Latin American legacy

[An exceptional article written by Beatriz Manz]

Latin Americans were overwhelmingly - in many countries over 90 percent - opposed to the U.S. invasion in Iraq. This is no surprise in a region that has experienced its share of American interference.

Fifty years ago, on June 27, 1954, the CIA orchestrated its first coup in Latin America. Dubbed "Operation Success," it fulfilled its mandate in overthrowing the government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, a moderate reformer.

In the midst of an intensifying cold war, the democratically elected Arbenz was perceived to be influenced by communists. As if to prove the point, he began enacting a serious land reform. This act threatened the unused land of United Fruit, a company with strong ties to members of the Eisenhower administration - most prominent among them Alan Dulles, director of the CIA, and his brother John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state.

Once Arbenz was ousted, Vice President Richard Nixon announced to the world that Guatemala would serve as a model of U.S.-style democracy and freedom for the rest of Latin America. Instead, the country entered a nightmare that would only deepen in the decades that followed.

What happened in Guatemala was a triumph of ideology over reality. With each succeeding military government more violent than the last, a pledge of anti-communism was all that was needed to ensure continued U.S. support. The military and business élite was given carte blanche to rule in increasingly authoritarian ways. Gross human rights abuses mere minimized or ignored - particularly in the 1980s when repression escalated into wholesale slaughter and torture. President Ronald Reagan dismissed criticism of General Rios Montt, a coup leader and arguably the worst of a bloody lot of military rulers, as "a bum rap."

The UN commission documenting the violence in Guatemala concluded in 1999 that a genocide had taken place there. The numbers are difficult to comprehend. The military committed more than 600 massacres, 200,000 Guatemalans - predominantly Mayan peasants - were murdered, 400 Mayan villages destroyed and 1.5 million people displaced. Tens of thousands of Guatemalan refugees fled to Mexico and hundreds of thousands have come to the United States. This is no showcase for freedom and democracy.

In the 1990s, with the end of the cold war, the U. S. refocused its attention away from Central America. Peace accords were reached - an achievement in which the United Nations and European countries played a crucial role. With that the internal war formally came to an end.

In a reversal of what might now be called the Powell doctrine ("if you break it, you own it"), the United States, which was willing to pay for the destruction of Guatemala, now refuses to cover the cost of rebuilding it. Instead, Guatemalans in the United States are bankrolling their country's reconstruction. In 2003 Guatemala received over $2 billion from the United States, but it was not from the U.S. government. The money came from the meager earnings of Guatemalans laboring in the United States.

The Bush administration did sign a Central America Free Trade Agreement in May, but many Guatemalan civic and religious leaders are concerned that the interests of ordinary Central Americans are being left out of the debate. In a letter to Congress, Alvaro Ramzzini, Bishop of the Guatemalan Diocese of San Marcos and president of the Council of Central American Bishops,wrote that CAFTA as drafted "will create greater inequalities between rich and poor in Central America."

A Guatemalan peasant in a remote village near the Mexican border told me recently, "The United States is culpable of creating hell in this country and supported the military that burned down our village and massacred our people. And now? It is in Iraq. We know what that is like."

The fallout from an intervention five decades ago still shapes perceptions today.

Beatriz Manz, is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of "Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror, and Hope."

It worked for Noah

Keys? Yeah, I’ve got keys.

Yesterday the gang at Incidencia Democratica moved up in the world. Two floors, to be exact. We moved into larger offices on the fifth floor of our building.

We spent all day filling folders with files, boxes with books, and crates with coffee cups. We rolled posters, un-hung curtains, and detatched cables. We pushed and pulled, lifted and lugged, sweat and swore. Desks lost their drawers, cabinets lost thier contents, and I lost about 15 lbs. running up and down those stairs.

I like the new office. It’s far more spacious than the previous one, and now my desk has a view (well, I guess I had a “view” before, if you care to call a wall a view.)

I have to admit that the move has been somewhat disorienting for me. Since returning to Guatemala, less than three months ago, I have worked in two offices and lived in three apartments. Sometimes when I wake up, it takes me forever to remember exactly where I am. This is especially embarrassing if I’m at the office.

Late yesterday afternoon, though, having reconnected – literally and figuratively – with my surroundings, I glanced out the window and saw a rare rainbow draped across the city sky... and smiled.

“That,” I thought, “has got to be a good sign!”