Bread, Butter, and Honey – Folha de S. Paulo, September 20, 1977
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
The United States continues its bewildering process of political self-destruction.
Carter has just signed the transfer of the Panama Canal. The Panamanian president makes no secret of his sympathy for Cuba.
Won’t that strategic point on the continent be an irresistible lure for Fidel Castro, in Moscow’s service?
In this century of ours, where everything that is born lives only briefly, quickly becoming either sensational news or old news, the extraordinary carousel of Latin American heads of state that Carter brought together in Washington is already beginning to fade into the past.
I say extraordinary because it is not at all common for a country’s president to summon ten other presidents to a political festival celebrating the victory of a common ideology symbolized by the promise to return the Canal to the Panamanians—a little like the Congress of Vienna celebrated the victory of the doctrine of legitimacy common to all of Europe since Bonaparte’s fall!
Extraordinary, too, for another reason. In our era of state omnipotence, every president is overwhelmed. Everything is expected of the government. It is obliged to provide everything, and those in power do not have enough hands to attend to their most immediate tasks. In addition to being immediate, these tasks are also dramatic because in this century of precarious balances, any problem left unaddressed can turn into a drama. Thus, it is difficult to understand why the US government wanted presidents from Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile to converge to witness the signing of the treaty, when they certainly never considered Panama’s rights over the Canal among their most pressing concerns.
It was fortunate that President Geisel remained here, tending to our own affairs. He courteously delegated the task of representing him at the ceremony to Vice President General A. Pereira dos Santos. With its traditional elegance, Itamarati declared that Brazil viewed the treaty as a matter between third parties, in which it had no reason to intervene.
I mentioned the Congress of Vienna earlier. How many elegant, witty, subtle, mystical, colossal, and semi-barbaric figures this reference evokes! To the sound of waltzes, people parade through our memory, most of whom have been judged harshly by the court of history (and how many reasons there are to fear that God’s court has been harsh, too!). Talleyrand, the incomparable Metternich, Castlereagh, the Baroness von Krudner, or Alexander I, who, accustomed to the rigors of the Russian winter, had snow brought in from Switzerland to shave. Unquestionably, this parade of personalities carries a connotation of good taste, lightness, and civilization to which we are unaccustomed.
We will not draw parallels here between host Carter and many of his guests on one side and Austrian host Francis I and his guests on the other.
Let each person do so according to their own taste and in their own way.
I will limit myself to mentioning in passing the comparison often drawn between Metternich and Kissinger. I think it shows how far the world has come since then, and it certainly has not been for the better.
Yet, regarding the Panama Canal, the confrontation between Metternich and Kissinger now seems archaic. Kissinger, too, is fading into the past, where, according to contemporary thinking, even immortals are buried…
* * *
In fact, the main figure at the Washington ceremony was not Jimmy Carter or any of the others present. It was someone who was absent.
Fidel Castro was the absent one.
Castro, not so much as an individual as the embodiment of the agility, perfidy, and strength with which Russia, his master and mistress, is swallowing up the Caribbean.
While Carter spun his carousel in Washington, to the astonishment of the whole world, the US continued, unperturbed, the long process of concessions and humiliations in which the greatest superpower is cowering (to what extent?) before the long-bearded tyrant who rules little Cuba. At the same time, the tyrant casts the shadow of his beard and extends his claws over remote Africa. However, Carter seemed oblivious to this as he spun his carousel in the apotheosis of his “human rights” policy.
If Fidel’s beard and claws have already spread guerrilla warfare across the vast expanses of South America and now stimulate it in the most distant reaches of Africa, it is impossible not to suspect that he intends to take the first opportunity to extend it to that real political prize, so much more within his reach — the Canal.
True, the treaty says the Americans will leave in only twenty years. But what plans is the cunning caudillo of neighboring Cuba hatching to help discontented Panamanians break free of the Yankees before then?
How many attacks, ambushes, or alliances is he plotting to achieve this and take possession of the Canal?
From Fidel Castro’s perspective, the treaty’s immediate beneficiary was Panama. In the medium term, however, it was Castro himself.
It’s logical. To think otherwise, he would have to forget his entire past and his filthy, triumphant present.
It is easy to imagine the feline smile with which he received this telegram from President Omar Torrijos upon his return to Panama: “Flying over Cuba as I return to my homeland, I greet you with the same friendship as always. I hope that, under your leadership, the Cuban people will continue their march toward progress. In Latin America, your name is associated with feelings of dignity that have been channeled to erase all traces of shameful colonialism.”
To Fidel’s delight, the Panamanian head of state expressed all possible kindnesses in a telegraphically concise message. He asserts that his “friendship” with Fidel is “longstanding,” even when the cruelties of La Cabaña were more frequent and more tragic. He wants Cuba to progress, but “under the leadership” of Fidel.
Torrijos boldly asserts that Fidel’s name—which, based on harsh experience, signifies attacks, abuses, guerrilla warfare, and ultimately colonialism under the Russian boot for almost all Latin Americans—is a symbol of anti-colonialist “feelings of dignity.”
As can be seen, Torrijos’ telegram is to Fidel Castro like butter on bread and honey on butter.
If this were merely Torrijos’ personal opinion, the telegram might not be so serious. But, like all politicians today, the Panamanian head of state would not have sent this telegram if it had damaged his support base. This is the base to which Torrijos will want to hand over the government when he has no choice but to leave.
This means there is a movement in Panama that supports Torrijos and appreciates his applause for Fidel.
With far fewer trump cards, the Cuban leader sent his people to Angola, which is a much less valuable “prize” than Panama and much farther away.
