Guatemala and United Fruit: US Policy Blunder
SUMMARY: Overview taken from Michael Reid’s Forgotten Continent on the US toppling of Guatemala’s elected government in 1954.
Guatemala is the saddest country in Latin America. The beauty of its verdant highlands dotted with whitewashed colonial towns, its shimmering lakes overlooked by soaring volcanoes and its Mayan ruins half buried in rainforest cannot conceal the ancestral oppression of its indigenous majority. It has had an elected civilian government since 1986. But a guerrilla war lasting almost three decades was settled only in 1996. It cost some 200,000 lives; most of the victims were Mayan Indians killed by the army. The war continues to cast a dark shadow. Guatemala’s democrats must struggle against what some have called poderes fácticos – shadowy networks linking corrupt former army officers and organized criminal gangs of drug traffickers and money launderers. In many ways, these networks are the real power in the country. They appeared to flourish under Alfonso Portillo, the country’s president from 2000 to 2005, who fled to Mexico on leaving office and faced charges of stealing $16 million of public money. Under Oscar Berger, a reforming liberal elected in 2004, a new effort began to cut Guatemala’s army down to size and to liberate democracy from military tutelage.
The CIA snuffs out the Guatemalan spring
And yet Guatemala might have developed into a far more robust democracy much earlier. That it did not do so is in large part the fault of the United States: more than anywhere else in Latin America, Guatemala is a victim of American intervention. In 1954, the Eisenhower administration organized a coup to topple the democratic, reformist government of Jacobo Arbenz, which the American president alleged to be a possible ‘communist outpost on this continent’. … Read more
FARC, Guerrillas, and Paramilitaries in Colombia
SUMMARY: Brief history written by Michael Reid’s Forgotten Continent on the armed conflict in Colombia involving FARC, ELN, paramilitaries, and of course the Colombian state.
Democratic security in Colombia
At first glance, San Vicente del Caguán looked like any other small cattle town on the fringes of the Amazon basin. On its stiflingly hot, bustling streets, lined with half-finished houses of concrete and brick, Japanese pick-ups and motorbikes jostled with horse-drawn carts. From early afternoon, Mexican rancheras blared out from the loudspeakers of the numerous brothels. What made San Vicente unusual in 2001 was the presence in the main square of a small office of the FARC – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the largest and longest-lasting leftist guerrilla army in Latin America. For three years, the government of Andrés Pastrana allowed the FARC to control a Switzerland-sized swathe of mountains, jungle and grassland around San Vicente. The FARC had demanded this ‘demilitarised zone’ as a condition for getting peace talks going. But the talks made little progress. The FARC used them for propaganda purposes. They held public hearings on how to reduce unemployment, while carrying on their war with increasing savagery. … Read more
Cocaine Cartels and Economics in Colombia
SUMMARY: Overview taken from Michael Reid’s Forgotten Continent on the history of the cocaine industry in Colombia and its economic implications.
‘Lead or silver’
Enrique Low Murtra wanted nothing more than to leave his job as Colombia’s justice minister to open a law office and return to his previous career as a university teacher. ‘I would like to imagine that vengeance is not eternal. To be exiled, like Scipio, from one’s own country seems to me to be an injustice,’ he said. A gentle, avuncular man who had once been a supreme-court judge, he was still only 49. He spoke softly as the rain pattered down outside his office in a colonial mansion in Bogotá in March 1988. But he would indeed suffer exile – and worse. Two months earlier, on the instruction of Colombia’s president, Virgilio Barco, Low Murtra had signed warrants for the arrest and extradition to the United States on drugs charges of the five leading members of the ‘Medellín Cartel’. They included Pablo Escobar, perhaps the world’s most ruthless and notorious drug baron. Faced with constant death threats, the minister sent his daughter out of the country. ‘Even going for a haircut has become a problem,’ he said. So intense did the threats become that, in July 1988, Barco sent him to Switzerland as ambassador. That did not save him. In 1991, he was back in Colombia, working as he had hoped as a law professor at the University of La Salle. No longer in government service, he had no bodyguards. He was gunned down at the entrance to the university. … Read more
Contributed Story: Revolution in China?
SUMMARY: An American expat in China discusses the political climate there and his opinion on the prospect of revolution. If Expat Chronicles wasn’t censored in China before, it surely is now. And I could care less.
You often hear in Western media that China’s government is immoral and oppressive, and you’re led to believe that at any minute the people will revolt to produce something resembling a modern democracy. I can barely speak Chinese (much less read it), so I’m no expert on Chinese culture or politics. But I’ve lived in China for almost two years now. This is my American perspective on Chinese culture and the prospect of revolution.
Revolution is a long shot. In Hong Kong I was studying for a Master’s degree in economics. None of my classmates seemed to have strong political views. Most took up economics because their parents told them to, or because they thought it would lead to a well paying job, or just for the prestige conferred by higher education – any subject would do.
Sin Nombre: Relevant, Intense, Heart-Wrenching
SUMMARY: I review Sin Nombre, the best film I’ve seen in a long time about a Mexican gang member trying to escape his past and help an innocent Honduran girl safely enter the United States. Themes discussed include MS-13, immigration and human rights, love, and more.
I wasn’t going to include this post on this blog (only my other blog), but WordPress.com apparently doesn’t allow embedding YouTube videos so I’m posting it here as well because I spent a lot of time finding those fucking videos!
Sin Nombre is the best film I’ve seen in a long time. It’s also the first Spanish-language movie I watched without subtitles. They weren’t available at the pirated DVD market where I bought the disc. Fortunately I had no trouble understanding. … Read more
Why I’m Bullish on Colombia
SUMMARY: I detail why I believe Colombia will emerge to be a dynamic economy and one of the most influential countries in Latin America.
Sidenote for those who aren’t economics nerds, A ‘bull’ or ‘bull market’ refers to optimistic investments or expressing confidence. A ‘bear’ or ‘bear market’ refers to economic pessimism or lacking confidence.
EXCERPT: Brazil is the Latin American emerging market most economists drool over because of its size. But if we look at unrealized potential, Colombia may be the most attractive. Where does Colombia’s unrealized potential come from? Security. I’ve written extensively about the crime here. I’ve complained more than it deserves because Colombia’s undergoing a historic turnaround. … Read more
Recession: An American Experience
SUMMARY: I describe what seemed different to me about my first time living in America since the global recession / credit crisis.
The subprime mortgage meltdown started around 2007, the last year I lived in the States. At the time, newspapers and economists believed the risk was contained to only subprime or the domestic house market. Since then we’ve seen big banks fail, investments plummet, and trillions of public dollars injected into banks around the world. We’ve learned about collaterized debt obligations (CDO), credit-default swaps (CDS), and a slew of other culprits in what amounts to the steepest recession since the Great Depression.
I wasn’t around during the Great Depression; I only have the impression I got from American textbooks. My impression was that it was depression, a miserable time that spanned over ten years. Similar to that impression, my feel for the current economic stumble was limited to what I’d read in newspapers and among economists (In Peru, GDP growth still hasn’t dipped into the negative). This work holiday was the first time living in America during the biggest recession of my lifetime. Things were noticeably different, some in unexpected ways.
