If I had a Rocket Launcher

Will Moore from Political Violence @ a Glance and Will Opines posted a video of "If I had a Rocket Launcher" on Facebook today which I had never heard. I thought I'd share it here because it was written following Bruce Cockburn's trip to Guatemalan refugee camps in Mexico, which the musician did following the Rios Montt regime.



From Wikipedia:

"If I Had a Rocket Launcher" is a song by Bruce Cockburn, from his 1984 album Stealing Fire.

The song was inspired by Cockburn's visit, sponsored by OXFAM, to Guatemalan refugee camps in Mexico following the counterinsurgency campaign of dictator Efraín Ríos Montt.[1] Although Cockburn had occasionally touched on political themes in his earlier songs, "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" was his first explicitly political song to be released as a single, and earned him a new reputation as an outspoken musical activist.

In the song, Cockburn despairs of waiting for a political solution to the crisis, and expresses the desire to take matters into his own hands. Each verse ends with a line stating what Cockburn would do if he had a rocket launcher: in the first verse, I'd make somebody pay. In the second, I would retaliate. In the third, I would not hesitate.

The fourth and final verse ends with the song's most famous and controversial lyric: If I had a rocket launcher, some son-of-a-bitch would die.

In a later interview, Cockburn stated that the song "is not a call to arms; this is a cry."[1]

What members of Guatemala's CACIF and El Salvador's ANEP fear most

From Argentina:

Three former Ford Motor Co. executives were charged Tuesday with crimes against humanity for allegedly targeting Argentine union workers for kidnapping and torture after the country's 1976 military coup.

All three men are now in their 80s. Their case is part of a new wave of prosecutions focusing on corporate support for the dictators who ran Argentina in 1976-1983, and the 150-page indictment written by Judge Alicia Vence reads like a history lesson, going to considerable lengths to explain why their actions constitute crimes against humanity and why it has taken nearly four decades to result in criminal charges.

Just fuhgeddaboudit.

El Salvador: I don't need no stinking media or constitutional court

El Salvador's Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice ruled that President Mauricio Funes' appointments of "retired" general David Munguía Payés as Minister of Public Security and "retired" general Francisco Ramón Salinas Rivera as PNC director violated the constitution's provision preventing the military from being in charge of domestic security. (See Tim and Hector and Steve).

I agree with the court's ruling and am happy that they reached this conclusion. Here's what I wrote in November 2011 in a post at Al Jazeera.

Personally, I think that Munguía Payés' appointment sets bad precedent. I am not worried so much about him as I am the fact that his appointment opens the door for additional appointments of former military officials to head state institutions. That's not a path that anyone wishes to see El Salvador travel down.

Given El Salvador's history, I thought that it would set bad precedent to allow "former" military officers to oversee domestic security officers. Now the Constitutional Chamber has also found their appointments to not only have violated the spirit of the peace accords but the law.

But it doesn't stop there. President Funes said something about the court which would have gotten everyone up in arms had it been said by Otto Perez Molina.

El Salvadorian President Mauricio Funes joined the prisoners in disagreeing with the Court's ruling. 'I have no doubt that behind the arguments of the court is a very clear anti-military bias.'

There's a lot not to like about President Funes, including his contempt for the media and the courts, essentially two of the country's most important institutions that are meant to check presidential power.

Chaos with all signs pointing to extrajudicial interference in Guatemala

So last night the Guatemalan Constitutional Court overruled the conviction of Rios Montt and the not guilty verdict of his co-defendant Rodriguez Sanchez. The Open Society Justice Initiative's Emi MacLean has a run down on why the justices' ruled the way that they did (3-2) and what she thinks that the ruling means. It's very good and I encourage you to read it for yourself. I can't say that I am clear on every detail even after reading it however.

As we saw on the first day of the trial, Rios Montt's new lawyer, Francisco Garcia Gudiel, was brought into the case at the last possible moment in an effort to have two of the judges removed and/or to plant the seeds for overturning a guilty verdict after the fact. While the court's final ruling was not overturned because of the judges' failures to recuse themselves (an appeals court and the Constitutional Court have ruled consistently in favor of the judges), Garcia Gudiel's tactics the first day seems to have paid dividends for the defense anyway. The due process violations relate to the court's decision to remove him from the case.

The Constitutional Court appears to have ruled that the High-Risk Court did not adequately comply with the Third Chambers' earlier ruling. Barrios and the High Court did respond to the Third Chambers' rulings and the Third Chamber even ruled that they had done so, so it's not entirely clearly (yet) in which ways they were allegedly deficient. It might be related to the High Risk Court's decision to continue with the trial when they should have suspended the proceedings.

