Throughout the Cold War, Washington intervened multiple times in Guatemala, funded a rampaging army, ran cover for the death squads that its own security agents—like Longan—helped create, and signaled that it would turn a blind eye to genocide. Even before Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election, two retired generals with prominent roles in his campaign traveled to Central America and told Guatemalan officials that “Mr. Reagan recognizes that a good deal of dirty work has to be done” (for this quote, see Allan Nairn’s report “Controversial Reagan Campaign Links With Guatemalan Government and Private Sector Leaders,” published by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs on October 30, 1980). Once in office, Reagan supplied munitions and training to the Guatemalan Army to carry out that dirty work (despite a ban on military aid imposed during the Carter administration, since existing contracts were exempt from that ban). Reagan was steadfast in his moral backing for Guatemala’s génocidaires, calling de facto head of state Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, who seized power in a coup in the spring of 1982, “a man of great personal integrity” and “totally dedicated to democracy.”….
The Nation
Washington Trained Guatemala’s Killers for DecadesGreg Grandin and Elizabeth Oglesby
Guatemala still has death squads called Kaibiles, euphemistically known as “Special Forces Units.” Their school has American teachers, and trains more killers than the infamous “School of the Americans” in Fort Benning Georgia (now renamed the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation”).
ReplyDeleteThat said, Guatemalans today are controlled not by death squads, but by debt and neoliberalism. I have some Guatemalans living in my house as tenants. Some are from the District of Huehuetenango (way-way-ten-ANG-go), which is mentioned in the article. A couple are Mayans. One is a Q’eqchi’. (Pronounced “ketch-EE.”)
The article correctly says that Guatemalans are driven north by neoliberalism combined with climate change.
U.S. liberals and conservatives don’t care what drives them north. Liberals only care about letting them all in, while conservatives only care about keeping them all out.
Both sides are full of idiots.
There wouldn’t be a refugee crisis if the U.S. stopped creating refugees.