The focus of the "Indian problem" is Peru -- the golden magnet that brought the Spaniards to South America in the Sixteenth Century. (In the first six months of the conquest, Francisco Pizarro and his men looted Inca temples of over $200,000,000 in gold ornaments, which they melted and sent back to Spain.) Peru was the scene of most of the conquest's bloody battles. In Peru, Pizarro chose to build Lima, his "City of Kings" from which the Spanish Viceroys ruled the Andes until they were driven out in 1821.
Today the "wealth of the Andes" is no longer gold, but the political power lying dormant in the Indian population. This explains the long and bitter struggle for Indian support between Peru's Communists and the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), the country's broadest-based political party.
Bolivia's 1952 revolution against dictatorial interests took the Indian pressure off that country; it gave the Indian land, a vote, and at least the beginnings of a say in the government. Nor does Ecuador seem immediately menacing; the boiling point there probably is still several years away.
But in Peru the pressure is on as it never has been before, and the main pressure point is here in Cuzco. And whoever consolidates Indian support in this nation will not only rule Peru but will influence events in Bolivia and Ecuador.
Today in Cuzco, though, tourists still wander about town and pay ragged Indians to pose for photos. They still take the little train to Machu Picchu to look at the fabled ruinas. They still sit in the comfortable old hotel and drink Pisco Sours while the waiters pull the blinds. But the Indians are still outside the windows, and if recent events are any indication, they are getting tired of having the blinds pulled on them.
National Observer, June 10, 1963
Brazilshooting
Rio de Janeiro.
Brazilian police have a reputation for extreme leniency, and the Brazilian army is said to be the most stable and democratically inclined in all of Latin America, but in recent weeks the administration of "justice" has taken on a new look in Brazil, and many people are beginning to wonder just what the army and the police exist for.
On a recent night, with the temperature at its normal 95 and air conditioners humming all over the city, an American journalist was awakened by a telephone call at 4:30 in the morning. It was a friend, calling from the nightclub district of Copacabana.
"Get down here as fast as you can!" the voice shouted. "Bring your camera! The Army is all over the streets with machine guns! They've blown the Domino all to pieces and they're killing people right outside the bar where I'm sitting -- we've locked the door, but they may break it down!"
Ten minutes later the half-dressed journalist jumped out of a cab a block away from the action. He walked quickly, but very casually, toward the Domino Club, with his camera and flashgun cradled in one arm like a football. In a Latin American country nervous with talk of revolution, no man with good sense runs headlong into a shooting party, because he is likely to get stitched across the chest with Czech machine gun slugs.
But at 4:45 the Domino Club was quiet. It is -- or was -- a well-known clip joint, catering mainly to American tourists and wealthy Brazilians. The lure was girls -- some young and pretty, others slightly piggy and painted after long years of service.
Now the Domino is a shell, a dark room full of broken glass and bullet holes. The doorman is dead; he was cut down by gunfire as he fled toward a nearby corner. The bartender is in the hospital with a bullet-crease down the side of his skull, and several patrons are wounded. Most observers say another man is dead, but the bodies were taken away so quickly that nobody can be sure.
What happened? The Correio de Manhã, one of Rio's best papers, explained it this way: In an editorial entitled, "Battlefield Copacabana," the paper said: "Copacabana was the scene of a military operation on Friday. A detachment of paratroopers under the command of two lieutenants sealed off a street in order to assault a nightclub with machine guns, hand grenades and tear gas. . ."
Correio went on to say: "These arms have been acquired by the nation with the money of taxpayers and put at the disposal of the armed forces for the defense of the country, protection of the constitutional powers, and maintenance of the legal order. . . in the Copacabana case, they were not used for these purposes. . ."
That was not all of it. The attack on the Domino, carried out by uniformed paratroopers wearing black greasepaint on their faces, was a case of pure and simple vengeance. Several weeks ago an Army sergeant was beaten to death as a result of a dispute over the size of his bill in the Domino. A few days later an Army captain stopped in the club to say that the Army intended to even the score. He was severely beaten by the doorman and several others. About ten days passed without incident, then the Army evened the score.
When the journalist arrived, the street was cordoned off at both ends by soldiers with fixed bayonets and machine guns. Several bodies -- some dead, others still alive -- were being put into trucks. There was a large crowd around the entrance to the Domino. The journalist took a few photos, then slipped through the cordon -- only to be nailed immediately by a captain, who escorted him out.
"But the Brazilian press is in there," the American protested.
"Maybe so," the Captain replied, "but you're not Brazilian."
The journalist went around the block and slipped in from the other end, but by this time it was all over. The sky was getting light, and several blocks away a few early risers were out on Copacabana beach. In the middle of Rua Carvalho de Mendonça, where the body of the doorman had lain, was a large smear of blood and trampled flowers. Several cars were riddled with bullet holes. Near one corner, the cracks in the mosaic sidewalk were filled with blood, and there was a long smear across the sidewalk where a body had been dragged to a truck in the street. A drugstore had bullet holes in its windows, merchandise and glass counters inside. Concrete and marble walls on both sides of the street were pocked with bullet chips. On the sidewalk in front of the Domino lay a hand grenade that had failed to explode.
