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Iraq and the Middle East continues to dominate the media's attention on US foreign policy. However, to any seasoned Latin
America watcher the parallels between current US foreign policy in the
Middle East today with that in Latin America, and in particular Central
America, in the 1980's are striking. Arguably, not since the Iran
Contra scandal has this link been so apparent.

Every
now and then there are very symbolic moments that cut through the black
out and hint at this equivalence. I remember one such poignant moment
hearing the reporting of one of the first US casualties in the Iraq
war: Jose Gutierrez. Jose had lost his parents in the 36-year civil war
in Guatemala. He survived life on the streets in Guatemala City, and
later arrived in the US after a two-thousand-mile trek through Mexico,
joining the US military. The irony that one of the first US victims in
Iraq was Central American, was entirely lost on the vast majority of
Western media.

When George W. Bush was elected in 2000, it
gradually dawned on me that a number of key US administration's
officials and advisers were veterans of Ronald Reagan's Central
American policy in the 1980's. Every now and again a John Negroponte
would pop up on the news here and an Otto Reich there. These were
people with more than a passing interest in the patronage of
anti-Communist governments in El Salvador and Guatemala and
anti-Communist insurgents in Nicaragua (see box).

According to
Greg Grandin, New York University Professor of Latin American history,
the links between the current Bush administration's revolution in
foreign policy and Reagan's hard line in Central America are even more
profound than the simple recycling of personnel.

“It was Central
America, and Latin America more broadly, where an insurgent New Right
coalesced, as conservative activists used the region to respond to the
crisis of the 1970's, a crisis provoked not only by America's defeat in
Vietnam but by a deep economic recession and a culture of sceptical
antimilitarism and political dissent that spread in the war's wake.
Indeed, Reagan's Central American wars can best be understood as a
dress rehearsal for what is going on now in the Middle East.”

Grandin
continues: “It was in these wars where the coalition made up of
neo-conservatives, Christian evangelicals, free marketeers, and
nationalists that today stands behind George W. Bush's expansive
foreign policy first came together. There they had near free rein to
bring the full power of the United States against a much weaker enemy
in order to exorcise the ghost of Vietnam- and in so doing, begin the
transformation of US foreign policy and domestic culture.”1

Specific
echoes between Latin America and the Middle East are numerous. They
include how the US has: supported for dictatorial regimes implicated in
genocide (compare Saddam Hussein with Efrain Rios Montt); used the 'War
on Terror' (illicit drugs, arms, immigration and organised crime) as
the pretext for US military intervention on a grand scale (e.g Plan
Mayan Jaguar [Guatemala], Plan Colombia, Operation Iraqi Freedom,
Operation Enduring Freedom [Afghanistan]); introduced neoliberal
economics to the benefit of key US economic interests (CAFTA, Iraq,
Afghanistan).

US experience in Central America seems to be
increasingly seized on by desperate US
officials and advisers as Iraq unravels. US Vice President Dick Cheney
told the US electorate in the campaign for reelection in 2004 that El
Salvador, with 50 percent of its population below the poverty level,
was
a model for what his administration hoped to achieve in Iraq. William
Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, appeared on TV to
hail Central America as an “amazing success story” for US foreign
policy. Pentagon officials have reportedly turned to the
“Salvador option,” (reported in Newsweek in January 2005, see also Craig Murray blog), which meant
relying on local paramilitaries to impose order. As journalist Robert
Kaplan put it recently: “Fifty-five Special Forces trainers in El
Salvador accomplished more than did 550,000 soldiers in Vietnam.”

When
Senator Trent Lott
argued in favour of the 1998 “Iraqi Liberation Act,” which made the
removal of Saddam Hussein official US policy (passed unanimously
by the Senate), he reminded his colleagues of the success of the Reagan
Doctrine and US patronage of the Nicaraguan Contras. “We supported
freedom fighters in Latin America willing to fight and die for a
democratic future”. With Daniel Ortega's recent election in Nicaragua
the comparisons between US foreign past and present, have started to
make the headlines. Now more than ever, Central Americans with first
hand experience of the US imperial workshop, as Grandin puts it, should
be heeded.

