Guatemala to Declassify Military Papers

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Guatemala to Declassify Military Papers
8 hours ago

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — A new panel will work to declassify military documents that should shed light on killings, torture and other human rights violations during Guatemala's 36-year civil war, President Alvaro Colom announced Monday.

The documents will likely include details on the role of the military and the presidential guards, both of which have been accused of carrying out atrocities during the war that ended in 1996 and killed some 200,000 people, mostly Mayan Indians.
(snip)

His panel will study which papers should be declassified under a constitutional requirement that government documents be made public automatically unless their release compromises national security.

A spokesman was not immediately available to comment for the military, which has historically kept its documents under lock and key and fought almost all public requests to see them.
(snip)

Army officials have called the report exaggerated and say they took actions that were necessary to fight a guerrilla uprising.



Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5htBUAfvZneXQuLmSelXTGYPYXE4gD8V1M0MG0

[Judi Lynn]

1. Guatemala to open army files to probe war crimes

Guatemala to open army files to probe war crimes
2:45 - 26/02/2008

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemala's new President Alvaro Colom said on Monday he will open army files for the first time to make public details of massacres and torture by soldiers during the country's 36-year civil war.

"We are going to make all of the army's archives public sowe can know the truth, to start building on a foundation oftruth and justice," said Colom, who beat a right-wing formergeneral to take office in January.

Almost a quarter of a million people were killed ordisappeared during the 1960-1996 conflict between leftistguerrillas and the government. Over 80 percent of the murderswere committed by the army, according to a UnitedNations-backed truth commission.
(snip)

Colom said all the information from the military will beturned over to the human rights ombudsman, also in charge ofcleaning and categorizing the thousands of police documentsleft molding in an old warehouse behind a dump for rusted cars.
(snip)

Colom's uncle, Manuel Colom Argueta, a leftist politicianwith presidential ambitions, was killed by the army in 1979 ina well-coordinated ambush.

More:
http://www.eleconomista.es/mundo/noticias/373139/02/08/Guatemala-to-open-army-files-to-probe-war-crimes.html

[subsuelo]

3. Harper's magazine had a piece on it a few months ago

Really good article, with vivid descriptions of where/how/why the documents have been stored all these years.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Would be really interesting

if it went back earlier too.

Documents show CIA had 'hit lists' in Guatemala in 1950s : http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/guatemal.htm

[Peace Patriot]

4. The scale of atrocity in Guatemala is mind-boggling...

So is Reagan's complicity...mind-boggling, in any case, until recycled Reaganites turned their bloody fangs toward Iraq.

I have an anthropologist friend who used to say that ancient peoples who performed human sacrifice were actually more civilized than we are. They sacrificed a few people to propitiate the gods. We sacrifice millions to no gods at all, merely to enrich war profiteers and steal other peoples' resources. In Guatemala, it was to stop lowly peasants from organizing unions, and of course to stop the majority--the poor--from winning elections. But there is nothing much to steal in Guatemala, so it must have been the fear of ideas of majority government and social justice leaking across the border, vaulting Mexico and illegally immigrating into the United States--and spurring a little leftist zeal among our psyopped, TV-drugged citizenry. But it puzzles the mind how skinning parents alive in front of their children, or ripping babes from the wombs of pregnant women, and slaying whole villages of people, could have any purpose other than...oh, I don't know, some giggles at White House 'snuff video' sessions?

It silenced Guatemala for about thirty years, true--and also turned it into a playground for drugs and weapons traffickers--a Bush Cartel paradise--where, in the last election, some fifty candidates for public office or their family members or campaign aides--mostly leftists--were murdered.

I have huge admiration for Colom running for president in these circumstances--especially given his message, which was a poster with two open hands. His rightwing opponent's poster featured a clenched fist. And the issue was whether or not to solve Guatemala's problems by creating a police state to "crack down" on criminals--a solution much favored by the Bush Junta, since it means MORE robbing of U.S. taxpayers for guns and tanks and whatnot--or whether to seek a peaceful, positive solutions to crime by addressing poverty, injustice and corruption. I quite frankly did not expect him to START OFF with an investigation of these past atrocities. Now I am even more admiring. Some of the thugs who committed these horrendous crimes are still running around, due to a flawed "truth and reconciliation" process. And some of their puppetmasters are still in the White House.

