He speaks fluent Brazilian Portuguese and manages Spanish spoken in the rest of the region. Before Karamtara, he had worked with KEC and Kaplatharu, which are bigger than Karamtara in the business of transmission lines. Keshwani has established a strong network of agents in the region to explore opportunities and follow up with clients. 

  

KEC and Kalpatharu, which are more into EPC contracts, have done around 100 million dollars of business each in Latin America. KEC has invested about 80 million dollars in the acquisition of a Brazilian and another Mexican tower manufacturer. Another Kolkatta-based firm Skipper has supplied towers worth 70 million dollars to the region. Sterlite, of the Vedanta Group is doing projects valued at 1.5 billion dollars in Brazil in the BOOT (Build, Own, Operate and Transfer) model for thirty year period.

  

Brazil, Mexico and Argentina which have their own tower making plants have, understandably, put up barriers against imports. But Keshwani keeps trying. According to him, the Indian towers are now competitive against the Chinese which have become more expensive. The other major competitor is Turkey. 

Keshwani has mastered the art of doing business with the Latin Americans. It is different from the science of business with US, Europe and Japan. He says that price and quality are not enough. A human touch is needed in the case of Latin Americans, who value friendship and personal rapport. According to Keshwani, the secret for success in Brazil is 3 Cs, Café, Carne e Caipirinha (coffee, meat and the potent signature cocktail of Caipirinha made from sugarcane spirit with sugar and lime). This is true of the whole region. The three Cs help in building trust and confidence.

Keshwani says fun does not come in the first visit. He agrees with the saying, “ Brazil is not for the beginners” and says it applies to the whole of Latin America. Some Indian businessmen go on a short tour of a few days trying to get contracts in the first visit itself. They come back frustrated when they do not get any orders in the first trip and give up. India being a relative newcomer for business for the Latin Americans, they take time to understand the complexities of India before entering into business. So the Indian businessmen need to be patient and give sufficient inputs to gain the confidence of the importers. The courtship requires many visits and personal interactions. Indian companies need to invest in executives who have the aptitude and skills to play the long game and become specialists in the region. Language, certainly helps. There are many institutes in the major cities of India teaching Spanish and Portuguese and some of them provide special training for business executives.

  

When I met Keshwani for the first time in 1997 in Sao Paulo, he took me by surprise by speaking in pure Tamil.  He was born and brought up in Chennai.  Later, he became the president of the Indian Community organization in Sao Paulo and had organized lot of activities. We have been in touch since then. The Latin American clients of Keshwani, some of whom I have met, respect Keshwani as a sincere, reliable and committed person. In the personality-driven business culture of Latin America, personal rapport and trust are more important. Keshwani has made so many friends in the region. He describes the Latin Americans as lively, warm and friendly.

Keshwani is bullish about getting more contracts in the region. He is of the view that the Indian exporters should not be unduly discouraged by the corona virus and the GDP contraction of the region expected in 2020. He says it is important to keep online touch with the Latin American clients and maintain personal contacts, given the importance of human relationship in their business culture. According to him, the Latin Americans look at India more seriously during times of austerity seeking affordable products. Of course, there is always China with low prices. But the Latin American business want to reduce their overdependence on China and diversify their sources, especially after the corona virus which originated in Wuhan.

India’s exports to Latin America were 13.2 billion dollars in 2019. There is potential to double this figure in the next five years, if the Indian exporters work on the region more seriously. In 2019, Latin America’s total global imports were 1.07 trillion dollars. Even after the predicted 10% reduction in imports in 2020, the region will import around 900 billion dollars. India can certainly increase its share.

Keshwani is looking forward to visit the region as soon as the travel restrictions are relaxed. He is 70 years old. But he never complains about the long travel time to Latin America or jetlag. This reminds me of an External Affairs Minister of India, who told me when I was head of the Latin America Division in the Ministry, “ I will sign on any good proposal for strengthening relations with Latin America. But do not ever propose any visit for me to the region. I cannot take the long journey. It is too tiring”. As a strong and stubborn person, he never made any visit to the region as Minister. I dared not tell the Minister that those like Keshwani come back happier and younger after each visit to the region. Keshwani is a firm believer in the Latino wisdom, “ Don’t stop fun when you are old. You become old only when you stop having fun”.

