Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

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4. Challenge and Response: Guatemala
he conditions of traditional life came under threat in Guatemala at
about the same time as they did in El Salvador, and for the same
reasons. Large segments of the peasant population, Indians
primarily, began to lend support to guerrillas after the government
moved to crush their nonviolent efforts to overcome the conditions of
semi-slavery and misery to which the US has made notable and
persisting contributions. The dynamics were the familiar ones. Local
self-help organizations, many established by the Church, had developed
during the 1970s and “functioned effectively with wide participation by
the rural population,” achieving “impressive results”—and calling forth
the usual response: murder of priests and community leaders, and
generalized massacre and repression. 64
T
The response has been examined in gory detail by human rights
groups. In October 1982, Amnesty International reported that in
widespread massacres, the government had “destroyed entire villages,
tortured and mutilated local people and carried out mass executions.” To
cite one example, in one village troops “forced all the inhabitants into
the courthouse, raped the women and beheaded the men, and then
battered the children to death against rocks in a nearby river.” 65
A Survival International delegation took depositions from refugees in
Mexico, who report massacres in which “pregnant women and children
have been killed, women have been raped, and people have been
tortured and burned alive,” with the destruction of whole towns and
villages, burning of crops and destruction of livestock. 66 The stories are
the familiar ones from the domains of US influence and control. Thus, a
mother of 2 children fled her village as it was burned down with many
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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