-Elliott Abrams, Bush's current deputy national
security adviser in charge of promoting democracy throughout the world;

-John Negroponte, former UN ambassador, envoy to Iraq, and now
intelligence czar;
-Otto Reich, secretary of state for the Western
Hemisphere during Bush's first term;
-John Poindexter, convicted of lying to Congress,
conspiracy, and destroying evidence in the Iran Contra scandal during
his tenure as Reagan's national security adviser, was appointed by
Rumsfeld to oversee the Pentagon's stillborn Total Information
Awareness programme.
-John Bolton, ambassador to the United Nations and
an arch-unilateralist, served as Reagan's point man in the Justice
Department to stonewall investigations into Iran-Contra.

For the first time since military aid to Guatemala was suspended in 1990, $3.2 million in non-lethal military aid resumed flowing in March 2005. The administration released aid that had been frozen in the pipeline since 1990 over the Guatemalan military’s involvement in human rights abuses, including the murder of U.S. innkeeper Michael Devine (John J. Lumpkin, U.S. Resumes Military Aid to Guatemala, Associated Press, March 24, 2005).

The House of Representatives went a step further, lifting the ban on regular IMET (training in combat, tactics, war fighting strategy, and technical skills), maintaining in place only the ban on FMF (Foreign Military Financing, which generally pays for weapons and equipment).

Guatemala and Indonesia had been the only two countries specifically restricted from receiving IMET; the House also loosened restrictions on Indonesia (Expanded-IMET courses on non-combat subjects including civil military relations had been permitted for Guatemala since the Peace Accords were signed in 1996). However, the Senate disagreed, and the final version of the bill maintained the bans on regular IMET and FMF for Guatemala. [Source: Washington Office on Latin America]

The Belize-Guatemala territorial dispute was mentioned in Parliament (07-11-2006):

Chris Ruane (PPS (Rt Hon Peter Hain, Secretary of State), Office of the Secretary of State for Wales, Vale of Clwyd, Labour) Hansard source

To ask the Secretary of State
for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what help and assistance her
Department has given to the Belize Government in their border dispute
with Guatemala.

European Parliament debated this afternoon (26-10-2006) a resolution on the proceedings against Rios Montt. There were a whole series of separate points to the motion put forward- one of which was:

The motion for the resolution had be put forward by the following MEPs:

       -    Charles Tannock and Bernd Posselt, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group
       -    Pasqualina Napoletano and Luis Yañez-Barnuevo García, on behalf of the PSE Group
       -    Marios Matsakis, on behalf of the ALDE Group
       -    Raül Romeva i Rueda and Alain Lipietz, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group
       -    Willy Meyer Pleite and Marco Rizzo, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group

You can watch the debate on a video from this page. You need to click on the time next to where the debate on Rios Montt is mentioned about half way down.

You can read this official EU overview of the EU's relations with Guatemala here.

The International Federation for Human Rights has just put out the following press release about the debate (in Spanish).

The following is a press release from the Greens about the debate:

COMUNICADO DE PRENSA – Estrasburgo, 26 de octubre 2006

Extradición de Rios Montt (Guatemala)

VERDES/ALE EXIGEN FIN A LA IMPUNIDAD EN GUATEMALA
Hoy se adoptó en la plenaria del PE una resolución de urgencia sobre la orden internacional de extradición a ex-dictadores y ex-militares guatemaltecos. Sigue la intervención de Raul Romeva, MEP de la IC-V.
 
Diez años después de firmarse los Acuerdos de Paz en Guatemala, país con el que la UE está negociando un acuerdo de asociación y que pretende conseguir un puesto en el Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU, el Acuerdo global sobre Derechos Humanos sigue sin implementarse. Y ello es preocupante en uno de los países que más ha sufrido en términos de dictaduras, genocidios y crímenes de lesa humanidad. Pero más preocupante aún es la impunidad casi absoluta de la que gozan quienes fueron los principales responsables de estos hechos, algunos de los cuales siguen ostentando cargos de alta responsabilidad en las instituciones guatemaltecas.

Sin embargo, cuando el pasado 7 de julio de 2006 el Juzgado Central de Instrucción Número 1 de la Audiencia Española decretó una orden internacional de detención contra varios ex-dictadores y ex-militares guatemaltecos, se reabrió la esperanza de que se hiciera finalmente justicia.

