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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNew Documents Show Reagan Gave Go-Ahead To Mayan Genocide
New Documents Show Reagan Gave Go-Ahead To Mayan Genocide
By Susie Madrak
Robert Parry on a newly-released document that spells out how President Ronald Reagan promoted genocide in Central America:
Soon after taking office in 1981, President Ronald Reagans national security team agreed to supply military aid to the brutal right-wing regime in Guatemala to pursue the goal of exterminating not only Marxist guerrillas but their civilian support mechanisms, according to a newly disclosed document from the National Archives.
Recently discovered documents at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, also reveal that Reagans White House was reaching out to Israel in a scheme to circumvent congressional restrictions on military equipment for the Guatemalan military.
In 1983, national security aide Oliver North (who later became a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal) reported in a memo that Reagans Deputy National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane (another key Iran-Contra figure) was approaching Israel over how to deliver 10 UH-1H helicopters to Guatemala to give the army greater mobility in its counterinsurgency war.
According to these documents that I found at the Reagan library and other records declassified in the late 1990s its also clear that Reagan and his administration were well aware of the butchery underway in Guatemala and elsewhere in Central America.
..................
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/02/21/how-reagan-promoted-genocide/
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Maybe a quarter million killed in Guatemala.
About 75,000 killed in the Salvadoran civil war.
About 75,000 killed trying to overthrow the Sandinistas.
Hundreds, if not thousands, killed in Honduras, which became our aircraft carrier for the Contra War.
I saw frightened young men dragged off buses in Guatemala. I saw handcuffed bodies in the streets with bullet wounds in their heads in San Salvador. I saw burned out villages in Nicaragua. US funds were paying for all of it.
Oh, and those scary Salvadoran gangs like Salva Maratrucha? Another gift from Reagan. These guys or their parents fled the violence in El Salvador, went to the US, learned how to be gang-bangers, and now have a nifty little international network.
OldDem2012
(3,526 posts)....whose area of expertise in the was Central America, South America, and the Caribbean Basin.
Poppy was the REAL decision-maker in the Reagan Administration, make no mistake about it.
Myrina
(12,296 posts)Ronnie was a nasty old fuck, but Poppy Bush and his mini-me Darth Cheney are Satan incarnate (if such a thing could exist).
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)DCKit
(18,541 posts)The S.O. is from El Salvador. I laugh at those who speak of "illegal immigration" out one side of their mouths, and laud Raygun out the other.
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)so they don't count. we're supposed to be killing them. it's what Uhhhhmerica does best.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)And that evil fuck Elliot Abrams, he's now doing penitence as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
They should have both gone before the Hague.
There is a Salvadoran general on trial in Miami now, I think. Thirty-five years later.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)I am afraid it will make them like Reagan even more.
Blanks
(4,835 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)He has fled the country after his brother and sister were killed and worked with us as a illegal laborer who we hired as a carpenter''s helper.
The Rat in an iron Box, heated with a blowtorch on someone's stomach who is tied down.
I know this torture out dates
any movie until the late 90s. He hadn't seen many movies anyway as being a Mayan peasant.
The story effected us all at the time.... and this was the time of Reagan's early term.
ck4829
(35,091 posts)Rios Montt truly believes that he was hunting 'demons' when he was murdering Mayans.
frylock
(34,825 posts)dine on some charbroiled nuns
try a medal on
smile at the mirror as the cameras click
and make big business happy
Berlum
(7,044 posts)done by Republicans acting OCCULTLY, as usual, and against the express will of the citizens of the United States of America.
benld74
(9,909 posts)robbob
(3,538 posts)In Americas long and brutal campaign of violence and terror against 3rd world nations. How many proud citizens of the USA even KNOW about these things?
God Bless America....
hue
(4,949 posts)nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)malaise
(269,157 posts)LOL
You see the US has been killing people at will (including Americans) long before drones. There's nothing new here.
drm604
(16,230 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)Overthrowing the democratically elected government of Arbenz in 1954 was their first Big Event after overthrowing the democratically elected government in Iran for BP in 1953. Glorious Freedom!
Ah. Freedom. Who doesn't believe they wouldn't use the same, eh, tactics in the Homeland?
G_j
(40,370 posts)same old, same old "manifest destiny" of the chosen, which certainly cowboy Ronnie could relate to.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)If we knew, maybe we could stop it?
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)our antidemocratic actions in the destruction
of Venezuela democracy.
BainsBane
(53,066 posts)since the 1990s. I wouldn't be surprised in the US wasn't up to nefarious activities in the region, but they need different allies now.
The National Security Archive is a great source for information, both primary documents and analysis: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
bvar22
(39,909 posts)[quote][size=large]"The worst enemy of humanity is U.S. capitalism. That is what provokes uprisings like our own, a rebellion against a system, against a neoliberal model, which is the representation of a savage capitalism. If the entire world doesn't acknowledge this reality, that nation states are not providing even minimally for health, education and nourishment, then each day the most fundamental human rights are being violated."[/size]
----Bolivian Reform President Evo Morales
[/quote]
The above statement by Morales is not so very different
than FDR's Economic Bill of Rights in 1944 where he stated much the same thing.
Arctic Dave
(13,812 posts)That's where all the new money is.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)...North Africa is WIDE OPEN for some Good Old American Disaster Capitalism!!!
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD27Ak01.html
BainsBane
(53,066 posts)and spanned many administrations, Democratic and Republican alike. Reagan waged relentless war on Central America, but American hands were blood-stained long before he came to office.
Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)Is that by the time Reagan came along, the American people were become (a little) more enlightened on the subject. A lot of cultural evolution went on in this country between 1954 and 1984.
Sadly, it seems our evolutionary transmission is stuck in neutral these days.
BainsBane
(53,066 posts)who sought to overthrow the govt of Nicaragua was banned by Congress, so the Reagan administration found ways around the ban through Iran-Contra. Aid to the Guatemalan military was linked to "human rights," something Carter has imposed. I would need to look up how exactly that affected aid to the military government and for which years.
indepat
(20,899 posts)This episode is but one of a gaggle of incidents in which the Gipper showed himself being one swell fella as president.
formercia
(18,479 posts)He was the real driving force behind the War in Central America.
St. Ronnie just signed off on it.
Don't allow Poppy to be Rehabilitated by putting the blame on Ronnie.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)Thanks for posting.