The conviction of Rios Montt for genocide in Guatemala during his short rule (1982-1983) has brought that episode back into the news. The death toll during the Guatemalan civil war was estimated at 200,000 by a UN commission, with the overwhelming majority of these casualties (93 percent) committed by the army, though only a portion during the reign of Rios Montt. The record is one of mass slaughter, mass rape, and possibly the worst human rights violation in the Western Hemisphere in the last 50 years.
As anyone who followed human rights issues back then knows, the Reagan Administration supported the Guatemalan regime, with Reagan personally defending the dictator, claiming that he had “great personal integrity and commitment.” Elliott Abrams also claimed that the human rights situation was improving–precisely when it was at its worst.
The Guatemalan regime had many supporters–the Reagan Administration, the Christian Right, and several other countries, including Israel, Taiwan, and the fascist regimes in Argentina and Chile (see the NYT).
Politics makes strange bedfellows: the Argentinian regime was notoriously anti-semitic, and yet Israel and Argentina both played a role in supporting the murderous rightwing forces in Central America. Israel supported Somoza* and the contras, and notably, the Guatemalan military.
The history here seems to support the notion that during the Cold War Israel did serve as a “useful” ally to the US, if one considers military aid to some of our most murderous allies “useful”.
*For Somoza: (“Our Own Backyard: The US in Central America, 1977-1992 ” by William LeoGrande, page 24)
i had previously linked to a great article by cheryl rubenberg of the middle east research and information project detailing israel’s military role in guatamala and the genocide there.
http://www.merip.org/mer/mer140/israel-guatemala
central america has been one of the sites for neoliberal laboratories for social and economic innovation. see also honduras, with its recently aborted experiment in the 21st century ‘company town’, rationalized of course with high-tech, entreprenurial mumbo jumbo.
http://www.cryptogon.com/?p=31166
This is all par for the course for Zionists. They fought tooth and nail for the world to agree that only Jews really suffered during WWII, irrespective of all the other victims of Nazism, denied the Armenian Genocide (until they got upset with Turkey) and supported South Africa’s oppression of the native majority.
To a Zionist it can’t be genocide if the victims aren’t Jewish.
To a Zionist it can’t be a crime unless the victim’s Jewish.
To a Zionist there’s no such thing as a Crime Against Humanity, just Crimes Against Jews.
And that includes the “Liberal” Zionists.
Now I wonder if Guatemalan’s start kidnapping Israelis involved in these heinous acts and putting them on trial – how will the Zionists respond. Cries of anti-semitism no doubt.
Israel sold plenty of arms to the “notoriously anti-Semitic” Argentinian junta. The Zionists don’t really care about anti-Semitism, and don’t even pretend to except when they can use it as a political tool. Remember that Israel owes its existence to the aid it received from another “notorious anti-Semite” — Stalin.
ISRAEL SAID TO AID LATIN AIMS OF U.S.
By PHILIP TAUBMAN, Special to the New York Times (The New York Times); Foreign Desk
July 21, 1983, Thursday
Late City Final Edition, Section A, Page 1, Column 2, 856 words
[ DISPLAYING ABSTRACT ]
Israel, at the request of the United States, is sending weapons captured from the Palestine Liberation Organization to Honduras for eventual use by Nicaraguan rebels, according to senior Reagan Administration officials. The arms shipments, which began recently, include artillery pieces, mortar rounds, mines, hand grenades and ammunition. They are part of an enlarged Israeli role in Central America that was encouraged by the United States as a way of supplementing American military aid to friendly governments and supporting insurgent operations against the Nicaraguan Government, the officials said. Israel’s coordination with the Americans marks a departure from its previous activities in Central America as an independent supplier of arms. The new role brings Israel closer to acting as a surrogate for the United States.’’