Así, ante la total inhibición del sistema judicial guatemalteco, la Audiencia Española asumió, en base al principio de justicia universal, la responsabilidad de contribuir a acabar con la impunidad.

Ante esta iniciativa, por tanto, cabe reclamar a las autoridades guatemaltecas que cooperen plenamente haciendo todo lo posible para la clarificación de las violaciones de los Derechos Humanos que tuvieron lugar en Guatemala y para que quienes son explícitamente mencionados en la orden internacional de detención, así como en la presente resolución, sean detenidos y entregados a la justicia para ser adecuadamente juzgados.

Así mismo, teniendo en cuenta que muchos de los responsables de estos hechos gravísimos en la historia de Guatemala han estado enriqueciéndose y acumulando bienes y capital en bancos locales e internacionales, es necesario también que las entidades bancarias concernidas colaboren en el retorno de dichos bienes con objeto de que estas personas asuman también sus responsabilidades civiles y financieras.

Finalmente, Europol e Interpol deberían poner todos los medios necesarios para proceder a la detención y extradición a España de las personas mencionadas con objeto de ser adecuadamente juzgadas.

Photo: daedalus169

What's going on in Latin America? The lead up to the vote for the seat on the UN Security Council in October should usually be an uncontested foregone conclusion. However, now it's evident there's a power struggle afoot on the continent and the Security Council election is but one example. Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, is flexing its muscles and the US under George Bush seems to be getting increasingly agitated.

On the face of it, it's a straight contest between Guatemala and Venezuela for a seat on the UN Security Council for two years. If Latin American and Caribbean countries fail to reach a consensus by Oct. 16, the issue will be decided by a secret vote in the U.N.'s 192-member General Assembly. Behind the scenes, it's apparent that this is just another expression of the new political order in US-Latin American relations.

Dr. Jose Luis Rocha, a Nicaraguan academic from Universidad Centroamericana, recently said in London about the Nicaraguan elections, that they've become ostensibly an election between Chavez (supporting Daniel Ortega- FSLN) and Bush (supporting Eduardo Montealegre- ALN). For me there are obvious parallels with the tussle for the Security Council. Warning bells ring when Central America's more powerful neighbours interfere so blatantly in Central American affairs because, to be frank, there's a history of this kind of thing happening.

New York University professor Greg Grandin in his new book, “Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism,” examines how U.S. foreign policy in Latin America has served as a model for U.S. actions in the Middle East and beyond. It certainly worth considering Grandin's thesis of how the U.S. has interfered in Central America using it as a kind of workshop- CAFTA is perhaps the latest case in point. Grandin states:

Coming back to the Security Council elections, who knows what will happen? According to recent press reports, Guatemala Foreign Minister, Gert Rosenthal, has said:

Whatever the situation with the votes- the election is proving to be divisive. So why shouldn't Guatemala, a founding UN member that's never sat on the UN Security Council, have its turn in 2007-8?

What's interesting is that certain international groups like the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), seem to be prepared to disbar Guatemala from the Security Council on the basis on its heinous human rights record. Guatemala's human rights record over the last 30 years is certainly heinous, but the list of countries who similarly should be disbarred from participation in UN institutions on that basis is fairly lengthy.

You can't help feeling (and Rosenthal certainly seems to) that the real reason counting against Guatemala in the eyes of UN members is its backer, the U.S. So how's this particular story of interference in Central America likely to pan out?

According to the Security Council Report (14-08-2006):

Whoever wins the seat- it's tempting to think that the election would not be as divisive if Venezuela stuck to promoting Venezuela, and Guatemala was left to promote Guatemala.

Wayne David MP, (PPS (Rt Hon Adam Ingram, Minister of State), Ministry of Defence, Caerphilly, Labour), has just made the following intervention in a Westminster Hall debate comparing the political situation in El Salvador and Guatemala. He headed up a delegation under the auspices of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

He is markedly down beat about the political situation in Guatemala citing land evictions, violence against women and a weak criminal justice system. Sound familiar? It's interesting that he refers to a briefing from Amnesty International who have just released (18-07-2006) updated figures on the ever increasing violence against women in Guatemala.

