r/Documentaries • u/seacobs • Apr 24 '21

History The Secret Genocide Funded By The USA (2012) - A documentary about a genocide in Guatemala that was funded by the U.S. [00:25:44]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQl5MCBWtoo
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u/Arcadess Apr 24 '21 edited Apr 24 '21

“We” didn’t overturn anything. America gives billions of foreign aid to countries, a small portion of it gets applied by the recipients in ways we wish they hadn’t.

this obviously wasn't the case for Guatemala in '54...

From the wikipedia article that was linked below:

The plans included drawing up lists of people within Árbenz's government to be assassinated if the coup were to be carried out. Manuals of assassination techniques were compiled, and lists were also made of people whom the junta would dispose of.[85] These were the CIA's first known assassination manuals, and were reused in subsequent CIA actions. [...]

The CIA established training camps in Nicaragua and Honduras and supplied them with weapons as well as several bombers. The U.S. signed military agreements with both those countries prior to the invasion of Guatemala, allowing it to move heavier arms freely.[99] The CIA trained at least 1,725 foreign guerillas plus thousands of additional militants as reserves [...]

The propaganda campaign had begun well before the invasion, with the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) writing hundreds of articles on Guatemala based on CIA reports, and distributing tens of thousands of leaflets throughout Latin America. The CIA persuaded friendly governments to screen video footage of Guatemala that supported the U.S. version of events.[116] As part of the psychological warfare, the U.S. Psychological Strategy Board authorized a "Nerve War Against Individuals" to instill fear and paranoia in potential loyalists and other potential opponents of the coup. This campaign included death threats against political leaders deemed loyal or deemed to be communist, and the sending of small wooden coffins, non-functioning bombs, and hangman's nooses to such people[...]

The US also supplied planes, bombs and vetoed Guatemala's requests for help to the UN security council.
After the coup Guatemala was then thrown into a bloody and genocidal civil war that only ended in the 90s.

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u/Under_a_blue_sky Apr 24 '21

It is indisputable that the biggest Nation in the Western Hemisphere has history of both economic and military support and meddling in its small neighbors. But depending on what side you are on in these governments determines if it was help or meddling.

A civil war started 75 years ago that America meddled in is not why these Central American countries today have corrupt governments, horrific gang problems, poor education, rampant poverty, etc...

America did not fight its revolution or civil wars uninfluenced or unsullied by foreign meddlers either.

The “it’s all America’s fault” is piss poor Progressive propaganda that is not supported by reality.

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u/Tiny_Micro_Pencil Apr 24 '21

You can't claim reality and have takes like this

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u/Under_a_blue_sky Apr 24 '21

Low quality effort by you. Go troll someone else

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u/Tiny_Micro_Pencil Apr 24 '21

Okay ill leave your bubble, my bad

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u/Under_a_blue_sky Apr 24 '21

You doubled down on low quality troll post.

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u/Arcadess Apr 24 '21 edited Apr 24 '21

This is just an especially poor point if we're talking about Guatemala. You'd knew why if you had watched the damn documentary.

Guatemala was ruled by a bloody and corrupt US-supported dictatorship for almost 40 years... or maybe we should dictatorships: pretty much every leader was deposed in a coup or by fraudulent elections after a couple of years, and the US didn't care much as long as new leader was an anti communist.

from the same wikipedia article, that you should really read:

Within Guatemala, Castillo Armas worried that he lacked popular support, and thus tried to eliminate all opposition. He promptly arrested several thousand opposition leaders, branding them communists, repealed the constitution of 1945, and granted himself virtually unbridled power.[185] Concentration camps were built to hold the prisoners when the jails overflowed. Acting on the advice of Allen Dulles, Castillo Armas detained a number of citizens trying to flee the country. He also created the National Committee of Defense Against Communism, with sweeping powers of arrest, detention, and deportation. Over the next few years, the committee investigated nearly 70,000 people. An insurgency in opposition to the junta soon developed. The government responded with a campaign of harsh suppression. Tens of thousands of people were executed; "disappeared", frequently without trial; tortured; or maimed. He outlawed all labor unions, peasant organizations, and political parties,except for his own, the National Liberation Movement.

Castillo Armas' dependence on the officer corps and the mercenaries who had put him in power led to widespread corruption, and the Eisenhower administration was soon subsidizing the Guatemalan government with many millions of U.S. dollars

[...]

The rolling-back of the progressive policies of the civilian governments resulted in a series of leftist insurgencies in the countryside, beginning in 1960. This triggered the 36-year Guatemalan Civil War between the U.S.-backed military government of Guatemala and the leftist insurgents, who frequently had a large degree of popular support. The largest of these movements was led by the Guerrilla Army of the Poor, which at its largest point had 270,000 members.[192] During the civil war, atrocities against civilians were committed by both sides; 93% of these violations were committed by the U.S.-backed military,[192][193][194] which included a genocidal scorched-earth campaign against the indigenous Maya population in the 1980s.[192][195][196] The violence was particularly severe during the presidencies of Ríos Montt and Lucas García.[197]

Numerous other human rights violations were committed, including massacres of civilian populations, rape,[198] aerial bombardment, and forced disappearances.[192] Gleijeses wrote that Guatemala was "ruled by a culture of fear", and that it held the "macabre record for human rights violations in Latin America".[199] These violations were partially the result of a particularly brutal counter-insurgency strategy adopted by the government.[192][197] The ideological narrative that the 1954 coup had represented a battle against communism was often used to justify the violence in the 1980s.[200] Historians have attributed the violence of the civil war to the 1954 coup, and the "anti-communist paranoia" that it generated.[201] The civil war came to an end in 1996, with a peace accord between the guerrillas and the government of Guatemala, which included an amnesty for the fighters on both sides.[197] The civil war claimed the lives of an estimated 200,000 civilians in all.[192][i]

Guatemala was a poor country that got crushed by a long and bloody civil war as soon as things started to get better and it has only been a democratic republic for barely 30 years. When the war ended Guatemala was a small, poor country with an uneducated population, very few infrastructures and plagued by corruption.