But clearly "the times they are a-changin"--throughout South America, and in some areas of Central America. Mexico has the social movement led by Lopez Obrador (who came within a hairsbreadth of winning the presidency not long ago--he lost by only 0.05%, in what is widely considered to be a stolen election, likely assisted by the Bush Junta), and the amazing almost yearlong uprising in Oaxaca, led by the teachers' union (until Calderon entered the controversy on the side of Gov. Ruiz and his paramilitary murderers, kidnappers and torturers). Central America is behind the curve, on democratic and social justice reform, visa vis South America, where leftist (majorityist) governments have been elected in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Nicaragua--probably to be joined this year by Paraguay--but the trend is so overwhelmingly leftist and democratic that social movements in countries like Mexico and Guatemala must surely feel encouraged. Their day will come. Guatemala has a tremendous healing to accomplish. It lost a generation of leadership among the indigenous. If you project the numbers slaughtered, through to today, it must still be having a material effect on elections. There are just a lot fewer people--voters, organizers--among the poor than there should be.

I hope I live to see the day when those who committed those crimes, and those who directed them, are brought to justice. The Bushites and collusive Democrats want us to become oblivious to and callous to horror committed in our name. They want us not to know, or if we find out, to forget--to be so consumed with our own peril, and our personal economic struggles, and so whacked out with "bread and circuses," that we can't absorb it, and, above all, can't do anything about it. The American people have shown amazing resistance to that kind of propaganda--the forgetting kind. I have great faith in them. They may be uninformed, but they are not stupid, and they are not oblivious and callous. We have a higher mountain to climb than others--the mountain of cozy disinformation that has been constructed to keep us from progressing, learning and growing the way we should be and could be.

I was just so appalled to hear Hillary Clinton repeat the "Chavez is a dictator" line of our Freeper DUers, yesterday, I was almost speechless. We have so far to go, when a major Democratic leader can get away with a thing like that, without being laughed off the podium. Sometimes I feel like I've time-warped back to the 1950s and the Joe McCarthy era of a "communist under every bed." How can a supposedly intelligent person say that? It's on the same level as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Negroponte and Bolton. Well, if we can get any kind of honest counts in the remaining primaries, I think the voters are going to hand her her ass, and when they get a good whiff of McCain, they will do the same to him. Then we'll see if Obama means "change," or not.

[subsuelo]

5. Obama made a subtle swipe at Chavez too

it was in the last cnn debate... he was commenting on Latin America, and for the most part I agreed with what he said. But then he said something to the effect of people "like Chavez" end up filling in the holes in the places where we (the US) ignore them. So although he didn't directly attack Chavez, the implication was pretty clear.

edited to add: Great post on the situation in Guatemala and Central America generally. THanks

[Peace Patriot]

6. Thank you for the Obama ref! I seemed to remember something like that, but

I couldn't recall when he said it. If his words can believed--and, really, how can we know, except by a kind of gut instinct?--he will have a far better foreign policy than the Bush Junta, although I resent this situation, in which Obama's big military budgets and "protecting our interests" around the world, which ain't all that different from the "Cold War", is our only choice over Genghis Khan and Genghis Khan's echo chamber. We need REALLY NEW thinking, like a 90% cut in the military budget, down to a true defensive posture (no more wars of choice!). We need a HUGE housecleaning, with many indictments, and creative sentences, like--say Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld (after they give the money back) spend the rest of their lives cleaning bedpans in veterans' hospitals. Like that. Anyway, I don't think Obama would invade Bolivia and Venezuela, and destroy democratic countries, like I know that Rumsfeld is planning to do, and that it is possible that Clinton is planning. Rumsfeld says it upfront: "swift" U.S. action in support of "friends and allies" in South America. And Clinton, in echoing this false "dictator" meme, sounds like she would go right along with it, after Exxon Mobil decimates Venezuela's economy and destabilizes the country.

[MisterP]

7. Pelosi and Nadler too! they rose to Dear Leader's defense in '06,

and we were told to sit down and shut up because this was brilliant triangulation and could only help the Party

[subsuelo]

8. and there remain those who wonder

What people could possibly be talking about when it is stated that there is little difference between Republicans and Democrats

[EFerrari]

9. Not so subtle. He obviously needs to do his homework. n/t

[AlphaCentauri]

12. many prefer to live comfortably numb

when people it's been kill in other countries, if it does not affect our interest we just go into a latent state or we just comfortably numb our selfs to ignore the problems our interest create in those countries.

