Jane Fonda to bring activists to Guatemala to denounce murders..

[G_j]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/12/01/274050-ap.html

Jane Fonda to bring activists to Guatemala to denounce murders of 700 women

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) - Jane Fonda promised Monday to bring a small "army" of women to Guatemala to denounce the murders of about 700 women in the past three years in this crime-plagued Central American nation.

The 66-year-old actor was visiting Guatemala City on behalf of the nonprofit organization V-Day. The group is led by Vagina Monologues playwright Eve Ensler and campaigns around the world to halt violence against women.

Fonda said she'd organize an "army to stand beside Guatemalan women to say to the world what is going on here." Fonda said she would return after the U.S. presidential elections in November 2004 with a group of activists, mainly from the V-Day organization, to pressure the Guatemalan government do something about the killings.

The bodies of about 700 women have been found in Guatemala since 2000. Some 270 bodies have been found so far this year, Fonda said.
...more..





>Note that information on CANOE is changed frequently. In some sections, such as our newspapers, content is removed after 24 hours.

[diamond14]

1. Jane STOOD UP during Vietnam....will YOUNG people STAND UP

soon...time is running out...this whole event should be led by YOUNG person...not by an old Jane Fonda....

[sexycool]

2. Fonda is a polorizing figure

Her posing on the North Vietnam anti-aircraft gun and calling POWs liars was shameful.

Good luck to her on her new venture.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

4. Do you have a link for that?

I don't recall her calling POW's liars.

She took a gutsy stand and the freeps of the day tried to villafy her. Just as Rush and Boortz try to keep the villification alive today.

[G_j]

7. somehow I doubt there is a link

unless it's to the rantings of G Gordon Liddy or some other wingnut.

If that's off, the poster is welcome to prove me wrong.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

10. She's busy France bashing on another thread....

[Judi Lynn]

12. Really!

I wouldn't have guessed!

"POLARIZING" is a word I'd never use to describe a woman some very easily gulled people despised for a few years in the '60's and '70's.

I heard one of these guys try to launch on her recently on a radio call-in show, and he sounded very strange after all these years.

Love that image you posted!

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

13. Yours as well!

[Just Me]

31. ANOTHER WARNING: STAY FOCUSED,...

,...WEIRDOS ON THE LOOSE,...

,...FASCISTS ON THE MOVE,...

[demdave]

25. will snopes.com do it for you?

http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.htm

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

42. From the Snopes link:

<snip>
The most serious accusations in the piece quoted above -- that Fonda turned over slips of paper furtively given her by American POWS to the North Vietnamese and that several POWs were beaten to death as a result -- are proveably untrue. Those named in the inflammatory e-mail categorically deny the events they supposedly were part of.

"It's a figment of somebody's imagination," says Ret. Col. Larry Carrigan, one of the servicemen mentioned in the 'slips of paper' incident. Carrigan was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and did spend time in a POW camp. He has no idea why the story was attributed to him. "I never met Jane Fonda."

The tale about a defiant serviceman who spit at Jane Fonda and is severely beaten as a result is often attributed to Air Force pilot Jerry Driscoll. He has repeatedly stated on the record that it did not originate with him.

The story about a POW forced to kneel on rocky ground while holding a piece of steel rebar in his outstretched arms is true, though. That account comes from Michael Benge, a civilian advisor captured by the Viet Cong in 1968 and held as a POW for 5 years. His original statement, titled "Shame on Jane," was published in April by the Advocacy and Intelligence Network for POWs and MIAs.

The unknown author of the "Hanoi Jane" e-mail appears to have picked up Benge's story on-line and combined it with fabricated tales to create the forwarded text. Some versions now circulate with Benge's name listed; others quote his statement anonymously.
<snip>

And still, the majority of testimony would be called heresay if introduced in court.

[dutchdemocrat]

49. Nope

These people are Freepers. Snopes still can't get this one right.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flight.htm

[dutchdemocrat]

50. Here's a Snopes swipe at Hilary

Claim: Sen. Hillary Clinton's Thanksgiving visit forced U.S. troops in Afghanistan to wait for their holiday dinner.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/chowdown.asp

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

56. I think you're confused..... You keep taking RW points and you

are calling yourself "DEMdave.