Financial Express of 16 June 2020 carries this article
https://www.financialexpress.com/economy/transmission-towers-export-success-to-latin-america-at-this-time-of-transmission-of-coronavirus/1993117/

The Tango War

The book, “Tango War” by Mary Jo McConahay, has given a fascinating account of the battles for the hearts, minds and riches of Latin America fought by the Allies and Axis powers before and during the Second World War. There are so many engrossing stories, incidents and anecdotes, not well known to the world.

The Latin Americans of German, Italian and Japanese origin were caught in the crossfire. Germany and Italy, in particular, tried to brainwash their communities with propaganda and mobilise their support. The region was a hunting ground for recruitment of agents by both Allies and Axis powers. German companies such as IG Farben, Bayer, BASF, Agfa, Hoechst provided cover for agents in their Latin American branches. Hilda Kruger, the German actress was believed to be a spy during her long stay in Mexico. She had high level contacts in the Mexican government and society. She even acted in some Mexican films.

Many of the Latin American authoritarian regimes were sympathetic admirers of Fascism and Nazism in the beginning. They had flourishing trade with Germany, supplying commodities, minerals and vital materials such as platinum, tungsten and manganese. On the other hand, the US blacklisted of Latin American companies suspected of aiding the enemy or simply owned by ethnic Germans, Japanese, and Italians.

The US committed yet another injustice to Latin Americans in the name of its own security. It forced the Latin American governments to extradite several thousands people of German, Italian and Japanese origin and detained them in concentration camps in US. More than four thousand ethnic Germans and two thousand (1800 from Peru) Japanese including families and children were taken by force from fifteen Latin countries.  Some were temporarily detained in panama canal zone and used as slave labour before the onward journey to US. On arrival at US ports, the US authorities took away their passports and arrested them on the false charge of illegal entry. Some of these prisoners were exchanged with the Japanese and German governments for the release of American prisoners of war. The US could not use the Japanese and Germans living in US for the exchanges since the American law did not allow it. So they simply helped themselves with the Latino prisoners. 

Just as President Bush used the lie of Saddam Hussein’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’ to start the Gulf war, another US President Franklin D Roosevelt tried a false excuse to join the Second World War. On October 27, 1941, the US President  made a statement, “I have in my possession a secret map, made in Germany by Hitler’s government by the planners of the New World Order,” he told a national radio audience. The map showed the South American continent and part of Central America carved into four large vassal states to be administered by Germany at some undetermined date. “That map, my friends, makes clear the Nazi design not only against South America but against the United States as well,” said the president. The map was a fabrication by British to get US to join the war. But this lie did not matter after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour attack in December which forced the US hands.

Before the Second World War, the German communities in Latin America took the lead in setting up airlines and many of them used German pilots as well. The airlines made use of the German airforce pilots who were unemployed after the end of the First World War. Under the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was banned from having an air force. That ended the careers of many military pilots who went on to South America. The Germans had established the first carrier in South America with SCADTA (Sociedad Colombo-Alemana de Transportes Aéreos), the Colombian airline in 1919. The money behind SCADTA, its pilots, and management all came from Germany. Some of the pilots maintained their commissions in the Luftwaffe reserve. Later, the prosperous German community in Bolivia started the airline Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano (LAB which linked Bolivian cities to points in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and southern Brazil. Another airline Sindicato Condor, a subsidiary of the German company Luft Hansa, provided flights from Rio.  Luft Hansa also took a controlling share in the SEDTA (Sociedad Ecuatoriana Alemana de Transportes Aéreos) line of Ecuador, operating it exclusively with German pilots. When the Bolivian LAB and the Brazilian Condor airlines joined forces in 1936, German hegemony in southern skies took another leap. In the 1930s, German lines often used airplanes that were simply better than the competition in Latin America,

The Americans wanted to put an end to this German domination of South American airways. In 1939, the American ambassador Braden tried to persuade the Colombian President Santos to get rid of the German pilots of  SCADTA. But the President did not agree. But he did not know that Juan Trippe, the founder of Pan American Airways, had secretly bought 85 percent stakes in SCADTA from its Austrian owner, who later became a Colombian citizen. In 1940, the Ambassador worked with Trippe secretly and smuggled into Colombia 150 U.S. pilots and dozens of maintenance technicians. The next day the management of SCADTA fired all its German pilots and technicians replacing them with Americans. The Colombian President Santos was outraged but could do nothing. The U.S. Treasury cushioned the costs of firing the Germans by providing some financial help to Pan Am. Some of the German pilots and technicians were among those taken to internment in camps in the United States.

