Those who attended the Freedom Days were divided into study and discussion groups of eight or ten, and then, once the explanatory talks had been given, we held a general meeting. When it was over, Miguel Cruchaga, who was the one who worked out the format of the Freedom Days, gave me an enthusiastic introduction and I spoke, and we ended the Jornada by singing that song composed for the demonstration in the Plaza San Martín which had become the theme song of Libertad.
The distinction between “movement” and “party” that had taken up a great deal of our time in Szyszlo’s studio turned out to be too subtle for our political habits. For despite its name, the Movimiento Libertad functioned from the start as something indistinguishable from a party. The vast majority of its members took it to be one and there was no way to disabuse them of this notion. Laughable situations came up, indicative of customs deeply rooted in the national psychology, owing to the tradition of clientelismo—party patronage. Since the mere idea of the carnet—the individual membership book carried by party members — was associated with this system, which both the AP and the APRA administrations had put into practice, giving their own adherents (who could show their carnets) preference when it came to government jobs and favors, we decided that the Movement would not have carnets. Recording one’s name on a list written down on a plain sheet of paper was all that would be required to sign up as a member. It was impossible to get this idea across in the popular sectors, where the members of Libertad felt that their status was inferior to that of the Apristas, the Communists, the socialists, and so on, who were able to show off impressive-looking carnets full of seals and little flags. The pressure put on those of us on the executive committee to give out carnets—brought to bear by the section for young people, by Mobilization, by Solidarity, and by the committees in the provinces and the departamentos—was impossible to turn aside. We explained over and over again that we wanted to be different from other parties, that if we came to power we wanted to keep a Freedom Movement carnet from being used in the future as a symbol for abuses, but it was no use. Then I suddenly discovered that our committees in certain city districts and towns had begun to give out carnets, loaded with more and more signatures and bright-colored emblems, and some of them even bearing my photograph. Considerations of principle collided with the argument of activists: “If they aren’t given a carnet, they won’t sign up.” So at the end of the campaign there was not just one Movimiento Libertad carnet but a whole heterogeneous collection of them, invented by various local headquarters to suit themselves.
The philosopher Francisco Miró Quesada, an old friend, who came to visit me every so often or wrote me long letters to offer me political suggestions, had been a member of Popular Action at one time. His experiences had led him to the depressing conclusion that in Peru it was highly unrealistic to give a political party a democratic structure. “Whether rightist or leftist, our parties fill up with scoundrels,” he sighed. Libertad did not fill up with scoundrels, since, to our great good fortune, those persons whom we caught doing something dishonest — invariably something involving money — and whom we were obliged to ask to leave the Movement, were scarcely more than a handful in a group that, shortly before the first round of voting, had over a hundred thousand members. But it never became the modern, popular, democratic institution that I had dreamed of. From the very start it contracted the vices of Peruvian political parties: bossism, cliques, factionalism. There were groups that took over committees and encysted themselves in them, allowing no one else to participate. Or groups were paralyzed by internal squabbles over trivial matters, which drove away valuable people, who, although they sympathized with our ideas, did not care to waste their time in intrigues and petty rivalries.
There were departamentos, such as Arequipa, in which the organizing group, a tightly knit team of young men and women, managed to create an efficient infrastructure, which would produce members of Libertad like Óscar Urviola, who later was to become a first-class congressman. Or such as lea, where thanks to the prestige and the decency of the farmer Alfredo Elías, Libertad attracted valuable people. And something similar happened in Piura, owing to the deeply committed idealism of José Tejero. But in other departamentos, such as La Libertad, the original group split into two and later on three rival factions that fought among themselves for three whole years over the leadership of the departmental committee, and this naturally kept the membership from increasing. And there were several others, such as Puno, where we made the mistake of entrusting the organization to people without ability or dependability. I will not forget the impression it made on me to note, on a visit to the communities of the Altiplano, that our departmental secretary in Puno treated the peasants with the arrogance of the old-time political bosses.
That Libertad relied in certain places on such unsuitable leaders has an explanation (although it does not constitute a justification). Support in the provinces came to us from groups or individuals who offered to help lay the foundations of the Movement; in our impatience to cover the entire country, we accepted those offers without screening them, sometimes making precisely the right choice and at others making monumental errors. That should have been corrected by having the national leaders make regular swings around the interior so as to perform on the spot that basic, unsung, often boring missionary work of the activist, indispensable if the goal is to build a solid political organization. We didn’t do this, at least not in the first year of our existence, and it was owing to this that in many places Libertad was born crooked, and later on it proved to be difficult to twist it back into the proper shape. I was aware of what was going to happen but could do nothing about it. My admonitions, whether plaintive or enraged, in the executive and political committees, that the leaders must go out into the provinces had little effect. They traveled with me to appear at rallies, but lightning visits of that sort did not further the work of organization. The reason they resisted was not so much the fear of terrorist attack as it was the endless hardships which, owing to the near collapse of the country, they would be forced to endure wherever they went. I told my friends that their propensity for the sedentary life would have regrettable consequences. And that was how it turned out. With a few exceptions the organization of Libertad in the interior proved to be far from representative. And in our committees as well there reigned and handed down decisions in thundering tones that immortal figure: the cacique.
I met many of these political bosses in those three years, and whether they were from the coastal regions, the mountains, or the jungle, they all seemed to be cut from the same cloth by the same tailor. They were, or had been, or inevitably would become senators, representatives, mayors, prefects, subprefects. Their energy, their abilities, their Machiavellian machinations, and their imaginations were concentrated on just one goaclass="underline" to attain, to hang on to, or to recover a modicum of power through every means, licit or illicit, at their disposal. They were all ardent followers of the moral philosophy summed up in the precept: “To live without money from the state is to live in error.” All of them had a little court or retinue of relatives, friends, and protégés whom they made out to be popular leaders — of teachers, of peasants, of workers, of technicians — and placed on the committees they presided over. They had all changed ideologies and parties the way one changes one’s shirt, and they had all been, or at some point would become, Apristas, populists, and Communists (the three principal sources of sinecures in the history of Peru). They were always there, waiting for me, on the roads, in the stations, at the airports, with bouquets of flowers, bands, and bags of herbs to throw for good luck, and theirs were the first arms to reach out and hug me wherever I arrived, with the same affection with which they had embraced General Velasco, Belaunde, Barrantes, Alan García, and they always managed things in such a way as to be at my side on the speakers’ platform, microphone in hand, introducing me to the audience and offering to organize rallies and doing everything possible to be seen with me in photographs in the newspapers and on television. They were always the ones who, when a rally was over, tried to carry me about in triumph on their shoulders — a ridiculous custom of Peruvian politicians in imitation of bullfighters, and one that I always refused to allow, even if I occasionally had to defend myself with a good swift kick — and they were the ones who sponsored the inevitable receptions, banquets, dinners, lunches, barbecues, which they made into even grander occasions by delivering flowery speeches. Usually they were attorneys, but among them there were also owners of garages or transportation companies, or former policemen or ex-members of the military, and I would even go so far as to swear that they all looked alike, with their tight-fitting suits, their ridiculous little hairline mustaches of present, past, or future members of Congress, and their thunderous, saccharine, high-flown eloquence, ready to rain down in torrents at the slightest opportunity.