Here's his contribution from TheyWorkForYou.com:

Wayne David (PPS (Rt Hon Adam Ingram, Minister of State), Ministry of Defence, Caerphilly, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source

I shall also try to brief. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) on securing this debate and on her consistent work over many years. She has championed human rights even when it has not been popular to do so and when it has been at great cost to herself.

I want to refer briefly to a visit that I made to central America under the auspices of the Inter-Parliamentary Union when I led a delegation. It was a good example of the effective work that the IPU can do on the ground to serve human rights. That visit occurred in the early part of June to two countries in central America: Guatemala and El Salvador. Visiting two countries was a useful experience in itself because we could develop a regional perspective and we saw the contrast between two neighbouring countries in central America.

In El Salvador, we found a relatively stable, democratic process. The two parties, the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional and the ARENA party, which had been at war during the 1970s, 1980s and early part of the 1990s, were pursing a peaceful democratic process and had laid down their arms. The ARENA party was in government and the FMLN was in opposition, and we thought that there was genuine determination across the political spectrum to make the peace accords of the 1990s work effectively. Of course, we saw great problems in the country”land issues, high criminality and widespread poverty”but there was great optimism and that came across clearly from everyone we met.

To be blunt, the situation in Guatemala was quite different. The country was less prosperous with less business confidence, widespread corruption and high criminality, particularly from the “maras” gangs. It was pointed out that more people in Guatemala lose their lives through crime than died during the civil war of the 1980s and 1990s. Before we went to Guatemala, the delegation had graphic briefings from Amnesty International. Its two basic concerns were the ongoing land disputes and the high level of evictions. It was concerned about the human rights abuses and the way in which peasants and rural workers in particular were being treated.

Secondly, Amnesty International was concerned about the violence against women. I would like to read an excerpt from one of its reports that graphically shows the appalling situation in Guatemala. A mother, referring to her daughter, said:

“My 15-year-old daughter Maria Isabel was a student and worked in a shop in the holidays. On the night of 15 December 2001, she was kidnapped in the capital. Her body was found shortly before Christmas. She had been raped, her hands and feet had been tied with barbed wire, she had been stabbed and strangled and put in a bag. Her face was disfigured from being punched, her body was punctured with small holes, there was a rope around her neck and her nails were bent back. When her body was handed over to me, I threw myself to the ground shouting and crying but they kept on telling me not to get so worked up.”

We had the opportunity to raise such issues when we were in Guatemala during a long discussion with President Oscar Berger. Naturally, his responses were unsatisfactory from our perspective. What came across clearly to us in Guatemala was that although the political will might have existed among decent people to get to grips with such problems, the political or civil infrastructure was not in place to do so. The police in Guatemala suffer from widespread corruption and the judiciary is both corrupt and inept. Many of the large property owners do not feel that they have a stake in the country; in fact, many live in Miami and visit the country only occasionally.

Above all else, we did not find the same commitment to democratic politics in Guatemala as we found in El Salvador. That is largely for historic reasons. During the civil war in El Salvador, it was recognised that neither side could win”neither the left nor the right, neither the FMLN nor the ARENA party. A historic compromise was therefore reached, with both sides laying down their arms and making a genuine commitment to the peace accords and the democratic process. That did not happen in Guatemala. There the army won, and democratic politics suffered as a consequence. What political parties exist in Guatemala have shallow roots. To build up respect for human rights and to crack down effectively on criminality, there is a need to enforce democracy and the political process. That is one of the lessons that we learned, and one aspect of our international work that we must continue to pursue.

In conclusion, the example of our visit to central America shows clearly the worth of the IPU. Parliamentary democracy has a central role to play in promoting human rights. The IPU, as the international manifestation of parliamentary democracy, therefore has a crucial role to play. One the of the most telling moments that I experienced in El Salvador was when one of the members of the assembly who belonged to the left-wing FMLN said to me, “Mr. David, at one time my colleague””he pointed to a friend of his from the ARENA party””and I were literally trying to kill each other in the civil war. Today, although we have political differences, we are nevertheless friends in the legislative assembly.” That better than anything else illustrates the importance of parliamentary democracy and the work of the IPU.