[Judi Lynn]

10. RIGHTS-GUATEMALA: Genocide Plans May Be Declassified

RIGHTS-GUATEMALA: Genocide Plans May Be Declassified
By Inés Benítez

GUATEMALA CITY, Sep 6 (IPS) - Guatemala’s Constitutional Court must decide whether or not to declassify documents from 1982 and 1983 military operations commanded by then dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt that would shed light on the genocide committed in this Central American country.

"The victims have the right to know the truth, and revealing these documents is a form of reparation," Alejandro Rodríguez, a lawyer with the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR), said Thursday in a public hearing held by the Constitutional Court.
(snip)

"What is a state secret? Killing children, burning down thatch huts? The army wants to wash its hands like Pilates," Ramón Caba, the survivor of a massacre and the chairman of the AJR board of directors, told journalists Thursday.
(snip)

Tiburcio Gutui, 67, will never forget Feb. 16, 1982, the day the army came into his village and killed his father, mother and five brothers and sisters. "First they shot people, then they set everything on fire and took away the animals -- the pigs and chickens," he described to IPS.

Euligia López, whose husband was shot to death, told reporters that "In my community (in the central province of Chimaltenango) alone, they killed 24 women, children and men. We want justice because we were left in utter poverty after the military burnt down our houses."
(snip)

Thursday’s hearing added a new dimension to next Sunday’s general elections, in which Guatemalans will choose a new president, vice president, legislators and mayors.

Ríos Montt, 81, heads the list of parliamentary candidates of the right-wing Guatemalan Republican Front, the main opposition party.

More:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39172

[Judi Lynn]

11. Rep. Congressman Jerry Weller is married to butcher Rios-Montt's daughter

Illinois Republican Jerry Weller is one of the most powerful men in Congress when it comes to Latin America. His wife is the most powerful woman in Guatemala’s controversial FRG party.
By Frank Smyth
August 25, 2006

JERRY WELLER WAS running for his sixth term as congressman from Illinois’ 11th District in July 2004 when he announced that he was engaged to Zury Rios Sosa, an outspoken third-term legislator in Guatemala’s congress and the daughter of former dictator General Efrain Rios Montt. “I am thrilled to have found my best friend and soulmate,” Weller stated in a press release. “Our love knows no boundaries.” In the same release Sosa said, “With Jerry, I am starting an eternal springtime. I admire his character, his commitment to his responsibilities, and his honesty.”

Their mutual admiration notwithstanding, the announcement raised a red flag. Weller, who would be the first congressman ever to marry a member of a foreign national legislature, sat on the International Relations Committee and its western hemisphere subcommittee--would his votes be influenced by Sosa?

In a July 12 editorial the Chicago Sun-Times said, “The problem is the image it conveys to our Latin American neighbors, who are critical enough of our policies without concerns about how a vote might have been influenced by a committee member’s wife.” The following day the Bloomington Pantagraph, the biggest paper in Weller’s district, ran an editorial that said, “Any time an elected U.S. representative privy to confidential information is intimately involved with a central figure in a foreign government--and one whose father has been accused of genocide within that country--there should be concern. . . . There are some boundaries that elected representatives have to draw in the name of U.S. security. We can’t say Weller has crossed that line, but he’s sure tiptoeing down it.”
(snip)

Two years later Weller, who’s 49, and Sosa, who’s 38, are married and just had their first child. Weller is up for reelection in November. Sosa is still a leading member of Guatemala’s single-house, 158-member congress, and until earlier this year she sat on its foreign affairs committee, the counterpart to Weller’s committee. She’s the second most powerful person in her party, the Guatemalan Republican Front, or FRG, which was founded in 1989 by her father and is still led by him. It’s been plagued by accusations of corruption, money laundering, and helping drug traffickers, though no one’s accused her personally of any of those things. In many ways she’s the clean face of her party, having sponsored legislation to protect women and people with AIDS from discrimination and to protect children by regulating the advertising of tobacco and alcohol. She’s also sponsored legislation to curtail the financing of terrorists and to curb smuggling, allowing Guatemalan authorities to seize assets such as trucks, boats, and planes from drug runners.

More:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/jerryweller/

[AlphaCentauri]

13. I'm guessing that there will be not many documents

the past regimes may have destroy a lot of evidence against them.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Guatemalan martyr murdered by 3 Army officers at his home,landmark trial

Juan José Gerardi Conedera
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

~snip~
Between 1980 and 1983 El Quiché saw increased levels of violence in the conflict between the Army and various rebel guerrilla factions. Hundreds of Roman Catholic catechists and heads of Christian communities, most of whom were of Maya origin, were murdered. Gerardi repeatedly asked the military authorities to control their actions.

In 1980, while serving as president of the Guatemalan Conference of Bishops, he spoke out openly about the 31 January 1980 Spanish embassy fire in which 39 people lost their lives and in which government instigation was widely suspected. That same year he was called to the Vatican to attend a synod. Upon returning to Guatemala he was denied entry to the country. He travelled to neighbouring El Salvador, which refused to grant him right of asylum, and he settled temporarily in Costa Rica where he remained until military president Romeo Lucas García was overthrown in 1982.

On 28 August 1984 he was appointed auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Guatemala. In 1988 the Conference of Bishops assigned Gerardi and Rodolfo Quezada Toruño to serve on the National Reconciliation Commission. This later led to creation of the Office of Human Rights of the Archbishopric (Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado, ODHA), which to date provides assistance for the victims of human rights violation. In that context work began on the Recovery of Historical Memory (REMHI) project. On 22 April 1998, REMHI presented the results of its work in the report Guatemala: Nunca más. This report carried statements from thousands of witnesses and victims of repression during the Civil War and placed the blame for the vast majority of the violations on the government and the army. The task of historical recovery that Gerardi and his team pursued was fundamental in the subsequent work of the UN-sponsored Historical Clarification Commission (CEH), set up within the framework of the 1996 peace process.

Two days later, on 24 April 1998, Msgr. Gerardi was bludgeoned to death in front of his home in Guatemala City. His assailants used a concrete slab, disfiguring him to the extent that his face was unrecognisable and identification of the corpse was made by means of his episcopal ring.

On 8 June 2001 three army officers – Col. Byron Disrael Lima Estrada and Capt. Byron Lima Oliva (father and son), and José Obdulio Villanueva – were convicted of his murder and sentenced to 30-year prison terms; a priest, Mario Orantes, whom the court had identified as an accomplice, was sentenced to 20 years. The case was precedent-setting in that it was the first time that members of the military had faced trial before civilian courts. The defendants appealed, and in March 2005 an appeals court lowered the Limas' sentences to 20 years; Orantes' sentence was left unchanged, and Villanueva had been killed in prison before the appeal verdict was reached. These revised prison terms were upheld by the Constitutional Court in April 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Jos%C3%A9_Gerardi





Orbis releases English version of report on Guatemalan atrocities
By Barb Fraze
Catholic News Service


WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Orbis Books has released its English translation of last year's church-produced report documenting atrocities during Guatemala's civil war.

``This book is like a Holocaust Museum for the people of Guatemala,'' said Michael Leach, executive director of Orbis Books. At a Washington press conference Oct. 26, Leach said the book, "Guatemala: Never Again!'' documented ``a war of genocide against the Mayan people.'' The one-volume English translation is taken from four volumes issued by the Archdiocese of Guatemala human rights office's Recovery of the Historical Memory Project.

``We don't expect `Guatemala: Never Again!' to be a best seller,'' Leach told reporters gathered at the Longworth House Office Building. ``It wasn't written by Stephen King, but it's more horrible than anything he could write.'' The book, published in cooperation with the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, was abridged from the original Spanish and addresses the suffering of the population, how repression functioned, the consequences of repression, and demands for the future. It documents more than 400 massacres, thousands of murders, rapes and cases of torture.
(snip)

