Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

U.S.-Sponsored Genocides: From Guatemala to Congo
20 Mar 2013
🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

Guatemala has put its U.S.-backed genocidal maniac on trial, but Washington continues to protect its agents of mass murder in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “There is no auditorium big enough to hold the all the living Americans who should justly be charged with genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.”

 

U.S.-Sponsored Genocides: From Guatemala to Congo

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

“The genocide would have been impossible without the United States.”

The man who unleashed a genocide against the Maya Indians of Guatemala, former dictator and general Efrain Rios Montt, went on trial for his crimes against humanity in Guatemala City, this week. By all rights, the 86 year-old Montt should be joined in the dock by scores of still-living United States officials, including former President George Bush the First.

Back in 1954, the CIA overthrew the reformist government of President Jacobo Arbenz, whose land reform measures had angered the United Fruit Company. The U.S. termination with extreme prejudice of Guatemalan democracy ultimately led to a 36-year rebellion and civil war, with the Americans backing a succession of dictators. General Montt was the most monstrous. In the 1980s, his regime declared total war on the Mayan people of the country’s highlands. Whole villages were massacred and entire regions laid waste as the military attempted to drain the human sea in which the guerilla movement swam. Army documents show clearly that the native Maya were targeted for extermination because of their ethnicity; that all Maya – a majority of Guatemala’s population – were considered enemies of the state. Rios Montt is the first Latin American former head of state to be charged with genocide in his own country.

However, this crime is not Rios Montt’s, alone. The genocide would have been impossible without the United States, which had run the show in Guatemala since 1954 and had armed the general to the teeth. The U.S. corporate media like to call President Ronald Reagan the “Great Communicator” but, in Guatemala, he was the Great Exterminator, encouraging and financing General Rios Montt’s orgy of mass murder. Reagan described the racist butcher as “a man of great personal integrity and commitment” who was “getting a bum rap.” All told, a quarter million or more Guatemalans died in the 40 years since the CIA robbed them of their democracy and independence.

“The Maya were targeted for extermination because of their ethnicity.”

In 1999, when the civil war was over, President Bill Clinton apologized for the harm done to Guatemala by the United States. But by then, Clinton had already set in motion a far larger genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo – a U.S.-sponsored holocaust that has so far claimed 6 million lives. In a just world, Slick Willie would join an auditorium full of Obama, Bush and Clinton administration operatives who, over the space of 16 years, made eastern Congo the charnel house of the planet. Susan Rice would have a place of prominence in this vast assemblage of criminals, as among the most culpable for the worst bloodbath since World War Two.

In fact, there is no auditorium big enough to hold the all the living Americans who should justly be charged with genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. There are too many – great crowds of them from each administration, especially in the last ten years, since the invasion of Iraq. Imperialism in its last stages maintains an ever-lengthening Kill List.

Guatemala is coming to grips with its past, in a trial that will probably last a few months. The United States has an infinity of crimes to answer for. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130320_gf_GuatemalaToCongo.mp3

More Stories


  • Blacks May be Bearing the Brunt of Covid-19, But Access to Data is Limited
    Elizabeth Cooney
    Blacks May be Bearing the Brunt of Covid-19, But Access to Data is Limited
    08 Apr 2020
    The feds don’t keep racial data on the coronavirus, but local reports show Blacks are dying at multiple the rates of whites in some cities.
  • In 1918 and 2020, Race Colors America’s Response to Epidemics
    Soraya Nadia Mcdonald
    In 1918 and 2020, Race Colors America’s Response to Epidemics
    08 Apr 2020
    A century ago, In cities across the nation, black people struck by the flu were often left to fend for themselves.
  • Moral Leaders Demand Coronavirus Relief for Most Vulnerable
    Jessica Corbett
    Moral Leaders Demand Coronavirus Relief for Most Vulnerable
    08 Apr 2020
    The relief package “leaves out the majority of homeless, undocumented immigrants, the disabled, and anyone too poor to have to file taxes,” says the Poor Peoples Campaign.
  • Trump Sends Gun boats to Venezuela While the World Partners to Fight a Deadly Pandemic
    Vijay Prashad, Paola Estrada, Ana Maldonado and Zoe PC 
    Trump Sends Gun boats to Venezuela While the World Partners to Fight a Deadly Pandemic
    08 Apr 2020
     The Trump administration has used the fabricated narco-trafficking charges against Maduro and other officials as an excuse to intensify pressure on Venezuela.
  • Public Health? Anyone? Twelve Ways to Avoid Talking About Capitalism
    Philippe Gendrault
    Public Health? Anyone? Twelve Ways to Avoid Talking About Capitalism
    08 Apr 2020
    The failure of the American public health delivery system facing the Covid-19 is a socio-political and ideological failure born from the intrinsic contradictions of contemporary capitalism at large
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us