A legal lynching in Guatemala
Saul Elbein presents some of the Guatemalan military and right's critique of transitional justice ‘The Field of Battle Is the Courts of Justice’ in Foreign Policy. Ricardo Mendez Ruiz and others are frustrated that they won the war but that former Guatemalan guerrillas and civilians, the international community, and the United States are now holding them accountable for how they "won" the war against the communists/terrorists/subversives.
Some sectors of the US government, military, and civilian population provided the Guatemalan government and military with support during the 1970s and 1980s (Just what does US-backed dictator mean?). However, the right likes to forget that the US cut off aid because the military would not abide by human rights conditions. They said that they had nothing to learn from a military that had just been humiliated in Vietnam.
They like to forget that while Ronald Reagan did indeed meet with dictator Efrain Rios Montt in Honduras in 1982, Rios Montt actually wanted Reagan to make a personal visit to Guatemala. Reagan's advisers, however, did not think that it was a good idea for the US president to be seen supporting such a despot at that time. Yes, even Reagan's advisers warned against it. The Guatemalans were angry with Reagan's side meeting.
Even though Reagan was able to get some additional resources to the Guatemalan military through the CIA, a reclassification of military parts, and through proxies, the US did not provide overwhelming support to the Guatemalan military and government. Rios Montt and the Guatemalan military like to say that the won the war without any US support. Now they feel we are turning our back on them.
Guatemalan General Hector Gramajo was sued in a United States court in 1991 because of human rights abuses committed against various Guatemalan people. He left the country but the court ruled against him in 1995.
Bill Clinton apologized for our country's support for the Guatemalan military in 1999. They were not all that happy with President Clinton.
Alfonso Portillo complains that the only reason that the US pursued corruption charges against him was because he did not support President Bush's war on terror. It was payback.
The last three US ambassadors have lent support to the strengthening of the rule of law in Guatemala that has led to trials against former military and police officials (and at least one former guerrilla). They've walked with survivors. As a result, they have ended up on hit lists prepared by the Guatemalan right.
The Guatemalan right has never been the partner of the US that they imagine themselves to have been.
The right wing, however, dismisses the mainstream account entirely, calling the U.N. report the work of Marxists and the FAFG’s forensic evidence as a willful distortion of the scientific record.
“The war didn’t end in 1996. It’s still going on,” said Ricardo Mendez Ruiz, the president of the Foundation Against Terrorism (FCT), the most public and vocal of the right-wing groups that have coalesced in the wake of the trials. In 1996, after 36 years of sporadic, brutal war, the army signed peace accords with the leftist guerrillas — or, as Mendez Ruiz calls them, terrorists. “The only difference now is that we’re not fighting in the jungle or the mountains with gunshots and firearms. Now, the field of battle is the courts of justice and the media.”Everything is a conspiracy. The evidence of massacres does not exist. The guerrillas were the real bad guys. The US has stabbed us in the back. You name it. It's everybody else's fault.
Some sectors of the US government, military, and civilian population provided the Guatemalan government and military with support during the 1970s and 1980s (Just what does US-backed dictator mean?). However, the right likes to forget that the US cut off aid because the military would not abide by human rights conditions. They said that they had nothing to learn from a military that had just been humiliated in Vietnam.
They like to forget that while Ronald Reagan did indeed meet with dictator Efrain Rios Montt in Honduras in 1982, Rios Montt actually wanted Reagan to make a personal visit to Guatemala. Reagan's advisers, however, did not think that it was a good idea for the US president to be seen supporting such a despot at that time. Yes, even Reagan's advisers warned against it. The Guatemalans were angry with Reagan's side meeting.
Even though Reagan was able to get some additional resources to the Guatemalan military through the CIA, a reclassification of military parts, and through proxies, the US did not provide overwhelming support to the Guatemalan military and government. Rios Montt and the Guatemalan military like to say that the won the war without any US support. Now they feel we are turning our back on them.
Guatemalan General Hector Gramajo was sued in a United States court in 1991 because of human rights abuses committed against various Guatemalan people. He left the country but the court ruled against him in 1995.
Bill Clinton apologized for our country's support for the Guatemalan military in 1999. They were not all that happy with President Clinton.
Alfonso Portillo complains that the only reason that the US pursued corruption charges against him was because he did not support President Bush's war on terror. It was payback.
The last three US ambassadors have lent support to the strengthening of the rule of law in Guatemala that has led to trials against former military and police officials (and at least one former guerrilla). They've walked with survivors. As a result, they have ended up on hit lists prepared by the Guatemalan right.
The Guatemalan right has never been the partner of the US that they imagine themselves to have been.
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