Peter Calder: Truth about Cuba and Che

Several months have elapsed since the publication of two pieces - one by the Cuban ambassador to New Zealand, Miguel Ramirez Ramos ( link at bottom of article), the other by a representative of two New Zealand-Cuba Friendship Societies, Malcolm McAllister (link at bottom of article) - taking strong exception to assertions I made in the New Zealand Herald and Weekend Herald referring to historical events and present circumstances in Cuba.

The writers accused me of distorting the historical record and of rehearsing unsubstantiated opinions. The accusations demanded a response, which I delayed making because a complaint - which was not upheld - was lodged with the Press Council by a third party.

Unlike my detractors, I do not pretend to "know" everything about Cuba. But in the articles that so outraged diehard supporters of the Cuban revolution, I wrote nothing idly and nothing without foundation.

With the exception of two minor matters long since willingly corrected in print, every single assertion in the articles either has documentary support or is based on my direct observation and/or on conversations with Cubans, in English and Spanish (which I speak well).

In a review of The Motorcycle Diaries, a popular film by a respectable director, which was a competent, though tastelessly romanticised, version of the young Ernesto Guevara's trip through the South American sub-continent, I made several statements about Guevara's later life to which devoted supporters of the man took violent exception.

I wrote that the fresh-faced youth, who is transformed in the course of the film from a spoilt, middle-class Argentine brat to a nascent version of the liberationist that posterity would revere, later became a "Stalinist revolutionary thug who summarily executed dissenters; who founded the forced labour camps that would later hold dissidents, homosexuals and people with Aids; who ached for the Cuban Missile Crisis to escalate into purifying nuclear holocaust; who abandoned the revolution because he thought Castro was a sissy; and who died in Bolivia organising a peasant revolution that failed to enlist the support of so much as a single Bolivian peasant".

Though this view may be susceptible to dispute, none of those assertions is demonstrably wrong. Supporters and representatives of the Cuban revolution asserted that Che Guevara's foco (peasant revolution) in Bolivia enjoyed the support of the Bolivian peasantry. One disputes my assertion by saying that there were "12 [Bolivians] in Che's group of 27". In fact there were 22, but none was a peasant.

Several books about the foco dwell on its failure and ascribe it in large part to the complete absence of popular support.

Jon Lee Anderson's biography of Che goes into some detail about the relish with which he killed and, after the revolution, oversaw executions.

The man's own speeches, letters and diaries specifically welcomed nuclear annihilation as preferable to the failure of world revolution and recorded his admiration for "Comrade Stalin".

His role in establishing the labour camps which were, long after his death, used to intern Aids victims (before Cuba adopted its present enlightened attitude to the disease) is also a matter of historical record.

I am happy to supply, to anyone who emails me, the references to writings by scholars, travellers, journalists, biographers, historians and independent agencies such as Amnesty International on which I relied.

In a travel piece published in December, which I wrote after a short visit to Cuba, I reported my generally favourable impressions of the place and mentioned the work shortages and poor quality and high cost of basic foodstuffs.

Some, plainly concerned that my impressions undermined the idea that the Cuban revolution was an unalloyed triumph, suggested that my agenda was to undermine it.

But I made plain in the article that, to the extent that the economic situation in Cuba is parlous, the blame for it may be laid entirely at the feet of successive American administrations, which have ignored United Nations resolutions over four decades condemning United States policy towards its Caribbean neighbour.

Nothing has caused me to reconsider that view.

It has been a source of some distress to me that, in order to defend myself against partisan attack, I have been forced to mount a much more detailed critique than I otherwise might have of a country I enjoyed visiting and a people I admire and respect.

Interestingly, Malcolm McAllister, in an initial email to me, expressed surprise that "a journalist with liberal credentials" would write what I wrote.

The comment reveals an assumption that runs through my critics' arguments: that I should have ignored facts inconsistent with creating a favourable impression of Cuba because I should be on the side of the revolution.

There are many terms for such an approach to writing, but "journalism" is not one of them. This is a business in which you call it as you see it.

My duty was then, and is now, to what my researches and observations reveal, and not to Castroist or any other propaganda.