The Real News From Guatemala: US Guilty of Genocide

[Judi Lynn]

May 15, 2013
The Real News From Guatemala

US Guilty of Genocide

by AJAMU BARAKA

Last week news coverage around the world heralded the conviction of Efrain Rios Montt on the charges of genocide against the Mayan people during his 17 month tenure as Guatemala’s head of government and military strongman. The three-judge panel led by Jazmin Barrios determined that evidence presented to the court established that there was a clear and systematic plan to exterminate the Ixil people as a race and that the plan developed and executed by the Montt government satisfied the definition of genocide. With this conviction, the 86 year-old ex-dictator was sentenced to 80 years in prison.

This is a tremendous victory for the people of Guatemala that is a powerful expression of justice and accountability for human rights abuses that offers hope to the many victims of atrocities around the world. This victory, however, doesn’t end with the sentence of the Guatemalan dictator. Another chapter needs to be opened with a more thorough examination of the relationship between Montt, the Guatemalan military and the United States government which, if examined objectively, establishes a clear chain of moral and legal culpability. A relationship that even with a cursory understanding of the history of the conflict in Guatemala would lead logically to the inescapable conclusion that if Efrain Rios Montt, and by extension the Guatemalan military, are guilty of the crime of genocide, the U.S. government and its officials are just as guilty as Rio Montt and that justice in Guatemala remains unfulfilled until everyone, including those responsible for pulling the strings in Guatemala, are also brought to justice.

The story of Rio Montt and the U.S. government was uncovered in the bloodstained, declassified U.S. government documents that graphically detail how U.S. officials were fully aware of the pogrom against the Ixil people in the mountains of Guatemala at the very moment that the U.S. government was involved in training and arming the Guatemalan military, passing intelligence to its clandestine services, and providing political and diplomatic support to the government. President Ronald Reagan called Rios Montt “a man of great personal integrity and commitment” even as he was receiving reports from his intelligence agencies documenting the scorched- earth policies of the Guatemalan military in its’ campaign against the Ixil.

As horrible as that 17 month period during the Reagan administration was for the indigenous people of Guatemala it was only a brief moment of horror in the macabre drama of U.S.-Guatemala relations. For many in the world there is no doubt that U.S. support, encouragement and guidance made it culpable in the genocidal policies of its’ client State during that 17-month period. The history of U.S. and Guatemalan relations since the U.S. inspired coup of 1954 that overthrew Guatemala’s reformist President Jacobo Arbenz has been a sordid history of criminal collusion against the people of Guatemala.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/15/us-guilty-of-genocide/

[ocpagu]

1. Another stain...

... in an awful record of US actions in that part of our planet under Reagan. What worries me is that the current actors leading the US foreign policy will not challenge this old, outdated, imperial, and criminal establishment. They'd rather try to justify somehow this actions and play the ostrich whenever political leaders worldwide criticize and point to the contradictions between reality and the official speech, generally, a bunch of empty words about democracy, freedom and bla-bla-bla, to justify point-fingering, meddling, aggression, harassing, war, etc.

It's time to admit this all must go. Guatemala has given the first step, along with other countries. This will help them heal as a nation and grow stronger. I understand the right-wing is likely to stay in power for some time, but recognizing the genocide and helding Ríos Montt accountable has the potential to inspire and empower the left in Guatemala.

Nice post as usual, thanks Judi.

[Judi Lynn]

2. You raise a great possibility I never considered. Sounds logical.

It took a small country, wildly abused by the oligarchs to actually pull this off, even with the overwhelming force behind US support of its oligarchy.

That's something worth a lot of thought. It would be so wonderful if this works!

[Catherina]

5. It's a good small solid step for now that opens things up

and what you wrote about the left in Guatemala is very true. The Left is very strong in the West, and in less populated areas, and keeps getting stronger as people can barely afford the minimum staples of beans and corn to eat. Aside from killing them, the Right is determined to overthrow even this symbolic victory (Rios Montt verdict) because of how powerful that victory is. The right is being very loud now that the coming elections are the 'the mother of all battles". Seeing how bloody the last elections were, that's worrisome. The next Legislative elections are in 2014 and the Presidential elections are in 2015. Zury Montt is expected to be the Right's candidate again. She did so poorly in 2011 that she dropped out to save face but they're hoping the "persecution" of her saintly, sickly, misunderstood father will rally the right around her. They don't want to go down in history as being on par with the Nazis because it's embarrassing and bad for their pocketbooks.

The powerful business association CACIF continues in its public campaign to challenge the verdict and seeks its annulment. In a paid public statement issued on Tuesday, CACIF claimed that the genocide conviction tarnished all Guatemalans, and Guatemalans should challenge it to avoid being perceived internationally as on par with the Nazis.

