Luis de Oteyza (1883-1961) is a forgotten hero who carried out a difficult feat. In the middle of the Moroccan war he managed to interview the military leader of the Riffians, Abd el-Krim. With the disaster of Annual (1921), not everyone understood that he gave voice, without interjecting criticism, to an enemy leader. Abd el-Krim assured that he was only fighting against the imperialism of Madrid: he had nothing against the Spanish. When peace was achieved, the Rif would welcome all those who arrived with peaceful intentions.
For Oteyza, spreading this version of the conflict was not being unpatriotic, but quite the opposite. After long years of confrontations that led nowhere, the opposite had to be understood in order to draw up a more reasonable policy, which, in this case, involved the rapid abandonment of the territory.
This episode appears collected in The Ingenious and Restless Oteyza in the Enemy Camp. Its author, journalist Guillermo Soler García de Oteyza, is the grandson of a nephew of the protagonist. Despite this kinship relationship, he does not engage in idealization and maintains an even tone at all times.
Soler immerses us in the problems of making a living for a man with six children. In those times, journalism was above all a platform for other professions, especially politics.
Oteyza became director of a newspaper, La Libertad, which became uncomfortable for his criticism of Moroccan politics. He had to leave his position when a billionaire bought the company, willing to silence that dissident voice. The magnate was called Juan March.
Oteyza considered himself liberal and republican, but there came a time when he thought that the leaders of the Second Republic had betrayed his ideals. During the Civil War he supported Franco, traumatized by the risk to his life and that of two of his children, who ended up going into exile. A third fought in the communist ranks.
At that time, the veteran reporter naively believed that Franco, once he won the war, would return democracy to the country. He ended up realizing his immense mistake. In the end, he would die in Venezuela.
The reader enjoys a large fresco where he finds such fascinating figures as Teresa de Escoriaza, war correspondent in Morocco and author of texts that today are more interesting to us than those of her male colleagues.
