A deep rationality lurks behind appearances. To operate effectively, the repression must appear arbitrary. Apart from breathing, any human activity can constitute a crime. In Uruguay torture is applied as a routine system of interrogation: anyone may be its victim, not only those suspected or guilty of acts of opposition. In this way panic fear of torture is spread through the whole population, like a paralyzing gas that invades every home and implants itself in every citizen's soul.
In Chile the hunt for human prey left a balance of 30,000 dead, but in Argentina they don't shoot: they kidnap, The victims "disappear." The invisible armies of the night carry out the task. There are no corpses and no one is responsible. In this way the bloodbath has the more impunity for not being "official," and thus collective anxiety is more potently spread around. No one renders accounts, no one offers explanations.
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Each crime builds horrible uncertainty in persons close to the victim and is also a warning for everyone else. State terrorism aims to paralyze the population with fear.
To get a job and keep it in Uruguay, one needs to stay in the good graces of the military. In a country where it's so tough to find work outside of the barracks and police stations, this not only serves to drive into exile a good part of the 300,000 citizens listed as leftists. It is also useful as a threat hanging over those who stay. Montevideo newspapers often feature public penitences and declarations by citizens who beat their breasts just in case: "I have never been, I am not, I never will be. . ."
In Argentina it is no longer necessary to ban any book by decree. The new Penal Code penalizes, as always, the writer and publisher of a book considered subversive. But it also penalizes the printer (so that no one will dare to print a text that is merely doubtful) and the distributor and the bookstore (so that no one will dare sell it); and as if this weren't enough, it also penalizes the reader, so that no one will dare read it, much less keep it. Thus the consumer of a book gets the same treatment the law applies to consumers of drugs, 25 In this program for a society of deaf mutes, each citizen has to become his own Torquemada.
In Uruguay it is a crime not to inform on your neighbor. Students entering the university swear in writing that they will denounce anyone who indulges on campus in "any activity outside the functions of study." The student assumes co-responsibility for whatever occurs in his presence. In this program for a society of sleepwalkers, all citizens must be their own and others' policema.
However, the system--with good reason--is mistrustful. There are 100,000
police and soldiers in Uruguay, but there are also 100,000 informers. Spies work the streets, cafes and buses, factories and high schools, offices and the university. Anyone voicing a complaint about life being so expensive and so hard ends up in jail: he or she has committed a "crime against the moral force of the Armed Forces," for which the price is three to six years behind bars.
In the January 1978 referendum, one voted "Yes" for the Pinochet dictatorship by marking a cross beneath the Chilean flag. To vote "No," one put the cross beneath a black rectangle.
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The system would like to be confused with the country. The system is the country, says the official propaganda that bombards the citizenry day and night.
The enemy of the system is a traitor to the fatherland. Capacity for indignation against injustice and a desire for change are proofs of desertion. In many Latin American countries, citizens who aren't exiled beyond the frontiers live as exiles on their own soil.
But even while Pinochet celebrated his victory, strikes which the dictatorship called "collective labor absenteeism" were breaking out all over Chile, despite the terror. The great majority of kidnapped and disappeared people in Argentina are workers who performed some union activity. The limitless popular imagination keeps hatching new forms of struggle--the "Sad Faces Workday," the "Angry Faces Workday"--and solidarity finds new channels for the escape from fear. Numerous unanimous strikes occurred in Argentina through 1977, when fear of losing one's life was as real as the risk of losing one's job. A stroke of the pen can't destroy the power of response of an organized working class with a long fighting tradition. In May of the same year, when the Uruguayan dictatorship was balancing up its program of emptying minds and performing collective castration, it was forced to recognize that "37
percent of the country's citizens are still interested in politics."26
In these lands we are not experiencing the primitive infancy of capitalism but its vicious senility. Underdevelopment isn't a stage of development, but its consequence. Latin America's underdevelopment arises from external development, and continues to feed it. A system made impotent by its function of international servitude, and moribund since birth, has feet of clay. It pretends to be destiny and would like to be thought eternal. All memory is subversive, because it is different, and likewise any program for the future. The zombie is made to eat without salt: salt is dangerous, it could awaken him. The system has its paradigm in the immutable society of ants. For that reason it accords ill with the history of humankind, because that is always changing.
And because in the history of humankind every act of destruction meets its response, sooner or later, in an act of creation.
