Talk:Efraín Ríos Montt/Archive 5

Don't know if my comment is welcome here...but I saw a documentary called "Cold War" where it is explicitly said that United Fruit Company had moved the CIA to use resources on doing the coup. Furthermore, the Escuela de las Americas, is well known in the region as the training centre of torturers. I can say since I lived several years in Central America.

Page protection

If some sort of agreement can't be reached in the talk page, with these reverts this looks like a candidate to be protected again. -- Infrogmation 19:20, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Don't know if my comment is welcome here...but I saw a documentary called "Cold War" where it is explicitly said that United Fruit Company had moved the CIA to use resources on doing the coup. Furthermore, the Escuela de las Americas, is well known in the region as the training centre of torturers. I can say since I lived several years in Central America. (21st Oct 2004)

Disputed information

• "in which then US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was personally invested."

• "According to more recent estimates, within 18 months, tens of thousands were killed by regime death squads."

• "Clinton declared: "For the United States, it is important I state clearly that support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong and the United States must not repeat that mistake.""

Lets see some verification for these and other additions, and some context for the statement by Clinton. Was he referring specifically to Efraín Ríos Montt? If not it’s irrelevant.

Sam [Spade] 04:20, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For the third one, here's something from the Washington Post:

GUATEMALA CITY, March 10 – President Clinton expressed regret today for the U.S. role in Guatemala's 36-year civil war, saying that Washington "was wrong" to have supported Guatemalan security forces in a brutal counterinsurgency campaign that slaughtered thousands of civilians.

Clinton's statements marked the first substantive comment from the administration since an independent commission concluded last month that U.S.-backed security forces committed the vast majority of human rights abuses during the war, including torture, kidnapping and the murder of thousands of rural Mayans.

"It is important that I state clearly that support for military forces or intelligence units which engaged in violent and widespread repression of the kind described in the report was wrong," Clinton said, reading carefully from handwritten notes. "And the United States must not repeat that mistake. We must, and we will, instead continue to support the peace and reconciliation process in Guatemala."

(...)

The record of the Guatemalan security forces was laid bare in a report released Feb. 25 by the Historical Clarification Commission, which grew out of the U.N.-sponsored peace process that ended the war in 1996. The commission said the Guatemalan military had committed "acts of genocide" during the conflict, in which 200,000 people died. [1] Neutrality 04:50, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Cool, thanx. Thats one down. Sam [Spade] 04:54, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For the first one, here's something. The connection may be dubious, but it probably deserves a mention:

"The CIA director at this time, Allen Dulles, was formerly the president of the United Fruit Fruit Company (UFCO) and the previous CIA director and under-secretary of state, General Walter Bedell Smith, is on the company's board of directors. Smith will become UFCO's president following the overthrow. [Smith, n.d.; Blum, 1995; LaFeber, 1993; Hertz, 2001] Allen Dulles' brother, John Dulles, who was Secretary of State at the time, had worked as a lawyer defending the United Fruit Company. [2] Neutrality 04:57, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That’s too thin to deserve mention in the article. My friend’s brother works for Tyson chicken, and yet he (my friend) is in no way complicit in the chicken waste Clinton allowed them to pour into the Arkansas rivers ;) Sam [Spade] 05:01, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This statement demonstrates a complete ignorance of the role of the United Fruit Company in Guatemala. Do some research as opposed to citing your friend's brother up as evidence. I recommend that you read LaFeber's Inevitable Revolutions, which I managed to list as a reference before you reverted my work and triggered the page protection.

Moving on to the Reagan quotation, see Schirmer, Jennifer (1998) The Guatemalan Military Project: A Violence Called Democracy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 33. It took me a while to respond because I was trying to search for an online reference to go along with it and my Internet connection is running unbearably slow tonight. These briefly paraphrase his comments: ([3], [4]) 172 05:33, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hash out your differences on a sub-page

Sniping at each other isn't helping anything. Go create a sub-page and put it up for a straw poll. Neutrality 04:43, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Calling all reactionaries...

