Marcos Perez Jimenez
Marcos Perez Jimenez, an old-fashioned dictator, died on September 20th, aged 87
ObituarySep 29th 2001 edition
WHEN Marcos Perez Jimenez became dictator of Venezuela in 1952 he was warmly welcomed into an exclusive circle of authoritarian rulers in Latin America. Juan Domingo Peron of Argentina was probably the best known, if only because of the political flair of his actress wife Evita. But Peru, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua were also under the thumb of leaders united by their distaste for democracy, while ambitious soldiers in Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay and Chile were biding their time until they too could seize power.
One concern of Mr Perez was how best to impress fellow dictators and other distinguished visitors to his country. The Spanish, in their 300 years of rule, had not provided the country with much in the way of architectural gems. Mr Perez did what show-off rulers have done since antiquity. He set out to give his capital, Caracas, a look of wealth and power. Today, its skyscrapers look a touch dated and the marble-lined motorway tunnels seem merely vulgar. But in the 1950s the town was the smartest sight in South America. On a mountain overlooking Caracas Mr Perez built the Humboldt, then said to be the smartest hotel in the world. Among other fantasies, it had a ballroom with a rotating floor and an ice-skating rink, a rarity in the tropics. After the hotel opened in 1957 it was patronised by the famous, including Fidel Castro when he discarded his battledress and took over Cuba.
There was no shortage of money for these extravagances. Venezuela was for many years the world's largest exporter of oil. Its reserves, though now depleted, are still the largest in the western hemisphere. The United States, Venezuela's best customer for oil, has greatly valued this reliable source just across the way. The Americans overlooked the brutalities of the Perez regime, the imprisonment, torture and murder of opposition figures, the censorship of the press and the corruption, which allowed the dictator to accumulate a fortune of $250m. President Eisenhower gave him a medal, the Legion of Merit. Mr Perez—"P.J." as American diplomats called him—must have felt secure with such a powerful friend. But the political instability that brought him to power eventually did for him too.
Dominoes and pretty girls
The idea of democratic government was slow to take hold in Venezuela. Not until 1947, two years after the second world war and the defeat of fascism, did the country elect a president on a free vote. He lasted eight months, replaced by a junta of three men, one of them Mr Perez. He was a professional soldier, having joined the army at 17, gradually rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, partly through luck, partly because of his mastery of army bureaucracy. The junta leader was murdered in 1950, some said on the orders of Mr Perez. From then on he was the power in Venezuela, consolidated in 1952 when he became president in an election assumed to have been fixed.
The Venezuelans were told that their new leader was a thoughtful man who liked to relax over a game of dominoes. But stories circulated that what he really liked was to organise races at beach picnics between pretty girls in swimsuits. Being of tubby build Mr Perez declined to take part in the races himself but would follow the contestants on a motor scooter. There are some Venezuelans who like to recall a kinder, if ridiculous, Perez Jimenez, rather than the tyrant. Unlike Caracas today, they say, it was safe to walk the streets at night because of Mr Perez's system of "controlled liberty". But then there are Russians nostalgic for Stalin.
Mr Perez lasted until 1958 when he was toppled by another military junta, but one that honoured its promise to restore democracy. In Venezuela, as in most of Latin America, dictatorship has gone out of fashion. Democracy has survived at least two attempted coups and has had lapses into corruption, though few to match Mr Perez's. In his rush to get away to exile in the United States with his wife and children, he left behind a suitcase containing details of property and other assets illegally accumulated in his years in power.
The Americans were reluctant to send him back to Venezuela to face trial for corruption, but after five years of court battles he was surrendered, the first time a former ruler of a foreign country had been extradited from the United States. In 1963 a Venezuelan court sentenced Mr Perez to four years in jail. On his release he moved to Spain, but Venezuelan politics could not entirely get rid of him: his former party, the Civic Crusade, could command 10% of the vote in parliamentary elections. Mr Perez considered standing for president while in exile, but the government barred him.
However, in recent years Venezuela offered Mr Perez a pardon for his misdeeds, which he rejected saying he had done nothing to be pardoned for. The United Nations has made Venezuela's Central University, a building of fascist-style immensity, a "world heritage site". The Humboldt hotel, which lost its lustre after Mr Perez's departure, is being restored. Dictators, say his apologists, are sadly tempted into corruption, but they claim that Perez Jimenez was a man of vision who left fine monuments. By the time of his death the "iron man of Venezuela" was, it seems, being transformed into an elder statesman.
This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition under the headline "Marcos Perez Jimenez"
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