[sexycool]

15. You don't have to be a freeper to see how wrong she was

Yeah, she really did. Google: fonda +pows + liars, see what you get. I don't care who you are or what you believe, she is sick.

http://vikingphoenix.com/news/stn/2001/stn2001-007.htm

April 1973 - calls POWs "liars and hypocrites" after they are repatriated.

1972 - makes anti-U.S. movie F.T.A. (Free the Army, aka Fuck the Army), establishes chain of G.I. coffee houses aimed at subversion of the U.S. military.

July-August 1972 - visits North Vietnam. Makes anti-U.S. propaganda broadcasts for North Vietnam's communists from Radio Hanoi, attends staged press conferences to meet with POW, photographed in North Vietnam. At least one POW, Michael Benge, is tortured because of Fonda's visit.

November 22, 1970 - quoted in the Detroit Free Press as telling a student audience at Michigan State University; "I would think that if you understood what communism was you would hope, you would pray on your knees, that we would someday become communists."

[Judi Lynn]

18. Your source is a right-wing activist

Hope someone has the time to do the searching necessary to bag the definitive link on him.

Already I've seen he attacks Hillary Clinton. You should recognize that's not a popular cause at the Democratic Underground. Geez.

If anyone has the time, this is the google search link for this butthead:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Richard+Rongstad%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=active&start=50&sa=N

Dinner to arrange. Bad time in the day to find links for most of us.

[sexycool]

21. Just google "fonda + pows + liars" and see what you get

I'll let you tell us.

[demdave]

28. snopes.com

http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.htm

[0007]

37. Right wing bull - and you buy it?

[diamond14]

6. what crap ! Jane is a successful leader, an intelligent, educated

businesswomen, who uses her resources to build a better world

all successful women who STAND UP and move the world seem to get called 'polarizing....Indira Ghandi, Golda Meir, Senator Hillary Clinton, Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedman, Margaret Thatcher....it doesn't seem to matter...all women get called 'polarizing' if they STAND UP and be anything other than the bush*-religious-fanatic-model STEPFORD WIFE.....IMO, your name-calling won't stop them...

and guess what...bush* and all his reTHUGlican-holier-than-thou-religiously-insane-war-criminal cabal are also polarizing....

[Judi Lynn]

8. I'd sure like to see a non-freeper source for that information, too.

Weak minds start convulsing with hatred, stewing away in that old Joe McCarthy afterbirth every time her name is raised, even after she became a born-againer!

"Simple" people never suspect they've been handed a load, and continue to keep passing around the same lies and NEVER try to follow the stories back to the source to see if they're bogus or not.

Sad, isn't it?

[sexycool]

17. Here ya go

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=fonda+%2B+pows+%2B+liars&btnG=Google+Search

[G_j]

23. well

from what I've been able to quickly glean, the story of the POWs is troubling. If she did endanger the lives of POWs, I find that quite reprehensible. On the other points, I never considered the Viet Cong MY enemy, and if she thought communism was a viable system, so what?

I will read further although the reason I posted this was for the story of the women who were murdered.

I always appreciate it when someone supplies links to their claims.

[demdave]

26. snopes.com

http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.htm

[reorg]

40. well, the conclusion says it all ...

"Whether the war was right or wrong, those who risked (and gave) their lives fighting it deserve respect, "


What an idiot.

[G_j]

44. I finally read it

my comment is, the war was criminal, she was passionately against it, she said and did some things that were less than tactful, she apologized. There is nothing she did that could even compare to the murderous US policies and atrocities in Vietnam and the harm the US government inflicted upon it's own soldiers. She was a convenient scapegoat and distraction from the war crimes of the policy makers.

[Just Me]

32. SEXYCOOL IS A POLARIZING "FIGURE"!!!

I know you,...I know all about you and Goebbels and Hitler.

You are the expert, demon lips.

[G_j]

5. what got my attention in this case was not Fonda

but the story of the murders. The story sounds similar to others. Hopefully her celebrity will bring awareness to the situation.

