Guatemalan president apologizes to son of Jacobo Arbenz for U.S..-organized 1954 coup

[Ken Burch]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/americas/an-apology-for-a-guatemalan-coup-57-years-later.html?_r=1

(snip)

MEXICO CITY — More than a half-century after Guatemala’s elected president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was overthrown in a coup planned by the C.I.A. and forced into a wandering exile, President Alvaro Colom apologized on Thursday for what he called a “great crime.”
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In a muted ceremony at the National Palace in Guatemala City, Mr. Colom turned to Mr. Arbenz’s son Juan Jacobo and asked for forgiveness on behalf of the state.

“That day changed Guatemala and we have not recuperated from it yet,” he said. “It was a crime to Guatemalan society and it was an act of aggression to a government starting its democratic spring.”

The overthrow in 1954 of Mr. Arbenz, a former army colonel whose policies attempted to narrow the chasm betwen the country’s tiny elite and its impoverished peasants, squashed a 10-year effort to build a democratic state.


(end snip)

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Nice that Colom did that, I guess. Now Obama and HRC need to apologize abjectly on behalf of OUR government-since it was their predecessors as U.S. president and Secretary of State that arranged that act-AND they need to vow that our country will never do things like that again.

...Not holding my breath though...

[SharonAnn]

1. Yes, another "Banana Republic" where we overthrew the gov't and installed our "friends"

The United Fruit company wasn't the only corporate interest involved in these.

And our military wanted bases in these countries.

We have an ugly record in these countries. Best thing we could do for them is to stay out of them.

[jwirr]

2. Wonder if we are ever going to get to the point where we have

enough brains to apologize?