The end of the line for Carlos (the Jackal)

The Hungarians showed them the door. The Syrians wouldn’t let them stick around. Their Stasi protectors in East Berlin had flown the coop. As Carlos the Jackal and his cohorts quickly learned, there were not a lot of places for armed revolutionaries in 1991.

This chapter in the life of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez’s life was the one I found most interesting out of the six-hour television series on his life. The series, which won a Golden Globe, gives a detailed account of how a Venezuelan Marxist became a champion of the Palestinian cause and a leader of armed Arab resistance against the West. His theatric attacks, particularly the 1973 kidnapping of an entire OPEC ministerial delegation, made him a media star and a darling of the radical left for years. He was feted by the anti-imperialist camp , coddled by Arab governments, and protected by Soviet client states ranging from Syria to Yemen. He walked freely throughout countries that had an axe to grind with the United States as charges hung over his head in the Western world, dealing arms for Damascus or plotting to assassinate Egypt’s Anwar Sadat at Libya’s request.

Until his time came.

This was the first time I felt I had the perspective of people who really lost out with the fall of the Soviet block. Possibly because of my American upbringing I’ve always seen the collapse of the Berlin Wall as a step forward for just about everyone. Even a good part of the Soviet elite managed to repackage themselves as reformed socialists under Boris Yeltsin. I would guess even some rank and file Stasi agents were able to recover from the unification of Germany. But, Carlos, along with his German and Arab counterparts, really just had nowhere to go. Before being hauled off the face trial and eventual conviction in France, Carlos’ last resort was to hide away in Sudan – which around the same time was the redoubt of Osama bin Laden before he was forced to flee to Afghanistan under pressure from the Saudi government.

It’s also maybe telling that Hugo Chavez chose the 2006 OPEC meeting hosted in Caracas to say how much he appreciated and respected “my friend Carlos the Jackal.” An odd venue for such a comment even if it came after nearly 20 years after he dragged Saudi Sheik Ahmed Yamani from Vienna to Libya.

For anyone interested in the life of this bizarre character or a retrospective look at radicalism of the age I’d say the French-produced series Carlos is worth watching. I say that even though I honestly found it too long and the cinematography a bit flat, almost as if it were mean to look TV from the 1970s era that it focused on. I originally thought it was a movie, and was surprised after two hours to discover we’d watched one of three CDs.

I’m also somewhat biased. I’m glad to see the further rise of Edgar Ramirez, the polyglot Venezuelan actor who plays Carlos, after a couple Hollywood movie roles (he’s the sniper who spends an hour of the second Jason Bourne movie trying to kill Matt Damon). Oh – my moment for star struck bragging rights: I chatted briefly with Ramirez once in a Caracas sushi joint to compliment him for his role in a hilarious Venezuelan indie movie called Elipsis done on a shoestring budget (yes, this was before he was cool).