[Born Free]

51. She is a poster child for the right wing

The right wing love to hate Jane Fonda, regardless of her intentions, she will do more harm then good. No one drives the Vietnam Vets I know more angry then Jane Fonda, they see her as a traitor and she is going to help them sympathize with the bush team on anything she stands up against. The right wing in general will seize her the way the democrats viewed Ralph Nader in 2000. Furthermore she will give the right wing amunition to launch an attack to keep the important information out of the news, such as the 9/11 panel, the CIA leak etc. Once again, regardless of her intentions, she will do more harm then good.

[Cocoa]

3. Central America is so 80's

Bernie Sanders was talking recently about how since we saved them from Communism, the U.S. media has forgotten Central America exists.

[Judi Lynn]

9. I didn't know this was happening in Guatemala until the last few years

Things got seriously worse for the citizens when Reagan started helping their "Christian" President, Rios Montt:

(snip) A presidential election is being held tomorrow in which one of the leading candidates stands accused of genocide. Efrain Rios Montt, a retired general, is seeking the presidency of Guatemala. In the early 1980s he headed a military regime that carried out hundreds of massacres of unarmed civilians and -- according to a U.N.-sponsored truth commission -- "acts of genocide."

Now Rios Montt is attempting to return to power, and as part of his campaign has even displayed a picture of himself with Ronald Reagan that was taken in the '80s. The U.S. Embassy has pointed out that this photo was taken in a different context, and indeed it was. The context was the Cold War, and the Reagan administration, concerned about leftist insurgencies in Central America, was seeking congressional approval to restore direct military aid to Guatemala. Reagan posed with Rios Montt, praised him as "a man of great personal integrity" who was "totally dedicated to democracy," and dismissed charges of atrocities in Guatemala as a "bum rap."

As Reagan spoke, Rios Montt's troops were preparing to march on a village called Las Dos Erres for a counterinsurgency operation that was to include the rape of young women, smashing of infants' heads and the interment of more than 160 civilians -- some while still alive -- in the village well.

Now the skeletons have been exhumed from the well in Las Dos Erres, as well as from hundreds of other clandestine cemeteries scattered throughout the countryside. A truth commission has documented tens of thousands of abuses committed by the Guatemalan state, as well as a much smaller number committed by leftist guerrillas. And in 1999 President Clinton issued a public apology in Guatemala for the U.S. role in supporting that country's abusive regimes. (snip/...)

http://www.hrw.org/editorials/2003/guatemala110703.htm

Edited for length. Damned good to know former ELECTED President Clinton tried to point out America, as he knows us, didn't support the terrorism we endorsed through former Reagan's policies.

[G_j]

11. the bloody hands

of the Reagan admin. will not wash clean.
dime or no dime :-(

& let's close the SOA once and for all
www.soawatch.org

[diamond14]

14. because the SAME criminals are back in charge of OUR country

Reagun AND pappy bush


WE could shut the whole thing down, improve our changes of winning the election, and much much more...if IF if

we could force bush* to follow the law, and OPEN UP THE RECORDS OF THE REAGUN ADMINISTRATION...those records belong to WE THE PEOPLE, and the law requires the bush* open them up NOW...

we need to see the reagun presidential records...

[G_j]

16. the sequel (now on steroids)

A BIGGER, BADDER SEQUEL TO IRAN-CONTRA
Jim Lobe, AlterNet

Just like Ollie North and his cohorts, a small network of officials are pursuing a covert foreign policy agenda -- except their aims are vastly more ambitious.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16597

The specter of the Iran-Contra affair is haunting Washington. Some of the people and countries are the same, and so are the methods, particularly the pursuit by a network of well-placed individuals of a covert, parallel foreign policy that is at odds with official policy.
Boiled down to its essentials, the Iran-Contra affair was about a small group of officials based in the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that ran an "off-the-books" operation to secretly sell arms to Iran in exchange for hostages. The picture being painted by various insider sources in the media suggests a similar but far more ambitious scheme at work.