Had the grenade gone off inside the club, it could hardly have helped but kill at least one American -- the Domino was always full of them -- and the resulting furor would have been hard for Brazil to handle.
Even without the grenade, it is a wonder more people weren't killed in the attack. The soldiers burst through the door, ordered everybody to lie down on the floor, and sprayed the entire room with machine gun fire. The owner of the Domino, who was the main target of the raid, escaped into another nightclub. One patron grabbed a soldier's weapon and shot him with it. Another patron fled, they pulled a pistol and wounded one of the pursuing soldiers. Several witnesses say this man was the other dead body hauled off with that of the luckless doorman. But nobody knows for sure -- except the Army, and the flow of information from that quarter has all but ceased.
The Rio police were not in on the Domino attack. They have problems of their own. In recent weeks the newspapers have reported a half-dozen cases of police killing vagrants and beggars, then dumping the bodies into nearby rivers that flow into Guanabara Bay. So far two policemen have been arrested. One confessed, and officials assured the press that both would be dismissed from the force.
A columnist on the Brazil Herald, Rio's English-language daily, observed that, "The method adopted by several members of the police to tackle the social problem and do away with misery by dumping beggars into a river. . . is not meeting with general approval, despite undeniable efficacy."
The Jornal do Brasil called for an immediate investigation, saying that policemen are suspected of "summarily applying the death penalty to individuals considered bad elements. . ." And, "The people [of Rio] imagine the terror used in some police departments to be normal treatment not only for dangerous criminals, but mere suspects and possibly even personal enemies of policemen."
One man voiced the opinion that "Dismissal from the force cannot in any way be considered cruel or unusual punishment for policemen who kill beggars and vagrants who bother them a
nd get in their way while they are trying to do their job -- which mainly consists of making the rounds to collect payoffs."
It was also pointed out that policemen dismissed from the force often go to work as doormen or bouncers for clubs like the Domino. Brazilian nightclubs, in fact, are not known for an excess of patience or generosity. A "ballerina" named Maria, recently fired from a club in a small town near Rio, made a complaint to the police, accusing the owner of the place of "transforming the backyard of his joint into a cemetery." The girl reported that "Customers who cannot pay the bill, or protest the amount, are invited to have a talk with him in the backyard, where they are shot and buried." The police promised to investigate.
Meanwhile, there is a lot of talk in Rio over the Domino incident. It was not the first time that the Army has taken commando-style vengeance on an unfriendly nightclub, but this was the first time anyone was machine-gunned. The question in most people's minds is, "What next?"
Said one Copacabana club-owner: "What am I supposed to do the next time a solider causes trouble in here? I have to treat him with kid gloves or they'll come in here and shoot me like an animal."
An American wondered what the reaction would be if soldiers from Ft. Knox, Kentucky, shot up a bar in Louisville where a soldier had been cheated, beaten or even killed some weeks before. "I can't even conceive of it," he said, "but if it ever happened I bet they'd all hang."
Another American said, "Hell, when I was a lieutenant [in the U.S. Army] I could probably have requisitioned two trucks from the motor pool if I wanted to get back at some clip-joint, but I know damn well I could never have got two platoons of armed men to follow me."
There is the nut of the problem, and one of the biggest differences between the United States and not only Brazil, but all Latin American countries. Where civil authority is weak and corrupt, the Army is king by default. Even the words "Justice" and "Authority" take on different meanings. After the Domino attack, the Jornal do Brazil ran a follow-up story, headlined: "Army Sees No Crime in Its Action."
Or, as George Orwell observed, "In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
National Observer, February 11, 1963
Chatty Letters During a Journey from Aruba to Rio
During the past seven months, journalist Hunter S. Thompson has been roaming through South America. His informative dispatches on social, economic, and political conditions there have been appearing in The National Observer.
But there's another side to reporting that seldom shows up in formal dispatches -- the personal experiences of the digging, inquisitive newsman. These often give fascinating insights on the land and people. Witness these excerpts from Mr. Thompson's personal letters to his editor in Washington.
ARUBA.
I am leaving by smuggling boat for Colombia in a few hours and am rushing to get this off before I go. [Article on Aruba, The National Observer, July 16.] It is probably too late and too long for you, but I hope not, because I think it is a good and valid look at island politics, personalities, etc.
In about three days I plan to be in Barranquilla, Colombia. After Barran, I plan to go up the Magdalena River to Bogota, thence to Peru in time for the June 10 elections. But this is tentative.
BOGOTA, COLUMBIA.
Here is a sort of offbeat travel piece that might interest you [Article on Guajira, The National Observer, Aug 6]. In Aruba, they are probably announcing the election results right about now and I imagine there are a lot of people digging holes in the bleak Aruba landscape.