283
References
Notes to Introduction: 120 Million Children in the Eye of the Hurricane, pp. 1-8
1. Woodrow Wilson, as quoted in Scott Nearing and Joseph Freeman, Dollar Diplomacy (1925; reprint ed., New York: Monthly Review Press, 1966).
2. Life, 29 March 1968, P. 83.
3. Lyndon B. Johnson, in a speech on the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations, San Francisco, June 25, 1965.
Notes to Chipter 1: Lust for Gold, Lust for Silver, pp. 11-58
1. The Adventures of Marco Polo, Richard J. Walsh, ed. (New York: John Day, 1948), P. 143.
2. Daniel Vidart, Ideologia y realidad de America (Montevideo, 1968).
3. The Log of Christopher Columbus' First Voyage to America in the Year 1492 (London: W.H. Allen & Co., Ltd., n.d.).
4. Quoted in Luis Nicolau D'Olwer, Cronistas de las culturas precolombinas (Mexico, 1963).
5. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, Historia general y natural de las Indias (Madrid, 1959).
6. According to the Indian informants of Fray Bernardino de Sahagun in the Florentine Codex, cited in Miguel Leon-Portilla, Vision de los vencidos (Mexico, 1967).
7. See Rafael Pineda Yanez, La isla y Colon (Buenos Aires, 1955).
8. According to the anonymous authors of Tlatelolco and the informants of Sahagun, cited in Leon-Portilla, Vision de los vencidos.
9. Leon-Portilla, El reverso de la conquista: relaciones aztecas, mayas e incas (Mexico, 1964).
10. Ibid.
284
11. Earl J. Hamilton, American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501-1650 (1934; reprint ed., New York: Octagon, 1965).
12. Quoted in Gustavo Adolfo Otero, Vida social en el coloniaje (La Paz, 1958).
13. These are the words of Jose de Galvez, Charles III's Visitor-General in New Spain, as quoted in John Lynch, Spanish Colonial Administration, 1782-1810 (London: Athlone Press, 1958).
14. Ernest Mandel, Marxist Eco Theory, 2 vols. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1968), 2: 443-44.
15. Ernest Mandel, "La teoria marxiana de la acumulacion primitiva y la industrializacion del Tercer Mundo," Amaru (Lima), April-June 1968.
16. Celso Furtado, The Economic Development of Latin America: A Survey from Colonial Times to the Cuban Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), P. II
17. J. Beaujeau-Garnier, L'economie de l'Amerique Latine (Paris, 1949).
18. Sergio Bagu, Economia de la sociedad colonial: ensayo de historia comparada de America Latina (Buenos Aires, 1949).
19. Alexander von Humboldt, Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain (London, 1811), Book II Chapter VII, P. 22.
20. Andre Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York and London: Monthly
Review Press, 1967).
21. Alvaro Alonso Barba, Arte de los metales (Potosi, 1967).
22. Otero, Vida social
23. Humboldt, Political Essay, Book IV, Chapter XI. See also Fernando Carmona, Introduction to Diego Lopez Rosado, Historia y pensamiento economico de Mexico (Mexico, 1968).
24. Don Joseph Ribera Bernardez (Count Santiago de La Laguna), Descripcion breve de la muy noble y leal ciudad de Zacatecas, in Gabriel Salinas de la Torre, Testimonios de Zacatecas (Mexico, 1946).
25. John Collier, The Indians of the Americas (New York: W.W. Norton, 1947), p. 138.
26. Emilio Romero, Historia economica del peru (Buenos Aires, 1941).
27. Enrique Finot, Nueva historia de Bolivia (Buenos Aires, 1946).
28. According to a member of the United States Soil Conservation Service, cited in Collier, The Indians of the Americas, p. 53.
29. Daniel Valcarcel, La rebelion de Tupac Amaru (Mexico, 1947).
285
30. Alexander von Humboldt, Ansichten der Natur (Aspects of nature), vol. II; quoted in Adolf Meyer-Abich et al., Alejandro de Humboldt, 1769-1859
(Bad Godesberg, 1969).
31. Ernest Gruening, Mexico and Its Heritage (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1928), p.38.
32. Arturo Bonilla Sanchez, "Un problema que se agrava: la subocupacion rural," in Neolatifundismo y explotacion, de Emiliano Zapata a Anderson Clayton & Co. (Mexico, 1968).
33. Rene Dumont, Lands Alive (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1965), p.
10.
