By IPS Correspondents
CARACAS, Nov 23 2000 (IPS)

Pedro León Zapata has published a cartoon every day for more than 40 years in a top Venezuelan newspaper. The artist had always thought they were inoffensive, but a clash with President Hugo Chávez has shown him otherwise.

“Tell me something, Zapata: Is that what you really think or do they pay you to think that way,” Chávez asked him on a national radio and television programme after a cartoon was published that criticised the militaristic attitudes evident in a debate about the role of civil society.

Zapata, a renowned artist and muralist who studied in Mexico in the 1950s, is a permanent presence in Venezuelan public opinion due to his “Zapatazos,” which appear daily in the Caracas ‘El Nacional’ newspaper.

The cartoon that annoyed Chávez shows a figure carrying a sword, saying: “I like civil society at attention and at ease.”

Though it did not refer directly to the president, the cartoon appeared in the middle of a heated debate about civil society’s participation in the selection of officials for a new branch of government. Known as the Citizenry, the branch includes the offices of Attorney General, Ombudsman and Comptroller, as well as the electoral authorities.

The caricature artist and humorist said that never before had one of his drawings bothered a political leader so much, despite the fact that during more than four decades he has made jokes at the expense of six presidents and their respective governments.

“This is the first time this has happened to me, and it has helped me realise that the cartoons serve a purpose, that the caricatures, in addition to causing irritation, can go even farther,” he said.

Zapata attributes the fact that he had never before been reproached for a drawing to the fact that, generally, heads of state “know perfectly well that this doesn’t cause any harm, that a politician without a caricature is more harmful. A politician gets nowhere without a caricature,” he pointed out.

But if a cartoon does not have the power to bring down a government, the government’s reaction “to a cartoon sure has the power to topple it,” affirmed the artist.

Chávez’s statement to Zapata, broadcast in late October, sparked a flood of newspaper articles and comments on radio and television, revealing widespread support for the independence of the cartoonist and for his well-known work as an artist.

“In his four decades of caricatures shine the most honest and respectable attributes of an upstanding intellectual: absolute independence with respect to power and an ongoing criticism of hackneyed ideas,” commented writer Ibsen Martínez.

In a long newspaper article addressed to the president, Martínez suggested that he apologise to Zapata. “It would not diminish in the slightest the influence you enjoy, not only among the Venezuelan masses, but among many men and women of ideas.” Chávez did not respond.

“To be Pedro León Zapata is priceless. And Zapata has no price. He enjoys widespread admiration,” said ‘El Nacional’ in an editorial responding to Chávez’s televised comments.

Amid the debate, Zapata once again displayed his wit, asking the president how much he had been paid to give the cartoonist so much publicity.

Zapata said the Venezuelan president had used his right of response with his appearance on national television, but the cartoonist emphasised that he is not paid to give his creations a certain political twist.

“I felt it was an expression of what I imagine (the military) believes people think: that people think because they are paid, not that they think because they are interested in the nation. There are those who believe the country is the exclusive property of the military,” he said.

Excerpt: