Reviews
Fiction of War a documentary by Sheila Franklin, 1World Production, 43 minutes, $30.00 (413) 323-7629. "The population has to take sides with the authorities because the ones who have been...
...Ben managed to build the small hydroelectric plant in El Cud that he had dreamed of, succeeding not only through his own skill and effort, but also by his tenacity and ability to convince others that this was a project worthy of support...
...like tens of thousands of campesinos who are not involved with any of the warring factions, they sought to retain their neutrality by seeking safe haven in other parts of the country...
...While some-derided as "sandalistas" for their footwear and lifestyle-were revolutionary groupies living out a vicarious political fantasy, many, like Ben Linder, acted on the basis of a genuine moral commitment at considerable personal sacrifice...
...And whatever conclusion readers might draw concerning the significance of the life and death of Ben Linder, or the revolutionary drama within which it unfolded, none can fail to be moved by his story.-Pierre LaRamee...
...The Death of Ben Linder: The Story of a North American in Sandinista Nicaragua by Joan Kruckewitt, Seven Stories Press, 1999, 395 pp., $24.95 (cloth...
...Workers at the Center for Justice and Peace, a human rights organization, describe how the military forced them to the floor at gunpoint before searching their offices...
...A resident of a community for the displaced in the municipality of Turbo, for example, explains how his family was forced to flee their home by the Colombian army and the paramilitaries...
...The book also does justice to the complexities and contradictions of the revolution itself...
...In 1987, Ben Linder, a young engineering graduate, skilled unicyclist and amateur circus clown from Oregon, was shot by a roving band of Contras while planning a small hydroelectric dam in Nicaragua's war zone...
...The film drives home the fact that the innocent civilians, especially the poor, are the principal victims of this war...
...The quote illustrates the prevailing view of the Colombian military toward the principal victims of the ongoing civil war--civilians who are not linked to any of the armed actors in the conflict...
...Kruckewitt deserves praise for a masterful job of reporting...
...We get a clear sense from Ben's own struggle to find a relevant niche in the National Institute of Energy (INE) where he worked of the maddening inefficiencies of Sandinista policies and the devastating effects of the Contra war...
...A priest describes a massacre that occurred while he was saying mass in Portacarpa that resulted in seven deaths...
...The portrait that emerges is one of a complex and caring individual, an unlikely hero struggling with his own shortcomings and fears while keeping faith with a daunting personal, political and professional commitment...
...The population has to take sides with the authorities because the ones who have been displaced are delinquents, or guerrillas or paramilitaries...
...This support was nowhere more clearly manifest than in the thousands of young activists from around the world who spent weeks, months and even years-as in Ben Linder's case-doing everything from picking coffee beans to providing technical advice...
...The sometimes unsteady handheld camera and lack of narration enhances the impact of Fiction of War by creating a powerful intimacy between the viewer and the many victims...
...Ben was one of many who saw the Sandinista's hybrid political experiment as a chance to make a real and lasting contribution towards a more just and rational world...
...opposition to it, and the broad international support enjoyed by the Sandinistas...
...These are the words of a Colombian military officer in the opening scene of Fiction of War...
...He thus became one of two North American victims of Ronald Reagan's bloody crusade to stamp out the Sandinista revolution...
...Fiction of War makes its point with up-close and personal interviews...
...Sheila Franklin allows these victims to tell their stories in their own words and without the aid of a narrator, dramatizing the devastating nature of Colombia's civil war...
...Another priest explains how paramilitaries entered a poor slum neighborhood on the outskirts of Barrancabermeja, killing eight people and kidnapping 40 more who were never seen or heard from again...
...In the end, Ben's achievements and his heroism were, perhaps appropriately, as much collective as individual...
...In telling Ben Linder's story, Joan Kruckewitt also provides a valuable retrospective on the Nicaraguan revolution, U.S...
...Through these interviews, Franklin reveals that the concept of neutrality is in fact alive and well and being put into practice in Colombia's war zones...
...This is a tale of triumph in the face of adversity...
...One of the most enlightening interviews in the film is conducted with former Colombian Army Colonel Carlos Velisquez, who explains that the paramilitaries sometimes "do the work" of the army, resulting in what he calls a "dirty" compromise for the military...
...The book's greatest strength is a measured biographical narrative woven from the threads of numerous letters (many of them Ben's), journals, interviews and testimonials...
...A resident of San Jos6 de Apartad6 describes the struggle of this peace community to keep the men with guns at arms' length and assert their neutrality...
...So I don't understand the concept of neutrality...
...He also describes how the paramilitaries force people from their land for the druglords so that they can launder their money by purchasing the vacated properties...
Vol. 33 • March 2000 • No. 5