Guys, we'd better stop. We're just ignorant right-wing hacks standing in the presence of a professional historian. We have no right to edit his deeply researched and perfectly objective work. Trey Stone 11:24, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

hmm... 172 wants the page unprotected, what say you? Sam [Spade] 02:04, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think we gotta work stuff out before we unprotect it. About the United Fruit thing, I don't really think that needs to be featured that much in this article. It's true that Dulles had ties with the company but it's covered in the article about Arbenz -- and despite being factual, the way it's phrased just gives off the impression that the CIA support was just about protecting the UFC, which is POV. Trey Stone 04:21, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Of course the U.S. government and U.S. corporations had been using their economic, diplomatic, and military power to influence politics in Central America for more than half a century. Dulles was merely one in a long line of corporate lawyers at the helm of the State Department committed to using his position to promote U.S. interests in Central America and to keeping this region within a tight sphere of U.S. influence. For more than half a century the United Fruit Company had employed as many as 40,000 Guatemalans; monopolized shipping, communications, and railroads; and helped shaped the country's politics. Thus, the major players with a stake in U.S.-Guatemalan relations (State Department officials, investors, creditors, military personnel, etc.) understandably reacted with alarm as they watched Arbenz confiscate 178,000 acres of company land in 1953; and Dulles was one of these players with a familiarity with Guatemala. The United Fruit Company was a major player in Guatemalan politics, with a substantial degree of political and economic leverage over the country, so your insistence on removing that particular reference is utterly baffling to me. BTW, see Immerman, R. H., The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention, University of Texas Press: Austin, 1982, which is the seminal work on the 1954 coup. 172 18:41, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't know. If you guys can be peacable I suggest you and 172 discuss it and try to build a concensus. This is really not my area, I have a friend who travels to guatamala fairly often and was originally reading this article to have something to talk w him about. He told me Montt was mean, but I figured that was too POV to put in the article ;) Sam [Spade] 05:20, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Severe bias and dubious factual accuracy

which educated cadets loyal to Washington in coup-plotting, political repression, torture, assassination, and strong anticommunist propaganda.

This kind of rhetoric has no place in an encyclopdia. Please review NPOV. Sam [Spade] 23:00, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Straightforward factual content belongs in encyclopedias, and the factual basis of the above is indisputable. If you look up at least one of the references provided in the article, you'll be on your way to realizing that this is a general description of the activities of the School of the Americas. 172 00:27, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I question your sources, and point out that they are not in agreement with the US govt. Presenting one side as fact and the other as fraud is POV and unencyclopdic. Sam [Spade] 00:49, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

What sources? Like the quotation of the Washington Post article quoting Clinton? He had some sort of role in the U.S. government, if I'm not mistaken. If you don't have the knowledge on Guatemala, I suggest that you find another article on which to work. 172 01:54, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It seems that the sticking point continues to be the School of the Americas. Is there any non-controversial information about the School that can be agreed upon by both supporters and detractors that would provide enough information about the School to be informative and settle the argument? ffirehorse 01:59, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I am fine w any relevant information which is not intentionally inflammatory. Sam [Spade] 11:19, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

How about "which is operated by the US government and has been accused of training Latin American military personnel in techniques that violate human rights and democratic norms"? AndyL 01:03, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't have any disagreement with that language, but I have a feeling (based on past discussions here) that those who have previously disputed this article's neutrality on the School of the Americas issue are not likely to accept that as NPOV. I could be wrong. ffirehorse 02:45, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think andy's suggestion is just fine. Sam [Spade] 11:59, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree with the language suggested by AndyL. ffirehorse 00:54, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The sources making the accusation should be attributed, of course. Sam [Spade] 15:15, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

UFC

The UFC doesn't belong in this article. It belongs in the article about Arbenz, or Guatemalan history. 64.7.89.54 02:40, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree heartilly. Sam [Spade] 11:59, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Then respond to my posting explaining why it has to be brought up in the article's necessary historical backgrounding rather than just stating your feelings without backing them up with an argument and some evidence. 172 19:56, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you feel there is a valid reason for its mention within the article perhaps it would be best to rephrase its mention so as to make it more obvious within the article. Sam [Spade] 15:12, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I already stated those reasons. See above. You'd ignored those comments earlier. 172 20:42, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The entry makes it sound like the SOA was exclusively a training ground for repressive anti-Communist soldiers, and whatever anyone's opinion on the matter is, the US govt. would dispute the extent of these charges. Supreme Moolah of Iran 03:32, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why?

