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| REWARDING COURAGE | |
 November 25, 1998 
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The most dangerous environment. |
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Today, Gustavo Gorriti continues his reporting from Panama about Latin America -- the region the committee to protect journalists calls "the most dangerous environment for journalists in the world." |
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| Leaving Peru | ||||||||||||||
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TERRY SMITH: Gustavo Gorriti is one of the winners this year of the International Press Freedom Award presented by the Committee to Protect Journalists. He joins us now. Gustavo, welcome. GUSTAVO GORRITTI: Thank you. TERENCE SMITH: It was reported that Hillary Clinton spoke up in your behalf when she was in Panama not long ago and helped relieve the situation, is that so?
TERENCE SMITH: Let me take you back a bit. Why did you leave Peru? GUSTAVO GORRITI: After my release, I continued to work - mainly as a correspondent - for foreign media - and I was constantly the subject of threats against both me and my family. It meant I would say more than emotional strain and financial costs, because I couldn't afford not to have some security for my daughters and my wife. So eventually after a number of months of that, I was offered a position first with the Carnegie Endowment in Washington and then with the North-South Center in Miami. I took it, thinking that I would be back in a year or so, but things turned out to be different. TERENCE SMITH: Not quite the case. GUSTAVO GORRITI: Yes.
GUSTAVO GORRITI: Well, last year, in the midst of the confrontation with the Panamanian government we had the report that the president had said that the real reason for trying to expel me was that he had received information of a contract on me by the Peruvian intelligence services. When we learned about it, we made it immediately public, of course. And the result of it was the Peruvian government denied having to do anything with that and the Panamanian government essentially remained silent about the whole affair. TERENCE SMITH: I mean, all of this serves to illustrate the point that the Committee to Protect Journalists makes, that Latin America is a very dangerous place for journalists to work. GUSTAVO GORRITI: It's not an easy place by any means. |
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| Attacking the messenger. | ||||||||||||||
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TERENCE SMITH: Yes. I mean, ten of the twenty-six journalists killed in this past year in the line of duty were, in fact, in Latin America. What are the situations there? Give us a little sense of what the dangers are and how specific they are.
TERENCE SMITH: And, in fact, I gather, that there are still laws on the books to stifle journalists in Panama that date back to the Torreos era. GUSTAVO GORRITI: That's correct. They are nicknamed the mass laws. They are very much in effect. And they are not used most of the time. They tried to use them against me last year. But they are still pending as a threat -- of course they are. TERENCE SMITH: And, in fact, you have still criminal prosecution against you in Panama. GUSTAVO GORRITI: Yes. Yes. That's another case. The attorney general of the country tried to compel me to reveal the identity of a source. And, of course, I denied doing so. So he had me prosecuted. And they have been dragging for quite a while, and will probably drag for a few months more.
GUSTAVO GORRITI: That's precisely because of it. In most of Latin America there is a true yearning for transparency, a true yearning for freedom also, and for true accountability. So in this - again, very imperfect and sometimes purely cosmetic democracies, and - or the judiciary or the legislators do not fulfill their roles. It has been the press, the independent press, that has taken those larger roles, and taken of course the costs that that implies, and because of that they are held so highly in esteem by many people. Journalists in most countries have a higher level of credibility than any other institution, except the Catholic Church. And at least in two countries - Peru and Colombia, I think - they rank higher even than the Catholic Church in terms of credibility. |
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A depressing sight. |
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TERENCE SMITH: Now, you've spent a good deal of time in this country. I wonder, given that background, what you think when you see the US, the press, media, in the throes of their obsession with Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton and this sort of thing, as an observer, what do you think? GUSTAVO GORRITI: Well, it is a depressing sight actually. As I wrote a few months ago, most Latin America journalists of my generation who are heavily engaged in investigative reporting - were very strongly influenced by - not only by the traditional muckrakers, but also the very good investigative reporting of the '60s and '70s, of the Watergate era especially, and then afterwards to see the evolution or shall we say the involution of this great journalistic tradition, getting totally bogged down in that miserable case, and in all the triviality of that -- losing perspective of what is the business of news to get into show business is somehow depressing. TERENCE SMITH: To get into show business- GUSTAVO GORRITI: Yes. TERENCE SMITH: You see that as - that's part of the mix?
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| Delicate times in Panama. | ||||||||||||||
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TERENCE SMITH: For a moment let's talk a little about Panama, the situation there. We approach the date when the full operation of the canal will be turned over to Panama. Delicate times. GUSTAVO GORRITI: They are, indeed. They are going to next year -- the last day of the Millennium the canal is going to be handed over to Panama. And it has great promise and at the same time tremendous fears that it won't be managed as properly as it should. I have to say, however, that most Panamanians take it very clearly upon themselves that this is once in a time - once -- the lifetime of the country - responsibility -- that they are taking it very, very seriously.
GUSTAVO GORRITI: No, no. It certainly is possible. Most of the transition has already in some ways or another taken place. Most of the real estate is now in Panamanian hands. You can see several cases of corruption here and there - not truly terrible but the fact that they have a good investigative press at this point has helped a lay the things openly and to see that this doesn't go any farther. TERENCE SMITH: And your notion is to go back and write about it. GUSTAVO GORRITI: Of course. TERENCE SMITH: Thanks very much. GUSTAVO GORRITI: Thank you. |
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TERENCE
SMITH: Investigative reporter Gustavo Gorriti has a habit of annoying
Latin American governments. In 1992, after publishing articles linking
Peruvian authorities to the drug trade, Gorriti was kidnapped by the
Peruvian army. The reporter spoke about his detention with the NewsHour's
Elizabeth Farnsworth shortly after his release. 
GUSTAVO
GORRITI: Soldiers and plain clothes men came to my house. They entered
into the house - presenting themselves first as police -- and arrested
me and my computer. And it probably has been one of the very first cases
of computer kidnapping in Peruvian political history. In the very early
hours of the morning of the next day, I was suddenly transferred, without
a word of explanation, to the state security police, at which point
my detention became acknowledged and official. And I was released the
next day. The reason for this sudden turn of events was the tremendous
pressure - mainly international pressure -- that immediately bore down
over the Peruvian Golpista governments. 
TERENCE
SMITH: In 1996, Gorriti moved on to Panama, and its leading paper, La
Prensa. He expected a rewarding, but quieter journalistic life.
Instead, within a year, he was again writing about links between drug
traffickers and the government. This time, his work visa was revoked
and he was ordered to leave the country. Worse yet, Gorriti says, the
Panamanian authorities failed to share with him intelligence about a
purported threat against his life allegedly by the Peruvian government.
Once again, protests by journalistic organizations and the United States
Government brought relief, and Gorriti's Panamanian visa was renewed.
GUSTAVO
GORRITI: Yes, it is. She did, indeed, speak, and it had an effect. It
had an impact. It was a very important initiative. 
TERENCE
SMITH: And some of those death threats, I take it, followed you to Panama?
GUSTAVO
GORRITI: There are a number of dangers. First of all, you have the more
blatant ones, the physical dangers, the assassination attempts that
sometimes succeed and sometimes, such as in the case of Jesus Posados
Del Campos of Mexico, for instance, fortunately did fail. In other cases
there are just threats, continuous, more or less permanent, and then
myriad forms of legal and administrative harassment, which almost any
journalist that does good investigative reporting will have to eventually
endure. The political systems and the very imperfect democracies in
Latin America are just not well prepared for the kind of deep, probing
investigative reporting so the reaction tends to be to attack the messenger,
to attack the journalist, instead of trying to bring accountability
into those holding power. 
TERENCE
SMITH: And yet, despite this official hostility frequently from the
government against journalists, journalists stand much higher in public
estimation there than certainly they do in this country. 
GUSTAVO
GORRITI: Yes. I think the genius of the United States is its capability
to rebound. And what you begin to see now in some of the magazines,
in some of the papers, is a good strong introspection out of which I'm
sure will emerge again, a better kind of journalism, but, I mean, I
am sure that in the future this whole Lewinsky-Starr era will be seen
as a sort of journalistic abomination. 
TERENCE
SMITH: Is it possible to envision a smooth transition, or is that naïve?