So if I understand correctly, the Third Chamber ruled on May 9th that the High-Risk Court had complied with its order to reinstate Garcia Gudiel and to reconsider his recusal motions (they had already reinstated Garcia Gudiel and they, once again, considered and rejected his recusal motion). Rios Montt's attorney then  challenged the Chamber's ruling that the High Risk Court had in fact complied with what it had been ordered to do. And now the Constitutional Court has ruled in favor of Rios Montt and his attorney and is sending the trial back to April 19th.

The CC still has Barrios and her two colleague hearing the case but Garcia Gudiel is arguing that they will need to remove themselves from the case because they have already made their opinion known (the guilty verdict). The trial will have to be restarted with new judges who have not already formed opinions regarding the guilty or innocence of the accused.

Here's what I wrote on Twitter prior to the ruling.

Even if CC rules to overturn Rios Montt ruling, CACIF, Foundation against Terrorism, and others have made sure that everyone will blame...
— Mike Allison (@CentAmPolMike) May 21, 2013

political pressure, threats of violence; even if there was legal reason, it's gone now
— Mike Allison (@CentAmPolMike) May 21, 2013

Now, the Constitutional Court's decision might or might not have been influenced by the threats from CACIF, the Foundation against Terrorism, Rios Montt's lawyers, and others. We don't know for certain.

However, CACIF, the Foundation against Terrorism, and Garcia Gudiel's actions and statements during the trial and, especially, after the trial reached its conclusions, have made it nearly impossible to accept that the Constitutional Court acted according to the law and not according to extrajudicial interference.

Take II: The Rios Montt genocide trial

In a three-to-two ruling Monday night, Guatemala's Constitutional Court overturned Efrain Rios Montt's guilty verdict and Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez's not guilty verdict and returned the trial to April 19th.

While the dust is still settling, April 19th would mean that witness and expert witness testimony will not need to be re-admitted. The court will be at the point at which it will be preparing to hear closing arguments.

Obviously, the ruling is good news for Rios Montt but it is bad news for Rodriguez Sanchez who is in jeopardy again. It's also bad news for the survivors who worked so very hard to secure the guilty verdict.

Now the ruling could be a sign of corruption and impunity. That would obviously be bad. Mauro Rodrigo Chacón y Gloria Porras were the two judges who ruled against overturning the verdict. Chacón represents the University of San Carlos and Porras was appointed during the Colom administration. The court's reversal comes following weeks of escalating attacks in the press from a powerful economic group, veterans' groups, and other right-wing groups.

Or it could be a sign that the Constitutional Court is doing its job and making sure that all parties adhere to established legal practices. That would be good as it doesn't help if justice cuts corners.

Here's what I wrote on Al Jazeera last week:

First, the prosecution still has to secure the final verdict. The trial itself has been full of intrigue with two different judges claiming they should be overseeing the trial. Pre-trial judge, Patricia Carol Flores, who was responsible for evidentiary and other matters of the case, held a hearing on the morning of Friday's verdict during which she tried to annul the trial, once again, and send it back to November 2011.

The Constitutional Court (CC) already ruled that Flores had overstepped her authority and had interpreted its ruling too broadly. It seems the CC only wanted her to incorporate new evidence that previously had been excluded and then send the case back to Judge Barrios. However, Flores' latest decision to re-annul the trial remains pending.

Following Friday afternoon's verdict, Rios Montt's attorney argued that the defence had already lodged four constitutional challenges and eight amparos which had not yet been ruled upon. Those legal challenges could threaten the conviction. Guatemalan lawyers have a history of using excessive, often frivolous, legal challenges to delay or deny justice so it is possible that all are resolved in favour of the prosecution. In this trial alone, the defence lodged over 100 legal challenges. 

Judge Barrios and her two colleagues must have decided that the best strategy to reach a verdict was to push the trial through to the end without waiting to resolve all the outstanding legal challenges rather than let the trial get bogged down.

If Judge Barrios and the other two judges remain in charge of the case and all that needs to be re-argued are closing arguments, the damage is minimal. If the CC determined that the trial court should not have proceeded when it did and it is now returning the case to the point in time at which it should have been stopped, April 19, that is justice in motion. That is a CC that takes its role seriously. However, the ruling might have gone beyond that.

As of tonight, though, the ruling's motivations and implications are not necessarily clear.

