Follow-up tributes to Doug Payne

Thanks to all who responded to the news of Doug Payne's death. In the world of the internet, some of the responses were surprising, especially the locations. A colleague of ours, remembering Doug's human rights work in Central and Latin America, e-mailed me from an out island of the Phillippines as a typhoon hit. The name for the typhoon Doug would have appreciated--Angela Jolie. Moose Kaplan called from Paris to recall Doug visiting his English class in the Bronx and entering his primarily Hispanic classroom, who enjoyed Doug's stories. One e-mail was from Singapore.

Calling through his laptop was George Zarycky, the current USAID Director for Democracy Programs in Armenia. George for many years wrote all the country reports on Central Europe and the former Republics of the Soviet Union for Freedom House's Survey of Freedom. I guess he had survived his work in the Ukraine, probably stirring up the Orange Revolution.

Others e-mailed about his work for indigenous people and particularly those marginalized or dispossessed in our world. And of course mention was made to his comprehensive view of the Caribbean and its politics.

I tried to tally up the number of heads of state Doug and I had met either separately or together. This did not include guerrilla leaders or opposition political party leaders. I stopped at four dozen a piece. What was striking about this was that I don't recall Doug ever expressing any admiration for any of them. And to be frank, I can only think of Vaclav Havel and the Dalai Lama as the two admirable figures I have met and for whom I have continued respect. I think alot of it has to do with a mutual awareness that politics is by nature corrupt and corrupting.

A few things I omitted in my tribute to him. I forgot he organized the improbable trip of Mayor Ed Koch through Central America in support of the Arias Peace Plan. Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias thought it was hilarious that Mayor Koch showed up at the presidential palace wthout any socks on, while wearing dress shoes. He had run out of clean socks but that didn't deter Hizzoner. I was also called to task by one of Doug's friends for not mentioning that Doug visited Cuba to assist the democratic underground and human rights activists there by travelling through the Bahamas as a tourist. In the process, he decided to travel throughout the island, particularly the rural areas.

In my last e-mail to him, I sent a declaration by Eden Pastora, "Commandante Cero"the famed Sandinista guerrilla, then anti-Sandinista guerrilla and shark hunter, who vowed to come out of retirement to liberate Honduras from the golpistas. He quipped,"Whose going to be Commadante Uno?" We sponsored a trip for Eden Pastora to New York and Washington during the heat of the Central American wars and Doug and I had to finesse Pastora away from running off for dalliances with some of the female journalists, whom he was always trying to seduce. We caught the Commandante flagrante delicto with a journalist on top of the conference table in a small meeting room at Freedom House.

It's important to remember that when Doug started work on Latin America he knew next to nothing about it, except his fine appreciation of magical realism, and in a few short years became an authentic expert with a comprehensive knowledge of its politics and culture. He was sought out over the years for background briefings by many well-known journalists, some of whom capitalized on his knowledge and his contacts to keep their sputtering careers going. He was widely quoted and interviewed on television and radio. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he and I recorded a series of radio shows for syndication covering a range of topics from democratization, the revolutions in Central Europe, the progress in Central and Latin America and issues facing American foreign policy. One wonders what we could have done if the world wide web existed at its present capacity.