Genocide in Guatemala
In the United States we often look to European and African countries for examples of dictatorship, civil war, inequality and genocide. In the 1990s, several countries experienced mass exodus, civil war, race war, religious war, and genocide. Yugoslavia's Serbian population attempted to cleanse itself of Muslims and Croats, in Rwanda the Hutu population exterminated almost the entire Tutsi population, while in East Timor and several other countries refugees fled from the tyranny of "their" government. Less often however do we look, or even realize that our neighbors to the south are experiencing remarkably similar acts of violence, hate, and misuse of power. Bordered mostly by Mexico, Belize, and Honduras Guatemala is known for its volcanoes, exquisite beaches, gorgeous landscapes, ancient Mayan ruins, and a unique culture. However, it is also a country tainted by oppression, injustice, servitude, racial inequality, and genocide. Andrew Miller, a Penn State University student describes Guatemala: "Guatemala, it has been said, is a country of extremes. Within can be witnessed the riches of breathtaking scenery, natural resources and cultural diversity. Simultaneously, however, one sees extreme poverty and exp
Andrew Miller: http://www.west.net/~tmiller/gh/ What, one may ask, causes a country with such obvious beauty and potential to recess into a shadow of hate, racism, and classism that can only lead to one result, genocide? Guatemala was not always teetering between genocide and no genocide. Rather the genocide that occurred in Guatemala happened as a result of a sort of evolution from a dictatorship to "a largely peaceful revolution" to conditions embracing hate, violence, and finally genocide. Several factors influenced this transition from relative peace to extreme violence. Economic issues regarding land and labor fueled the fire, as did political issues. In fact, the United States of America greatly contributed to the violence by training Guatemalan police in torture tactics in the late 1950s and early 1960s. "Between 1956 and 1963 annual U.S. military assistance to Guatemala multiplied by tens times." Conflicts between races and classes also contributed to the evolution. However, what remains amazing about Guatemala's genocide is that it followed ten years of a relatively peaceful revolution from 1944 when Ubico was overthrown to 1954 when President Arbenz resigned (due to a coup led by the United States). In his history of Guatemala, Gift of the Devil Jim Handy, a Central America historian describes those ten years as "Ten Years of Spring." Nevertheless, and while generally peaceful, the national revolution between 1944 and 1954 provided Guatemala with a foundation for decades of racial injustice, economic and political inequality, and "the worst genocide in the Americas since the first arrival of the Europeans."
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Approximate Word count = 4249
Approximate Pages = 17 (250 words per page double spaced)
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