 Kauaiguy says: Among the witnesses was Jesus Tecú Osorio, survivor of the Río Negro massacre and winner of the Reebok Human Rights Award. Tecú was a child when the military began attacking the communities of Rabinal with increasing intensity during 1981 and into 1982. He was ten years old when he watched the Army and civil patrols (PAC) enter his village of Río Negro on March 13, 1982, and carry out the massacre that left 70 woman and 107 children dead, including his own mother and infant brother. Along with the survivors, journalist Allan Nairn provided expert testimony to the judge, citing interviews with military officers in the Quiché in 1982, in which they confirmed the Army’s adherence to the military chain of command during counterinsurgency sweeps aimed at annihilating the Maya. During his testimony, Nairn argued that civilian politicians and military officials in the United States also shared responsibility for the genocide, having aided the Guatemalan armed forces for decades. Spain has a strong national interest in the atrocities carried out during the Guatemalan civil war. In 1980, after peasant protestors occupied the Spanish Embassy, Guatemalan security forces stormed the Embassy grounds and set the building ablaze, leaving 39 people dead. Furthermore, Spanish priests and their catechists serving in Guatemala during the conflict were targeted by the Army and many were assassinated. The Spanish Constitutional Court also upholds the right to prosecute based on the principal of “universal jurisdiction,” noting that individuals accused of grave human rights crimes can be prosecuted in foreign courts if their home country is unwilling or unable to prosecute. The Gu... Bravo. 1954, it was, when the CIA took down the government of the freely-elected President of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz, and installed a successor. One wonders how the history of the region might have been different if the USA had not snuffed out democracy. The transformations that have taken place over the last 15 to 20 years in Latin America are astounding. During the 70's and 80' most of these societies were torture states run by dictators financed by corporate America and its patsy the United States Government. I read book after book of the atrocities which beset the everyday lives of Latin Americans while nearly throwing up in disgust over an American media that reported nothing. Thousands of people went missing, murdered, imprisoned, tortured. It wasn't until four nuns were raped in El Salvador that the media felt it had something sensational enough to print. Then Reagan got elected and things went from bad to worse. A few podcast (if you have the time, you can also download them at iTunes) on the subject: Empire by Proxy Sic Transit Gloria Mundi Americana First Global Insurgency |
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