Murdered Women Real Legacy Of U.S. "Freedom"

Perhaps in view of the U.S. role in Guatemala where innocent women are being murdered daily under U.S. eyes, the Afghanistan argument about the rights of women should be scrapped. For how can the U.S. ache for the rights of women in Afghanistan when it approves – to put the matter bluntly – of innocent women being brutalized and regularly murdered, now, as I write, in Guatemala? Put simply, the U.S. is the dominant power in Guatemala. Violent death in that country is rising. 97% of murders of all kinds there go unpunished. Under U.S. eyes. 75% of the population lives in extreme poverty. Women work seventy hours a week in factories located in zones of foreign operation (maquiladoras) where they earn next to nothing. They work, moveover, without labour laws. Guatemala’s chief trading partner is the USA. Writing of women in a Guatemalan city near the Mexican border, Poala Ramirez Orozco-Souel says they are “beaten, tortured, mutilated, violated and finally killed…. 2,200 of them have been murdered since 2001, of whom 299 were murdered in the period since January 2006.” (Le Monde diplomatique, Sept. 06 8-9) The writer continues, saying that all the rights of Guatemalans are wasted in the face of “delinquency, the drug traffic, organized crime, and corruption”. Despite the conditions described, the U.S. has pushed hard to see Guatemala win a seat this September as a member (non-permanent) of the Security Council of the United Nations. Having manipulated Guatemala into a fully puppet government position, the U.S. was pleased when the Oscar Berger government approved “without debate” the signing of a Free Trade treaty between Guatemala and the USA in March 2005. Foreign enterprises can exploit Guatemala’s resources “without constraints”. All public services and social services may be owned by private corporations. A strike following the acceptance of the Free Trade pact was violently repressed. Clearly the U.S. is in the seat of power in Guatemala, and – clearly – the lives of women, indeed of all Guatemalans, are worth nothing. The long, long U.S. devastation of Guatemala is a well-recorded story. Reformist governments emerged in the late 1940s. And in 1954 the freely elected Jacabo Arbenz government was overthrown by a U.S. organized and armed coup. Arbenz had pushed reasonable agrarian reform and social policy. He confiscated land the United Fruit Company (a U.S. banana company) wasn’t using. From that point on, the U.S. has been the brutal puppeteer running Guatemalan affairs. From 1960 to 1996 the famous twenty-six year war was conducted in Guatemala – in which 200,000 Guatemalans were killed. Government forces and paramilitaries were responsible for more than 90% of the human rights violations during the war. When the war was over, interviewed retired generals made clear they followed U.S. policy and orders. In fact, the U.S. used an (originally) humble police training institution to organize and train personnel to assure continuing repression of Guatemalans. The U.S. government directly supported Guatemala’s army with training, weapons, and money. Guatemala’s Truth Commission asserted that “intentional genocide” was practised during the war. All Guatemalans – but especially Guatemalan women – are being treated worse than slaves, now. The U.S. is largely responsible for their treatment. At the same time (along with its fawning Stephen Harper Canadian government) the U.S. is claiming that its army in Afghanistan (whether dominating NATO forces or acting as U.S. army) is there to bring peace, democracy, security, equality, and – above all – freedom for women. Canadians should look very carefully at the long history of Guatemala under U.S. domination, the oppression of Guatemalans in order to support U.S. private corporations there, the present almost incredible brutalization of women for the profit (and what else?) of U.S. enterprise in Guatemala. Then Canadians should look carefully at the propaganda and indoctrination they are subjected to about the high-minded, liberationist purposes of the U.S.-managed war in Afghanistan. And Canadians should draw their own conclusions. [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on September 13, 2006]