The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales From a Strange Time

by Hunter S. Thompson

  "That's what Kennedy doesn't understand," explained one Lima-based American businessman. "You just can't have democracy down here. The people don't understand it. Loeb was the same way: he went out to the futbol game and sat down in the grandstand with the common people -- I saw him myself, with his feet propped up on the rail and the top of his hose showing -- why, they thought he was crazy. It was absolutely incomprehensible, even to the people he was trying to make friends with. If you want to get anywhere down here, you have to make people respect you."

  However sad a commentary that may be on a lot of things -- American businessmen included -- it is sadder still because there is a lot of truth in it. From the beginning of their history the Peruvian people have been conditioned to understand that these are only two kinds of human beings in this world -- the Ins and the Outs, and a vast gulf in between. In a book called The Ancient Civilizations of Peru you read that "The Inca state insured the people against hunger, exploitation, undue hardship and all kinds of want, but regimented them rigorously and left them no choice, independence or initiative. . . There was a large class of nobles and priests, supported by the masses. Heavy tribute in the form of labor was demanded of the peasants, who profited very little from it."

  That was in 1438, and little has changed since then except that the peasants are no longer insured against hunger, exploitation, undue hardship and all kinds of want. There is ample evidence of all those conditions even in Lima, which differs from the rest of Peru much like Manhattan differs from the mountains of eastern Kentucky.

  The strange assumption in Lima's business community -- Americans and Peruvians alike -- is that President Kennedy would join them in their endorsement of The System in Peru "if he could only understand it, and stop paying so much attention to Loeb."

  U.S. Ambassador James Isaac Loeb is undoubtedly the most second-guessed man in recent Peruvian history. There is not a man at the Bankers' Club, among other places, who cannot tell you where he went wrong and exactly what he should have done instead. The most common criticism is that he tried to force-feed democracy to a people who had not the faintest idea what he was talking about.

  The nominal chief of the Junta, General Manuel Perez Godoy, has flatly called Loeb "an Aprista," which is tantamount now to being called an enemy of the state. He is sure to be declared "persona non grata" if he returns to Lima, and in business circles it is Loeb who draws most of the blame for the U.S. refusal to recognize the Junta. The general sentiment is that Kennedy has been "misled." Gen. Perez is of the same mind; in a recent statement on the U.S. stand, he called the whole thing "a misunderstanding."

  Gen. Perez has impressed foreign journalists in Lima with his unique feeling for words and their fundamental meanings. He is no mean orator, and in his first statement after the takeover he explained it this way: "We have seen a fraudulent electoral process in which not even the most basic and elementary rights of the citizens have been respected. The Armed Forces have seen with pain, with anxiety, with tight lips and dry eyes, this sacrifice of our people, of our country, of our future."

  The fact that the Armed Forces had been able to dig up only 70 fraudulent ballots out of a total of some 2 million did not deter Gen. Perez from going on TV to amplify and reiterate his feelings.

  'To the humble, to the forgotten worker, to the voter who has been deprived in many cases of the elementary social, economic and cultural benefits, it is now being attempted to take from him also his only hope -- that of gaining the progress and social justice he deserves, to wipe out his liberty to vote with fraud.

  "We will not consent to it. A military imperative forces on us the hard obligation of assuming the functions of government that normally should be in civilian hands, in order to establish peace, order and respect for the laws that rule the republic.

  "We are stirred by a great ambition to save democracy."

  Earlier in the same speech Gen. Perez had talked of "the great electoral fraud," said "the people have been grossly cheated," accused the National Elections Board of an attempt "to cover up this conduct," and explained that ex-President Prado -- then languishing on a prison ship -- had showed a "lack of objectivity" for not having annulled the elections himself.

  This was a little hard for some people to take, notably those 600,000 or so humbled and forgotten voters who had cast their ballots for APRA and Dr. Victor Raul Haya de la Torre. Gen. Perez drew praise, however, from those quarters where it had not been previously understood that democracy is best preserved by installing a military dictatorship. He was also admired for his eloquent attack on those who would tamper with the people's right to express themselves by means of the ballot.

