Mildewed Police Files May Hold Clues to Atrocities in Guatemala

[PatrickHenry]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/21/in...guatemala.html

GUATEMALA CITY, Nov. 20 - The reams and reams of mildewed police documents, tied in messy bundles and stacked from floor to ceiling, look on first sight like a giant trash heap. But human rights investigators are calling it a treasure hidden in plain sight.

In Guatemala, a nation still groping for the whole truth about decades of state-sponsored kidnapping and killing, the documents promise a trove of new evidence for the victims, and perhaps the last best hope for some degree of justice. Last summer, authorities from the Guatemalan human rights ombudsman's office, searching a munitions depot here, discovered what appear to be all the files of the National Police, an agency so inextricably linked to human rights abuses during this country's 36-year civil conflict that it was disbanded as part of the peace accords signed in 1996. At that time, President Álvaro Arzú's government, struggling to usher this country through an uncertain transition from war to peace, denied to a truth commission that police files existed. It now seems clear, human rights investigators say, that Mr. Arzú's government, as well as those that followed, knew about the files all along.

My opinion this will be the most significant find ever in the lengthy and sordid history of political mass murder in Latin America. Much of it was sponsored and advised by good ol' Uncle Sam.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: From the article Everything seems to be there: from traffic tickets, driver's license applications and personnel files, to spy logs and interrogation records. There are hundreds of rolls of film and videos, along with snapshots of unidentified bodies, detainees and informants. Some of the files seem to have gotten slightly more careful treatment and were tossed into file cabinets marked "disappeared," "assassins" and "special cases." There are transcripts of radio communications and stacks of arrest records listing "Communist" as the reason for arrest. Sergio Morales, the head of the ombudsman's office, has previously told Guatemalan reporters that the archive also contains lists of children kidnapped from suspected guerrillas, along with the names of the families who agreed to take them in.

Yikes! One has to wonder about the names that are going to pop up in these documents.

Quote by: From the article Heriberto Cifuentes, a Guatemalan historian who was among the first outsiders to lay eyes on the files, said the fact that the government did not destroy them reflected a simple fact of Guatemalan life. "Impunity reigns in Guatemala," he said. "So whether there are documents or not, people responsible for crimes do not expect to pay for them. They have always enjoyed blanket immunity."

I also find myself wondering how much of this "sensitive information" will make its way into our papers here in the states.

Quote by: Patrick Henry My opinion this will be the most significant find ever in the lengthy and sordid history of political mass murder in Latin America. Much of it was sponsored and advised by good ol' Uncle Sam.

That would be Uncle Ronbo, eh. Amusing, because I actually liked that moniker at the time. Now, its doesn't seem so funny.

[PatrickHenry]

Why do America boosters, most of them Republican, never acknowledge this viciousness promulgated through the School of the Americas, now renamed WHISC? Do they have no conscience and believe that if America does it, it MUST be right, by definition? Or is it just a blind spot for anything that isn't announce on FOXNews?

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: PatrickHenry Why do America boosters, most of them Republican, never acknowledge this viciousness promulgated through the School of the Americas, now renamed WHISC? Do they have no conscience and believe that if America does it, it MUST be right, by definition? Or is it just a blind spot for anything that isn't announce on FOXNews?

Because they are in power now, and you can just ..., ya Liberal Puke. Seriously, I think that is the reason.

[Nono]

Quote by: PH Do they have no conscience and believe that if America does it, it MUST be right, by definition? Or is it just a blind spot for anything that isn't announce on FOXNews?

The latter describes the less knowledgeable among them. And if they happen to stumble into knowledge, the rationalize it à la your first sentence.
After all, what we're talking is emotional need, not cold assessment.

Yes, Guatemala never got the coverage that Nicaragua and El Salvador did. But it was de facto genocide.

[Milton Bradley]

I wonder if they had confused Sandanista's, with Sandanigga's?


Sorry, I had to do it. I am aware that was a poor joke, in poor taste. I hope you can forgive my indiscretion.

[RickSp]

Quote by: PatrickHenry Why do America boosters, most of them Republican, never acknowledge this viciousness promulgated through the School of the Americas, now renamed WHISC? Do they have no conscience and believe that if America does it, it MUST be right, by definition? Or is it just a blind spot for anything that isn't announce on FOXNews?

The "America is only goodness" brigade refuses to acknowledge that the CIA put the Shah of Iran in power and then taught the Savak, the Shah's brutal secret police, how to torture. They ignore or excuse the US support of Saddam when he committed the worst of his crimes. They turn a blind eye to the at least 50,000 or so Iraqi civilians that our military has killed in bring them the "sweetness of liberty". They ignore that the happy post liberation Iraqis often do not have electricity, water or jobs and who for some reason hate our guts.

With all this willfull blindness why should they even bother with an odious footnote like the School of the Americas? After all, the most of the people murdered didn't even speak English. They don't count, right?