Taken collectively, what these officials describe and what is already on the public record suggests the existence of a disciplined network of zealous, like-minded individuals. Centered in Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith's office and around Richard Perle in the Defense Policy Board in the Pentagon, this exclusive group of officials operates under the aegis of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney.

This network includes high-level political appointees, such as Undersecretary of State John Bolton, who are scattered around several other key bureaucracies, notably in the State Department, the NSC staff, and most importantly, in Cheney's office.
...more..

[Judi Lynn]

20. Thanks for this link.

I've only scanned it, have to run, will come back later to read every word. Looks outstanding.

[54anickel]

29. Great link, one to store away in the keeper files. n/t

[Columbia]

19. The Snopes Urban Legend Challenge

Check out http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.htm

Their verdict?

Claim: During a 1972 trip to North Vietnam, Jane Fonda propagandized on behalf of the North Vietnamese government, declared that American POWs were being treated humanely and condemned U.S. soldiers as "war criminals" and later denounced them as liars for claiming they had been tortured.

Status: True.

[sexycool]

22. THANK YOU! I KNEW IT WAS TRUE-SHAMEFUL ACT ON FONDA'S PART

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

43. That's odd because he calls 3 of 4 charges against her false....

<snip>
The most serious accusations in the piece quoted above -- that Fonda turned over slips of paper furtively given her by American POWS to the North Vietnamese and that several POWs were beaten to death as a result -- are proveably untrue. Those named in the inflammatory e-mail categorically deny the events they supposedly were part of.

"It's a figment of somebody's imagination," says Ret. Col. Larry Carrigan, one of the servicemen mentioned in the 'slips of paper' incident. Carrigan was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and did spend time in a POW camp. He has no idea why the story was attributed to him. "I never met Jane Fonda."

The tale about a defiant serviceman who spit at Jane Fonda and is severely beaten as a result is often attributed to Air Force pilot Jerry Driscoll. He has repeatedly stated on the record that it did not originate with him.

The story about a POW forced to kneel on rocky ground while holding a piece of steel rebar in his outstretched arms is true, though. That account comes from Michael Benge, a civilian advisor captured by the Viet Cong in 1968 and held as a POW for 5 years. His original statement, titled "Shame on Jane," was published in April by the Advocacy and Intelligence Network for POWs and MIAs.

The unknown author of the "Hanoi Jane" e-mail appears to have picked up Benge's story on-line and combined it with fabricated tales to create the forwarded text. Some versions now circulate with Benge's name listed; others quote his statement anonymously.
<snip>

And still, the majority of testimony would be called heresay if introduced in court.

[Just Me]

24. "THEY" always throw "Jane" out there,...

,...as some kinda' "evil-doer". This is merely another throw by the weirdos (they would be called neo-con propagandists gotta be missin' Hitler's money bleedin' profits to those war-suckin' demons) stuck in the war-mongering, brain-washing BS of the past.

I see them,...

Suckin' people into their love of death and war and conflict and control and money, money, money,...

I am not buying your hell,...you death-loving, arms-dealing weirdos.

[sexycool]

27. In English please

What are you talking about?

[Just Me]

30. And, Why am I not surprised at your presence *LOL*

,...and where on earth did you come up with a name like "sexycool"?

I have like this, button, that always rings out mental "red flags". I dunno,...I guess I have been around enough to have a pavlov dog response towards people like you. It's not my fault. You freakin' trained me (heh, heh, heh).

[0007]

39. This five minute video is in english -

You say Jane is bad?

http://www.angelfire.com/creep/gwbush/remindus.html

Would you say junior is worse?

[xchrom]

33. i don't care who does it

if it's jane that's great if it's hitlers grandmother that's fine too -- it's the right thing to do.

[G_j]

35. yes, I wish there would be more discussion

of the actual story of the 700 murdered women! Of course mentioning Jane Fonda is like waving a red flag at a bull, but not one of the people attacking her has even bothered to comment on these horrific murders. :-(

[Just Me]

34. SEXYCOOL + GOEBBELS = PERFECT PAIR

They both demonize anyone who takes a humanitarian or intellectual or pacifist position.

LOVELY PAIR!!!

Doncha think???

