US and Guatemala relations:
Guatemala is a country located in Central-South America. Throughout its recent history, it has been controlled by a series of military dictators, all beginning with the coup d’etat in 1954 that brought Carlos Castillo Armas into power. This coup d’etat that brought a seemingly democratic ruler into power was, in fact, backed by the United States.
Throughout this time period, the United States was responsible for backing many coups in various governments. One of the larger instances of this policy was in South Vietnam, where they backed Diem’s government. However, what they failed to realize was that while Diem was in fact an ally of democracy, he was not an ally of his people. This inability to chose the correct leader for the people of that region was a prevalent trait of the American system. This same incident was seen when the United States backed the leadership of Castillo. One of the many ways that he disassembled the balance of power in Guatemala and created a dictatorial society was through the illegalization of illiterate voting. This got rid of half of the vote in the country, and he soon found ways to control the rest the voting population. The irony in this is the fact that the United States, mainly the CIA had backed this operation because of his seemingly heavily democratic influence and appreciation, and yet he quickly turned Guatemala into a dictatorial state. Moreover, he created a law that illegalized any leftism in the government, and passed the Preventative Penal Law Against Communism, which “heavily” increased punishment against any communist movements, such as labor unions or actually giving peasants land to work. This created a huge amount of poverty in Guatemala, but was actually also backed by the CIA.
Nowadays there is still tension in Guatemala - Us relations, and it obvious why. The lack of attention to the treatment of citizens in favor of a seemingly US loving satellite was the risk that the United States took with many countries. Sadly, in almost all of them this led to destruction of government and increased poverty and unemployment.
Another example of where the United States went wrong in trying to promote the spread of democracy was in the CIA-established School of the Americas. The School of the Americas trained thousands of Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence, and interrogation techniques. Some of the graduates went on to be involved in Latin America's most notorious dictatorships.
ReplyDeleteSources:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-timeline-of-cia-atrocities/5348804
http://www.soaw.org/about-the-soawhinsec/what-is-the-soawhinsec
You mentioned that the government attempted to silence any leftist groups; in fact, there was a massive genocide of the indigenous Maya as a result of this. The Maya had been protesting against the government's refusal to include their culture and language, and they were accused of supporting the guerrilla movement. Unfortunately, the conflict went on for 36 years until it was finally resolved in 1996.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.hmh.org/la_Genocide_Guatemala.shtml