The former coordinator of the archdiocesan human rights office, the late Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera of Guatemala City, issued the four Spanish volumes of ``Guatemala: Never Again!'' April 24, 1998, two days before he was bludgeoned to death outside his parish home. Two prosecutors and a judge have resigned from the murder case, which remains unresolved. Bishop Gerardi's successor as head of the human rights office, Auxiliary Bishop Mario Enrique Rios Mont of Guatemala City, said the bishop's murder and other crimes will not be solved until there is ``absolute independence for this work'' and ``security for those involved.'' After the press conference, Bishop Rios told Catholic News Service that to resolve the case, Guatemala needed ``independence of the different powers in government.'' He said that with publication of ``Guatemala: Never Again!'' he hoped ``the entire world will become familiar with our reality.'' However, he added that he was ``a little fearful of what will happen'' now that the book has been released in English. ``Every action that we take always has its consequences,'' he said.

www.maryknoll.org/MALL/ORBIS/guanevragn.htm

New book on the murder:

The Art of Political Murder, by Francisco Goldman

Chronicle of a death foretold

Reviewed by Toby Green
Friday, 15 February 2008


Who cares about Guatemala? Here is one of the most violent countries in the Western hemisphere, averaging 4,000 murders a year. Some 200,000 people were slaughtered during the 36-year civil war that followed the CIA-sponsored overthrow of President Arbenz in 1954. The UN report into this genocide declared the military responsible for 93 per cent of these deaths.


Surely, "if Guatemala teaches you anything," as the Guatemalan-American novelist Francisco Goldman notes in this powerful book, "it is never to poeticize or idealize reality". Yet for many the images Guatemala can evoke are of jungle-clad ruins cleansed of the Maya who built them. Tourist fantasies help eviscerate the present in a sanitised, romantic vision of the past.

Goldman's book is a factual account of Guatemala's most shocking political murder in recent years, that of Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera two days after he launched a full accounting of the army's genocide. The murder of a Guatemalan bishop is not usually the sort of subject to set publishers' pulses racing, but in Goldman's masterful hands it defies indifference. Here is an inquiry into political evil, a morality tale which also evokes the struggle between elites and those under them which characterises much of Latin America's recent history.

More:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-art-of-political-murder-by-francisco-goldman-782277.html

[AlphaCentauri]

15. I remember that case the hispanic media at the time were threatened the case like a passioned crime

don't know if the media and their affiliation with the RW was trying to cover up the real reasons for the crime by miss leading the audience.

[Judi Lynn]

16. It appears attempts were made to point in every direction away from the truth.

It's a real shame the media has been controlled by the right-wing in Latin America.

A good look at how the U.S. has manipulated public opinion of governments it intends to overthrow is easy to grasp in knowing what happened in Chile, during the Nixon administration:

Psych.oWar of the Media In Chile under Allende By Claudio Duran (Formerly Vice-Dean of the Polytechnic Institute in Santiago, Chile, and now teaching at York University) From the information that "The New York Times" has been giving since the fall of 1974 concerning the role of the C.I,A. in the overthrow of the late Salva- dor Allende, President of Chile, it is clear which groups received direct or indirect help from that agenc3. The role which some of these groups such as the truck owners played is also clear, But there has been little concerning the role of "El Mercurio" the a i nright wing newspaper. A distorted image of El ilercurio as a democratic force has been presented in several articles in the Times without any attempt of criticism. For example, the Times of September 20, 1974 quoted a C.I.A. official as saying that most of the funds "invested for propaganda purposes went to El Mercurio, the main opposition newspaper in Chile. It was the only serious political force among the news- pnpels and television stations there." It was in fact a subversive force, working for a foreign power for the overthrow of a democratically elected president. Recently the Senate Intelligence Committee reported that "the C.1.A.covertly channeled $11.5million to El Mercurio, the largest daily paper in Chile, to in- sure anti-Allende coverage and to keep the paper solvent. " (The New York Times, December 5, 1975).The report also stated that El Mercurio is published
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 2
by Augustin Edwards a close friend of Donald M.Kendall, president of Pepsi-Cola, Inc,, and said that the committee's assassination account "noted that Mr.Kendall had arranged a breakfast meeting between Mr.Edwards, Mr.Kissinger and the then Attorney General John N.Mitchell." Presumably this meeting would have discussed the kind of help that the C.1.A. could give to the Chilean newspaper. Those attending represent the main powers that organ- ized the resistance against the Allende government: the Government of the U.S, (Mitchell was also a member of the Forty Committee at that time), the C.I,A,, the Multinational Corporations (Edwards had just been appointed Vice-President of Pepsi-Cola) and the Chilean bourgeoisie. However the real role that El Mercurio played is by no means clear. It is the intention of this arti- cle to present some evidence as to that role and to show that the "anti-Allende coverage" was not inno- cent. On the contrary its propaganda campaign was carefully planned by propaganda experts trained in psychoanalytic techniques to increase the paranoia and sense of distress and profound unease amongst the middle class and the military.
(snip)