[peacetalksforall]

36. We went on a killing spree in Vietnam for their earth resources

and called it a fight against communism.

We were lied to.

We tried to take over a country. (What's new?)

Objectors took action - flight and fight.

Now we're in the same situation.

Everyone who doesn't agree with 'the brass and kill-callers' and auctioneers is a traitor. (What's new?)

From that war we learned that there is a difference between the used and the users.

WW2 = nearly everyone believed in what we were doing.

Vietnam = nearly everyone had their eyes opened, though for many, the eyes closed again and millions of people who were barely born were insulted, insulted that there were some of us who didn't believe in that war.

Grenada = people learned to laugh at the show of war and danger.

Kosovo = many people were confused about the need. Republicans were against our intervention. Of course. It was immoral because Clinton was immoral.

Iraq = closely emulates Vietnam or will soon and x% of closed-eyed people learn to believe lies anew. And Republicans are crazy for this war. If yer not with us, yer a commie. Time warp time.

In the end, pacifists, with a range of choice of protest, are despised by lovers of killing. It doesn't make any difference whether you're Jane Fonda or an in-the-church-on-your-knees pray-or or a flee-or or a megaphone major. Just beware if you get your consciousness raised because all the little Rush's, Sean's, Ollie's, and Donnie's are coming after you.

Yeah! Let's hear it for killing! You have a disposable 18 year old? Fine, we have a role for him, for her. Step this way. While we're at it, we'll compare your former living, breathing child with a WW2 vet and you can be happy knowing that he/she helped make some money for our leaders leaders and their friends.

Vietnam-Iraq. No matter.

Funny thing about Fonda and so-called humans - she apologized for her excess, but some christians never forgive. no way

[G_j]

38. thank you

I wish I could have said it as well.


Nobody can tell me who MY enemy is and attempt to brow-beat me into submission by accusing me of being unpatriotic if I don't fall lock-step behind them. That is the distinct behavior of tyrants only.
It was Hitler's MO.

and nobody has been painted as the enemy more often than the peace makers.

[tritsofme]

41. What a worthless human being.

I will never forgive her for what she did over in Vietnam, and I contend to the day I die that it was treason and she is a traitor.

I opposed that war too, it was a horrible war that never should have happened, but my brother was over there fighting, and I lost my cousin, and what in the hell was she doing? Playing fun war games with the enemy.

It was people like her that spit on young men like my brother who were fighting in war not of their choice.

I have about as much respect for her as I do George Bush.

[G_j]

45. Bush is

responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. I hardly see a comparison.

And just exactly what is the "enemy"?
It the case of Vietnam all that reasoning becomes convoluted. Painting it in black and white totally misses the tragic reality of the situation. We were on the soil of another country in the midst of a civil war.

[Leilani]

55. I Agree

People can agree or disagree on the war; people protested here & tjat was a good thing, but she is scum.

My husband was a Navy pilot during Nam, & people like her were traitors. POW's were tortured when they refused to play her game.

Try reading "They wouldn't let Us Die", interviews with POW's or several other very good books on the subject.

Fonda in the news probably loses the Dems several points in the GE.

Just reading about her makes my blood pressure go up about 20 pts.

[Judi Lynn]

46. It is interesting, isn't it, that right-wing sentiment almost high-jacked

this thread, and buried the topic of the original post?

Congratulations to Billy_Pilgrim for reading the highly vaunted SNOPES site more closely, and with more awareness engaged, to find out what the "SNOPES"-thumpers missed altogether.

So much nasty gossip developes a life of its own, and gets passed around by miserable malcontents. While they're busy, 40 years after the trip to Viet Nam by the young, not too talented actress, trying to get someone to listen, AGAIN, to that claptrap, the rest of us are interested in what their pResident is doing to the military people NOW, like radically cutting, (remember his campaign, when he spent endless time charging Bill Clinton with impoverishing the military, to the point they needed food stamps?) and engaging them in a sham situation with deadly, irreversable, tragic consequences.

People who are afraid of/hate women go wacko over Jane Fonda, and Hillary Clinton. People who are unstable get unhinged over Bill Clinton's private behavior.