10 Questions on US involvement in Guatemala and Central America

In revisiting the US' role in Guatemala and Central America over the last ten years, I've often thought about the Iraq war (and no, just not the death squad parallels). It might be helpful to draw some potential parallels with the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

These are questions that people have been asking, more or less, over the last decade in regards to Iraq and elsewhere and they might be helpful to think of them in relationship to the US and Central America.

1. How much of what US policymakers were working from was the result of faulty intelligence?
2. How much did intelligence analysts / Embassy personnel / Washington advisers cook the books (they provided the intelligence that their superiors desired, that would help them earn promotions)
3. How much did the US rely on unreliable informants (Cuban exiles, traitors, double agents, people with their own agendas)? 
4. Was group think a problem?
5. Did they perfect Dick Cheney's 1% doctrine thirty years ago?
6. What did State know and do versus what CIA and Military know and do?
7. What do we think we know versus what do we have evidence for? We might be right (or wrong); however, we just don't have evidence to support our arguments one way or another?
8. What did we say publicly versus do/say privately?
9. How much are academics who study Central America stuck in an echo chamber?
10. How much do academics, policymakers, and the media love/hate Ronald Reagan that we assume the best / worst.?

Perhaps some of this has been asked already. I'm not sure. What do you think? Helpful? Anything that we should add? Remove?

NY Times continues debating US role in Guatemala

The New York Times held one of its Room for Debate this weekend on What Guilt Does the U.S. Bear in Guatemala? It's tough to really boil down the US role to a few paragraphs so I am sympathetic.

J. Michael Waller worked with counterinsurgency forces in El Salvador and insurgents in Nicaragua during the 1980s. Today, he is the provost of the Institute of World Politics, a graduate school of national security and international affairs in Washington, D.C. I appreciate that he took the time to answer their question, but his answer was probably the weakest. Honestly, I don't get much of his argument. It seems to boil down to everybody did bad things - the Sandinistas, the Cubans, Sanchez Ceren and the FMLN, the US, Rios Montt and the Guatemalan military - and that "it would not be in the interests of justice" to prosecute all the guilty parties.

I wonder if they asked Elliot Abrams, Roger Noriega, Colin Powell, Robert Gates, or any other high level official. They should have asked this man too.

A second post comes from Greg Grandin, a professor of history at New York University and a fellow at the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. I think Greg's analysis of the evidence that he provides is all wrong. 

He cites an increase in US aid from $11 million in 1980 to $104 million in 1986 (skipping over the $97 million in 1985). Yes, US assistance was minimal in 1980 and would increase only after the generals returned to the barracks and a civilian was elected president (except they didn't really return to the barracks and Cerezo wasn't entirely in charge). That's right, he skips over US aid to Guatemala in 1981, 1982, and 1983 - the period when Rios Montt was in power and the height of the violence.

He cites another declassified document which he characterizes as Washington being "less concerned with the massacres than with their effectiveness." Here's the gist of the document:

In essence Ambassador Chapin concludes President Lucas is not going to address our human rights concerns, that we must recognize this fact, and that we must now decide whether "national security considerations" require that we nevertheless go ahead with security assistance. 

...

In conversation with General Walters President Lucas made clear that his government will continue as before-- that the repression will continue. He reiterated his belief that the repression is working and that the guerilla threat will be successfully routed. He prefers U.S. assistance in this effort but believes that he can succeed with or without U.S. help. 

General Walters efforts to persuade President Lucas that the repression will only spread the guerilla contagion were evidently unsuccessful. 

The US told President Lucas that his regime could receive assistance as long as it abided by our human rights conditions. He said No!

And here are the conclusions from the cable:

Whether President Lucas is right or wrong in his conviction that repression will succeed in neutralizing the guerillas, their supporters and sympathizers, the u.s. posture to ought remain one of distancing itself from the GOG. If Lucas is right and the GOG can successfully "go it alone" in its policy of repression, there is no need for the u.s. to provide the GOG with redundant political and-military support. The provisioning of such assistance would needlessly render us a complicit party in the repression. ·If we are correct in our conviction that the repression will not succeed and will only exacerbate and compound the guerilla threat, then we ought to distance ourselves from the GOG until such time as it arrives at this realization and is prepared to address our human rights concerns in return for renewed u.s. political and military support. 

