What is happening in Guatemala?
Italics by Giuseppe Gagliano
While the United States has evacuated from Afghanistan, news comes from distant Guatemala that Judge Miguel Angel Galvez has granted authorization to proceed against two ex-generals from Guatemala, namely Manuel Benedicto Lucas and Manuel Antonio Callejas.
The two generals are accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and forced kidnappings which were carried out from 1978 to 1982.
Well, these murders must be contextualized in the civil war that broke out within Guatemala and ended in 1996 with 200,000 victims and at least 45,000 people missing. Even if this sentence comes very late compared to the period in which the disputed episodes occurred, it is nevertheless extremely important because it allows crimes that were committed during the Cold War in the name of anticommunism to be judged according to international law.
In fact, the origin of the destabilization of Guatemala dates back to 1954 and that is to the coup that was organized by the CIA under the guidance of the United Fruit Company, and on which there is now indisputable evidence.
To resume Angelo Panebianco's reflection on an article recently published in Corriere della Sera , there is no doubt that democracies are imperfect and that they must resort to realpolitik and reason of state … But who sets the limits to which this realpolitik must arrive? The CIA? The American multinationals?
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/guatemala-stati-uniti-guerra-civile-colpo-di-stato/ on Wed, 01 Sep 2021 06:13:18 +0000.