If you can think of anything else you might want, let me know. By the time I get to Ecuador I will have seen most of Colombia at close range. If nothing else, I will have a lot of photos and, hopefully, an immunity to dysentery, which is now on me in full force.
The Valencia piece [Article on Colombia, The National Observer, June 24] will be in the mail tomorrow if they will stop ringing these bells -- a mad clanging every five or ten minutes. Sometimes it goes on for 20, and bounces me around the hotel room the whole while. Between the dysentery, the bells, and the unceasing loudspeakers in the street I am half mad. (Ah, here go the bells again.) Ten minutes of it now; a lunatic in the belfry and worms in the stomach. What a town!
CALI, COLUMBIA.
My figures sent earlier on the price of Colombian coffee on the world market are correct, but not nearly as dramatic as the following: Ninety cents a pound in 1954, 39 cents a pound in 1962. As I said, Colombia depends on coffee for 77 percent of its export earnings.
Incidentally, Colombia gets another 15 percent of its export earnings from petroleum. That leaves 8 percent as a base to begin "diversifying" with. Not much, eh? Some good minds are just about at the end of their tether with the problem.
While I'm talking here, the Alliance for Progress thing is a toughie, because most of the hard-nose opposition to it is sulky and silent. In a lot of cases, the Alliance faces a problem not unlike that of trying to convince Jay Gould that he is not acting in the best interests of his country.
Incidentally, Rojas Pinilla is without doubt the only dictator whose name is in the phone book in the capital city over which he once held sway. He lives in the best section of Bogota.
CALI, COLUMBIA.
There is an alarming tendency (in Colombia, anyway) to view the problems of the local economies as essentially a thing for the Alliance to deal with. Almost like, "Thank God, Big Brother has finally come to the rescue -- let him handle it." This is, of course, a generalization, but there is a lot of truth in it.
Another ominous note is the attitude of a lot of American businessmen I have talked to -- "Sure, we'd like to help, but business is business, you know. . ." And everything they say makes sense on at least one level: Fears of arbitrary government price controls, expropriation, mounting labor difficulties, and the risks of long-term investments vs. the near-certainty of the short.
QUITO, ECUADOR.
The sun is shining to Quito, the mountains are green and sparkling around the town, and my mind is running to high gear.
Most everything I have to say, however, revolves in one way or another around questions of money. There seems to be a universal impression that I am on some sort of Divine Dole, and the theory that I often require money in order to make money has not gained wide acceptance. I trust you have sufficient background in Personal Economics to grasp the full meaning of this.
I could toss in a few hair-raising stories about what happens to poor Yanquis who eat cheap food, or the fact that I caught a bad cold to Bogota because my hotel didn't have hot water, but that would only depress us both. As it is, I am traveling at least half on gall. But in the course of these travels I have discovered that gall is not always the best currency, and there are times when I would be far better off with the other kind.
I am throwing this thing in your lap though I don't expect anyone to agree -- at a distance of several thousand miles -- with my certain knowledge that I am a paragon of wisdom, courage, decency, and visionary talent. On the other hand, I am working on my fourth case of dysentery, my stomach feels like a tree is growing in it, and I am medically forbidden to touch so much as a single beer.
Well, this is the longest letter I've written since I was in the Air Force and was sending love letters to a girl in Tallahassee. I don't expect you to be altogether happy with this one, but then the girl wasn't always happy with hers, either, and we both survived.
Ah, it is noon now, check-out time, and I can hear the clang of the cash register across the patio as they rack up another $7 to Senor Thompson, the gringo with the messy room.
GUAYAQUIL, ECUADOR.
Things are not going well here, my man. I limped in Saturday night after a spine-cracking train ride, and on Sunday discovered to my horror that the president and all the Guayaquil money men are leaving Wednesday for Washington. For this reason I am having a time seeing anyone -- or at least the right people.
Aside from that problem, I am beset by other forms o
f plague. One, I have not had any word from my New York secretary in two weeks so I have no idea how I stand at the bank. Thus I am afraid to cash a check. The first time I bounce one down here I might as well give up and go back to the States.
The moneyed community on this continent, which is what you have to deal with when you want to cash checks, is like Melville's circle of Genius -- which "all over the world stands hand to hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round." Which means, in my case, that if I bounce a check in Cali my reputation as a crook will precede me to Buenos Aires. So I have to be careful.
Optimism is a rare commodity here, and the daily harassments of life in Guayaquil are just about as much as a man should have to bear.
GUAYAQUIL, ECUADOR.
This is to confirm my not particularly pointed observations during yesterday's phone call, which I appreciated a whale of a lot and all the more because I suspect you did it primarily to keep me from feeding myself to the giant turtles.
Now I feel better in the head, if not in the stomach. On Monday I will fly to Lima. I could go before that but Saturday and Sunday are holidays and we just finished a five-day lull having to do with Ecuadorian history. These holidays are maddening; every time you turn around they are rolling down the store fronts and locking the offices. That, in addition to a noon to 4 p.m. lunch hour, makes work just about impossible.