The remaining question is whether we indeed have the time to await either the success or failure of the GOG's present repressive policies. The answer to that question depends upon an assessment of whether the guerilas represent a proximate, intermediate, or long-range threat to the GOG. If there is no proximate threat -- that is the guerillas do not represent a military threat to the survival of the present Guatemalan regime over the next 12 months -- then it would seem that we can await either the success or failure of the GOG's repressive policies. The nature of military threat posed by the guerillas can best be assessed by the intelligence community. Before deciding upon any next step in Guatemala we ought, therefore, undertake such an intelligence assessment.

Okay, none of this took place during Rios Montt's government (wasn't that the point of the debate!) but it still makes the US look better. The US told the government to improve human rights; they said no. The US then leans towards not providing the Guatemalan government any assistance. I agree that it's terrible that the US only shows a concern that killing civilians is going to be counterproductive. The US doesn't seem to be that concerned with civilian life. However, given what people are arguing that the US did, it seems much more tame.

Then there's the October report I mentioned earlier in this week where the embassy here first hand knowledge of a military massacre. It reports the information up the chain. They were wrong in that the characterized the massacre as an example of "selective terror" against "Red villages." It was mass terror against civilian and "red" villages. The US didn't believe reports from the Catholic Church, WOLA, Amnesty and other human rights organizations. But when they heard it from what they considered a credible source, they listened.

Here's the last report included in the opinion piece (the caps were in the original). It's also from October 1982 and is focused on the US questions the reports from Amnesty International, WOLA/NISGUA, and the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission.

IT SEEMS BEYOND QUESTION THAT THE THREE REPORTS ARE DRAWING ON MANY OF THE SAME SOURCES, SOURCES SPECIFIED IN THE NOLA/NISGUA REPORT -- SOURCES MOST OF WHICH ARE WELL- KNOWN COMMUNIST FRONT GROUPS IN CENTRAL AMERICA  AND IN THE U.S. (SEE PARA 3) . 

ALTHOUGH EMBASSY BELIEVES IT LIKELY THAT THE GUATEMALAN ARMY HAS INDEED COMMITTED SOME ATROCITIES, THE ASSERTION THAT THEY COMMITTED ALL THE MASSACRES ATTRIBUTED TO THEM IS NOT CREDIBLE, ESPECIALLY SINCE ANALYSIS INDICATES THE GUERRILLAS ARE RESPONSIBLE IN MANY CASES. IF THE GOG WERE INDEED ENGAGED IN MASSIVE EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS -- A "MAD, GENOCIDAL" CAMPAIGN -- IN THE HIGHLANDS, ONE MUST WONDER WHY INDIANS ARE JOINING CIVIL DEFENSE PATROLS IN GREAT NUMBERS, AND WHY THOUSANDS OF INDIANS ARE COMING TO THE ARMY FOR REFUGE IN SUCH PLACES AS NEBAJ, CHOATULUM, AND SAN MARTIN JILOTEPEQUE. IN SUM, EMBASSY BELIEVES THAT WHAT IS BEING PLANNED, AND SUCCESSFULLY CARRIED OUT, -IS THE COMMUNIST-BACKED DISINFORMATION PLAN MENTIONED ABOVE. END SUMMARY

Really, the documents cited show a US Embassy unaware of what was actually going on in Guatemala. They should not have dismissed human rights reports simply because they came from human rights organizations. The US' decision to dismiss the findings of human rights organizations because of the source of that information is the same charge that they were leveling against the organizations for rejecting the Guatemalan military's version of events. They US was engaged in the same behavior which they accused the human rights groups of doing!

Perhaps Grandin and I were reading different cables. I read his Last Colonial Massacre about the Panzos massacre which I found really interesting and highly recommend even though his criticism of the US at the end was pretty weak.

What do you think?

I meant to address all four responses in detail, but I've spent too much time on these two. Needless to say, I thought Anita Isaacs' one was very good (although other Arbenz quotes don't make the US look nearly as bad) and Irma Alicia Velasquez Nimatuj's was okay. I'm definitely on the same page with Anita. During an interview this week, I said that declassified documents indicate that the US wasn't as involved in the Guatemalan genocide in the early 1980s as much as many people think. Reagan's public statements were probably some of the most damaging things that we did.

However, I also said that US training and support for the military and police during the 1960s and 1970s, more or less up to the cut off in aid in 1977, was probably much more valuable to the Guatemalan military and its ability to carry out the carnage in the late seventies in the cities and the early 1980s in the countryside. That didn't make it in to the New York Times article. Really, the most important support that the US gave to the Rios Montt government was through its support to the military and police years earlier.

(See also US involvement in the Guatemalan genocide and More conflicting accounts of US complicity in Guatemalan genocide)