It appears clear now what the role of "the only serious political force among the newspapers and tele- vision stations" in Chile, really was: terrorism, sub- version and sabotage via psychological warfare.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 6
The question remains, though, as to the extent to which ltpublic opinion" is aware of the power of manipulation by the mass media. What would be the reaction of the Chilean middle class if they knew that El Mercurio was helped by the C.I.A.for the purpose of inducing paranoia? But of course they can't know because the Junta leader, Pinochet, Augustin Edwards, and other right-wing owners have complete control of the media in Chile and don't tell them. This is the much vaunted "free presstf in action, triumphant in the suppression of information that might enlighten people.

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:NH3efj5wQawJ:www.cjc-online.ca/include/getdoc.php%3Fid%3D1954%26article%3D1487%26mode%3Dpdf+CIA+fund+El+Mercurio+Augustin+Edwards&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There's a lot available on El Mercurio and its role in conning the people of Chile in the run-up to the election, during and after the election, during the violent coup, and killing of Allende, and as a constant support to the Nixon-selected U.S. butcher dictator Augusto Pinochet.

You can be sure the ability of U.S. foreign-government-control-obsessed right-wing Presidents has become far easier, slicker in getting the money to opposition media by now.

[AlphaCentauri]

17. lets take a look at hispanic media in the US

There are symptoms that propaganda is been spread in the spanish speaking media.

"Just when we thought a strong, progressive voice had finally made its way on to the Spanish language airwaves in Miami, WQBA and its management decided to blackmail Mayor Martinez, refusing to allow him to continue his radio show unless he promised not to pursue elected office -- a decision he has yet to make.

“This is an outrageous affront to a committed statesman and certainly smells foul of a station who, along with the administration of Univision Radio, has shown no desire to censure the cacophony of Republican voices on its airwaves.”

Makes me wonder what Martinez, the former mayor of Hialeah, said on the radio. He got the hook after only a week on WQBA 1140 AM. They knew before hiring him for the one-hour daily gig that he might run for Congress against Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21).

Chairman Garcia went on with his statement:

“Perhaps WQBA's decision is tied to the hundreds of thousands of dollars poured suspiciously into its parent company and sister stations by GOP lawmakers in the federal government for the purpose of airing Radio and TV Marti propaganda.

“Further disheartening is the fact that the Democratic Party worked together so successfully with Univision to host the groundbreaking Spanish language forum with our Presidential candidates a week ago. Of course, Republicans continue to refuse this invitation to speak with the Hispanic community.

http://miami-dade-dems.blogspot.com/2007/09/fox-would-call-this-fair-and-balanced.html

Miami Broadcasts Radio and TV Martí Programming
Published: December 25, 2006

News and informational programming from Radio Martí will air on Univision Radio's WAQI-AM 710 "Radio Mambí" in Miami. Azteca América affiliate WPMF-Channel 38 will air 30-minute newscasts and hourly updates aimed at Cuban viewers.

http://www.hispanicmarketweekly.com/article.cms?id=9084

[Judi Lynn]

18. Oh, jeez! Had no idea they had tried to force the Democratic opponent of Lincoln Diaz-Balart to make

a choice between keeping his job, and giving up the campaign against the idiot, rabid right-winger. Not at all abnormal in that place, however, is it? At least no one has bombed him, yet, knock on wood.

I had NO IDEA that Radio Mambi is a Univision-owned station. Well, it certainly figures! Gustavo Cisneros, the major share-holder in Univision is one of the coup plotters, and THE mega media owner in Venezuela, and most surely the close fishing buddy of _{George H. W. Bush.} Within a week after the coup, Cisneros and _{Bush #41} were meeting for a vacation at the resort owned by Cuban sugar barons, Alfie and Pepe Fanjul, in the Dominican Republic. Probably plotting the next aggression, of course!

