Things The Guatemalan Board Of Tourism Doesn't Want You To Know
That place is seriously screwed up, according to this article in the Guardian. WARNING: The descriptions of some of the crimes are rather awful. There are no pictures, but, as in other stories, the text alone can horrify.
Why Guatemala? Why crimes targeted at women? Those are good questions. I don't know enough about Guatemalan culture to make a broad claim like blaming machismo .
But I do know a bit about Guatemalan history. Not much, mind you, but I do know that the United Fruit Company, headed by the brother of US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, got the left-leaning, legitimately-elected leader of Guatemala deposed in 1954 during the Eisenhower Administration (what is it about Republicans and their disdain for legitimate elections?). I also know that, beginning in 1960, a small group of officers, dissatisfied with the dictatorial rule of the country's president, went into hiding, and the hostitlity between them and the government started a thirty-six-year-long civil war. During that war, the country suffered massively--over 200,000 people were killed, and the vast, vast, VAST majority of those murdered in atrocities died at the hands of the army, not the rebels. There was a brief period in the Carter Administration in which the US refused military aid to the Guatemalan dictatorship, but, of course, Saint Reagan overturned that policy immediately upon taking office. President Clinton formally apologized for US involvement in the war, and the rebels have apologized for their atrocities (3% of the total). The Guatemalan army has remained stone cold silent.
Nationmaster.com has a pretty good encyclopedia article on Guatemala here.
Why bring up that horrible, horrible war? Well, it might have something to do with what's going on now:
It's unproved, but it's likely. It's worth noting that the brutal rape and murder of women was a part of standard government death squad tactics in several Latin American wars.
I've remarked before that I find it astonishing that Central America has not produced an al-Qaeda type organization dedicated to systematic terrorist operations against the United States. The US has certainly terrorized Latin America. And, when you sow the wind, you often do reap the whirlwind. In the long, long, sordid, shameful history of US meddling in Central America, countless thousands of people (usually peasant farmers, but including labor organizers, clergy, and anyone else who might be a bother) were murdered or tortured, countries' economies have not been allowed to develop, people have been kept in poverty, and dozens of legitimate governments have been deposed (sometimes through coups, but sometimes through direct US military action). Before the Cold War, the US government gave various justifications for these interventions (protecting US businesses, responding to imagined threats, etc.); during the US-USSR standoff, the standard rationalization was opposing Communism; following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the excuse became the War On Brown People--sorry, I mean the War On Drugs.
However, during the 200 years since the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine, there has been one--ONE--act of aggression by a Latin American against the yanquis in the US: in 1916, Pancho Villa raided the town of Columbus, New Mexico, and killed 17 people. American troops invaded Mexico the following year to catch Villa. They failed.
That's a really lopsided record, if you ask me. Not that I'm arguing for the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of thousands of gringos to even the score; it's just that, as noted above, it seems like Central America would have seen the emergence of a dedicated group of militants bent on harming US citizens and interests (self-interest disclosure: the author of this post is, in fact, a honky).
Oh, yeah--this isn't the sort of lesson they teach you in high school US history, is it? I wonder why.
Whenever I think about the history of US involvement in Latin America, I feel guilty for enjoying bananas.
That place is seriously screwed up, according to this article in the Guardian. WARNING: The descriptions of some of the crimes are rather awful. There are no pictures, but, as in other stories, the text alone can horrify.
Why Guatemala? Why crimes targeted at women? Those are good questions. I don't know enough about Guatemalan culture to make a broad claim like blaming machismo .
But I do know a bit about Guatemalan history. Not much, mind you, but I do know that the United Fruit Company, headed by the brother of US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, got the left-leaning, legitimately-elected leader of Guatemala deposed in 1954 during the Eisenhower Administration (what is it about Republicans and their disdain for legitimate elections?). I also know that, beginning in 1960, a small group of officers, dissatisfied with the dictatorial rule of the country's president, went into hiding, and the hostitlity between them and the government started a thirty-six-year-long civil war. During that war, the country suffered massively--over 200,000 people were killed, and the vast, vast, VAST majority of those murdered in atrocities died at the hands of the army, not the rebels. There was a brief period in the Carter Administration in which the US refused military aid to the Guatemalan dictatorship, but, of course, Saint Reagan overturned that policy immediately upon taking office. President Clinton formally apologized for US involvement in the war, and the rebels have apologized for their atrocities (3% of the total). The Guatemalan army has remained stone cold silent.
Nationmaster.com has a pretty good encyclopedia article on Guatemala here.
Why bring up that horrible, horrible war? Well, it might have something to do with what's going on now:
The suspicion that ex-soldiers in organised crime could be involved in the killings is unproved, but human rights activists say the legacy of war explains the climate of fear that keeps most victims' families from pushing for progress from the authorities. The Peralta family and Rosa Franco are among the exceptions to that rule, although they all believe they have been followed on several occasions.
It's unproved, but it's likely. It's worth noting that the brutal rape and murder of women was a part of standard government death squad tactics in several Latin American wars.
I've remarked before that I find it astonishing that Central America has not produced an al-Qaeda type organization dedicated to systematic terrorist operations against the United States. The US has certainly terrorized Latin America. And, when you sow the wind, you often do reap the whirlwind. In the long, long, sordid, shameful history of US meddling in Central America, countless thousands of people (usually peasant farmers, but including labor organizers, clergy, and anyone else who might be a bother) were murdered or tortured, countries' economies have not been allowed to develop, people have been kept in poverty, and dozens of legitimate governments have been deposed (sometimes through coups, but sometimes through direct US military action). Before the Cold War, the US government gave various justifications for these interventions (protecting US businesses, responding to imagined threats, etc.); during the US-USSR standoff, the standard rationalization was opposing Communism; following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the excuse became the War On Brown People--sorry, I mean the War On Drugs.
However, during the 200 years since the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine, there has been one--ONE--act of aggression by a Latin American against the yanquis in the US: in 1916, Pancho Villa raided the town of Columbus, New Mexico, and killed 17 people. American troops invaded Mexico the following year to catch Villa. They failed.
That's a really lopsided record, if you ask me. Not that I'm arguing for the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of thousands of gringos to even the score; it's just that, as noted above, it seems like Central America would have seen the emergence of a dedicated group of militants bent on harming US citizens and interests (self-interest disclosure: the author of this post is, in fact, a honky).
Oh, yeah--this isn't the sort of lesson they teach you in high school US history, is it? I wonder why.
Whenever I think about the history of US involvement in Latin America, I feel guilty for enjoying bananas.
posted by Jude at 10:43 AM
