The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, just won an important legal battle against freedom of the press in his country and has taken one more step in turning his government into an authoritarian regime. The National Court of Justice, the highest court in the judiciary, has sentenced the daily El Universo, a beacon of the Ecuadorian press with more than ninety years in existence, for slander against the president with a very severe penalty: $40 million and three years in jail for those in charge of it—the brothers Carlos, César, and Nicolás Pérez.
The case against El Universo began a little under a year ago, on the basis of an article by Emilio Palacio, who, commenting on the president’s actions in a confusing police raid in September 2010 in which he was implicated, stated, “The dictator should recall, finally, and this is very important, that despite a pardon, in the future, a new president, perhaps an enemy of his, could take him before a criminal court under charges of having ordered a shooting without prior notice against a hospital full of civilians and innocent people.” Rafael Correa considered this phrase damaging to his honor.
Celebrating the court’s verdict, while his followers burned copies of the incriminated daily on the streets, the Ecuadorian head of state said that three objectives had been achieved: “that El Universo lied, that you can judge not the clowns, but the owners of the circus, and that citizens can react to abuses of the press.”
He did not say whether he felt that he had been indemnified for his abused honor, and for a very simple reason: because it is only now, as a result of this legal decision that the international press, journalists’ and human rights organizations, and democratic parties and governments from around the world consider a cynical and outlandish blow to freedom of expression with tragic consequences for Ecuador, that his honor—and his good name and the reputation of his government—have been discredited. Especially when you take into account that this is not the first nor will it be the last time. A few days ago, two other Ecuadorian journalists, Juan Carlos Calderón and Christian Zurita, were sentenced to pay $2 million for the supposed “moral damages” they caused the president in a book describing his family’s business deals.
It goes without saying that the sentence from the National Court of Justice of Ecuador places a sword of Damocles over all communications media and the government’s adversaries, warning them that any criticism of power can lead to reprisals as ferocious as this one, which, in practice, is equivalent to closing this body of the press (since the fine exceeds the newspaper’s assets), and long prison sentences for the disobedient journalists.
The intimidation and threats that seek to place self-censorship in the information world, forcing journalists and correspondents to become censors of themselves and to look over their shoulders while they write, is a method that all modern dictators exercise—the most conspicuous example in Latin America, after the obvious case of Cuba, is that of Commander Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, followed by his excellent Argentine student, Cristina Kirchner—and is more hypocritical but also more effective than anachronistic prior censorship or the mere police closure of media that is indomitable and resistant to political obsequiousness. The disappearance of a free press and its replacement by media that has been neutered and is incapable of exercising criticism is the dream, also, of demagogic pseudo-democracies devastated by populism, of which the prime example is the government of Rafael Correa.
Its regression into demagogic populism and the horrifying and coarse rhetoric it now employs—to watch him go off on rampages, eyes looking at the heavens, with his swollen neck veins, drunk on his own self-admiration, is a priceless spectacle—is unfortunately not an infrequent diversion in Latin American politicians. And, in his particular case, is rather sad. Because the truth is that, when he began the rise to prominence in April 2005, right in the middle of a constitutional crisis, this Catholic economist, with degrees from the Universities of Louvain and Illinois and a distinguished academic career, encouraged many hopes. He seemed motivated by generous and idealistic feelings, and it was believed that his governmental administration would serve to reinforce democratic institutions, social justice, and Ecuador’s modernization.
It has been exactly the opposite. Dizzied by power and an obsession to retain control, a foot soldier of the socialist and Bolívarian delirium of Commander Chávez along with the Bolivian Evo Morales and the Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega, the government of Rafael Correa, with its short-term policies, fiscal irresponsibility, multiple instances of corruption, hostility toward private businesses, foreign investments, and his outdated leftism, have impoverished and left Ecuadorian society off-kilter, irritating and infuriating it. As such, his popularity has systematically declined in recent times. The indigenous movements, which at first supported him, are now among his most tenacious critics.
This is the context that explains the desperate blows to freedom of expression by President Correa in recent months and the brutality of the sentence against El Universo. With it, the head of state and his government got rid of one of the few democratic credentials they could still brandish and assumed, unconcealed, the Chavist authoritarian system that they always took as a model.
That said, no one can deny that journalism, in Ecuador as well as in the rest of Latin America, is far from always being a paragon of integrity, harmony, and objectivity. Of course it sometimes succumbs to tabloid journalism, in other words, exaggeration, slander, and libel, and an upright and independent judicial system should protect citizens against those excesses. But decapitation is not the most appropriate remedy for headaches. The penalty against El Universo by Ecuador’s National Court is scandalous, among other things, because of how disproportionate it is compared with the supposed offense, and the outlandish nature of it is the best demonstration that it is not about undoing a wrong of which a person has been a victim, but rather that it is a political act, aimed at finishing once and for all with those pillars of democracy that are freedom of expression and the right to criticize.
In any event, this is a pyrrhic victory for Rafael Correa. His popularity will continue to decline, and even more so if he achieves his goal of gagging the press entirely in his country, which, despite everything, does not appear to be that easy. What happened has served to demonstrate, on the one hand, how unreliable Ecuadorian courts are in matters of justice because of how indebted they are to those who hold political power, and, on the other hand, the courage and uprightness of El Universo’s owners and journalists and many Ecuadorian colleagues who have acted in solidarity with them. The limitless efforts by the government to divide and break them have been useless. They have all fought together, businessmen, journalists, administrators, and graphic designers, without making any concessions, proudly defending their independent position with dignity, such that they have gained the world’s admiration and have become the very symbol of the resistance of the Ecuadorian people against the authoritarian night, which has in turn come down on them.
It is certain that, in the short or long term, it is they and not the dictator’s apprentice or the prevaricating judges who will have the final word. This is one more of the many stumbling blocks that history has thrown at this old newspaper, and there’s no doubt that El Universo will once again survive the very hard test and will soon return to take its position in the vanguard of the fight for civilization and against barbarism. By then, Rafael Correa will already be a shadowy, half-faded silhouette in the crowd of little caudillos and carpetbaggers that mark the worst tradition of Latin America.
New York, February 2012