Anything aired by Univision will have that stamp, the old right-wing, Republican, Latin American oligarchy spinaroony which in no way resembles reality. You have to hope that at least some of the listeners have a hunch there's something screwy about these creeps.

More on Cisneros:

RICHARD GOTT
VENEZUELA’S MURDOCH
With a fortune of more than $4 billion, Gustavo Cisneros likes to promote the notion of himself as the wealthiest man in Latin America and the most powerful media baron of the continent, a Latino equivalent to Murdoch or Berlusconi. Since 1961 the Organización Cisneros has owned Venevisión, the main commercial tv channel in Venezuela—best known abroad for its rabid opposition to Chávez during the 2002 coup, and ceaseless denunciation of his supporters as ‘mobs’ and ‘monkeys’. From the 1980s he has extended his empire across Latin America to include Chile’s Chilevisión and Colombia’s Caracol tv, with a major stake in DirecTV Latin America, whose satellite beams a diet of sport, game-shows, telenovelas and predigested news to twenty Latin American countries. He also has a lucrative share in Univisión, the main Spanish-language channel for the United States, and a joint Latin American internet connection venture with aol-TimeWarner.

Like many wealthy Latin Americans, Cisneros is a chameleon when it comes to nationality. Nominally a Venezuelan—he was born in Caracas in 1945, to an entrepreneurial Cuban father and Venezuelan mother—he was educated and served his media apprenticeship in the us. But he is also a citizen of Spain, at the personal request of King Juan Carlos; an American in New York, a Cuban in Miami, and a Dominican in the Dominican Republic, where his pricipal base—the Casa Bonita, close to the La Ramona beach resort—is within a golfer’s swing of the retreats of other billionaires of Cuban extraction, grown rich on the profits of sugar, rum and real estate. Cisneros’s cosmopolitan lifestyle allows him to escape the limited horizons of a Latin American country that traditionally plays in a minor league. A Venezuelan, according to a long-standing and disrespectful Latin American joke, is a Panamanian who thinks he is an Argentinian. Like so many rich Spanish Americans, Cisneros has always found his own country too small for his talents and too insecure for his accumulated fortune. As one of the shadowy figures providing American capitalism with local muscle outside the United States, he is a striking illustration of why there is no national bourgeoisie in Venezuela. Cisneros is bound hand and foot to the empire, and has been handsomely repaid.

http://newleftreview.org/A2622

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~snip~
Within Venezuela’s volatile political environment, the role of the media has often proved critical and Chávez’s relations with the established networks have been turbulent since the 1998 election. Venezuela’s main TV stations were owned by powerful billionaire businessmen such as Gustavo Cisneros. The Cisneros Group includes Univisión Communications and Venevisión. Cisneros, whose net worth in 2003 was estimated at $4 billion, personally sits on the board of Univisión. The media magnate counts among his friends former U.S. President George H.W. Bush. What is more, according to Venezuelan human rights lawyer Eva Golinger, the links between the U.S. government and Venezuelan media go far beyond mere personal friendships. She explained that the U.S. government-funded National Endowment for Democracy and US AID have provided several millions of dollars to private media outlets in Venezuela to help finance their anti-Chávez campaign.

http://www.coha.org/2005/04/28/chavez-launches-hemispheric-%E2%80%9Canti-hegemonic%E2%80%9D-media-campaign-in-response-to-local-tv-networks-anti-government-bias/

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~snip~
But, other members of the Bush family also have important ties to Venezuela. After the failed coup d'etat against Chavez, television magnate and Bush Sr. friend Gustavo Cisneros was implicated as one of the principal proponents of the coup.

Cisneros publicly denied his role in the coup, but the magazine Newsweek noted that Pedro Carmona "was seen leaving Cisneros' office" before going to the Government Palace to swear in as provisional president.

According to Newsweek, Venezuelan legislator Pedro Pablo Alcantara said that the brief Carmona dictatorship was organized in Cisneros' offices, and that Cisneros was the "supreme commander" of the operation.

* Newsweek also said that Otto Reich had spoken with Cisneros "two or three times" during the events of the coup.

One of the calls was made by Cisneros to warn Reich on April 13 that a crowd of angry Chavez supporters had surrounded the building housing his TV station, Venevision.

