February 22, 2009
By Wilson García Mérida
[Spanish original]
Translated by Scott Campbell
He hated the Chaco war because it destroyed the climate of peace that the continuity of “Arte y Trabajo” required. He tenaciously opposed the conflagration, leading a peaceful march on the 14th of September Plaza and was jailed for the crime of “treason to the homeland.”
After the war he dedicated himself to commerce and became associates with Alfredo Galindo Quiroga in order to open the “Cosmos” pharmacy, to the west of the Principal Plaza. The revolutionary process that would culminate in 1952 with a particracy predestined to impose a culture of corruption in Bolivia scattered his “Arte y Trabajo” collaborators into various parties that destroyed their libertarian ideals (MNR, FSB, PIR, POR), and extinguished their passion for history. An illness in his eyes condemned him to sightlessness, leading him to the decision to take his own life.
He was 70 years old when he did it, on July 4, 1950. “He told me that he was going on a trip and he wished me luck, that he was satisfied he had me as one of his best friends,” recalls Efraín Vega, owner of a farm in Tablas Monte, Chapare, where he knew Capriles went to end his life, free of all funeral pageantry.
“He was terrified of funerals; he would see a burial and get out of there. He said: ‘That is life’s ultimate farce.’ He was critical of the ostentation and spectacle that, according to him, made the fact of being buried repulsive,” said Don Efraín, when recalling that some days before his suicide, Capriles wanted to find out in what part of Tablas Monte Vega’s lands were. “I asked him why he wanted to know and he told me that he wanted to go to ‘fertilize’ my lands.” Don Cesáreo gave himself a double dose of morphine in the inhospitable forest of Tablas Monte, a lethal injection he obtained from his own Cosmos pharmacy. No one saw him again.
Don Nivardo Paz Arze, an innate defender of Cesáreo Capriles, showed us the gold brooch with which the great anarchist ended his fascinating existence: “From Alfredo Galindo, his business partner in the pharmacy, I knew that he left a payment and receipt for the double dose of morphine that he took for this one-way trip.” Even in his last days, his integrity and honesty was ironclad.
He left a complete collection of “Arte y Trabajo” with his friend Werner Guttentag, writing on the cover these words which gave flavor to his departure: “In the face of humanity’s stupidity, even the gods are impotent.”
Such was the example of the life and death of an authentic libertarian Cochabamban.
Wilson García Mérida is an independent journalist in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Director of the Servicio Informativo Datos & Analisis. His email is [email protected].
August 18, 2009
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