Why must you insist on making this article POV? Your opinions are not necessarily facts, so please allow the reader to think for themselves. Thanks, Sam [Spade] 16:45, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

repeat, "Why must you insist on making this article POV? Your opinions are not necessarily facts, so please allow the reader to think for themselves.". Sam [Spade] 16:20, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My opinions are indeed not necessarily facts. That's why I have not inserted my opinions in this article. The content that I have restored is entirely factual; and it can be easily substantiated if you take just a few minutes to do some research-- you can even do this online without getting out of your seat and going to a research library. Please refer to the works cited in the article, the list of suggested readings, and comments stated on this talk page weeks ago... If I am mistaken, along with the authors of any of the works that I have been citing, I will be very interested in reviewing any evidence that you can bring to light here on talk. Thanks. 172 18:31, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

All I can say is that this position seems wildly inconsistent with the user history you present. The information is there in the link; it's up to the reader whether to accept it or not. I may be new here, but concealing a major POV edit under the bland phrase "trimming" doesn't seem kosher. --Dhartung 10:15, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Clearly Reagan provided support for Ríos Montt after he took power (the sale of helicopters, and that pathetic quote,) though from how I interpret things the U.S. involvement was much more focused on Sandinista Nicaragua and Duarte's El Salvador at the time. But about backing the actual coup, I don't know. If there is a link proving such through U.S. govt. declassifications then I'd like to look at it. And whatever the facts about SOA are, its official mission is not "We specialize in training neo-fascist Latinos to brutalize their opposition" and should not be presented as such. Trey Stone 03:54, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Presumably there is some way to reword this that preserves 172's stated goals of economy and wikification without making Wikipedia sound like SOAWatch? --Dhartung 03:08, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

School of the Americas edit war

Is this pointless yet? The same text has been reverted countless times by 172 and reverted back by others. 172 seems to be the tireless (and sole) advocate of one particular version, and others seem to be favoring another, but the text versions haven't changed in weeks. This is not progressing toward a solution.

The text favored by User:172 is felt to violate NPOV (reproduced here for ease of discussion):

In 1950 Ríos Montt graduated as a cadet at the School of the Americas in Panama, which educated cadets loyal to Washington in coup-plotting, military techniques, and strong anticommunist propaganda.

The text others favor is variously labeled by 172 as too long, inappropriate for this entry, using weasel words, or unsupported:

In 1950 Ríos Montt graduated as a cadet at the U.S.-operated School of the Americas in Panama, which educated Latin American cadets in counterinsurgency tactics. Many critics of the school also allege that as a part of such tactics it taught assassination, kidnapping, coup-plotting, and torture techniques as a means of fighting Communist rebellion in the region.

My take on the NPOV in specifics is this:

• loyal to Washington -- it makes no sense that any government would willingly train cadets to be loyal to a foreign country. At best they may be very sympathetic. More likely they are simply anti-communist.
• coup-plotting -- I am not disputing that the SOTA and graduates are party to such activities, only that it is a fair characterization of the school. It doesn't seem from any description that coup-plotting is the major course of study, rather than specifics such as assassination and torture are common outgrowths of SOTA "democracy" training. In any case, again it strains credulity that a country would send cadets away to learn how to foment coups against themselves.
• anti-Communist propaganda -- I would be very surprised if cadets needed exposure to such without already having strong predisposition in that direction (in any case, there's plenty of non-propaganda reasons to dislike Communists, and more especially so half a century ago).
• Overall, the phrasing suggests that Rios-Montt was little more than a puppet, failing to acknowledge native sentiment against Communism as something that the US skillfully exploited. The key problem, though, is that Rios-Montt is said only to have completed "the Special Course" in 1950. For reasons above I don't see why this would be a "coup-plotting" course, though it likely predisposed him to be sympathetic. More probably it was a politicized counterinsurgency course, so I don't see the emphasis being correct.

Bottom line, however, from a Wikipedia standpoint, is that we are not in speculation business. We weren't there, so we don't know what he learned, so trying to distill an inference is just hella POV-prone.