  What is more than obvious in Lima is that the biggest fraud in the whole affair was the military's attempt to explain and justify the coup. It is hard to find anyone who seriously believes they took over because of "a great electoral fraud." The National Elections Board, a group of respected jurists with no ties to APRA, investigated the charges and found that, although there had been isolated cases of false registration and multiple voting, the sum of the infractions was far too small to have any effect on the outcome. President Prado agreed -- and was exiled to Paris for his efforts when the military decided to back its charges with a Sherman tank and a U.S.-trained ranger battalion.

  The Junta has scheduled new elections for June 9, 1963, but the only people in Lima who seem to believe it are taxi drivers, hotel clerks and a varied assortment of small jobholders who voted for Gen. Manuel Odria, dictator from 1948 to 1956. In the circle most heartily in agreement with the takeover -- namely, the business and finance community -- the betting is against elections next year. "These boys are in to stay," said the president of a U.S. businessmen's society. "Once they get the taste of sugar on their tongues they're not going to give it up."

  Nor was he much alarmed by the prospect. "These people are like children," he explained. "They'll complain all day about discipline, but deep down they like it. They need it.

  "Let's be smart about it," he added. "The rich people are running this country. They're running the country back home. Why not face facts and be thankful for what stability we have? These people are anti-Communist. Let's recognize the Junta, keep the aid flowing, and get on with it." He smiled indulgently. "We think young Kennedy up there just flew off the handle. Now he's out on a limb and he doesn't know how to get back."

  Nearly everybody who wears a tie in Lima feels the same way. Business is good in Peru -- it is the only South American country without a balance of payments deficit -- and the vested interests want to keep it that way. Even the taxi driver, who is making a good living because there are enough people on the streets with money in their pockets, does not particularly care who sits in the Presidential Palace as long as they don't upset the apple cart.

  This is what almost happened. APRA is more than just another political party; it is a genuine threat to a way of life that was 500 years old when the U.S. was born. To say that the takeover came simply because of the military's longstanding feud with APRA is to gloss over the fact that the entire ruling class in Peru regards APRA as more dangerous than communism. APRA has an ally in the Alliance for Progress and therefore an ally in the U.S. Communism has never been more than a minor threat in Peru and is more a convenient whipping boy than anything else.

  If anyone has carried the battle to the Communists, it is Haya de la Torre. One of his most popular campaign slogans was "APRA, si! Communismo, no!" Fernando Belaunde Terry, who finished second in the presidential race, was not noted for any savage tirades against the Red Menace. Nor was Gen. Odria. Local Communists, however, have given the Junta their full-fledged support, although the party is still illegal and will undoubtedly remain that way.

  APRA, primarily because of its appeal to the millions of voteless, illiterate Indians, is by long odds the main threat to Peru's status quo. At the moment, the party is still reeling from the jolt of having its hard-fought election victory annulled. When t
he soldiers pulled out of the Casa del Pueblos (House of the People) which is APRA's headquarters, the place was a total wreck. On August 7, after two weeks of occupation, it was returned to the party, and a vast, silent crowd was on hand to view the remains. There were bullet holes in the walls and ceiling, doors and windows had been smashed and party records destroyed, and the entire building -- nearly a city block of offices and facilities -- was a shambles of glass, broken furniture and water-soaked paper. Among the smashed or stolen items were: the only dentist drill, all medicine from the clinic and drugs from the pharmacy, typewriters, a radio transmitter, all phonograph records, sculpture in the art workshop, instruments for the children's band, food and plates from the dining hall, records from the credit union, and just about everything else that human beings could put to any use at all.

  Those who passed through the Casa del Pueblos that night, in what seemed like a huge funeral procession, could not be numbered in that alleged "vast majority" of Peruvians who "fully support the Junta." The air was heavy with bitterness and defeat. They were anxious to know what the U.S. was going to do about the takeover, and the only American there could only shake his head and say that it was too early to tell, although it seemed inevitable that the hue and cry for recognition would sooner or later have its effect.

