Activists on trial PHOTO: SOA Watch
This week demonstrated, if ever it was necessary, that justice is a relative concept. While the international press widely covered Rios Montt's exoneration for organising violent protests in Guatemala, the prison convictions for 32 peaceful protestors against the U.S.-based School of the Americas (SOA) received very little coverage internationally. Certainly nothing in the UK, apart from a website called Ekklesia which would probably agree it still has a way to go before becoming a part of mainstream UK media.
It's ironic that both these contradictory judgements were passed within hours of each other (30-01-06). It speaks volumes about modern 'justice' systems that an ex-dictator Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, himself a graduate from the School of the Americas was cleared in Guatemala for his part in violent protests, while in the U.S. campaigners (some over 80 years old) were condemned to up to 6 months in prison for their part in a peaceful protest - trespassing in Fort Benning, Georgia, the home of SOA in the U.S.
SOA, (in 2001 renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) officially a combat training school for Latin American military soldiers, has been dubbed by critics as the "school of assassins" and the "school of coups". It has provided, over 59 years, instruction in counterinsurgency strategies and tactics, psychological warfare, torture and assassination for over 60,000 soldiers including Rios Montt and six members of his military junta while Guatemalan dictator in 1982-3.
In a further twist to these seemingly contradictory expressions of justice across the American continent, U.S. Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, likened Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Adolf Hitler.
"I mean, we've got Chavez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money," Rumsfeld added. "He's a person who was elected legally - just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally - and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales and others."
But perhaps this lack of enthusiasm for democracy and peaceful protest is not new on the part of the U.S. After all, almost 25 years ago in Dec. 4, 1982, after meeting with Rios Montt as Guatemala's dictator, as he then was, President Reagan hailed the general as "totally dedicated to democracy." Reagan declared that Rios Montt's government had been "getting a bum rap." Although declassified CIA documents now in the US National Archive, show that the U.S. Government knew Rios Montt was 'wavering in his support for democracy'.
Rumsfeld was, of course, a leading member of Defence during this period in the Reagan Administration. In fact, in 1983 Rumsfeld met up with that other guy totally dedicated to democracy and getting a bum rap- Saddam Hussein- and we know how that tale of American justice ended up.
In other news
Other news from Guatemala, to be covered by the UK media was a story of a new television reality show for reformed gang members financed by USAID which appeared in the Guardian.
While the BBC went with the story about the controversial family planning bill in the Guatemalan Congress: "Family Planning Row in Guatemala".
There was also a story in Reuters' AlertNet about a top U.S. military commander, Gen. Bantz Craddock's visit to Guatemala. The head of U.S. Southern Command was said to be "startled" by the level of the drug trade in the north of Guatemala. According to the article, the U.S. government estimates some 75 percent of cocaine bound for the United States is smuggled through Guatemala. In his speech (hilariously in block capitals- did he shout?) the U.S. General plucks two examples of great 'security' work on drugs from Latin America which just happen to be Colombia and Guatemala. Is this a sign of the U.S. military intending to start flexing muscles in Guatemala in 'Uribe-Colombia' style?