A Wednesday blog by Philip Chicola, hosted by CACIF, expanded upon this argument: “Guatemala has joined the select club of genocidal states, together with Nazi Germany, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Cambodia,” with major implications for international perceptions of Guatemala, the threat of further prosecutions, and likely obligations of significant future financial or land transfers to the Ixil population. Chicola’s blog also described the planned 2014 elections of judges and the Attorney General as “the mother of all battles”—in light of the outcome of the genocide trial.

http://www.riosmontt-trial.org/2013/05/imminent-constitutional-court-judgments-may-affect-guatemalan-genocide-conviction/

And the US can hold its applause on the preliminary verdict that convicted Montt, and its lip service about democracy, freedom and bla-bla-bla, until it does the right thing. Using this trial to pretend Guatemala has made huge advances in human rights to justify increasing the military aid because Perez needs more to fight their drug war, would be a mockery. Nice posts, you and Judy.

US bombs were dropped from US-supplied aircraft on fleeing Mayan villagers. US personnel were present in Guatemala, training and giving advice to the Rios Montt army. US personnel were inside the G-2, the notorious military intelligence and targeting unit. The CIA carried many top Guatemalan army commanders on its payroll.

...

So the US has responsibilities here, moral and political but also legal.

It should tell them everything: what it knew, what it did, who it paid. ... A proper disclosure would include still-classified White House, Pentagon, NSA, CIA and State Department documents, as well as US intercepts of communications among General Rios Montt and his army.

And the US should also indict and try any current or former US official who was accessory or accomplice -- or worse -- to the Rios Montt crimes.

...

http://www.allannairn.org/2013/05/follow-guatemalas-lead-convene-genocide.html

[Judi Lynn]

7. Fantastic closing of your second article, by Allan Nairn, re the US:

And, of course, it should also be ready to comply with its responsibilities by being willing to extradite any US officials charged in Guatemala.

US prosecutors have an obligation to take these steps.

This case involves crimes of the highest magnitude.

US law enforcers who step forward might indeed run some career risk.

But unlike so many Guatemalans so far, they can be pretty sure they'll live.

No one decent would EVER consider making a living from the tragic suffering of others. No one.

Thanks.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Did Reagan Finance Genocide in Guatemala?

Did Reagan Finance Genocide in Guatemala?
By SANTIAGO WILLS
May 14, 2013

On Monday, a Guatemalan court ordered the country's government to apologize to the Ixil population for the crimes of José Efraín Ríos Montt, a dictator who was sentenced to 80 years in prison for his role in war crimes committed between 1982 and 1983.

The verdict concluded that the army, under the command of Ríos Montt, had engaged in a campaign of genocide against the Ixiles, a small Mayan ethnic group. In that sense, it finally offered an answer to the thousands of victims' families who had pleaded for justice since the 1980s.

The trial did not answer all questions, however. For example, it did not place much attention on the extent of U.S. involvement in Guatemala during the 17 months of Ríos Montt's regime. That's in spite of the fact that America reached out to the Central American country offering military aid to combat left-wing guerrillas.

"U.S. military and intelligence units worked closely with the Guatemalan army over the decades of Guatemala's civil war," said Geoff Thale, Central America Program Director at the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA). "Direct U.S. military aid was suspended during the Carter Administration, but then restored by the Reagan Administration, whose Cold War worldview clearly prioritized the fight against insurgents and their civilian supporters over respect for human rights."

More:
http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/ronald-reagan-finance-genocide-guatemala/story?id=19179627#.UZSfU-oo7_R

[Judi Lynn]

4. Short summary of Rios-Montt's Presidency:

GENERAL EFRAIN RIOS MONTT

President of Guatemala

"A Christian has to walk around with his Bible and his machine gun", said born-again General Efrain Rios Montt, military ruler of Guatemala from March 1982 to August 1983. Rios Montt was one in a long series of dictators who ran Guatemala after the Dulles brothers and United Fruit, backed by the CIA, decided that democratically-elected President Jacobo Arbenz was too reform-minded. And so, they overthrew the country's constitutional democracy in 1954. The succession of corrupt military dictators ruled Guatemala for over 30 years, one anti-communist tyrant after another receiving U.S. support, aid, and training. After the 1982 coup that brought Rios Montt to power, the U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala said "Guatemala has come out of the darkness and into the light". President Reagan claimed Rios Montt was given "a bum rap" by human rights groups, and that he was cleaning up problems inherited from his predecessor, General Romeo Lucas Garcia. Ironically, Garcia had given $500,000 to Reagan's 1980 campaign, and his henchman, Mario Sandoval Alarcon, the 'Godfather' of Central American death squads, was a guest at Reagan's first inaugural celebration. Sandoval proudly calls his National Liberation Movement " the party of organized violence". Montt simply moved Garcia's dirty war from urban centers to the countryside where "the spirit of the lord" guided him against "communist subversives', mostly indigenous Indians. As many as 10,000 Indians were killed and over 100,000 fled to Mexico as a result of Rios Montt's "Christian" campaign.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

[grahamhgreen]

6. Time to investigate here.