  This is the other side of the "misunderstanding." APRA represents some 600,000 of Peru's 2,000,000 voters, plus a vast majority of the 53 percent of the population which neither reads, writes nor votes. Haya de la Torre got 14,000 more votes than any other candidate, and in a democratic country a man who did that well could expect to have at least some say in the government.

  In Peru, however, the figures don't necessarily add up to the score. The will of the people is subject to the veto of that class for which armies have been the strong right arm ever since armies were invented. To these people, democracy means chaos. It will loosen their grip on the national purse strings, shatter the foundations of society, and send the rabble pouring into the vaults. A whole way of life would collapse if democracy became a reality in Peru. The military takeover was no accidental trodding on Washington's toes. It was a step taken with full deliberation and plenty of warning beforehand. The military -- and the oligarchy which supports the military -- were, and still are, bound and determined not to let APRA get its hands on the throttle.

  It follows then, that if the U.S. reaction to the takeover is a misunderstanding, the whole Alliance for Progress is a misunderstanding, because the Alliance is based rather firmly on the assumption that Progress will not come at the expense of democracy. Mr. Kennedy has said this over and over again, but it is a concept that has not gained wide acceptance in Peru. Not among the people who count, anyway.

  National Observer, August 27, 1962

  The Inca of the Andes:

  He Haunts the Ruins of His Once-Great Empire

  Cuzco, Peru.

  When the cold Andean dusk comes down on Cuzco, the waiters hurry to shut the Venetian blinds in the lounge of the big hotel in the middle of town. They do it because the Indians come up on the stone porch and stare at the people inside. It tends to make tourists uncomfortable, so the blinds are pulled. The tall, oak-paneled room immediately seems more cheerful.

  The Indians press their faces between the iron bars that protect the windows. They tap on the glass, hiss, hold up strange gimcracks for sale, plead for "monies," and generally ruin the tourist's appetite for his inevitable Pisco Sour.

  It wasn't always this way. Until 1532 this city of crisp air and cold nights in the Andes Mountains served as the gold-rich capital of the Inca empire, the Indian society that South American expert Harold Osborne has called "the only civilization which has succeeded in making the Andes genuinely habitable to man." Many of Cuzco's buildings still rest on Inca foundations -- massive walls of stone that have lasted through 400 years of wars, looting, erosion, earthquakes, and general neglect.

  Today, the Indian is as sad and hopeless a specimen as ever walked in misery. Sick, dirty, barefoot, wrapped in rags, and chewing narcotic coca leaves to dull the pain of reality, he limps through the narrow cobblestone streets of the city that once was the capital of his civilization.

  His culture has been reduced to a pile of stones. Archeologists point out it's an interesting pile, but the Indian doesn't have much stomach for poking around in his own ruins. In fact, there's something pathetic about an Indian child leading you across a field to see what he calls ruinas. For this service he wants "monies," and then he'll be quiet unless you aim a camera at him, which will cost you about 10 cents a shot.

  Probably one Indian in a thousand has any idea why people come to Cuzco to look at ruinas. The rest have other things to think about, like getting enough to eat, and this has made Cuzco one of the continent's liveliest hotbeds of Communist agitation.

  Communist-inspired "peasant uprisings" are old-hat in Cuzco, dating back to the early 1940s. Indeed, they're familiar all over Peru. At one point during World War II, Communists took over Cuzco and built a giant hammer and sickle out of whitewashed stones on a hill overlooking the city.

  The pattern hasn't changed too much since then. Last winter peasant leader Hugo Blanco organized an Indian militia in the Convencion Valley near here and carried out a series of hit-and-run harassments. At about the same time, there were strikes and fighting at the United States-owned Cerro de Pasco mines.

  But the phenomenon is restricted neither to the cities nor to Peru alone. It's also seen in the countryside and in the other two Andean countries, Ecuador and Bolivia. Of the three nations, only Bolivia has made any attempt to bring the Indians into the national life. Peru has taken some nervous and tentative steps, and Ecuador has done almost nothing.

