Author: Roman Samseal. Source: Nowe Książki no. 8, 1971. Date of publication: 30 April 1971.

Ryszard Kapuściński’s book Why Did Karl von Spreti Die? is a political and historical essay of a particular kind. The author calls it a “reportage” in the preface, and there is no reason to dispute the genre of a work that is an attempt to answer the question: why was the West German ambassador, Count von Spreti, murdered in Guatemala? The very choice of subject declares its intent: to say something new in Polish international journalism about Latin America.

At a time when the kidnapping of diplomats had become a weapon of political struggle in Latin America, the government of the small banana republic of Guatemala refused to release twenty-two political prisoners in exchange for the kidnapped ambassador. The kidnapping was carried out by a revolutionary group called the Armed Forces of the Revolution (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias — FAR).

Kapuściński’s essay is a precise analysis of the reasons why the Guatemalan partisans were forced to kill the diplomat. The author seeks the causes not only in the immediate course of events, but resorts to historical analysis, presenting the reader with the entire short and tragic history of that country.

The book is unquestionably a contribution to the disputed question of the path of revolutionary forces in Latin America. It corresponds in some measure to the problematic of Régis Debray’s famous political pamphlet Revolution in the Revolution (still untranslated into Polish at the time) on the subject of the “foco” — the basic nucleus of revolution, consisting of a tiny group of fighters.

Kapuściński speaks of the results of revolutionary struggle in a country where all legal opposition is impossible, against the historical backdrop of a century of struggles for freedom.

The book is a commentary on the difficult question of the development of the revolutionary movement, and an answer to the question: when, and in what circumstances, do Latin American partisans fighting a reactionary regime have the moral right to acts of individual terror?

It argues that the act of terror against the West German diplomat was a consequence of the country’s tragic history and an inevitable necessity in the extremely difficult situation of the FAR. Guatemala, from the very beginning of its history, was a piece of fertile, productive land in the service of the United States. The history of the country is a succession of murders of successive presidents and an ever-deepening subordination to American monopolies. President Estrada Cabrera handed over half of Guatemala to American monopolies in exchange for Washington’s support. In 1901 he admitted the United Fruit Company, deeding it the best lands.

Shortly thereafter a battle unfolded between American and German capital over Guatemala, as a result of which it became a German semi-colony. It sounds almost grotesque that Guatemalan mestizos fought in Hitler’s army on the Eastern Front and marched as prisoners of war through Moscow in 1945. Until 1954 Guatemala practised serfdom, and the attempt by Jacobo Arbenz Guzman to abolish it and limit United Fruit provoked American intervention.

The publication contains a polemic with the American press, which claimed that Guatemala’s misfortune was an underground war in which right-wing terrorists were fighting left-wing terrorists. The Polish writer appeals to the Guatemalan Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, which states that there is evidence of government and army involvement in massacres of the country’s population.

Kapuściński provides two main reasons in answer to the question: why did Karl von Spreti die? First: von Spreti fell victim to the conflict between German and American capital. The American embassy — the only body capable of intervention — did not intervene with the Guatemalan authorities to release the political prisoners in exchange for the ambassador, wishing in this way to be rid of West German competitors.

The immediate cause of the ambassador’s death he states as follows: von Spreti was shot because the FAR had no other option.

Of course, Spreti as a person was guilty of nothing, and so the moral aspect of the act remains an open question to the end — an act that could in any case no longer help the guerrilleros, except by demonstrating their inflexibility, their unbending will, their determination. It placed an unanswerable argument in the hands of the left-wing guerrilla movements of other countries. The Guatemala case weighed heavily upon the extremist right-wing regimes of the subcontinent.

Kapuściński’s publication is the first documented Polish analysis of the system of totalitarian rule by military cliques in Latin America, presented through the example of a small Central American state under complete CIA control — a state in which the contradictions of the Latin world and the growing revolt against American monopoly are most sharply visible.

source: kapuscinski.info