MEANTIME, articles like the one posted at the top of this thread should be noted with deep scrutiny.

Guatemala has been the slaughterhouse of so many citizens who simply happened to be in the road while US-supported dictators laid waste to their villages.

So someone wants to drag out the tired old gossip about Jane Fonda all over again. Heck, it's only over 40 years old. We should forget what is the focus of the article altogether, and simply listen to some right-wing bitching about this actress, on and on, and on. Christ.

Speaking of Christ, did you ever hear she is a Christian now, and has been for years?

She is, after all, just as "born again" as your own beloved pResident. She should be forgiven for the "sins" you claim you hold against her, just as you insist everyone should overlook a career of dissipation by George Bush before he was maneuvered into the pResidency.

I can't EVEN believe some dolt posted a link with an image of her at the top meant to stir hatred. It could stir hatred, for sure, but not at Jane Fonda.

[Bridget Burke]

54. The trolls are hard at work....

Don't worry, we can deal with them!

[tritsofme]

57. People who have no respect for Jane Fonda are hardly trolls,

People have differing opinions, and I for one have no respect for Jane Fonda, and I think she is a horrible person.

I have also voted Democrat in every election that I have been of age.

I resent that people here who have differing opinions are automaticaly labeled trolls.

[Judi Lynn]

47. Here's a new article on some Guatemalan Indians in Florida

who had to escape to the States to avoid a tragic end in the blood bath exploding around them due to the grotesque President Rios-Montt of Guatemala, who was heavily financed and supported by Ronald Reagan.

Posted on Fri, Jan. 02, 2004

INDIANTOWN
Guatemalan-Maya Indians work unnoticed in Florida
Thousands of Mayans have settled in Indiantown and other parts of Southeastern Florida.
BY VANESSA PETIT
Associated Press

INDIANTOWN - Antonio Silvestre fled Guatemala's poverty and civil strife in the early 1980s and was among the first Maya Indians to settle in this small agricultural town north of West Palm Beach.

Nearly two decades later, thousands of Mayans have quietly built communities in Indiantown and other parts in Southeastern Florida. Many work in landscaping, construction or maintaining golf courses. They go largely unnoticed: Most are illegal aliens and they move frequently.

''The Americans didn't know where we came from. We are short, with dark skin, dark hair and we speak a language they never heard before,'' said Silvestre, who now teaches at a school for migrant children.

FIRST MIGRANTS

The first migrants who arrived in Indiantown, named after an old Seminole Indian tribe camp, sent word back home to families and friends about the abundance of work in the cattle ranches, citrus groves and winter vegetable farms of south central Florida.
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/7614976.htm

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

For anyone who hasn't taken the time to read about the savage mass murdering in Guatemala during Reagan's time at the helm:

(snip) Guatemala: 10 June1999


Reagan and Guatemala's Death Files

By Robert Parry
http://www.consortiumnews.com/052699a1.html

Ronald Reagan's election in November 1980 set off celebrations in the well-to-do communities of Central America. After four years of Jimmy Carter's human rights nagging, the region's anticommunist hard-liners were thrilled that they had someone in the White House who understood their problems. The oligarchs and the generals had good reason for the optimism. For years, Reagan had been a staunch defender of right-wing regimes that engaged in bloody counterinsurgency campaigns against leftist enemies.

In the late 1970s, when Carter's human rights coordinator, Pat Derian, criticized the Argentine military for its "dirty war" -- tens of thousands of "disappearances," tortures and murders -- then-political commentator Reagan joshed that she should "walk a mile in the moccasins" of the Argentine generals before criticizing them. Despite his aw shucks style, Reagan found virtually every anticommunist action justified, no matter how brutal. From his eight years in the White House, there is no historical indication that he was troubled by the bloodbath and even genocide that occurred in Central America during his presidency, while he was shipping hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the implicated forces.

The death toll was staggering -- an estimated 70,000 or more political killings in El Salvador, possibly 20,000 slain from the contra war in Nicaragua, about 200 political "disappearances" in Honduras and some 100,000 people eliminated during a resurgence of political violence in Guatemala. The one consistent element in these slaughters was the overarching Cold War rationalization, emanating in large part from Ronald Reagan's White House.