Vincent Castagnino has written a report in Spanish on the Marlin Gold Mine in San Marcos, Guatemala -“Minería de metales y derechos humanos en Guatemala. La mina Marlin en San Marcos“. The production and distribution of the report was supported by Peace Brigades International in Guatemala and financed by Trocaire in Ireland.

The report's 35 pages are a really good summing up of the historical background, legal context and ultimate effects of the establishment of the Marlin Mine by Canadian multinational Glamis Gold. Vincent Castagnino has interviewed many of the key players for this report, including: Monseñor Álvaro Rammazzini Imeri, Bishop of San Marcos, Jorge Antonio García Chiú, Vice Minister at the Ministry of Energy and Mines; and Magali Rey Rosa, from Colectivo Madre Selva.

Two key conclusions of the report are:

For more information, there is also a really good recording in Canada of Juan Tema from Sipakapa speaking at an event in May 2006 organised by Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network.

Below is a map from Colectivo MadreSelva showing mining developments and areas of poverty in Guatemala.

Zones of poverty in Guatemala and the mining concessions (2004)

This December it will have been ten years since the Peace Accords (Acuerdo de Paz Firme y Duradera) were signed in Guatemala after 36 years of civil war. As a campaigning group in the UK, we have always been really interested in what the UK government's view is on the issue of bringing the perpertrators of genocide in Guatemala during the civil war to justice.

In a recent exchange with the government, Tom Levitt MP asked two questions on the human rights situation in Guatemala. A GSN member followed up the responses by asking Tom Levitt MP if he could get clarification from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on a number of points. Mr Levitt got the following response (24-06-06) from Lord Triesman as the Minister responsible for Latin America.

His response contained the rather worrying typo that only 20,000 people were killed or disappeared rather than the 200,000 cited by the UN CEH report in 1999.

When the UK government says “they [Guatemala government] have accepted responsibility for atrocities, apologised and arranged compensation”. Of course, as with all government- speak there is a grain of truth in this, with, for example, the setting up of the National Compensation Programme (Programa Nacional de Resarcimiento). But the process of compensation has yet to have reached anywhere near fruition- and is starting to lose its way. Certainly this is not enough to warrant Lord Triesman's rosy assessment.

The central point remains: the Peace Accords were signed nearly ten years ago and the Guatemalan government has never accepted, nor apologised for, nor arranged compensation for the crime of genocide. Because of this, but certainly not solely because of this, the cases against the perpertrators of genocide who remain in Guatemala, have avoided just punishment for their crimes. You need look no further than the latest debacle where Rios Montt was shielded from the Spanish investigation into his responsibility for genocide crimes last week (30-06-06), by the Guatemalan Constitutional Court.

Yeh ok you guys already know this. But our point here in the UK, is that the UK government has been careful to avoid describing the mass killings in Guatemala in the 1980s as genocide; it prefers the more generic term 'human rights abuses' in Guatemala (see Lord Triesman's response above, but also Douglas Alexander's response to Tom Levitt in Parliament).

We have, perhaps because of this, had difficulty in getting the All Parliamentary Party Group on Genocide Prevention to even consider Guatemala as part of its remit. We will continue to push the UK government for clarification on this point.

Thanks to a GSN member, John Hampson, for asking his MP to make the following parliamentary question:

Tom Levitt (PPS (Rt Hon Hilary Benn, Secretary of State), Department for International Development, High Peak, Labour) Hansard source

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the likelihood of bringing to justice those responsible for mass killings in Guatemala in the 1980s; and if he will make representations to the government of Guatemala on this matter.

Below is a list of the MPs and MEPs who have asked a question about Guatemala or who've mentioned Guatemala in a speech in the House of Commons or European Parliament. You can contact the MP via TheyWorkForYou.com by clicking on their name:

2006

Chris Ruane MP (Labour)

Dr Charles Tannock MEP (Conservative – London)

Wayne David MP (Labour)

John Bercow MP (Conservative)
Jeremy Corbyn MP (Labour)
Tom Levitt MP (Labour)
David Taylor MP (Labour)

2005

Tony Lloyd MP (Labour)
John Bercow MP (Conservative)