Top Guatemalan general killed in air crash near Mexico border
Top Guatemalan general killed in air crash near Mexico border
Wed, Aug 20 2014
GUATEMALA CITY, Aug 20 (Reuters) - A top Guatemalan general and four other officers were killed on Wednesday when the helicopter they were in crashed near the country's northern border with Mexico, Guatemala's government said.
Chief of the Defense Staff General Rudy Ortiz and the four others had gone to inspect military installations when the Bell 206 helicopter came down in thick cloud in the village of El Nenton in the Huehuetenango region, the Defense Ministry said.
Guatemala's Defense Minister Manuel Lopez said the causes of the crash were still being investigated, but added he did not believe foul play had been involved.
The Central American country has one of the highest murder rates in the Americas and the government is battling to crack down on violent drug gangs from Mexico that use Guatemala as a staging post to move contraband north to the United States.
Ortiz, 51, had been touted as a potential future Defense Minister by Guatemalan media in recent weeks. (Reporting by Sofia Menchu. Editing by Andre Grenon)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/20/guatemala-general-idUSL2N0QQ2Z720140820?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews&rpc=401
(Short article, no more at link.)
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General Rudy Ortiz[/center]
Regarding the Kaibiles of Guatemala:
This American Life on Guatemalan Genocide
Washington's role is a story not worth telling
By Keane Bhatt
01 Aug 2013
On the evening of December 4, 1982, President Ronald Reagan informed reporters assembled at an Air Force base in Honduras that he had just engaged in a “useful exchange of ideas” with Efraín Rios Montt. The Guatemalan military general was the most recent in a succession of U.S.-backed dictators who had been governing the country since the CIA first toppled its democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, in 1954. “I know that President Rios Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment,” Reagan continued. “I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice. My administration will do all it can to support his progressive efforts.” In a question-and-answer period, Reagan also shrugged off accusations of human rights violations committed by Rios Montt and his military: “Frankly I’m inclined to believe they’ve been getting a bum rap,” he declared.
Just two days later, on the evening of December 6, a 20-member team of Kaibil forces—elite Guatemalan commandos—initiated a military operation that decimated the inhabitants of the remote village of Dos Erres in the Petén region. The murder count of over 250 only hints at the savagery: In a matter of hours, the Kaibiles raped children (ProPublica, 3/25/12), forced miscarriages by jumping on pregnant women’s abdomens (Inter-American Court of Human Rights Judgment, 11/24/09) and flung at least 67 children down a well to their deaths (Seattle Times, 8/10/11), among other atrocities.
~snip~
Kaibil sergeant Pedro Pimentel, sentenced in 2012 to 6,060 years in prison for his role at Dos Erres (Guardian, 3/13/12), was invited to serve as an instructor at the School of the Americas, the U.S. military’s infamous training center for Latin American security forces, immediately after the 1982 massacre. The School had trained Rios Montt in 1950, and would in 1985 train Guatemala’s current president Otto Pérez Molina, who, as a Kaibil, likely committed atrocities himself (ProPublica, 5/25/12; SOA Watch; Democracy Now, 4/19/13).
But not once were the words “Reagan,” “Arbenz,” “School of the Americas” or “CIA” ever uttered in This American Life’s portrayal of Dos Erres. Rather than convey the reality—that the United States actively engaged in decades of state terror in Guatemala (Extra!, 5/1/99), or that the Kaibiles were armed and trained by the U.S. and its allies—Glass instead framed the U.S. government as a negligent bystander whose sin was solely a reluctance to speak out.
More:
http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/this-american-life-on-guatemalan-genocide/