According to another story, the wily British intelligence got the Italian airline LATI thrown out of Brazil by provoking the Brazilian president angry with the Italians on the basis of a forged letter. LATI was carrying secret funds to South America from Germany and Italy and bringing back precious commodities such as platinum and tungsten.

Mexico made use of the time of rivalry between Axis and Allies by nationalizing its oil industry. When the American and British oil majors boycotted Mexican oil, Germany and Italy bought 94 percent of Mexico’s petroleum exports between the crucial months of March 1938 and September 1939. The Axis achieved a powerful head start on the war thanks to Mexican oil. Germany had a six-month supply of oil at the start of the war. The Germans, who did not have sufficient foreign exchange, had paid in kind with machinery and manufactured goods. Mexico declared war against the Axis in May 1942 after U-boats sank two Mexican tankers.

Mexico helped US by sending more than three hundred thousand agricultural workers annually to the United States to aid the wartime agricultural economy which needed to produce food for the troops besides the population. The US growers faced a sudden and urgent need for manpower to replace men who had gone on war duty.  Meant to be temporary, the Bracero program saw some 4.5 million Mexican workers take part until it ended in 1964.

  

At one time the US had a plan to occupy the northern part of Brazil. After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military had prepared a  “Joint Basic Plan for the Occupation of Northern Brazil” with amphibious landing to take key cities and ports as well as to access the resources of Amazon including rubber. The secret operation’s nickname was Plan Rubber. Fortunately, there was no need to implement the plan after Brazil shed its neutrality and joined the Allies. Later Brazil became the only Latin American country to participate in the war with 25000 troops in Italy. Out of this, there were 800 of German origin who fought against the German army in Italy.  

Ford took over a large area of 14,000 sq kms in Amazon to grow rubber trees and produce rubber in the style of the famous Detroit assembly lines. The place was called as Fordlandia. But it failed and had to be abandoned due to poor planning and management.  

There is the historic story of the Battle of the River Plate in 1939. Hans Langsdorff, the German captain of Uboat ‘Graf Spee’ destroyed nine Allied merchant ships with more than fifty thousand tons of shipping in twelve weeks in South Atlantic. He managed to do this without loss of life among his crew or opponents. Langsdorff behaved honourably by helping the crew from the sunk vessels to evacuate safely. Eventually, the Allies hit and damaged his boat killing a few crew members. Langsdorff  took his boat to Montevideo, a neutral port. There was a standoff between him and the Allied warships waiting outside the harbor in the La Plata river. Langsdorff got his boat blown up and buried the dead crew in a public ceremony, watched by thousands of Uruguayans and live coverage by the world media. He and his crew were later evacuated to Buenos Aires, where he committed suicide. 

Latin America's GDP might contract by 7.2% in 2020

The Latin America and Caribbean region is forecast to have a GDP contraction of 7.2% in 2020, according to the June report of the World Bank. 

The Covid19 infection, contraction in global demand for the region’s exports, fall in commodity prices and reduction in domestic consumption have worsened the economic situation which was already frail. The GDP had grown just by 0.8% in 2019 after less than 2% in the previous two years. Imports and exports of the region are expected to decline by more than 10%.

Every one of the 19 countries in Latin America, without exception will suffer negative growth. Peru will have the worst of 12% while Dominican Republic will have the lowest of just 0.8%.

GDP contraction of Brazil is likely to be 8%, Mexico 7.5%, Argentina 7.3%, Colombia 4.9%, Chile 4.3% and Central America 3.6%. 

The Bank has not dared to predict for the poor Venezuela whose GDP has been shrinking consistently for the last five years.

If things do not get worse, the region is likely to recover growth of 2.8% in 2021. A wild hope.

How Peron Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina – book by Uki Goni.

Uki Goni, an Argentine writer and journalist, has done extensive research and brought out new information in his book “The Real Odessa: How Peron Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina". With meticulous examination of the archives in Argentina, US and Europe, Goni has unearthed a lot of details which were buried in secrecy. 

