1954 CIA Coup in Guatemala Effects Still Being Felt Today
1954 CIA Coup in Guatemala Effects Still Being Felt Today
By: Grahame Russell
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Mexican painter Diego Rivera’s mural “Glorious Victory” indicts the 1954 U.S. coup in Guatemala. | Photo: Diego Rivera
Published 27 June 2016
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June 27 marks the anniversary of the 1954 CIA coup that toppled Guatemala's only democratic government, resulting in decades of conflict and genocide.
What a dismal anniversary. So much death and destruction to lament. And so much ongoing death and destruction linked to the 1954 coup.
Over the years, a friend and colleague has asked a number of times: “When reporting on human rights violations in Guatemala, when will you [and Rights Action] stop talking about the 1954 military coup? That was decades ago.”
This is like asking when will First Nation peoples in Canada stop talking about the historical and on-going impacts of colonialism, genocide and ethnocide? Or when will African-Americans stop talking about hundreds of years of slavery as part of the foundation on which the U.S. was built, and about on-going racism and race-based economic exploitation and disparity deriving from that history?
Guatemala today is characterized by endemic economic exploitation and disparity, racism, state and private sector repression, generalized violence, corruption and impunity. The U.S.-driven “war on drugs” has, over the past 15 years, made all of this worse.
More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/1954-CIA-Coup-in-Guatemala-Effects-Still-Being-Felt-Today-20160626-0026.html
