Manufacturing Consent_ The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Edward S. Herman [267]
85. According to State Department testimony of July 20, 1981, “We need to try a new, constructive policy approach to Guatemala . . .” (quoted in Americas Watch, Guatemala Revisited: How the Reagan Administration Finds “Improvements” in Human Rights in Guatemala [New York: AW, 1985], p. 4).
86. Quoted in Americas Watch, Guatemala Revisited, p. 5.
87. See Amnesty International, Guatemala: A Government Program of Political Murder, p. 8.
88. Americas Watch, Guatemala Revisited, p. 6.
89. State Department 1984 Human Rights Country Report, quoted in Americas Watch, Guatemala Revisited, p. 15.
90. Guatemala: A Government Program of Political Murder, p. 5.
91. While this is true almost without exception for news articles, there were perhaps a dozen Op-Ed columns in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and some letters, in the period 1980–86, that criticized Guatemalan state terrorism; some of these were harshly critical of U.S. policy.
92. A few of the opinion pieces cited in the previous note did discuss the U.S. role.
93. “Requiem for a Missionary,” August 10, 1981.
94. The documents include the following four put out by Amnesty International: Guatemala: A Government Program of Political Murder, February 1981; “Disappearances”: A Workbook, 1981; Guatemala: Massive Extrajudicial Executions in Rural Areas under the Government of General Efraín Ríos Montt, October 1982; “Disappearances” in Guatemala under the Government of General Oscar Humberto Mejía Víctores, March 1985. We also included six studies by Americas Watch: Human Rights in Guatemala: No Neutrals Allowed, November 1982; Guatemala Revisited: How the Reagan Administration Finds “Improvements” in Human Rights in Guatemala, September 1985; Little Hope: Human Rights in Guatemala, January 1984–January 1985, February 1985; Guatemala: The Group for Mutual Support, 1985; Civil Patrols in Guatemala, August 1986; Human Rights in Guatemala during President Cerezo’s First Year, 1987.
95. This letter is reproduced in Americas Watch, Human Rights in Guatemala: No Neutrals Allowed, November 1982.
96. For a full discussion of the last of these murders, that of Marianela García Villas, on March 15, 1983, see Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, Demonstration Elections: U.S.-Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador (Boston: South End Press, 1984), pp. x–xi.
97. Quoted in Americas Watch, Guatemala: The Group for Mutual Support, 1984–1985, p. 2 (hereafter, AW, Mutual Support).
98. Council on Hemispheric Affairs, News and Analysis, April 26, 1986, p. 222.
99. McClintock, American Connection, vol. 2, p. 83.
100. AW, Mutual Support, p. 3.
101. “Bitter and Cruel,” British Parliamentary Human Rights Group, October 1984.
102. AW, Mutual Support, p. 8.
103. Ibid., p. 7.
104. An open letter of November 15, 1984, quoted in AW, Mutual Support, p. 24.
105. AW, Mutual Support, pp. 24–25.
106. Ibid., p. 36. This was, of course, a complete fabrication. What Mejía Víctores is referring to is an investigative body that he established, manned entirely by government personnel, including the deputy minister of defense, and that, predictably, gave the government a clean bill of health.
107. Ibid., p. 38.
108. Ibid., p. 41.
109. Two very terse exceptions should be noted: On April 13, an article on the case mentions that Gómez was tortured; and one on April 19 notes that his tongue was cut out. No details whatsoever were provided about the murders of Godoy de Cuevas and her brother and son.
110. As we will see in the next chapter, the new civilian government did nothing to stem the army assault on the civilian population; but as we might also expect, the optimism of the press on the promise of the new civilian administration was not followed up with reports on what actually happened.
111. As we pointed out earlier, the U.S. press entirely ignored the administration’s refusal to allow one of the El Salvador “Mothers of the Disappeared” to come to speak in the United States. See note 10, above.
112. This press release was featured in an “Urgent