From A
World to Win News Service:
Israel has had a warm
relationship with Guatemala since its inception. The Guatemalan ambassador to
the UN and a member of the UN Special Committee on Palestine Jorge Garcia
Granados supported the Zionist
cause and called on the government to support the creation of the Israeli state
in 1948. To the present day, Guatemala votes in favour of Israel on important
UN resolutions. Both governments are united in their special interest in
counter-insurgency. Israeli military assistance took on increased importance in
1977 when then-U.S. president Jimmy Carter tried to publicly distance the U.S.
from Guatemala's open brutality.
While the U.S. does not dictate
policies to Israel, Israel often pursues policies that serve American interests
and objectives especially when it is difficult politically for the U.S. to do
so. As a former head of the
Knesset foreign relations committee said, when asked about the
Israeli-Guatemalan relationship: ''Israel is a pariah state. When people ask us
for something, we cannot afford to ask questions about ideology. The only type
of regime that Israel would not aid would be one that is anti-American. Also,
if we can aid a country that it may be inconvenient for the U.S. to help, we
would be cutting off our nose to spite our face not to.'' (See the May-June 1986 issue of Middle East Report, http://www.merip.org/mer/mer140/israel-guatemala, for detailed
research on Israel's role in Guatemala).
A secondary aspect for Israel's
interest in Guatemala has been economic – the need for external markets for
weapons and foreign weapons production. The export of arms has helped sustain
production in Israel at full capacity, facilitating strategic planning and
stockpiling, assuring supplies when needed, and permitting scarce resources to
be spent on science, technology, research and development to maintain Israel's
qualitative edge militarily. Weapons transfers represent a fifth of Israel's
industrial exports and one tenth of all exports. By 1983 factories were set up
for munitions production in Guatemala. Technical support has also been given to
Guatemala. Israel set up a computer centre in Guatemala City to register and
monitor the country's inhabitants. Some researchers claim the centre and its
data bank were linked to the U.S. Army's Southern Command then located at Fort
Gulick in the Panama Canal Zone.
It is also said that in the summer
of 1981, sophisticated Argentine computer analysis methods (using Israeli
hardware) played a crucial role in the detection and raiding of 27 guerrilla
safe houses in Guatemala City. Amnesty International says this computer system
was an integral part of terrorizing Guatemalans. Israel also exported
retired military officers to Guatemala. Many were experts in the
"art" of repression and collective punishment. (May-June 1986,
merip.org) Israel's influence in Guatemala can even be seen through the
proliferation around the country of gas stations and convenience stores with Israel-friendly Hebrew names
like "Adonai" and "Shalom".
But U.S. advisers still played a
major role in the "pacification" of the Guatemalan countryside. The
objective was total control of the civilian population without disrupting the
holdings of the large landowners. People were removed to "model"
villages where they would eventually be turned into a labour force for
industrial production. Villagers were forced to participate in patrols to
suppress and inform on others who had revolutionary inclinations.
One can only wonder where this
condemning evidence will lead or why these legal proceedings are taking place
now when these criminals are already old. Only a few such criminals have
actually been sent to prison. Does it only happen after the U.S. decides these
mass murders are no longer useful for continued American domination? Several
brutal strongmen come to mind, like Chile's Pinochet, the Shah of Iran and
Mubarak in Egypt, to name only a few.
What happened in Guatemala was not
that people were caught in a crossfire between two sides. It was not
"collateral damage". It was a systematic murder of a people –
genocide. The guilty verdict for Rios Montt is definitely welcome.
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