Commentary: Caribbean Guerrilla – Commandante Zero

CAYMAN ISLANDS – Early one morning in 1991 I met prominent guerrilla leader, Commandante Zero or Eden Pastora, at a gas station in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, while on a hunting trip. Famous for taking the Nicaraguan Congress hostage in 1978, it had not been his first rodeo. Regrettably, he died after a lifetime of sacrifice before the current president of Nicaragua declared that there would be no further elections or the end of democracy.

There are some Caribbean leaders who are acting out this great violation of electoral trust also, without the drama of a declaration, to lesser and greater extents, sometime louder or silently, but always to a deaf electorate.

You know who they are, but let us continue the pretence.

He famously said that the first thing revolutionaries lose are their wives and the last thing is their lives. That could be a story about many men, of many occupations, seeking change or a future while trying to hold on to their principles, family and livelihoods, fruitlessly.

It is an old story, more familiar many years ago.

Political Sacrifice

Political sacrifice has become an obsolete concept, illicit enrichment has not. When I met Commandanr Zero, he was selling fish for a living. Being humble is no longer a part of the political landscape or a society beset by contrary influencers.

The Caribbean has seen many political personalities who gave their lives and freedom, captured in many a book, statue or retrospective, while we, as a beneficiary people of this sacrifice, should try to hold on to those original principles from the retracting fingernails of time.

Soon these heroes of the past will be consigned to the dustbin of history, from heroic story to life principles to anecdote to the new now, desires turned into modern faux morality.

Unless we become guardians of the past we will become prisoners of the future. Glimpses of that destiny can be seen every day if you look up from the tiny screen and observe reality.

See you in purgatory.