  Yet the combined populations of the three countries total some 18,500,000, of which about 10 percent are white. About 40 per cent are pure Indian, and the rest are mixed-blood cholos, or mestizos. If the Indians and cholos join and develop their full power, the shape of northern South America may never be the same.

  Communism, though, isn't the only persuasion that can rouse the normally placid Indians to violence. Another is the powerful chicha beer, the Andes' answer to home brew, which they drink in heavy amounts. In 1953 an anthropological field survey in Bolivia reported 979 bottles were consumed in one province for every adult man and woman, an average of 2½ bottles a day.

  Another agitating influence is extreme conservatism. One example: Last fall in Ecuador, a sanitation unit from the U.N.-sponsored Andean Indian Mission was attacked by Indians who'd been told the men were "Communist agents." A doctor and his assistant were killed, and the doctor's body was burned. The Ecuadorian press, pointing out the Communists certainly didn't tell the Indians the U.N. officials were "Communist agents," called the incident "a tragic consequence of the rivalry between the extreme left and the extreme right to win Indian support."

  This incident and many others like it were blamed on conservative elements opposed to land reform or any other change in the status quo. The example of Bolivia has shown that once the Indian begins voting, he has little common cause with large landowning or industrial interests. Thus the best hope for the status quo is to keep the Indian ignorant, sick, poverty-stricken, and politically impotent.

  And the Indians, living mainly on a barren plateau that ranges from 10,000 feet above sea level in Ecuador to 15,000 in Bolivia (Denver, by contrast, is 5,280 feet above), are curiously receptive to this conservatism. Ever since the Spaniards' destruction of his empire in the mid-Sixteenth Century, the Indian has viewed all change as for the worse -- except, sometimes, the changes advocated by his Communist-inspired "peasant leaders." The word "government," for him, has been synonymous with "exploitation."

  A fine old Indian tradition, now on the wane, was to greet all strangers with a hail of stones, because they invariably meant trouble. Until very recently any man arriving on "official business" might have meant an entire village was being sent into the mines to labor for the r
est of their lives.

  Even when convinced somebody is trying to help him, the Indian is loath to change his ways. Arnaldo Sanjines, a Bolivian working for the Inter-American Agricultural Service in La Paz, tells of stopping at a tiny farm to demonstrate a steel plow to an Indian using the same primitive plow his ancestors used 500 years ago. The old man tried the new plow and was obviously convinced of its superiority, but finally handed it back.

  "Ah, senor," he said, "this is a wonderful plow, but I like my old wooden one and I think I will die with it."

  Mr. Sanjines shakes his head sadly as he talks of the 12 years he has spent with the service, trying to convince the Indians to give up their ancient methods of farming. One of the main stumbling blocks, he says, is that the Indian lives almost entirely outside the money economy; he exists, as he always has, on a system of barter. One Indian, after walking for miles to a village market, returned home to say he'd been cheated out of all his produce because all he got for it was money.

  There is a sharp distinction, however, between "city Indians" and those who stay in the mountains. From Bogota south, the Andean cities are overrun with Indian beggars, who have no qualms about lying on a downtown sidewalk and grabbing at the legs of any passers-by who look prosperous.

  One of the most effective groups now working with the Indians in Bolivia is the Maryknoll Fathers, a Catholic order based in La Paz. Says one priest: "Bolivia hasn't got a chance unless the Indians join the country. We're making some progress here -- more than the others, anyway. In Peru and Ecuador all they do is make the necessary concessions."

  In 1957, Father Ryan, one of the Maryknoll veterans, started Radio Penas, which broadcasts lessons in Spanish to the millions of Indians who speak only Quechua or Aymara. With 3,000 fixed-frequency receivers, donated by Bloomingdale's in New York, the Maryknollers have taught about 7,000 Indians in the past five years to speak the language of the country. There is one class a day, but it is difficult to get the Indians to tune in at the right hour, because they tell time by the sun.