Juan Domingo Peron was an admirer of Fascism and Nazism from the beginning. During his army assignment in Italy from 1939 to 1941, he had travelled to Germany and was inspired by the new ideologies of Europe. The Argentine military dictatorship had maintained neutrality between the Allies and Axis powers and got the best from both sides through exports of commodities and minerals. It was only at the very end of the war that Argentina broke diplomatic relations with Germany. The Nazis had also an eye on Argentina and South America as a prospective area for future exploration and control. 

As President of Argentina in his first term from 1946 to 1952, Peron had given refuge proactively to hundreds of Nazi war criminals as well as their collaborators in other parts of Europe and helped them to settle down in Argentina. The local German community and companies in Argentina contributed to Peron’s political career and took his support to bring in their relatives and friends some of whom were Nazis. 

Apart from his ideological sympathy, Peron wanted to recruit German engineers and experts to help with Argentina’s production of aircraft and weapons as well as nuclear plans, besides other civilian industrialisation of the country. Peron had long cherished the dream of turning Argentina into a military-industrial power in its own right. In mid-1945 he sent an Argentine officer of German descent, Colonel Julio Hennekens as well as others to comb Europe and recruit as many experts as possible. 

The government of Peron had set up a Delegation for Argentine Immigration in Europe (DAIE) with offices in Genoa and Rome. They were part of a grand strategy to organize 30,000 Europeans a month for a total of 4 million to boost the economic progress of Argentina. One of Peron’s talent agents Fuldner  even carried an official passport inscribed with the title ‘Special Envoy of the President’. 

A personal friend of Peron, retired army major Benito Llambí headed the Argentine legation in Berne called as ‘Argentine Emigration Centre’.  This had helped in the escape of Eichmann and Mengele among others to Argentina. Swiss bankers and government officials had collaborated with the Argentines for money and also out of Nazi sympathy in a few cases.

The Vatican as well as the catholic clergy in Europe and Argentina had played a prominent role in the escape of some war criminals to Argentina.  Senior priests in Vatican lead by the German Bishop Alois Hudal had provided hiding place for some fugitives within Vatican premises and arranged documents and passports. Some Nazis had disguised themselves as priests during their travel to Argentina. In late 1946, Draganovic, a Vatican priest, obtained a blanket landing permit from Peron’s government for 250 Croatians. With this he helped to smuggle Croatian Ustasha criminals and former members of Croatian government including Ante Pavelic, the Nazi puppet president of Croatia, who arrived in Argentina in November 1948. 

On the Argentine side, the Archbishop in Buenos Aires had put in official requests for hundreds of visas for the war criminals describing them as “anticommunist fighters”. The Argentine priests had helped in the settlement of the fugitives after their arrival in the country. A Belgian war criminal Pierre Daye and his entourage set up SARE, the Society in Argentina for the Reception of Europeans. The organization established its headquarters at 1358 Canning Street, a grand colonial-style building owned by the archbishopric of Buenos Aires.

In July 1949, Peron granted a ‘general amnesty’ for foreigners who had entered the country ‘illegally’. This helped the fugitives to regularize their stay and get Argentine documents, citizenship and passport.

A number of Argentine diplomats, immigration officials and middlemen made money in selling visas and residence permits. Some of the smugglers of the war criminals had direct access to the office and residence of President Peron. Thanks to such access, Nazis were picked up by special launches secretly before the ships docked at the port of Buenos Aires and avoided the official immigration checks.

Among those who got refuge in Argentina besides the German Nazis were other war criminals and Nazi collaborators from Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia, Austria, Italy, France and Belgium. 

The high profile criminals who found refuge in Argentina included: Adolf Eichmann, who masterminded the identification, transportation and murder of six million European Jews (who was later kidnapped by Mossad in 1960 and tried and executed in Israel); Josef Mengele, who conducted macabre experiments among the Jewish prisoners. Argentina had dragged its feet to Germany’s request for extradition and he fled to Brazil, where he died; Josef Schwammberger, an Austrian Nazi who carried out mass execution of Jews. He was extradited later to Germany; and Vittorio Mussolini, the son of the Fascist dictator, who reached Argentina in 1947. 