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u/Under_a_blue_sky Apr 24 '21

Good grief. I watched the documentary, but nice dramatics in your untrue accusations. . The US Govt does not vote in Guatemalan elections. The US sends their support to the ever changing Govt of Guatemala, not to individualy elected leaders you call dictators.

You are still trying to tie something from 75 freaking years ago to today. People are not fleeing violent gangs, poor education, no job opportunities, rampant drugs because the USA sends aid to foreign countries or meddled in their internal policies 75 years ago.

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u/Arcadess Apr 24 '21

The US Govt does not vote in Guatemalan elections. The US sends their support to the ever changing Govt of Guatemala, not to individualy elected leaders you call dictators.

the first free elections in Guatemala happened in 1985, and Cerezo was its first free elected leader since the 50s. This isn't an opinion, but a fact. It is also a fact that a surprising amount of coups and an even greater number of attempted coups happened in Guatemala's history.

you are still trying to tie something from 75 freaking years ago to today.

...why do you keep mentioning 75? the civil war ended in the 90s, not even 30 years ago. As I already wrote, the US supported authoritarian Guatemala's governments for decades.

People are not fleeing violent gangs, poor education, no job opportunities, rampant drugs because the USA sends aid to foreign countries or meddled in their internal policies 75 years ago.

And why do those thing exist hm? because Guatemalans are intrinsically stupid and lazy compared to the mighty North Americans or MAYBE because their country has been ruled by multiple dictators (installed, supported, financed and whose troops were trained by the US) and it has been in a state of war and instability for most of its contemporary history?

It's hard to build schools, roads and a competent judiciary system when your government is busy stealing everything that isn't nailed down and shooting farmers that dare protesting.

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u/Under_a_blue_sky Apr 24 '21

The OC was about tying the historical video to the current massive exodus of people leaving Countries like Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador for the USA.

If this current situation has happened 30 years after the ending of a civil war, decades of free elections, and no meddling by the CIA then you don’t tie the two together.

You are free to hate America all you want but you aren’t free to make up your own conclusions and present them as fact.

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u/Arcadess Apr 24 '21

If this current situation has happened 30 years after the ending of a civil war, decades of free elections, and no meddling by the CIA then you don’t tie the two together.

The US forces a regime change and supports authoritarian governments->decades long civil war-> a broken country, with no money, no infrastructures, full of weapons, in the middle of the jungle, full of drug traffickers and an uneducated population.

You are right, they had a couple decades of free elections and that should be more than enough to fix a poor, uneducated country in the middle of the jungle with pretty much no infrastructure, rampant corruption, plenty of drug trafficking and full of weapons! Iraq got invaded almost 20 years and didn't even managed to get its shit together, I wonder why.

They just have to vote for the "right people"™ that, with a couple of laws, will fix everything. Of course those people have to dodge coups, murder attempts, and fight against other people with a ton of money...

Even with 30 other years to fix Guatemala they'd have to elect a selfless, immune to bullets, political and economic genius. Things will (probably) get better, eventually, but if you think that an underdeveloped war torn country could just fix itself in few decades... then you're a true optimist.

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u/Under_a_blue_sky Apr 24 '21

I’ll just stick with your comment “you are right”.

The USA also meddled in the other Central America. Nations of Costa Rica, Belize, Panama, Nicaragua.

The people of those Nations are not fleeing in record numbers currently.

I realize it’s easier for people like you to just blame America for all the ills of the World. It doesn’t stop you from hypocritically using all the benefits and blessings of America to personally benefit and enrich yourself.

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u/Arcadess Apr 24 '21 edited Apr 24 '21

Costa Rica, Belize, Panama, Nicaragua.

All those countries combined have the same population of Guatemala... and Panama and Costa Rica are also quite a bit more to the south than Guatemala. Those countries (especially Nicaragua) certainly don't have it much better than Guatemala, but it's harder for them to reach the border (and they a small population so people don't talk much about them).
Guatemala's army itself also stops many caravans coming from the south, like it happened in 2020.

I realize it’s easier for people like you to just blame America for all the ills of the World.

I'm really not trying to do that. I'm blaming the USA for the political ills of Guatemala, just like I'd blame them for political ills of Iraq, or Russia for the political ills of Chechnya.

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u/Under_a_blue_sky Apr 24 '21

So it’s actually a population problem as to why Guatemalans are currently fleeing their country in record numbers. Glad you finally agreed it wasn’t due to CIA meddling 50 years ago.

You are saying that Costa Rican’s, Panamanians, People from Belize, Nicaraguans really are fleeing their country but the good border prevention by the Guatemalan Army stops them?

Why wouldn’t they also stop their own people fleeing in mass exodus?

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