34. "Don Volcan necesita carne humana bien tostadita," in Carlos Guzman Boeckler and Jean-Loup Herbert , Guatemala: una interpretacion historico-social (Mexico, 1970).
35. As quoted in C.R. Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil 1695-1750 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962), p. 163.
36. As quoted in ibid., pp. 184-85.
37. Ibid., p. 165.
38. Esteban Montejo, The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave, ed. Miguel Barnet (New York: World Publishing, 1969), p. 42.
39. Boxer, The Golden Age of Brazil, p. 219. For further information see Joaquim Felicio dos Santos, Memorias do Distrito Diamantino (Rio de Janeiro, 1956),
40. Augusto de Lima Jr., Vila Rica de Ouro Preto: sintese historica e descritiva (Belo Horizonte, 1957).
41. Franklin de Oliveira, A tragedia da renovacao brasileira. Minas Gerais e Sao Paulo: a miseria dentro do progresso (Rio de Janeiro, 1970).
Additional Bibliography for Chapter 1
Aguilar Monteverde, Alonso. Dialectica de la economia mexicana, Mexico, 1968.
Banco de Comercio. La economia del estado de Guanajuato. Mexico, 1968.
- La economia del estado Zacatecas. Mexico, 1968.
Baran, Paul A. The Political Economy of Growth. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1962.
286
Canete y Dominguez, Pedro Vicente. Potosi colonial: guia historica, geografica, political civil y legal del gobierno e intendencia de la provinciade Potosi. La Paz, 1939.
Capitan, L., and Lorin, H. El trabajo en America, antes y depues de Colon.
Buenos Aires, 1948.
Capoche, Luis. Relacion general de la Villa Imperial de Potosi. Madrid, 1959.
Chavez Orozco, Luis. Revolucion industrial--revolucion politica. Mexico: Biblioreca del Obrero y Campesino, n.d.
de Martinez Arzana y Vela, Nicolas. Historia de la Villa Imperial de Potosi.
Buenos Aires, 1943.
Elliott, J. H. Imperial Spain. London, 1963.
Furtado, Celso. The Economic Growth of Brazil. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963.
Galeano, Eduardo. Guatemala: Occupied Country. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1969.
Gerbi, Antonio, La disputa del Nuevo Mundo. Mexico, 1960.
Halperin Donghi, Tullio. Historia contemporanea de America Latina. Madrid, 1969.
Hanke, Lewis. Estudios sobre fray Bartolome de Las Casas y sobre la lucha por la justicia en la conquista espanola de America. Caracas, 1968.
Hawkes, Jacquetta. "Prehistoria." In Historia de la Humanidad Buenos Aires: UNESCO, 1966.
Huaman Poma. "El primer nueva cronica y buen gobierno." In El reverse de la conquista: relaciones aztecas, mayas, e incas, edited by Miguel Leon Portilla. Mexico, 1964.
Manchester, Allan K. British Preeminence in Brazil: Its Rise and Fall. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1933.
Marmolejo, Lucio. Efemerides guanajuatenses, o datos para fomar la historia de la cuidad de Guanajuato. Guanajuato, 1883.
Molins, Jaime. La ciudad unica. Potosi, 1951.
Mora, Jose Maria Luis. Mexico y sus revoluciones. Mexico, 1965.
Mousnier, Roland. Los siglos xvi y xvii. Historia general de las civilizaciones, edited by Maurice Crouzet, vol. 4. Barcelona, 1967.
Ots Capdequi, J.M. El estado espanol en la Indias. Mexico, 1941.
Quesada, Vicente G. Cronicas potosinas. Paris, 1890.
287
Ramos, Jorge Abelardo. Historia de la nacion latinoamericana. Buenos Aires, 1958.
Ribeiro, Darcy. The Americas and Civilization. New York: Dutton, 1971.
Ruas, Eponina. Ouro Preto: sua historia, seus templos e monumentos. Rio de Janeiro, 1950.
Simonsen, Roberto S. Historia economica do Brasil 1500-1820. Sao Paulo, 1962.
Turner, John Kenneth. Barbarous Mexico. 1910; reprint ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1969.
Vazquez Franco, Guillermo. La conquista justificada, Montevideo, 1968.
Vicens Vives, J. Historia social y economica de Espana y America. Barcelona, 1957.
