by b real
lifted from a comment
ladies, have i got a makeover for you
… or so went the pitch
reuters: Infamous Guatemalan army unit confronts new foes
A picture of a fierce-looking gorilla emblazoned with
the words "Welcome to Hell" once hung over the entrance of Central
America’s toughest military training center, the notorious "Kaibil"
school in Guatemala.Now, visitors to the base in the Peten jungle are greeted by a
cheery painting of a soldier holding hands with a blonde-haired girl.
It says, "The Guatemalan Kaibils, respected by their adversaries, loved
by the people. Have a nice trip!"The red-bereted fighters, who once ate dog guts as training, want to
leave behind a sordid past of human rights crimes and project a new
image as international peacekeepers and a front against rampant drug
gangs.Created in the 1970s to fight a counter-insurgency campaign against
Guatemala’s leftist guerrillas during a 36-year civil war that left
over 200,000 dead, the Kaibils were infamous as one of the most brutal
special forces units in Latin America.
of course, the two reporters that crafted this pitch omit the
historical fact that the founder of the kaibiles, pablo nuila hub, was
a graduate
of the united states’SOA, or of the long record of u.s. support that went beyond financial & weapon assistance to counterinsurgency
forces in guatemala throughout the cold war period, or that human
rights watch reported "parachute and jungle-survival training by U.S. Special Forces for
Guatemala’s elite Kaibil counterinsurgency troops in the Petén in
November 1988", and into the 90’s "Green Berets openly trained the Kaibil massacre force", etc etc. just pointing out the influence to help fill in some details, ya know.
When the war ended in 1996, the army’s budget was slashed, its ranks
depleted, and the highly trained combat force was left looking for a
new enemy.At about the same time, drug trafficking exploded along the porous
border with Mexico, from where sophisticated and well-equipped gangs
ship cocaine to the United States.But the Kaibils cannot legally fight the dealers.
"They laugh at us," said Kaibil commander Colonel Eduardo Morales
Alvarez, as soldiers on the base were setting up a beauty pageant for
teens from the nearby town of Poptun. "They drive past in their cars
full of weapons and there’s nothing I can do, because I am not
authorized," he said.The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency estimates some 75 percent of
cocaine shipped from Colombia to the United States passes through
Central America, much of that via smuggler-built landing strips and
roads in the lawless jungle region around Poptun.The drug gangs are so well armed and trained that even the Kaibils,
held responsible for savage rapes and mutilations of villagers in the
civil war, are worried."To be honest, I’m scared," said Morales. "These people are psychopaths, they kill each other like they kill cockroaches."
can you say projection? now times have
indeed changed since that jesusfreakgenocidaire rios montt unleashed
the kaibile on the children & women of dos erres
the day after reagan visited him, complaining "to the press that his
Central American counterpart, an evangelical Christian with strong ties
to the fundamentalist movement in the United States, was getting a ‘bad
deal’ from his critics … assur[ing] reporters that Rios Montt was
‘totally committed to democracy’"[1]. but to hear the much-hated/feared
kaibile claim to be "scared" of drug gangs? stop pissing on my leg
& then trying to tell me it’s raining. both the u.s. green beret’s
and the kaibile’s were training
the mexican army last i heard. they were involved in attacking the
zapatista’s over a decade ago. and they’ve recently been on a
"peacekeeping" mission in the congo, where six kaibile soldiers were
"ambushed" & exterminated earlier last yr. i’d imagine that the
buildup in worries about drug gangs in mexico might have something to do w/ the revolutionary tensions ongoing in that country right now.
1. from greg grandin’s empire’s workshop: latin america, the united states, and the rise of the new imperialism
btw, didja know that illinois rep jerry weller is married to montt’s daughter?