According to Venezuelan sources, on April 11, 2002, when a confrontation took place between Chavez supporters and opponents resulting in 25 deaths, most of them Chavez supporters, Pedro Carmona wasn't in the streets. Rather, he was comfortably installed in Venevision's bunker, together with Episcopal Conference President Baltazar Porras, journalistic businessman Rafael Poleo, and other figures.

Billionaire Gustavo CisnerosTherefore, it's not strange that Cisneros has been identified as Bush Jr.'s prospect to confront Hugo Chavez in future presidential elections, which could take place earlier than scheduled if the opposition wins the US-supported presidential recall referendum.

57-year-old Gustavo Cisneros Rendiles has a fortune of around US$5 billion, one of the largest in Latin America, after Mexican Carlos Slim. Cisneros occupies the 94th position on the list of the 500 richest men in the world, according to Forbes magazine.

Of Cuban origin, Cisneros is the majority shareholder in Univision, the largest Spanish language TV chain in the United States, and he possesses channels with vast audiences in other countries, such as Venevision in Venezuela, ChileVision, Caracol Television of Colombia, and Caribbean Communications Network. He also owns the bottler Panamco, and is a major shareholder in Coca Cola.

Cisneros, together with his wife Patricia Phelps, were often on the White House guest list of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. The friendly relationship between Cisneros and Bush Sr. also seems to encompass privatizing the state-owned PDVSA, putting it on Bush Sr.'s list of Texas businesses.

Gustavo Cisneros goes on fishing excursions in Venezuela as well as Florida with his friend George Bush, demonstrating that capital has neither scruples nor ideology. Cisneros also cultivated relationships in the Clinton administration through former Carter administration Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.

Cisneros belongs to the Americas Society, a non-profit organization chaired by David Rockefeller, whose mission is to "provide members strategic advantages for doing business in a region that offers enormous opportunities, but also considerable risks."

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/venezuela/2181.html



Gustavo Cisneros and his American fishing buddy.

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Also, thanks for revealing it's Radio Mambi carrying that propaganda from Radio/TV Marti. At one time that kind of crap was considered TOTALLY ILLEGAL in the U.S.: could NOT air it domestically. How the hell did they pervert the law for their own benefit? There's a big story in there.

[Judi Lynn]

19. Guatemala to open genocide archives

Guatemala to open genocide archives
Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Sun, 03/02/2008 - 04:58.

Guatemala's President Alvaro Colom has ordered the release of military archives from the country's brutal 1962-1996 civil war. "We are going to make public all military archives...so the truth can be known, and so that once and for all we can build on truth and justice," Colom said. The move was praised by victims' survivors, who had urged the move to help determine the whereabouts of killed or "disappeared" kin. The documents will be reviewed by a panel to decide which should be declassified under a constitutional requirement that state material be made public unless release would compromise national security.

Some 80 to 90 percent of the killings committed during the war were carried out by the army and security forces, a UN-backed truth commission found. Many of the victims were indigenous Maya. Colom himself lost his uncle, politician Manuel Colom Argueta, in a 1979 army ambush. However, the truth commission, which compiled thousands of interviews with victims, did not have access to the military files and named no army officials. Lawyers for the army have attempted to block release of the archives. (AlJazeera, Feb. 26)

German Chupina, a former Guatemalan police director wanted in Spain for crimes against humanity, died Feb. 17 at the age of 86. His father, police director from 1978 to 1982, was arrested in November 2006 after Guatemalan Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchú levied charges of genocide, torture and state terror in a Spanish court against him and seven other ex-military and ex-government officials. Human rights groups said Chupina was behind a 1980 fire at the protester-occupied Spanish embassy that killed more than 30 people, including Menchú's father. After his arrest TK, Chupina was held for more than a year at a medical clinic. He was released after Guatemala's constitutional court ruled in December that Spain had no jurisdiction in the case. (AP, Feb. 17)

Guatemala has established a National Reparations Program (PNR) to indemnify victims and survivors of the armed conflict, as recommended by the truth commission. But Raúl Nágera of the National Union of Communities for Integral Human Rights (UNACODI) protests that the PNR's budget has been administered by other agencies, and "reparations for the victims have not been made." (IPS, Feb. 25)

More:
http://ww4report.com/node/5186