Some of the war criminals settled themselves luxuriously in large mansions in the heart of the diplomatic district of Buenos Aires along with their loot of gold and foreign exchange from the Jews and Treasuries of the governments. Others went to interior places such as Tucuman, Tandil, Cordoba and Bariloche, the famous ski resort. Many fugitives went into farming, business and professions. A few got government jobs including in the crucial immigration department. 

A group of Germans set up a company CAPRI in Tucuman for infrastructure projects. Most of the 300 plus employees were recent German immigrants. This company was officially recognized by Peron’s government which gave contracts. 

Some Nazis in Argentina went into arms business and were acting as advisers to the rulers of Paraguay, Chile and Bolivia.

The Nazi fugitives in Argentina published Der Weg, a monthly magazine which was distributed in South America and even in Europe including Germany. The circulation reached a high point of some 20,000 copies and gained reputation as the organ of a ‘Fourth Reich’ in Argentina.

In response to the international public outcry on the Nazi links, the Argentine foreign ministry set up a commission CEANA which worked between 1997 and 1999 and issued a series of reports. CEANA identified 180 war criminals who had arrived in Argentina. Uki Goni, the author of this book was also included in CEANA along with some international scholars. But he resigned after three days, unable to go along with the blatant official cover up. The government burnt the incriminating documents and cleaned up the archives in the nineties.

It is important to note that the Argentine government had a policy to deny visas for the European Jews who were fleeing from Nazi extermination. This despite the fact that Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America. They have their even their golf club Golf Sociedad Hebraica in Pilar, a suburb outside Buenos Aires city.

Argentina received the largest number of Nazis in South America due to the personal interest shown by President Peron. It is believed that as many as 5,000 fugitives went to Argentina; between 1,500 and 2,000 to Brazil; around 500 to 1,000 to Chile; and the rest to Paraguay and Uruguay. The German communities in South America flourish in the industrial sector, with their typical traits of hard work, technology skills and entrepreunership.

According to author Goni, there is another Argentine connection to the Nazis. Richard Walther Darre, who proclaimed the existence of a mystic bond between the German homeland and “racially pure” Germans, was actually born “Ricardo” in Buenos Aires. His German immigrant family sent to him to the fatherland for schooling at the age of nine. Darre specialized in agriculture at the university, the logical choice for someone with an Argentine background at a time when the succulent beef and abundant wheat of Argentina’s pampas made the country renowned as the “breadbasket of the world.” For a while, during the 1920s, he contemplated returning to Buenos Aires to pursue a career in farming, but that was before his writing caught the attention of Adolf Hitler’s rising Nazi Party. His 1930 book A New Nobility of Blood and Soil, in which he proposed applying selective cattle-breeding methods for the procreation of perfect Aryan humans, dazzled the Fuhrer. As early as 1932, Darre helped the SS leader Heinrich Himmler to set up the Race and Resettlement Office in order to safeguard the “racial purity” of SS officers. Darre’s work also inspired the Nazi Lebensborn (Fount of Life) program that rewarded “unmarried women and girls of good blood” who had children with racially pure SS officers. Hitler was so impressed with the “Blood and Soil” movement that in 1933 he named Darre Germany’s minister for agriculture. Darre held the post until 1942, when he developed mental health problems.  Darre was convicted at the Nuremberg Trial and sentenced to jail. He died of cancer in 1953.

The book is useful to understand yet another legacy of Peronism which has remained as a perennial force in the politics of the "complicated" country for the last eight decades.

Book on Latin American guerrilla movements

  

The book “Latin American guerrilla movements: origins, evolution and outcomes” is the latest, published in December 2019, on this fascinating subject. It gives a comprehensive overview of the guerrilla movements with regional and sub-regional (Central America, Andean and Southern Cone) perspectives besides case studies on individual countries in the region. It brings out the Zeitgeist, the ideas, beliefs and sentiments which motivated and inspired the young guerrilla fighters.

The book has been edited by Dirk Kruijt, Eduardo Rey Tristán and Alberto Martín Álvarez who have impeccable research expertise on the guerrilla movements in Latin America. Local experts in the individual countries have given authentic account with their first-hand knowledge and face to face interaction with some of the guerrilla leaders. The nineteen scholars who have contributed the articles, have maintained objectivity and neutrality, avoiding the partisan passion which is still polarising some parts of the region. 