My take on the longer wording is this:

• counter-insurgency tactics -- this is the public, official line on the school, and seems more accurate in general. They can't be training 2000 people a year just to topple governments (and if they were, wouldn't they be better at it?). Besides, it touches more on the human-rights abuses that are the heart of the critique of the school.
• Many critics allege -- this is non-specific attribution, though verges on weasel wording, and could be improved by citing specific allegations without going into detail (surely we can find something said by Menchu, Seymour Hersh, et al. not to mention statements in Congress by Joseph Kennedy and others seeking to close the school; or what about Guatemalan politicians of the day?).
• taught assassination, kidnapping, coup-plotting, and torture techniques -- 172 has stated that only the coup-plotting is relevant to Rios-Montt's rule, but I don't think this is so. Why not the whole shebang? The rest are certainly relevant to his dictatorship. Brevity, yes, but the deletion of this longer phrasing hurts 172's assertion that "relevance" is an important motivation.
• as a means of fighting Communist rebellion in the region -- long, yes, and perhaps wrong even to label it "rebellion" -- rather it was a broad political movement and was much more than just rebels taking up arms. This could be phrased to fit into the overall Cold War idea of containment.
• Overall, this is long and could be tightened up, and each of the subphrases could be improved, but I think this phrasing includes essential elements that should not be lost due to a POV dispute.

Solutions? One way is simply to wash away the entire participial:

• educated at the controversial School of the Americas. [full stop]

Pros: shorter, offloads controversy

Cons: probably used to say that ages ago; would be expanded again in future

• 172's version:

Pros: short, to the point

Cons: seemingly POV, even if generally defensible; strong position not attributed, but in Wikipedia authoritative voice; damns by inferential connection, not fact

• non-172 version:

Pros: NPOV, comprehensive

Cons: long, weaselly, questionable relevance to Rios-Montt

• projected consensus version goals:

Length: medium

POV: unassailable, supported by attribution

Relevance: high

What I suggest is trying to come up with a shorter, punchier version of the longer text, but one which we can support or attribute to a POV source rather than sacrifice Wikipedian NPOV on the altar, no matter how holy the cause. Also, we should get to the specifics that we have about his training there -- who sent him? what is the significance of the "Special Course"? and any post-SOTA contacts with the CIA (which are probably more relevant to the coup). In other words, this is an opportunity for improvement, if anyone has the resources and patience to do the research.

I'd like to see 172 or Trey or Sam or anyone else take a whack at my goals above. I think we can fix this, but we for damn sure shouldn't be reverting back and forth like monkeys on crack. Help me out here; it's now my birthday in my time zone. ;-) --Dhartung | Talk 07:15, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Just change the text yourself to a factual statement of SOTA's role in educating cadets in counter-insurgency tactics yourself. I am not wedded to my version; I just have little tolerence for rightwing chauvinist U.S. nationalist hacks who know nothing about Central America seeking to rewrite the history of this region. Just keep out irrelevant, weaselly comments. You do not have to go through me. 172 21:48, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Aw, how kyewt. "Rightwing chauvinist U.S. nationalist hacks." You're just a goddamned genius aren'tcha. Trey Stone 07:26, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

