The news that's not in the news

This morning, I read an article in a local Spanish-language newspaper which focuses on Latin America that the Guatemalan attorney-general is calling for the extradition from Mexico of the country's ex-criminal, er, president, to prosecute him for stealing $16 million during his tenure. You won't read that anywhere else, folks, unless you go straight to the Guatemalan newspapers. Justice being done in Latin America after years of war and violence is just not news in this country. Probably because it seems, as I said in my post "The United States has Another Bowel Movement", any move in the right direction is deemed to "destablize the region".

I was thinking last night about the state that Guatemala has been in since president Arbenz was overthrown in 1954 by the CIA. I'll concede that the U.S. can't be blamed for all Guatemala's ills. I think Spain could stand to take a little of the blame for it's part in making sure Guatemala got off on the wrong foot. Some Guatemalans themselves can take some blame too, for while many stand up for justice and truth in the face of death, many are defeatist and have just settled for things as they are, or join in the violence, or worse, are so pro-Yanqui that they unknowingly contribute to the prostitution and ruin of their patria. But the U. S. can certainly be blamed for undoing all the good that was being done in the country back then, and instead of supporting it, reverting Guatemala right back to violence and corruption, while directly or indirectly telling Guatemala's leaders that it's OK to massacre hundreds of thousands of people by sending huge amounts of aid to the country's leaders.

I saw a slogan sprayed onto a wall near my grandma's house during my recent trip, and I think I also saw it on a billboard on Roosevelt. : "La patria no se vende, se defiende." Our nation should be defended, not sold. I could say that about this country, too, since parts of the national debt, and therefore American assets, have already been sold off to China and Japan.

By the way, a really great book on Guatemalan political history is "Unfinished Conquest" by Victor Perera. A lot of political history and science books are too textbooky, but this one is wonderful because Perera also writes fiction and is a journalist. I'm on my second read.