Of course, rebellions and revolutions have been the leitmotifs of Latin American politics throughout its history. First, it was the indigenous who resisted the Spanish conquistadores. Then the Creoles fought for independence from Spain and Portugal. After independence, the leftist guerrilla movements aspired to overthrow dictatorships and even democratically elected governments in order to establish Utopias of socialist nature. The guerrilla movements proliferated from the sixties to the nineties.

Sources of Inspiration

There were four principal sources of inspiration for the revolutionaries: Dependency Theory, Liberation Theology, Che Guevara and the triumph of the Cuban revolution. Besides these regional sources, local and national martyrs as well as external sources from outside the region had also influenced the guerrilla groups. 

The Dependency Theory awakened, opened the minds and instigated the university students and professors to rise against exploitation and imperialism. Some poets and writers added fuel to the revolutionary fire. Marti (Cuban poet Jose Marti who fought for the independence of Cuba) was invoked more than Marx in the revolutionary discourses.

The Liberation Theology of the clergy gave a new radical interpretation of the Bible and justified recourse to arms to fight social injustice and exploitation.  The Latin American Episcopal conference in 1968 in Medellin (Colombia) endorsed Liberation Theology. Although the Vatican was against it, the Latin American priests at lower levels working in poverty stricken areas embraced  Liberation Theology as a legitimate way for the poor to seek social justice . Camilo Torres, the Colombian priest who joined the ELN guerrilla movement and died in combat in 1966 said, “ If Jesus were alive today, he would have been a guerrillero”. The Nicaraguan priests, the Cardenal brothers (Ernesto and Fernando), recruited young catholics to the Sandinista struggle.

The universities, churches and Bible reading groups became the breeding grounds of revolution and principal centres of recruitment.  

Che Guevara stood out distinctly as the icon for the young revolutionaries of the region. His ascetic devotion to the ideal, selfless sacrifice and martyrdom had romanticised the revolutionary fight against injustice and imperialism. Che had fought wars going beyond his country and continent. This had inspired a number of other Latin Americans who joined voluntarily and enthusiastically in the wars outside their own countries. 

Cuba

The victory of the small group of Cuban guerrillas against overwhelming odds and in defiance of the mighty US intoxicated the imagination of the Latin American youth. Mythologies and legends were built around the heroes and nobility of the cause. Fidel Castro and Che Guevara proved that it was possible for guerrillas to militarily defeat a regular army  and bring about a socialist revolution overcoming the opposition of the capitalist imperialism of US.  

Cuba gave support to guerrilla groups in 14 countries out of the total of 19 in Latin America. They gave arms, training, advice and logistic support. It was the Cubans who brokered unification of the many guerrilla factions into one solid country structure in Nicaragua (1979), El Salvador (1982) and Guatemala (1982) and helped them at the crucial time.

The exceptions which did not get Cuban support were the Colombian FARC, Peru’s Sendero Luminoso and the Mexican insurgent groups. Cuba had, of course, supported ELN and M19 of Colombia. Cuba did not support the Mexican guerrillas as a mark of respect to the Mexican governments which always had a soft corner and sympathy for the Castro government.

While everyone knows the failure of the US- sponsored notorious Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, one should note that there have been a number of failures of Cuban supported guerrilla invasions into Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Hundreds of young fighters lost their lives in these adventures. There were six attempts of incursion by guerrilla groups into Dominican Republic between 1947 and 1973. But all of them were crushed by the Dominican government.

It is amazing that despite its own severe shortage of resources and the constant struggle for survival against the unrelenting threat and sanctions from US, the Cubans had gone out of their way to inspire and support revolutionary groups in other Latin American countries and even in Africa. 

Others 

The communist theories of the various schools (Marxist, Leninist, Trotskyist, Maoist) and the success of the Soviet, Chinese, Algerian and Vietnamese revolutions also had their share of influence in Latin America. Some of the Latin American guerrillas went for training to Russia, China, Vietnam, Algeria, Lebanon and North Korea.

