Robert Parry on how Reagan promoted genocide in Central America:
Soon after taking office in 1981, President Ronald Reagan’s national security team agreed to supply military aid to the brutal right-wing regime in Guatemala to pursue the goal of exterminating not only “Marxist guerrillas” but their “civilian support mechanisms,” according to a newly disclosed document from the National Archives.
Over the next several years, the military assistance from the Reagan administration helped the Guatemalan army do just that, engaging in the slaughter of some 100,000 people, including what a truth commission deemed genocide against the Mayan Indians in the northern highlands.
Recently discovered documents at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, also reveal that Reagan’s White House was reaching out to Israel in a scheme to circumvent congressional restrictions on military equipment for the Guatemalan military.
In 1983, national security aide Oliver North (who later became a central figure in the Iran-Contra scandal) reported in a memo that Reagan’s Deputy National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane (another key Iran-Contra figure) was approaching Israel over how to deliver 10 UH-1H helicopters to Guatemala to give the army greater mobility in its counterinsurgency war.
According to these documents that I found at the Reagan library – and other records declassified in the late 1990s – it’s also clear that Reagan and his administration were well aware of the butchery underway in Guatemala and elsewhere in Central America.
The relaxed attitude toward the Guatemalan regime’s brutality took shape in spring 1981 as Reagan’s State Department “advised our Central American embassies that it has been studying ways to restore a closer, cooperative relationship with Guatemala,” according to a White House “Situation Room Checklist” dated April 8, 1981.
The document added: “State believes a number of changes have occurred which could make Guatemalan leaders more receptive to a new U.S. initiative: the Guatemalans view the new administration as more sympathetic to their problems [and] they are less suspect of the U.S. role in El Salvador,” where the Reagan administration was expanding support for another right-wing regime infamous for slaughtering its political opponents, including Catholic clergy.
The next Ronnie piece should be “How Ronnie introduced crack cocaine into the U.S.” Highlight “Freeway” Ricky Ross’ role. And the role of CIA-backed Contra leaders Adolfo Colero, Danilo Blandon, and Norvin Meneses. All from Nicarague by the way. Bill Clinton’s secret landing strip in Mena, Arkansas, and Larry Nichols head of the Arkansas Development Finance Authority should also be discussed. All of those are facts/
I gave mom some Reagan toilet paper for Christmas one year. It became part of her holiday decor each year, while it lasted. Guess if I want more Reagan tp I’m gonna have to make it myself. I’ll check back for your orders after I make the first batch.
Pardon double post but … are we ready for Rick Perstein’s upcoming book on the old cannibal? I’ll be lined up at the bookstore for my copy.
This is the history we ignore when we shrug our shoulders at drone murder, the Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization, and the rest of the fascist trappings surrounding the War on Terror.
Heh. The real Evil Empire was…us.