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and the murderer's of Montenegro's daughter, by the way they are framing this story, and interpreting certain facts and leaving some possibly critically important facts out. I'm reminded of Karl Rove's narratives for pre-ordained events, such as Bush/Cheney's 'win' in 2004, accomplished by obviously rigged voting machines. He feeds his phony narrative to the lapdog corporate press about "why we won" (gay marriage, "Soccer mom" fear of "terrorism," their "invisible get out the vote campaign in the churches," etc.), and they lap it up and never look at the impossible numbers or the egregiously riggable new electronic vote tabulation system.
This article, for instance, says some 40 candidates or party leaders have been assassinated so far in this campaign. But they don't say who they are. They just leave that out. Is it 50/50 right/left carnage, or all aimed at leftists, or what? I of course suspect the latter (it's the leftists who are being killed) because they DON'T SAY. Thus we are left with the impression that everyone is violent in Guatemala, which probably not true. It is more than likely all rightwing violence, and more than likely funded, supported and even directly committed by Bush C.I.A. black ops hit men.
The fascist press often uses this tactic (omission of facts). Articles on Colombia, for instance, seem to justify rightwing paramilitary carnage against leftists (union leaders, peasant farmers, community organizers, leftist politicians) by citing the on-going government war on FARC (leftist guerrillas). What they DON'T SAY is that 95% of the carnage is committed by rightwing paramilitaries (some of it paid for by Chiquita Banana) and the rightwing government (made fat with billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in so-called "war on drugs" military aid), mostly against completely innocent and peaceful people. Thus, you come away from these articles thinking it is a civil war, when it is in fact mass murder as political oppression BY THE RIGHT, funded and supported by, with some of the murders possibly even committed by, the U.S., under the Bush Junta. (Courageous prosecutors and judges in Colombia have recently disclosed the very close ties between the Uribe government--Bush's pals--and the rightwing military death squads.)
Another hole (omitted facts) in the Telegraph article is their reference to the Guatemalan civil war. "...a particularly violent election campaign, even by the standards of a country that endured a bloody 36-year civil war." This was not a "civil war." This was mass murder on staggering, horrifying scale, again as political oppression. TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND Mayan villagers were slaughtered in the 1980s, on suspicion of being "communists," with Saint Ronald Reagan's direct complicity. Pregnant women were skinned alive and their babies slain. Parents were made to watch their children burned alive. Entire villages were murdered and then torched. This rightwing, U.S. supported torture and genocide is made to sound rather tame--a "bloody civil war"--as if it were somehow an equal fight among soldiers. Not so! It was a classist cleansing, to remove an entire population of leftist VOTERS. (The UN "truth and reconciliation" process has recently brought these facts to light--with investigations of the mass graves, and of U.S. documents, etc.).
The fascist press did the same thing with regard to the recent PEACEFUL uprising in Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. It was portrayed as a "violent clash" of government troops and "protesters." It was nothing of the kind! U.S. readers/news viewers (if they get any information at all) are given the impression of "unrest," "disorder," "violent" PROTESTERS, when, in truth, rightwing paramilitaries (once again) in the employ of the fascist governor were kidnapping, torturing, raping and killing hundreds of entirely peaceful people involved in the teachers' union strike (over salaries), and the federales of the rightwing Fox/Calderon government then came in on the side of the rightwing paramilitaries, and inflicted more violence, and smashed the strike and the community peaceful protest that had arisen around it.
The rightwing commits violence, and then the rightwing press portrays it not as it should be portrayed--as the crimes of rightwing thugs and murderers in the employ of fascist politicians and corporate/drug cartel interests--but as GENERAL MAYHEM.
We get a HINT of what's really going on, in the current Guatemalan elections, at the END OF THE ARTICLE (that part that Judy quotes, above) when Mr. Montenegro says, "I am used to the threatening phone calls, the insults, the people calling me a communist....". Who gets called "a communist"? Leftist politicians. He also states his suspicions about who benefits from his daughter's death and the other violence--the rightwing thugs who want everybody to be scared and thus vote for a rightwing thuggish government.
But there is a strong likelihood here that what we are seeing is a Karl Rove-type "narrative" to "explain" another stolen election. Mr. Montenegro is no doubt right in his suspicions of who benefits, but possibly wrong (or half wrong) in what he thinks the point of it is: to get votes. Fascists rarely get votes. They more usually steal votes--or suppress the vote (with violence and other tactics).
I don't trust the poll that the Telegraph cites. The U.S. Bush/NED/USAID was sponsoring FALSE POLLS in Venezuela, to make it appear the recent election won by Hugo Chavez (with 63% of the vote) was a "close race." The false poll was connected to yet another rightwing/CIA plot to destabilize Venezuela and mount yet another fascist military coup attempt (which the opposition candidate publicly disavowed, to his credit). The Telegraph says the Guatemalan poll was by "independent Prensa Libre daily." I'm not sure who they are. But I do know that almost every newspaper and TV/radio station in Latin America is owned and controlled by rightwing corporate news monopolies (just as it is here), some of whom are foaming-at-the-mouth fascists, and, in Venezuela, some of whom have actively participated in violent coup attempts.
