February 19

Events

1951 - Geeze! I went to Tunisia and all I lost was my wallet! - The Nobel prize winning French author André Gidé died on this date. When Gidé was 23 he lost his virginity to a 14 year old Arab boy named Ali in Tunisia. He married a cousin in 1895 and they were married 42 years - what could be the longest unconsummated marriage in recorded history. He later fell in love with a 15 year old servant boy in Algeria. When he was 47, Gidé fell in love and had an affair with 16 year old Marc Allegret. As an author, Gidé's writings included The Immoralist (1902). A 14 year old young friend of his named Athman was the model for Moktir in that book. Gidé also wrote Corydon (1924), The Counterfeiters (1926), and several volumes of his journals (1939, 1946, 1946, and 1950).

1989 - Satan or Santo? - John H. Wetterer was operating the Asociacion Amigos de Los Niños Hogar Mi Casa, orphanages for boys in Guatemala City. On this date the TV news program Sixty Minutes did a report on him claiming he was a pedo and having sex with boys in his care. In 1994 Inside Edition ran a similar report on him. The U.S. Government could not prosecute Wetterer for sexual abuse in Guatemala, but a Federal investigation did lead to indictments by a Federal grand jury on 24 counts of felony fraud. The U.S. Government found him guilty of mail fraud because his fund-raising solicitations are "false and fraudulent insofar as Wetterer represents that Mi Casa provides a healthy and stable environment for its residents, when, in fact, he molests and sexually abuses the boys who reside there". Wetterer ignored the arrest warrant. He was forced to surrender his U.S. passport and cannot return to the U.S. without facing arrest. When his New York board of directors began to investigate him, he disbanded the board and formed another in Texas. In Guatemala, however, he had the support of the Guatemalan government. According to an article in The New York Times, Wetterer "is considered a one-man social service agency". The government refused to extradite him.

1999 - A picture is worth 1000 strokes - The Rev Fred Nile MLC, leader of the Christian Democratic Party in Australia, called on the Police Vice Squad on this date to investigate the Baron Wilhelm Von Gloeden photographic exhibition at the Martin Browne Fine Art gallery in Potts Point. The Von Gloeden exhibition depicts young farm boys in nude poses. It was claimed that these photographs breached the Crimes Act 1900 section 578B and 578C on child pornography. It is illegal to possess any publication of a nude child "whether or not engaged in sexual activity". A child is defined in the Act as a person under age 18. Child pornography is illegal if the "person is a child under age 16 or who looks like a child under 16". "It is obvious that the children in some of the Von Gloeden photographs look like children under age 16," said Rev Fred Nile. The publication The Australian wrote, "whatever way you look at them, these images remain exploitative, the illicit expression of the exoticist fantasy of a white European male played out in a small Sicilian town. In many cases, the models are anonymous, manipulated like mannequins for the gratification of the viewer". Pedos responded by saying "cool!"

2000 - Everyone is getting in on the act - from the top down!!! - The President of Latvia said on this date that a pedo scandal that had rocked the country's political scene would not threaten the government's stability, but allegations of official involvement should be investigated. Latvians found out the day before about allegations made in parliament by an opposition member that the country's premier and justice minister could be linked to a pedo scandal. Parliament set up a commission the previous October to examine the details of a year-long probe conducted by the prosecutor's office into a suspected pedo ring that officials have said could involve as many as 600 people, including high officials. The commission was headed by opposition MP Janis Adamsons, who reported to the parliament details of names he said could be implicated in the affair, including Prime Minister Andris Skele and Justice Minister Valdis Birkavs. Skele shrugged off the allegations as partisan politics taken too far by Adamsons, an old political enemy. Birkavs said he would go on a hunger strike until his name was cleared.

February 19, 1951 - André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and boylover, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947.