Charles
Faulhaber
Elizabeth
Burgos, writer, diplomat, and self-described one-time Arevolucionaria
profesional, spoke
at Berkeley on October 10 and October 11 on ALa lucha armada
en la América Latina: 1959-1982.
In
her exposition, based on her current project of recording
interviews with more than fifty guerrilla leaders, army officers,
and political figures active during the 1960s and 1970s in
Central and South America, Ms. Burgos contrasted the path
of peaceful electoral reform espoused by Rómulo Betancount
in Venezuela to that of armed struggle advocated by Che Guevara
and Fidel Castro. From 1959 through 1982 Cuba was the primary
supporter of armed revolutionary movements in Latin America
and briefly attempted to serve as the center for a new Internationale,
formalized at the Conferencia Tricontinental in Havana in
1966 where Guevara vowed to lauch Aone, two, many Vietnams
in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
 |
Elizabeth
Burgos
|
Ms.
Burgos argued that the the doctrine and practice of armed
revolutionary movements was ultimately a failure. It provoked
massive military repression from the right, placed severe
obstacles in the path of democratization by decimating the
university and professional elites who could have served
as the leaders of democratic parties, destroyed grassroots
leftist movements, and contributed to the crime waves and
consequent paramilitary repression that continue to plague
many Latin American countries. As Ms. Burgos has written
elsewhere, Aguerrilla models have sterilized political reflection
throughout Latin America; cults of weaponry and death lead
to totalitarian regimes, not solutions for the future. Armed
struggle on the left generates armed repression from the
right; the losers are always the people in whose name the
struggle is waged.
Ms.
Burgos began her political activities in her native Venezuela,
joining the Partido Comunista of Venezuela in 1958 in order
to fight against the dictatorship of Andrés Pérez
Jiménez. In 1966 she was a delegate to the Conferencia
Tricontinental. Together with her then husband Régis
Debray, she participated in the preparations for Guevara's
fatal expedition to Bolivia and later worked for the popular
unity government of Salvador Allende in Chile. Iin 1982,
Ms. Burgos tape-recorded 27 hours of autobiographical interviews
with Rigoberta Menchú and turned then into the book I,
Rigoberta Menchú, which a decade later was instrumental
in helping the narrator gain the Nobel Prize for Peace.
On
October 12 Ms. Burgos also presented a lecture to the Department
of Spanish and Portuguese on testimonial literature, focusing
particularly on the case of Rigoberta Menchú.
Ms.
Burgos's visit to Berkeley was co-sponsored by CLAS and The
Bancroft Library.
