NACLA News
NACLA Interview Creates Political Furor in Colombia While we like to think that our work has impact, we were hardly prepared for the uproar that our interview with former Colombian president...
...Reportedly planning a come back to national politics, Turbay found it politically expedient, after the radio report broke, to deny that the interview had ever taken place, calling it "imaginary," "false representation," or possibly pieced together from earlier conversations...
...On February 19, Bob Armstong begins a week's tour in Akron, Ohio where he will speak on the current situation in El Salvador...
...Today's revolutionaries, he argues, are profoundly responsive to the complexities of national class formations and ideologies...
...Having read our Sept-Oct...
...His hosts in Akron are the Central American Support Association and in Colorado, the Committee for Peace and Justice in Latin America of Fort Collins...
...While each country's political process is unique, something significant is happening regionally...
...geopolitics have accelerated and regionalized the crisis...
...A product of NACLA's ongoing work on Central America, "Crisis in the Backyard" introduces themes that will play a role in our research in the next few years...
...Held in the Martin Luther King Center, participants heard presentations by Harry Belafonte, Coretta Scott King, Roger Wilkins, Clark and Young...
...Ferreting out these regional trends and implications is the subject of a recent piece by a member of the NACLA Central America research team...
...George Black's "Central America: Crisis in the Backyard" is the cover story in the September-October issue of the British publication, New Left Review (No...
...As each people forges its own path to change, it is always with one eye on neighbors on the isthmus...
...During the three-hour interview, Turbay had made some rather sharp criticisms of current President Belisario Betancur's foreign and economic policy and of the democratic opening Betancur is trying to effect...
...Billed as an opportunity for dialogue between progressive regional leaders and representatives of groups concerned about U. S. policy there, the conference was called by Ramsey Clark and Mayor Andrew Young...
...The article lays out the various layers of the crisis, exploring the interrelationship of political and economic factors and the way in which U.S...
...The mainstream Colombian press, which had originally reported Turbay's comments as news, then began to question the authenticity of the interview itself...
...The two also hoped to coalesce support within the progressive community toward seeking policy alternatives for 1984 and after...
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...By now the radio station felt the need to prove its credibility, and broadcast, again from New York, Jimeno's tapes of the conversation...
...From there he heads to Fort Collins, Colorado to begin five days of speaking on the Central American crisis in the Fort Collins, Denver and Boulder areas...
...In this three-way interview, a flustered Turbay was forced to admit that the voice on Jimeno's tape aIA CRsportupdate * update * update update was indeed his, but said he did not remember what his opinions had been then and that perhaps he had changed his mind...
...Armstrong Heads West February will find NACLA staffers on the lecture circuit again...
...Believing that "Central America is a crisis of imperialism potentially as threatening as the Middle East," Jan/Feb 1983 Black discusses the current situation and offers informed speculation on future prospects...
...NACLA Staffer's Analysis Appears in New Left Review "If Nicaragua triumphed, El Salvador will win" goes a popular chant...
...Jimeno and Turbay were both connected by phone in New York City, but in separate locations...
...counterinsurgency and by the successes and failures of foquista theorists...
...Can the same be said for ex-president Turbay...
...Though Washington must seek legitimacy for its policy internationally, there is no "doubt that it intends to prevail in the region, says Black...
...sun belt-politically, economically and ideologically-into Central America...
...New geopolitics have extended the U.S...
...Finally, the article considers the Sandinista transition to socialism...
...We now talk of "the revolution" in Central America...
...Looking at revolutionary alternatives, the piece points up the importance of Guatemala's aborted revolutionary process...
...Happily, NACLA got a little free and unexpected publicity out of the incident...
...Among the attendees from the region were Michael Manley, former Jamaican prime minister, Fabio Castillo of El Salvador's Democratic Revolutionary Front, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, editor of Nicaragua's Barricada, as well as leaders of the Guatemalan revolutionary forces...
...In defining their strategy, they build on lessons taught by U.S...
...Jimeno verified that he had conducted the interview in Bogota, at Turbay's own home, and that the ex-president had known it was being taped for inclusion in the NACLA Report...
...1984 Policy Alternatives Central America and the Caribbean Basin were the subjects of a three-day conference in Atlanta, Georgia from December 9-11...
...NACLA Interview Creates Political Furor in Colombia While we like to think that our work has impact, we were hardly prepared for the uproar that our interview with former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala had in his home country, even before we went to press here in New York...
...And Guatemala will follow," comes the reply...
...We, and Jimeno, came out of it with our reputations intact...
...Robert Armstrong and Janet Shenk attended the conference as NACLA's representatives...
...Never again will a popular movement enjoy the international correlation of forces that allowed the Sandinista victory...
...Their intransigent model has blocked reform initiatives and destroyed the political center...
...The resulting radio broadcast to Colombia live from New York City on January 3, touched off a controversy that raged in the Colombian press for a week...
...He also questioned the Betancur Administration's ability to preserve the country's democratic institutions...
...Black discusses the loss of political control by the ruling elites and their incapacity to resolve intraclass schisms or deal with economic recession...
...1982 issue containing some of Turbay's comments, a reporter for a Colombian radio network asked NACLA Associate Ramon Jimeno, who had 44 conducted the interview, for a transcript...
...More specifically, we hope to publish our research findings in book form in early 1984, concentrating on the Central American Left...
...Cabot prize winning columnist Daniel Samper Pizano, of El Tiempo, referred to the NACLA Report as a" prestigious specialized magazine...
...The pace of events in Central America and increasing strength of the opposition can easily lead to a kind of domino theory of the Left...
Vol. 17 • January 1983 • No. 1
