Living dangerously: issues of Peruvian press freedom.

• Author: Gorriti, Gustavo
• Position: Power of the Media in the Global System

One can complain of many things in Latin America, but not of dull uniformity. From bird-watching to watching -- or enduring -- revolutions, the overriding impression gotten from Latin America is that of the paradoxical variety, the at times surreal singularity of events. As time goes by and a new century approaches, while Latin American countries like Peru manage to produce Fujimoris instead of Fukuyamas, one cannot avoid feeling that instead of marching toward the end of history, we are moving, floating or crawling toward its beginning.

Change -- all too often haphazard and dismantling by nature -- seems to be a constant feature in the political systems of Latin America. Whereas the inhabitants of most other regions in the world can recall perhaps just one or two major changes of political systems in their lifetimes, most Latin American baby-boomers have lived through a couple of democratic experiences and dictatorial experiments.(1) We have been exposed to a nominal tabula rasa -- to a purported new beginning -- on three, four or five different occasions, as waves of democratic regimes or autocracies have swept Latin America more or less each decade.

Unpredictable politics is just one of the reasons why Latin America is the continent where paradox often seems to dictate reality. As paradox creates a wide, patternless range of experiences, Latin America is often better understood through narrative rather than analytic categories. After ideologies and models will have proved once and again their insufficiency, both the people and the land will remain brimming with stories. These stories must be told in order to make sense of history. This is one of the reasons why literature and journalism are so important in Latin America, compared to other regions of the world. The press itself is a story too, sometimes as confusing or paradoxical, often as compelling, as the continent it covers.

JOURNALISM IN A DUALISTIC CULTURE: THE REAL, THE IDEAL

The influence of the press in Latin America, especially during periods of democracy, is generally strong. Notions both new and traditional about the role journalism plays in society hold true; despite superficial similarities, these notions are different in many ways from those prevalent in the United States. It was Brazilian reporting on former President Fernando Collor's alleged corruption that launched the momentous process that eventually ended in Collor's resignation. In Argentina, the investigative reporting on corruption in the Menem-Yoma family, especially that of journalist Horacio Verbitsky, greatly ruffled and irritated an otherwise smug Menem regime, and in the end made it much more cautious and sensitive about its own accountability. In Colombia, certain journalists and papers, such as El Espectador, were repeatedly the victims of assassination and bombing campaigns carried out by the drug trafficking mafia against the Colombian state and society. Yet their determination to hold ground in the unlikely exchange of voice against bullet, print against bomb, also held together the national will to resist, even at its weakest.

In Peru, after Alberto Fujimori's 5 April 1992 coup d'etat abruptly ended the 12-year-old democratic system, the independent press -- rather than the political parties -- led the opposition against the dictatorship. Before that, every important drug-trafficking organization and every human-rights atrocity had been exposed in the press well before the formal legal authorities began to acknowledge, much less to deal, with the case.

Throughout Latin America, journalism shares certain common characteristics. The best journalists normally see themselves as waging a life-long "war by other means." journalism, as trench warfare or as perpetual crusade, is the paradigm -- and the common stereotype -- of the profession.

At the same time, Latin American journalism has suffered from deep-seated contradictions. These contradictions affect all aspects of society -- religious, legislative and judicial -- that involve the confrontation between the codified, formal world and a less explicit reality. As Luis Miro Quesada, editor-in-chief and publisher of Lima's El Comercio until the early 1970s, used to say in properly medieval wording, "Journalism is the noblest profession or the vilest trade." Under a common roof and with the same tools, both extremes of journalism converged in glorious virtue and degrading sin, common to markedly dualistic cultures. The chasm between the narrow and demanding standards of the ideal and the often distorted, but always strong pull of the more material aspects of reality, is a central part of the dynamics of Latin American journalism. The history of the last 20 years of Peruvian journalism mirrors that dialectic of Latin American journalism, some of its current structural limitations and the strong influence that reported and nonreported events have had on journalism itself.

PERUVIAN PRESS IN THE 1970s

In 1974, Peru had already lived through five years of a unique experiment in Latin America: a leftist military regime attempting to transform society radically from above along socialist lines.(2) A thorough agrarian reform had been enacted; co-ownership between the state and the workers in the industrial sector was mandated; the so-called strategic industries had been nationalized; and an experiment at "social property" was about to be undertaken.

The Peruvian "revolution" had, in fact, less than two years of life ahead of it. General Juan Velasco, its leader, was ousted in August 1975. From then until 1979, the military regime led by General Francisco Morales Bermudez undertook a laborious process of disengagement, both from the leftist trend and from government itself, which led to a new constitution and to civilian rule in 1980. During 1974, however, much of the press was taken over, the effects of which still play a role in the Peruvian press today.

At that time, the military regime appeared stronger than ever, and the opposition seemed fragmented, diminished and obsolete. Some essential contradictions of the regime were suppressed through intense propaganda, harsh intimidation and threats against the press. Foremost among these contradictions was the regime's avowed aim to redistribute income and decision-making power. The regime's supposed wresting of power from the traditional oligarchy contradicted the fact that the armed forces -- the agent of change -- had become a vertical oligarchy of unprecedented power.

The military's seeming popularity was due in part to its radical, propagandistic language, promise of reforms and the allegiance of a substantial sector of the intelligentsia. For example, Expreso, one of the major newspapers, was expropriated by the military regime. It was turned over to the control of pro-government journalists and became an aggressive, vociferous supporter of the regime. General Velasco called its journalists his "mastiffs. " Expreso's publisher, Manuel Ulloa, was in exile; and Manuel D'Ornellas, one of the paper's leading journalists, was stripped of his Peruvian citizenship. The other newspapers, mainly El Comercio and La Prensa, understandably, treaded cautiously.

On 17 June 1974, the military regime closed Caretas, Peru's leading magazine, and sent its editor Enrique Zileri into exile. The mordant irony of articles in Caretas went far beyond what the military regime was willing to withstand. The protests against the closing were louder from outside the country than within. However, at the same time, tolerance for arbitrariness in the name of social reform was widespread, even in the international arena. Even the New York Times, while editorializing against Zileri's deportation, added that it could only "tarnish the considerable achievements" of the military regime.(3)

On 27 July 1974, the military regime expropriated the country's eight major newspapers in a carefully coordinated surprise move.(4) Anti-riot paramilitary police simultaneously occupied most of the newspapers' premises. Luis Miro Quesada, an old passionate, crusading journalist who had led El Comercio through many of the country's more contentious years, was kept under house arrest. Oddly enough, the military considered this a gesture of respect, as military officials wanted to save him the pain and humiliation of watching his paper taken over by police troops.

The expropriation of the press, including all television and radio stations, was a logical step to take in the Velasco regime's mindset. The regime advocated giving the means of production and distribution to socialist or cooperative organizations...