Guatemalan Police Files May Reveal Secrets

[Judi Lynn]

Guatemalan Police Files May Reveal Secrets

By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA
Associated Press Writer

March 1, 2006, 3:09 PM EST

GUATEMALA CITY -- Technicians using soft-bristle brushes are working to preserve documents that could contain evidence of government involvement in the torture and disappearance of thousands of Guatemalans during the country's 36-year civil war.

But millions of other pages remain vulnerable to mold, rain, fire, vermin and sabotage in a leaky, humid police warehouse where they were discovered eight months ago. The Guatemalan human rights ombudsman's office doesn't have enough money, people or technology to examine what secrets they contain.

"There could be evidence of human rights violations, but we might never find out if the files decay or are destroyed," said Carla Villagran, director of analysis for the national human rights ombudsman, which stumbled upon the towering stacks of mildewing documents last June.

On Thursday, the rights activists plan to release findings of how Guatemalan police gave and followed orders -- essential background for understanding the documents. Villagran's office also will provide a progress report on efforts to preserve the documents, details of which were provided to The Associated Press.

At least 48 million pages remain haphazardly piled to the ceiling across five rooms in a decrepit, two-story warehouse at the edge of a semi-abandoned police complex filled with junked cars in a crowded Guatemala City neighborhood.
(snip/...)

http://www.trivia-library.com/a/assassination-attempts-dan-a-mitrione-government-agent-part-1.htm



Tiny view of the Guatemala massacres, and a mass grave



Efraín Ríos Montt, friend of Ronald Reagan,
Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, etc., etc.


Why Won't Bush Condemn Rios Montt, the 'Central American Saddam Hussein'?
Commentary, Roberto Lovato,
Pacific News Service, Aug 12, 2003

Editor's Note: The Guatemalan Constitutional Court has recently cleared the way for Efrian Rios Montt, responsible for mass killing in Guatemala in the 1980s, to run for president. The writer explores why the U.S. barely denounces Rios Montt while it condemns Saddam Hussein daily.

~snip~
Why the fuzziness about the man in the Americas who most embodies Bush administration descriptions of "evil"? Steady, daily denunciations of Saddam Hussein over the last 23 months contrast staggeringly with the deadly silence around Rios Montt. It's hardly the response we've come to expect from an administration bent on redefining the moral discourse of the world.

So why is Washington being evasive?

Some observers believe that lack of resources like oil in Guatemala condemns it, and, for that matter, the entire Central American region, to perpetual neglect. Others think that former President Ronald Reagan's influence on the Bush administration guarantees that the mass graves of Guatemala will not see the light of CNN, though such sites were being uncovered at about the same time as those in Iraq.

Declassified State Department documents released by the Clinton administration in 1999 reveal that high-level U.S. officials knew that Guatemala's mass graves were created after "executions ordered by armed services officers close to President Rios Montt." On Dec. 4, 1982, President Reagan visited Central America and met with Rios Montt, whom he described as a "man of great personal integrity and commitment" who had been "getting a bum rap." Forensic anthropologists later found that three days after the meeting, Rios Montt's military slaughtered more than 300 villagers in the hamlet of Dos Erres.
(snip/...)

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=ac655a585f741b5525fa11d79c3bc15e

[Barrett808]

1. One wonders if Negroponte's name appears. n/t

[WarNoMore]

2. I wonder if the fact that he is a

born-again Christian has anything to do with Bush's hands off policy?

[sam sarrha]

3. I smell smell a Medal of Freedom for Negraponte.. the butcher of Guatemala

[stillcool]

4. Who are we?...

SCHOOL OF ASSASSIN By Roy Bourgeois

The School of the Americas (SOA) was established in Panama in 1946, supposedly to promote stability in Latin America. But by the 1960s the School had spawned so many tyrants, dictators, and their henchmen that it was known in Latin American circles as the Escuela de Golpes or School of Coups.

The SOA moved to Fort Benning in 1984--after being kicked out of Panama under terms of the Panama Canal Treaty. At that time then President Jorge Illueca called the School "the biggest base for destabilization in Latin America," and the Panamanian newspaper La Prensa dubbed it "The School of Assassins."

Consistently, Latin American nations with the worst human rights records have sent the most soldiers to the School of the Americas. Bolivia under General Banzer; Nicaragua under the Somozas; El Salvador during the bloodiest years of civil war--all were top clients at the SOA.

The SOA has trained more than 56,000 soldiers from 18 Latin American countries in low-intensity warfare, psychological operations (PSYOPS), counter-insurgency techniques, commando operations, interrogations methods and intelligence gathering. Approximately 1,600 new graduates emerge from the School each year.

NATIONS GRADUATES
Argentina.......... 931

Bolivia ......... 4,049

Brazil ............ 355

Chile .......... 2,405

Colombia ....... 8,679

Costa Rica ...... 2,376

Dominican Rep. . 2,330

Ecuador ......... 2,356

El Salvador .... 6,776

Guatemala ....... 1,676

Haiti ............. 50

Honduras ....... 3,691

Mexico ............ 579

Nicaragua ....... 4,693

Panama .......... 4,235

Paraguay ....... 1,084

Peru ............ 3,997

Uruguay .......... 931

Venezuela ....... 3,250

SOA enrollment chart from 1994 SOA Course Catalog.
http://zena.secureforum.com/Znet/zmag/articles/sept94bourgeois.htm

[Ben Ceremos]

8. Ample reason

to hate America.

[Wilms]

5. Reagan and Guatemala's Death Files

Reagan and Guatemala's Death Files

By Robert Parry

10 June 1999

http://www.converge.org.nz/lac/articles/news990610b.htm

[xchrom]

6. reagan, poppy bush, rumsfeld{again}

and some others in our current junta are in those documents somewhere as well.

[Judi Lynn]

7. I just stopped in to take a look at this thread, and saw some wonderful

sources, from stillcool47, and Wilms. I have scanned them both, have stashed them in my own files, and intend to return after the evening to study them both. They appear to be far, far better than the customary grabs I usually get from google in a quick trip.

I hope many other DU'ers see them. Isn't it galling to know that so many people have no idea this school exists, or what function it serves?

Thanks so much for your valuable links. People can learn something so important from them.