NYT - CIA Coups Revisited

[Dover]

November 30, 2003

IRAN AND GUATEMALA, 1953-54

Revisiting Cold War Coups and Finding Them Costly

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/weekinreview/30KINZ.html

SOON after the C.I.A. installed him as president of Guatemala in 1954, Col. Carlos Castillo Armas visited Washington. He was unusually forthright with Vice President Richard M. Nixon. "Tell me what you want me to do," he said, "and I will do it."

What the United States wanted in Guatemala — and in Iran, where the C.I.A. also deposed a government in the early 1950's — was pro-American stability. In the long run, though, neither Colonel Castillo Armas nor his Iranian counterpart, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, provided it. Instead, both led their countries away from democracy and toward repression and tragedy.

How did this happen? From the perspective of half a century, what is the legacy of these two coups?

Several dozen scholars, including leading experts on Iran and Guatemala, gathered in Chicago this month to consider those questions. Their conclusions were grim. All agreed that both coups — the first that the C.I.A. carried out — had terrible long-term effects.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[bahrbearian]

1. Thanks for the good reading and link.

[peacetalksforall]

2. The more I read, the more I confirm my gut

Somewhere in our history some people decided that their were grand benefits in communism, nazism, monarchies, dictatorships and decided that America must move towards a hybrid form of monetary, earth resources, and human control - under the guise of democracy. They said and they say they want to export democracy. They say them will impose democracy even if it means imperialism.

[newyawker99]

3. Dover

Per DU copyright rules
please post only 4
paragraphs from the
news source.


Thank you.

NYer99
DU Moderator

[Say_What]

4. More info to backup that article

<clips>

Meet the Friendly Dictators - three dozen* of America's most embarrassing "friends", a cunning crew of tyrants and corrupt puppet-presidents who have been rewarded handsomely for their loyalty to U.S. interests.

Traditional Dictators seize control through force and often are self-styled "Generals." Constitutional Dictators hold office through voting fraud or severely restricted elections and are frequently mouthpieces for the military juntas which control the ballot boxes. Both types of dictators are covered here, along with a few tyrannical kings. but don't look for "enemy dictators" (communists and the like) in this set of cards. These are America's allies, strange and undemocratic as they may be.

Friendly Dictators often rise to power through bloody CIA-backed coups and rule by terror and torture. Their troops may receive training or advice from the CIA and other U.S. agencies. "Anti-communism" is their common battle cry and a common excuse for political repression. They are linked internationally through extreme right-wing groups such as the World Anti-Communist League (see card 17). Strong Nazi affiliations are typical - some have been known to dress in Nazi paraphemalia and quote from Mein Kampf, while others offer sanctuary for actual Nazi war criminals.

Friendly Dictators usually grow rich, while their countries' economies go down the drain. U.S. tax dollars and U.S. backed loans have made billionaires of some; others are international drug dealers who also collect CIA paychecks. Rarely are they called to account for their crimes.


http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/Cards_Index.html

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<clips>

GENERAL EFRAIN RIOS MONT
President of Guatemala
"A Christian has to walk around with his Bible and his machine gun," said born-again General Efrain Rios Mont, military ruler of Guatemala from March 1982 to August 1983. Rios Mont was one in a long series of dictators who ran Guatemala after the Dulles brothers and United Fruit, backed by the CIA, decided that elected President Jacob Arbenz held the country "in the grip of a Russian-controlled dictatorship" and overthrew the country's constitutional democracy in 1954. The succession of corrupt military dictators ruled Guatemala for over 30 years, one anti-communist tyrant after another receiving U.S. support, aid, and training.

After the 1982 coup that brought Rios Mont to power, U.S. Ambassador Frederic C. Chapin said Guatemala "has come out of the darkness and into the light." President Reagan claimed Mont was given "a bum rap" by human rights groups, and that he was cleaning up problems inherited from his predecessor, General Romeo Lucas Garcia. Ironically, Garcia had given $500,000 to Reagan's 1980 campaign, and his henchman, Mario Sandoval Alarcon, the "Godfather" of Central American death squads, was a guest at Reagan's first inaugural celebration. Sandoval proudly calls his National Liberation Movement "the party of organized violence."
Mont simply moved Garcia's dirty war from urban centers to the countryside "where the spirit of the Lord" guided him against "communist subversives", mostly indigenous Indians. As many as 10,000 Indians were killed and over 100,000 fled to Mexico as a result of Mont's "Christian" campaign.

http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/CentralAmerica.html