Yet, as the world community moves to punish war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, no substantive discussion has occurred in the United States about facing up to this horrendous record of the 1980s. Rather than a debate about Reagan as a potential war criminal, the ailing ex-president is honored as a conservative icon with his name attached to Washington National Airport and with an active legislative push to have his face carved into Mount Rushmore. When the national news media does briefly acknowledge the barbarities of the 1980s in Central America, it is in the context of one-day stories about the little countries bravely facing up to their violent pasts. At times, the CIA is fingered abstractly as a bad supporting actor in the violent dramas. But never does the national press lay blame on individual American officials.

The grisly reality of Central America was most recently revisited on Feb. 25 when a Guatemalan truth commission issued a report on the staggering human rights crimes that occurred during a 34-year civil war. The Historical Clarification Commission, an independent human rights body, estimated that the conflict claimed the lives of some 200,000 people with the most savage bloodletting occurring in the 1980s. Based on a review of about 20 percent of the dead, the panel blamed the army for 93 percent of the killings and leftist guerrillas for three percent. Four percent were listed as unresolved.
(snip/...)

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

[G_j]

53. it is so very sad and telling

that Rios-Montt has not been held accountable for crimes against humanity.

We must have the records of Reagan/ Bush opened and the ICC empowered.

[Judi Lynn]

48. More on the Guatemala murdered women story

December 8, 2003
Jane Fonda visits Guatemala to put spotlight on murders of women in Guatemala
December 8, 2003
V-Day News alert

V-Day activist and V-Counsel member, Actress Jane Fonda visits Guatemala to put spotlight on murders of women in Guatemala

Jane Fonda, a member of V-Day’s esteemed V-Counsel has just returned from a 24-hour visit to Guatemala where she traveled with independent media journalist, Marielos Monzon. Monzon invited Fonda to visit the country to meet with women’s organizations and human rights activists to help raise the profile of the murders of women in the country after Fonda presented her the " Courage In Media" Award in New York last month.

Monzon, 32, was honored by IWMF for exceptional bravery in reporting the news and having risked her life to report the truth about war, political corruption, human rights abuses and genocide. She reports on the human rights violations that continue seven years after the end of a brutal civil war in which an estimated 200,000 people were disappeared. Beginning in 1998, she has received continuous death threats against her and her two children, yet she continues reporting.

According to the BBC, since 2001, more than 700 women and young girls have been killed in apparently motiveless attacks. So far this year, the official count of women's bodies found is 270. In the past six months there have been five sets of double murders, with the tortured corpses of the young girls found together.
(snip/...)

http://www.vday.org/contents/vday/press/media/0312081

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WHY WOULD THIS NOT DESERVE SOME SERIOUS ATTENTION NOW?

Fonda savagers, take the 40 year-old "Hanoi Jane" claptrap to another message board. Yes, you DO have to be a rightwingnut to wallow in this kind of crap.

[G_j]

52. this story is very disturbibg

like of the murders of women in Mexico that have gone ignored for so long, Someone mentioned that there were similar murders in western Canada that were unsolved also, but I have no information on that. There's no doubt that there are many places around the world where deaths such as these are met with a collective shrug.

It doesn't appear that some who are fixated on their hate for Fonda really have any concern either.

[Judi Lynn]

58. Hope some attention will be focused where it belongs

Considering the article directs attention to the continuing suffering going on in Guatemala:

(snip) Now, Guatemalans must decide who can best lead them in the 21st century and vigorously uphold and defend the rule of law. The problems are many: Human rights and political activists continue to be targets of violence. During the first half of this year, the human rights arm of the Organization of American States documented 737 murders and 17 execution-style slayings. (snip/...)

http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/bal-ed.guatemala24dec24,0,1063714.story?coll=bal-opinion-headlines

Democrats are concerned about news of murdering human rights activists, political activists, union leaders, etc. throughout Latin America.

Don't feel the anti-Jane Fonda posters are on the same wave-length with Democratic interests. We have far more important things to think about, obviously.