Eduardo López Bustamante

Eduardo López Bustamante (9 December 1881 – 30 June 1939) was a Venezuelan journalist, lawyer and poet. He was a leading intellectual of the Zulia State, Venezuela, and a figure within Venezuelan jurisprudence.

Biography

Eduardo López Bustamante was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on 9 December 1881. He was the eldest son of Eduardo López Rivas and Carmen Bustamante. His father was a journalist, publisher and editor of the newspaper Diario El Fonógrafo (The Phonograph Daily) and the magazine El Zulia ilustrado (The illustrated Zulia). He was also the owner of a Venezuelan publishing house, Imprenta Americana (American Press). His mother was the niece of pioneer Venezuelan physician Francisco Eugenio Bustamante and a descendant of General Rafael Urdaneta.

He grew up into the intellectual environment created by his father and during his childhood he learned several languages. This knowledge enabled him to become, at eighteen, the translator of international news in El Fonógrafo, which, by that time, reached newspapers in the original language of each country.

Director of El Fonógrafo

In 1908 Eduardo López Bustamante was appointed director of the newspaper El Fonógrafo and of the publishing house, Imprenta Americana. That same year general Juan Vicente Gómez became president of Venezuela and imposed strong censorship. According to author José Rafael Pocaterra, due to its independent editorials, El Fonógrafo was constantly threatened by the government. In his book Memorias de un venezolano de la decandencia (Memoirs of a Venezuelan in decline), he refers to the Gómez regime as a "Tyranny far more brutal than all previous ones". "The previous despotic regimes", writes Pocaterra, "had respected that newspaper, whose material progress was a result of its enormous moral responsibility".

World War I

When World War I began in 1914, Gómez favored the German Empire in the conflict while maintaining a veneer of neutrality against the allied community. In 1917, Eduardo started a simultaneous edition of "El Fonógrafo" in Caracas, under the direction of his younger brother, Carlos López Bustamante. According to the writer and columnist of "El Fonógrafo", José Rafael Pocaterra, the Capital's edition "enjoyed a great popularity from the beginning" because, unlike other Venezuelan newspapers of the time, El Fonógrafo sympathized with the Allies. This position annoyed Gómez who, thereafter, decided to put an end to the newspaper. In the words of writer Pocaterra, "anonymous and insulting threats rained down" during those days.

López Bustamante spent five years in the castle on the island of San Carlos del Zulia, shackled and bolted by the feet and living in subhuman conditions. During his captivity he devoted himself to studying law, with a view to taking steps to rejoin the Venezuelan society still governed by Gómez. The permanent closure of the family publishing house and newspaper made it clear to the journalist that he needed to have another profession.

López Bustamante conducted an investigation of eleven chapters about the lease of works under Venezuelan law, which is still often reviewed by Venezuelan publications dealing with jurisprudence. The 1963 edition of Zulia State University Journal of Law refers to this work: "This superb work on law entitled The lease of works, product of the fertile estrous that was Eduardo López Bustamante throughout his life...outstanding intellectual figure..."

Editor

During the years he practiced law López Bustamante once more became an editor. He created ORDO, a monthly magazine of Law, Jurisprudence and Legislation, that reviewed a variety of legal issues. A collection of all issues of the magazine has been preserved by the National Library of Venezuela, located in the city of Caracas.

Positions Eduardo López Bustamante was a professor at the Maracaibo School of Law, lieutenant governor of the Zulia State and Minister for the Zulia State Supreme Court. He was a Spanish legal interpreter in French, English and Italian.

The remains of Eduardo López Bustamante rest next to those of his wife, in the pantheon of the Pérez Luzardo family of Cemetery The Square Luxburg-Carolath in the city of Maracaibo.