Notes to Chapter 2: King Sugar and Other Agricultural Monarchs, pp. 59-
133
1. According to investigations by Pernambuco's Instituto joaquim Nabuco de Pesquisas Sociais, cited by Kit Sims Taylor, "Brazil's Northeast: Sugar and Surplus Value," Monthly Review, March 1969.
2. Rene Dumont, Lands Alive (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1965), p.
34.
3. Karl Marx, "On the Question of Free Trade," in The Poverty of Philosophy (New York: International Publishers, 1963), p. 223.
4. As quoted in Tadeusz Lepkowski, Haiti (Havana, 1968), vol. I.
5. Manuel Moreno Fraginals, El ingenio (Havana, 1964).
6. See Jose Pedro Barran and Benjamin Nahum, Historia rural del Uruguay moderno, 1851-1885 (Montevideo, 1967).
7. Enrique Ruiz Garcia, America Latina: anatomia de una revolucion (Madrid, 1966).
8. Fidel Castro, "History Will Absolve Me" (Havana, n.d.).
9. Quoted in K.S. Karol, Guerrillas in Power: The Course of the Cuban Revolution (New York: Hill and Wang, 1970), p. 224.
10. L. Capitan and H. Lorin, El trabajo en America, antes y despues de Colon (Buenos Aires, 1948).
11. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Cannon edition (New York: Modern Library, 1937), p. 591.
288
12. Daniel P. Mannix, in collaboration with Malcolm Cowley, Black Cargoes: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1518-1865 (New York: Viking, 1962), p. 22,
13. Quoted in ibid., p. 48.
14. For documentation of this information, see Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944).
15. Philip Reno, The Ordeal of British Guiana (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1964), p, 4.
16. Decio de Freitas, "A guerra dos escravos," unpublished manuscript.
17. Esteban Montejo, The Autobiograpby of a Runaway Slave, ed. Miguel Barnet (New York: World Publishing, 1969), pp. 44 and 45.
18. Roberto C. Simonsen, Historia economica do Brasil, 1500-1820 (Sao Paulo, 1962).
19. Moreno Fraginals, El ingenio.
20. Quoted in Rodolfo Teofilo, Historia da seca do Ceara, 1877-1880 (Rio de Janeiro, 1922).
21. Agence France Presse, 21 April 1970.
22, Aurelio Pinheiro, A margem do Amazonas (Sao Paulo, 1937).
23, Domingo Alberto Rangel, El proceso del capitalismo contemporaneo en Venezuela (Caraca
s, 1968).
24. ECLA, Economic Survey of Latin America, 1969 (New York: United Nations, 1970).
25. Jose Carlos Mariategui, Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 197 1).
26. OAS, Inter-American Committee for Agricultural Development, Peru: Land Tenure Conditions and SocioEconomic Development of the Agricultural Sector (Washington, 1966).
27. Quoted in Mario Arrubla, Estudios sobre el subdesarrollo colombiano (Medellin, 1969).
28. Data from Banco Central, Instituto Brasileiro do Cafe, and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. See Fator (Rio de Janeiro), November-December 1968.
29. According to a Federal Trade Commission investigation, cited in Cid Silveira, Cafe: un drama na economia nacional (Rio de Janeiro, 1962).
30. ECLA, El comercio internacional y el desarrollo de America Latina (Mexico/Buenos Aires, 1964).
289
31. Arrubla, Estudios sobre el subdesarrollo colombiano.
32. Luis Eduardo Nieto Arteta, Ensayos sobre la economia colombiana (Medellin, 1969).
33. United Nations, Analysis and Projections of Economic Development, vol.
III, in Economic Development of Colombia (New York, 1957).
34. German W. Rama, "Educacion y movilidad social en Colombia," Eco (Bogota), December 1969.
35. William Howard Taft, as quoted in Gregorio Selser, Diplomacia, Garrote y Dolares en America Latina (Buenos Aires: Editorial Palestra, 1962), pp.
46-47; retranslated from the Spanish.
36. Quoted in Leo Huberman, Man's Worldy Goods (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1952), p. 265.
37. Ibid.
38. Miguel Angel Asturias, The Green Pope (New York: Delacorte, 1971), pp.
134-35.
39. Miguel Angel Asturias, Strong Wind (New York: Delacorte, 1968), p. 47.
40. John Dos Passos, The 42nd Parallel (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1930), p. 252.
41. William Krehm, Democracia y tiranias en el Caribe (Buenos Aires, 1959).
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