Evolution

Some countries saw a brief guerrilla activity for a few years while others had experienced long periods in different phases. The first wave ‘of rural guerrilla foquismo’ was from Castro’s campaign starting in 1956 till the death of Guevara in 1967. The second was of urban guerrilla warfare in the Southern cone countries. The third was the wave of political-military organisations from early 1970s onwards in Central America and Andean countries. Even before these phases, in December 1947, under the auspices of progressive Guatemalan president Juan José Arévalo, exiles from the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Costa Rica signed the Pacto del Caribe, which pledged to overthrow the dictators ruling those and other Caribbean nations. 

The guerrilla fighters believed that political, economic and social transformation would only be possible through the use of political violence rather than via the ballot box. They included students, intellectuals, professors, school teachers, priests, peasants, militant communist party cadres, trade union activists and a few army officers too. Most of them were young, idealistic and with the noblest intentions for a better society. They had sacrificed their personal lives, careers and families for a larger cause. 

The revolutionary movements proliferated with different ideologies, dogmas, inspirations and circumstances . Many of the original groups split and splintered due to schisms, doctrinal differences, personality clashes between leaders, external support and local situation.  The groups chose names and acronyms starting with E (Exercito - army), F (Frente or Fuerza) and M (Movimiento) and numbers for historic dates and in the name of martyrs like Marti, Sandino and Che Guevara.

Here are some examples:

ELN, EPL,EPLUA, EPS, ERP, EGTK and EIM

FA, FACS,FAL, FALN, FAP, FAR, FARC, FARN, FAPU, FAU,FDCR, FDR, FECCAS, FIR, FGEI, FLN, FMLN, FPL, FPMR, FRAP, FRIP, FSLN and FULNA 

MAS, MIR, MIRE, MLL, MLN, MLN-T, MMLM, MNR, MOE, MPP, MPD, MRO, MRP, MRTA, MRO and MRTA, 

MI26M, MR13, OPR-33, M19, M26J, LC23S and 1J4

Colombia faced the longest guerrilla war for 70 years (still going on a smaller scale) followed by Guatemala with 36 years and El Salvador for 20 years.  Cuba had the shortest guerrilla war of just two years. Colombia suffered the largest number of killings, followed by Guatemala and Peru. Mexico had around forty armed groups in different points of time. Colombia had about 30 guerrilla groups. 

There were a number of similarities and commonalities in the evolution and operation of the revolutionary movements which had similar world view, ideological framework, shared reportoire and methodology of action. But there are four cases which do not fit the common pattern and stand out distinct. These four had no Cuban inspiration or support. These are the Colombian FARC, Mexican Zapatista insurgency in 1994, and the two Peruvian guerrilla movements in the 1980s and 1990s Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and Tupac Amaros (MRTA). FARC, the largest guerrilla group of the region, rose from the period of “La Violencia” following the assassination of Leftist presidential candidate Jorge Gaitan in 1948.  The Sendero Luminoso group was unique with their leader Abimael Guzman having built a personality cult around him as the “fourth sword of Communism”, after Marx, Lenin and Mao. 

The revolutionaries from the southern cone had joined together and formed Junta Coordinadora Revolucionaria (JCR) with the guerilla movements from Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Bolivia. The JCR made a public appearance with a press conference in February 1974 after the failed attack on the Argentine army barracks at Azul. They had plans to expand to the whole region and even reach out to the rest of the world. The Cubans kept away from this group seeing it as a rival for regional influence. The JCR faded out by 1978.

   

The mainstream communist parties in some of the countries refused to support the armed revolutionaries since USSR pursued peaceful coexistence with the governments of the region. 

  

Sierra Maestra was a symbol of the Cuban revolution which started in the mountainous jungles of Cuba and worked through villages before reaching the cities and capital. But there were no such mountains and jungles in Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina and so the manuals had to be changed in the southern cone countries for urban guerrilla warfare. Guevara’s campaign to use the Bolivian jungle as the transit point for starting guerrilla wars in Argentina and Peru ended up as a disaster with his death in 1967. 

  

outcome

The main objective of all the revolutionary movements was to take over power and bring about social justice and utopia. The only cases where they succeeded were Cuba and Nicaragua. The special circumstances of the two countries facilitated the success. The decadent, corrupt and discredited dictatorships in both these countries had lost the support of their own people. Even the US had abandoned them at the crucial time towards the end. These had caused the collapse of the regimes unable to stand up against the determined and popular revolutionary movements which had built up support in both the urban as well as rural areas.

