Guatemala City, Nov. 8—Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Global Prosperity at the Independent Institute, was presented with the First Annual Juan Bautista Alberdi Award, from the Hispanic American Center for Economic Research (HACER).

The prize was developed to encourage and reward writers, essayists and commentators whose published works promote the institutions of a free society in the Americas: limited government, rule of law fostered by an independent judiciary, protection of private property, free-markets, free-speech, and sound science.

HACER’s Alberdi Award was inspired by the 19th-century Argentinean intellectual Juan Bautista Alberdi. He will be remembered in the Americas as a champion of freedom for his contributions to the defense of liberty and for outlining the Argentinean constitution in 1853.

Mr. Alvaro Vargas Llosa is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group and the author of Liberty for Latin America and The Che Guevara Myth.