Hum….I know the US part but I’am not getting the point or import of the NYT article above except it appears to push the idea that faithful ally Isr was being the US errand boy and it was‘donating” weapons captured from those nasty PLO boys to the CIA cause…LOL. We already know that Isr was involved in the hairbrain US scheme to arm the Contras cause US thought the Sandinistas were communist……what ended in the illegal and covert Iran Contra scandal starring Elliot Abrams and Oliver North. There is hardly a US operation of this type (meddling) that when you go thru it, beginning to end, doesn’t look like a bunch of teenage boys out of school for the summer who came up with a ‘super project’ to entertain themselves and ended up setting fire to several houses in the neighborhood.
http://www.historycommons.org/searchResults.jsp?searchtext=Iran+Contra&events=on&entities=on&articles=on&topics=on&timelines=on&projects=on&titles=on&descriptions=on&dosearch=on&search=Go
Tags: Iran-Contra Affair
Late 1984: Neoconservative Lands Position at NSC, Suggests Israel Might Help Free US Hostages
Neoconservative academic Michael Ledeen, who left the Defense Department under suspicion of engaging in espionage on behalf of Israel (see 1983), gains a position at the National Security Council. His boss is Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North (see July 7-10, 1987 and May-June, 1989). According to Iran-Contra investigators, it is Ledeen who suggests to North “that Israeli contacts might be useful in obtaining release of the US hostages in Lebanon” (see November 4, 1979-January 20, 1981). Ledeen is granted high-level security clearance.
Trip down lran Contra memory lane:
Nicaragua 1982
Beginning in the early 1980s, the Reagan administration gave arms, money, and equipment to the Contras. The CIA gave $50,000 to training and arming the Contras in 1981. The CIA took out operations of their own: in 1982, a CIA trained team blew up two bridges in Nicaragua. The United States saw the Sandinistas as Communists, and felt the need to stop them. The United States’ Congress viewed the Reagan Administration’s anti-Sandinista policies with extreme skepticism. Their efforts resulted in passage of an amendment in late 1982 introduced by Representative Edward P. Boland to the Fiscal Year 1983 Defense Appropriations bill. This first of a series of Boland Amendments prohibited the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the principal conduit of covert American support to the Contras, from spending any money “for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua.”[1]
The majority report stated, ” The Central Intelligence Agency was the U.S. Government agency that assisted the contras. In accordance with Presidential decisions, known as findings, and with funds appropriated by Congress, the C.I.A. armed, clothed, fed and supervised the contras. Despite this assistance, the contras failed to win widespread popular support of military victories within Nicaragua.” After the Boland Amendments were passed, however, CIA no longer supported the contras.[2]
Nicaragua 1984
Reagan’s posture towards the Sandinista government was highly controversial. His Administration definitely circumvented the Boland Amendment, although it is not clear what he personally knew and ordered, and what was done in his name by White House staff and the then-DCI, William Casey.
A number of actions were taken by National Security Council staff, actions that the Boland Amendments had forbidden to the CIA. While the CIA, as an organization, was not allowed to act in this manner, Director of Central Intelligence William Casey took part in White House/NSC discussions and actions to follow the Reagan policy.
The NSC staff’s efforts to assist the contras in the wake of Congress’s withdrawal of funding took many forms. Initially it meant extending its earlier initiative to increase third-country contributions to the contras. Casey and McFarlane broached the subject of such funding at a June 25, 1984, meeting of the National Security Planning Group (NSPG), consisting of the President, Vice President Bush, Casey, (National Security Advisor) Robert McFarlane, Secretary of State George Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Vessey, and presidential adviser Edwin Meese III. Shultz warned that any approach to a third country could be viewed as an “impeachable offense”, and convinced the group that it needed a legal opinion from Attorney General William French Smith. McFarlane agreed and told the group not to approach any foreign country until the opinion was delivered. McFarlane said nothing about what he already had obtained from the Saudis.
Questions arose as to the propriety of certain actions taken by the National Security Council staff and the manner in which the decision to transfer arms to Iran had been made. Congress was never informed. A variety of intermediaries, both private and governmental, some with motives open to question, had central roles. The N.S.C. staff rather than the C.I.A. seemed to be running the operation. The President appeared to be unaware of key elements of the operation. The controversy threatened a crisis of confidence in the manner in which national security decisions are made and the role played by the N.S.C. staff.
As a supplement to the normal N.S.C. process, the Reagan Administration adopted comprehensive procedures for covert actions. These are contained in a classified document, NSDD-159, establishing the process for deciding, implementing, monitoring, and reviewing covert activities.[3]
After the Boland Amendment was enacted, it became illegal under U.S. law to fund the Contras; National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, Deputy National Security Adviser Admiral John Poindexter, National Security Council staffer Col. Oliver North and others continued an illegal operation to fund the Contras, leading to the Iran-Contra scandal. At that point, members of the National Security Council staff continued covert operations forbidden to the CIA.’’
Gen. Videla, head of the Argentinian junta, just died in jail. His obituary is in today’s Washington Post.