But unfortunately the revolutions in these two countries have outlived their glory and are crying out for democratic liberation now. The Cuban people are tired and exhausted by the meaningless revolutionary rhetoric while they struggle every day with shortages, queues, poor infrastructure and suppression of freedom. 

The Sandinistas, who came to power in 1979 after shedding more blood than the Cubans, set an excellent example by embracing democracy. They held free and fair elections in 1984 and came back to power. Their government survived despite the brutal Contra war unleashed on them by the CIA. Besides killings, the Contras pursued scorched earth policies destroying the economy, farms and factories. The Sandinista government had to spend over fifty percent of their precious resources on the war for survival. The Sandinistas left power peacefully and gracefully after losing the elections in 1989. They sat out in the opposition for 17 long years and then came back to power through the ballot in 2006 and 2011. Daniel Ortega won a third term in the 2016 elections, by constituitional maneuvers to bypass the two-term limit and amidst accusations of rigging of the elections. Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, who is the Vice President, are now running the country like a  family franchise. There have been protests against their corrupt and authoritarian regime.

Thousands of the young guerrillas were killed, tortured and forced into exile by the brutal counter insurgency forces of states and paramilitary units with support from the anti-communist campaign of US. The indigenous communities of Guatemala and El Salvador had suffered disprotionately large number of massacres by right wing death squads besides the armed forces. Hundreds of thousands were forcibly uprooted from their villages and displaced on the ground that they had given refuge and support to guerilleiros. At the same time the revolutionaries had also caused death and destruction in the pursuit of their cause. Some of them had resorted to kidnappings, extortion, hijackings and bank robberies besides bombings and attacks on security forces and government buildings.

After the end of dictatorships and restoration of democracies in the region in the eighties, some of the guerrilla groups have reinvented themselves as political parties and some fighters have become  political leaders. The Pink Tide of the region in the first decade of the new century helped in the insertion of  the ex-guerillas into power through the ballot. In El Salvador, the FMLN guerilla group became a legal political party and came to power in 2009 and returned in 2014. In Colombia, FARC became a political party, although it had done poorly in the 2018 polls.

Jose Mujica the Uruguayan guerrilla fighter, who spent 14 years in jail, became President in 2010. He did not show any symptoms of rancor or thirst for revenge. He was pragmatic, progressive and balanced in his policies. Even as President, he lived an austere and simple life refusing the ostentations of the office. Dilma Rouseff, a guerrilla leader who survived the tortures of military dictatorship, became President of Brazil. But unfortunately she committed a series of political errors and got impeached by the corrupt and crooked congressmen on a trivial excuse. President Sanchez Ceren was the first guerrilla leader to become president of El Salvador in 2014. Before the peace agreement, he was Commandante Leonel González, his pseudonym. Some guerrilleiros became vice presidents (Alvaro Garcia in Bolivia under Evo Morales), ministers (Ali Rodrigues oil minister under President Chavez, Nilda Gare defence minister of Argentina under president Cristina Kirchner Fernandez), mayors (Gustavo Petro in Bogota), legislators and governors in the new democratic era of the region since the 1980s. 

The Colombian ELN (National Liberation Army) is the only large (about 2000) guerrilla group active in Latin America now. They held peace talks in 2014 and 2017 but without result. Now they are keen for negotiations but the government has rejected talks till the guerillas stop their violence. The group had declared a temporary ceasefire in April this year due to the corona virus emergency. Some of their top leaders were killed by military bombing in the second week of May. In response, the group has announced resumption of attacks against the government.

One thing missing in the book is the role played by literature. Poems and writings had provided food for the revolutionary souls. Roque Dalton, the famous militant poet of El Salvador became a member of the People’s revolutionary Army (ERP). Tragically, he was murdered by his own comrades because of internal dispute in 1975. His poems were banned by the dictatorship till 1992. Since 2013, El Salvador has honoured him by declaring his birth day on 14 May as “National Poetry Day”.

Another missing thing is the role of US in the counter insurgency operations. I guess this will need a separate and even longer book.

I recommend the book to Indian scholars and students of Latin America. It would also be useful to compare with the Indian insurgent groups such as the Naxalites who are still active and control significant territories in the tribal areas. 

For Indian readers, the book is available only in kindle. Hard cover and  paperback editions will have to wait till the end of the corona virus restrictions.