About the current edit. If someone wants to put something in there referring to the fact that not all revolutionaries/guerrilla fighters in Latin America were Marxists (after all, several countries were ruled by corrupt military regimes at the time that the U.S. supported out of anti-Communist stability, so you didn't have to be a Communist to oppose them) that's fine. I'm just trying to make clear the U.S. goal for educating these guys, which was to prevent the spread of communism in the region -- and that several people in these insurgent groups were heavily influenced by Marxism. Trey Stone 22:28, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have been researching the early history of the SOTA and the considerable CIA connections to the Arbenz coup, in order to achieve the highest accuracy, and I'm beginning to suspect that this angle is heavily overemphasized in this biography. I'm not ready to make definitive statements yet, but put it this way: the training in 1950 was apparently more about jungle warfare infantry tactics than counterinsurgency per se, which came later; and I can't find anything clearly defining his role in the coup, so it was probably minor. The way it's written it sounds like he was the CIA liaison or something, and that would be reflected in US documents. These are angles I think we need to consider in rewriting. --Dhartung | Talk 08:46, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also just to be clear, by calling these guys Marxist revolutionaries/guerrillas/VISIONARIES or whatever you wanna call them I am not necessarily referencing Arbenz as a Marxist. But there is no denying that, at the very least during later years of the civil war, coalition guerrilla organizations like the URNG were heavily Marxist. There is also no denying that the U.S. had a genuine concern about pro-Soviet Communism spreading in the region -- if you look at the Operation PBFORTUNE article, it shows that the CIA had already drawn up plans to boot Arbenz before the UFC came whining. Now if people wanna argue that the UFC and Dulles gave the CIA the nudge it needed to actually carry out such a plan, that's fine, but if we're talking about context we gotta keep stuff like this in mind. Trey Stone 00:53, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think some of the confusion arises from placement of the term 'Marxist'. There is no doubt that SOTA was part of the containment doctrine, and there is no doubt that the coup was primarily intended to avert 'international communism' from gaining a LatAm foothold, and there's no doubt that there is later coinciding of aims. I don't think there's evidence that the training Rios Montt received specifically impacted the coup. Anyway, I'm continuing my reading, so I'm not ready to suggest a wording just yet. --Dhartung | Talk 08:45, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've now established that from 1949 until 1961 the Latin American Training Center -- Ground Forces was officially considered the US Army's jungle warfare school, with 40% of its graduates American troops (recall that it was located in the Canal Zone and closely tied to hemispheric defense duties). The counterinsurgency mission was clearly added in 1961 with the Kennedy administration's concern over Cuba's ability to serve as a forward base for Communist insurgency. It is clearly incorrect to characterize the training that Rios Montt received in terms of a counterinsurgency policy. I am also increasingly certain that the meaning of special course in 1950 was simply a US training course translated into Spanish, because until 1955 English was the primary language at the school. --Dhartung | Talk 10:42, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Regarding the current edit... whether or not specific groups were Marxist (though most in the latter years, like I said, were, and Arbenz received assistance on his land reform program from the PGT) has nothing to do with the U.S. objective in the region, which was to fight off pro-Soviet Communism. I already mentioned that Operation PBFORTUNE was drawn up during the Truman administration, which wasn't infected by John "Sinister Businessman" Dulles. Whether or not 172 wants to attribute the Sovietization of Cuba to U.S. belligerence, after Castro consolidated his control the possibility of such an ideology taking root in the area was no longer theoretical. Trey Stone 00:45, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This is precisely why I think the sentence should be drastically trimmed to de-emphasize this connection. There is nothing to show that the 1950 course the subject of this article took had anything to do with counterinsurgency programs run out of the SOTA after 1961. It is much easier to talk about specifics (known knowns, I've heard them called :D) than speculative generalities, and the latter is the real problem with this particular section. I think bringing in a comment about PBFORTUNE/PBSUCCESS, if possible a direct quote, would be more on point. --Dhartung | Talk 05:51, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Career specifics. I've found a career timeline in the National Security Archive. Pertinently, I believe, after his stint at the SOA predecessor Rios Montt spent three years as an instructor in the (presumably military) Escuela Politecnica. Whatever he learned was being disseminated. Regarding his whereabouts during the coup, I'm now satisfied; I had questioned whether he was a participant in the guerrilla activity (seemed unlikely) or a coup asset on the inside (strongly implied by the article wording we have). At the time, he was a Platoon Commander (US equiv.: 2nd Lt.) assigned to Quiche -- somewhat, though not insurmountably, distant from Guatemala City. The province was targeted by PBSUCCESS operations but was one of three garrisons that the plan considered unlikely to support the coup, although they did have people pledged to support it (which may have included Rios Montt). This doesn't disprove his involvement, but it does seem that he could not have played a critical role. He did advance quickly under the junta, of course. A related point is that he did attend a course specifically covering counterinsurgency, held at Ft. Bragg (the US Special Warfare School) in early 1961 (just before the SOA gained that responsibility). His rank at that time was Major. Additionally, later that year he spent several months at an Italian military school. Operation Gladio, perhaps (a Cold War stay-behind guerrilla operation plan under NATO)? One wonders. --Dhartung | Talk 09:52, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Excellent research my friend. Shreem Fried Rice 04:12, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The U.S. goal cannot be implied as fighting any "social revolutionaries" (a much too broad term anyhow). The U.S. didn't give two shits about any government in Latin America unless it was tending to align itself more with the Soviet bloc (and in the case of Arbenz, if there was suspicions of Communist influence. PBFORTUNE was drawn up under Truman, not Eisenhower, so concern did exist before Dulles) J. Parker Stone 05:10, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

OK, I protected it due to the revert war; I'll unprotect it whenever anyone wants me to. Everyking 05:08, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)