So we don't know if the basic premise of the article is true--that, because of the violence, the leftist candidate is losing ground to a fascist candidate who is promising "law and order." What IS clear, however, is that Guatemalans are being terrorized, and whose favorite tactic is that? --in Guantanamo Bay, in Abu Ghraib, in secret prisons all over the globe, on the streets of Baghdad, on the streets of New Orleans, in the mountains of Afghanistan. Fear, terror, torture, thuggery, murder, genocide. "Shock and Awe." The Reagan legacy writ even larger and uglier.
Someone mentioned that Guatemala has no oil--and thus is of little interest to the Bushites and their lapdog corporate press. But there is a lot more going on in Bushite Latin American policy than oil. There is first of all the geopolitical configuration of the western hemisphere. Imagine if there were a Bolivarian Revolution in Guatemala (which is certainly ripe for it--conditions there are similar to conditions in Venezuela, when the Chavez government was elected). The Bolivarian Revolution (grass roots democracy, social justice and Latin American self-determination) has swept South America--winning elections (by big margins) in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina (and soon Paraguay), with governments that are closely aligned with the leftist governments in Brazil, Uruguay and Chile (and also with Cuba, which doesn't have a political democracy, but is popular, due to its economic democracy). Last year, a leftist--of a very similar Bolivarian type--came within a hairsbreadth--0.05%--of getting elected president of Mexico. (Only last minute, stolen election shenanigans prevented it.)
Beat in mind also that the social revolution that is occurring in Mexico (the Oaxacan uprising, the Zapatista movement) is occurring in southern Mexico on the border with Guatemala (also in Mexico City), where there are cross-border alliances among the indigenous (as there are in the Andes countries, where the indigenous are important leaders of the Bolivarian Revolution; Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, for instance, is 100% indigenous).
If Guatemala and Mexico elect leftist governments, what we would have is an almost solid block of countries from the Mexico/U.S. border to the Antarctic, who are anti-U.S. dominated "free trade," anti-World Bank/IMF, anti-U.S. "war on drugs" corruption, pro-worker, pro-poor people, pro-the Majority, and with Bolivarian goals, such as a Latin American "Common Market" and common currency (to get off the U.S. dollar). Mexico is the Bushites' first line of defense against the free and democratic "brown hordes" of the south who won't cooperate with the U.S./corporate rape of their countries. And Guatemala is the second line of defense. It may not have Mexico's oil, or the rich oil, gas, minerals, forests, fresh water and other resources of the Andes democracies, but it's on the line of march right TO these resources, and if Mexico and Guatemala turn left together, then profit from Mexico's oil, and from sweatshop labor, will be imperiled. The corporate thugs who control our government don't want to share their ungodly profits. They adamantly oppose social justice. What the Bolivarians want is NOT to harm the U.S. but to be EQUAL PARTNERS, with Latin American sovereignty respected. As Evo Morales has said, "We want partners, not bosses."
But that is NOT in our global corporate predators' game plan, as we know. Social justice is out. Local control of resources for the benefit of local people (other the rich few) is out. They don't want partners.
Guatemala is a stepping stone. And considering conditions there, the people must certainly feel stepped upon. And they have been, and are--by the Big Fascist Boot from the north. The rightwing fascists in Guatemala pave the way, and drop rose petals for the conquering corporate forces who are passing through, as they squish the "little people" along the way.
Guatemala is of strategic importance. Fascist control of the government provides a bulwark against the Bolivarian Revolution. It is also a pathway for rightwing paramilitary and Bushite drug trafficking.
So, whatever is going on in this election in Guatemala--whether the bloodshed is scaring some voters and making them want a big daddy protector (police state), or whether this is all just made up, to "explain" the next stolen election--you can be sure that it is of no little interest to the Bush Junta and its puppetmasters. Back in the '80s, when they slaughtered this large segment of the indigenous population, it wasn't primarily for sport. It was because they were LEFTISTS. They wanted fairness and justice. And they were no doubt beginning to get organized to exercise political influence. And THAT was a matter of abiding concern to the Reaganites, as it is today to the Bushites.
One final thing--in the global picture. The U.S. government has game plans for war with China, has new beefed up bases all over the Pacific, including within and off the coasts of Central and South American countries, which would be strategic launching pads for an Asian/Pacific war. The Bolivarian who was elected president of Ecuador--Rafael Correa--had, as one of his campaign planks, not renewing the agreement that allows a U.S. military base on Eduadoran soil. He recently said again that he was not going to renew it. Latin American sovereignty is a big issue to the Bolivarians. The majority wants the base gone. It is a sore point. The vast majority of South Americans condemn the war on Iraq, and want no part of that or any other U.S. corporate resource war. Therefore, friendly fascist governments, like the ones in Colombia and Mexico, are all the more important to the U.S. And the Bushites want one in Guatemala--and we can be sure that they are supporting, funding and/or directly implementing dirty fascist tricks including violence, to achieve their ends.
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