Jennifer Harbury

I'm prefacing this by the knowledge that this is my favourite book ever written. I read it for the first time when I was 16 and I found it by accident after reading a book for an English assignment dealing with similar subjects and I was in the library and figured why not. First time I read it, I burst into tears and, it's cliche to say something changed your life, but it, at the least, altered my perception on everything in my life. Before it I was aware that bad things happened in the world but sometimes you need to see it, feel it for it to actually be more than just a bunch of statistics, or photos of faceless, nameless people.

I finished reading the book and immediately wanted to use it for my RPR, but realised I couldn't do a proper evaluation on it so i benched it, instead figuring I would use it for my SYS English, but again shelved it in order to do a thing on the cultural and stereotypes difference in African literature between African and non African authors so I never used it, much to my regret because I wanted to talk about this and get people to read it and understand why they had to read this.

In 1982 there was a military coup in Guatemala and the military junta began a presidential lead campaign of ethnic cleaning against the indigenous population of the country. By the time the war ended in 1996, hundreds of thousands of Mayans had been murdered, over a million had been 'displaced', thousands more tortured and innumerable numbers 'disappeared' or having fled the country to Mexico and beyond. The one country who wouldn't provide them safe haven was the US.

Jennifer Harbury was a human rights lawyer who went to Guatemala trying to get information on what was going on down there in order to build a case. She spent time, learning all sorts of horrors and it was then she decided to write a book in order to try and highlight what was going on. In order to write it she managed to spend some time with the guerillas, or the companeros. it was here that she met Everardo, or Efraim Bamaca - a leader of the group who had been waging the war since the start. They spent time together and the two eventually fell in love but, as the way of things, she had to leave and he had to stay. Eventually, despite his insistence that he would not write to her, she began receiving letters and the two managed to meet up in neutral Mexico where they made the decision to start a relationship despite the knowledge that he would, eventually, have to return back to his group in the Guatemalan Volcano.

The two married and lived a happy, if brief life together before he returned and it was then she got word that she had to return to Mexico because some of the companeros has to see her. Obviously, this is the guerilla version of a man showing up with a uniform and clutching a telegram but, due to the lack of safety, she had to follow the protocols and that's when she finds out that Everardo's group was attacked and that he's missing. He may be dead but they have no body and she has to prepare for the fact that he may still be alive.

It says a lot that the initial reaction is to wish he had died instead of still being alive, but as she discovers that he didn't die we watch her try and force the Guatemalan authorities, and the US politicians to help her, to save him.

She goes on hunger strike, and as you read you find yourself cursing the games that get played around her from the Guatemalan army to the US diplomats. It's painful, and agonising to watch the road blocks put up and you watch in horror as the US, the 'leaders of the free world' aren't just wilfully ignorant to what's happening, but a contributing and active participant in it. In fact the CIA actually paid Everardo's torturers for the information they tried to get out of him. When you read what happened, when you picture it, it leaves you horrified and even more so that they knew that the army had faked his death in order to keep him captive to get the information from him by any means necessary.

This story doesn't have a happy ending. It is one of many stories during these forgotten countries who are nameless, faceless people and the sad truth is that if the author wasn't a middle class, educated, white American we probably wouldn't know this story. The efforts she went to get information, to find out the truth are nothing short or admirable and you compare her to, for example, Marilyn McAfee, the then American Ambassador to Guatemala who at best was a hindrance and at worst wilfully obstructive you can't help but be in even greater awe.

In 1999, Bill Clinton apologised for the US's part in the genocide in Guatemala but, as this book demonstrates, it was a case of way too little, way too late. The quote I used in the header of this entry is the actual motto of the CIA - I just find it ironic that they have that there in good consciousness when you continually read about this being the norm for them.

In my last book I commented that I felt disconnected from the story because of the lack of personal insights - if anything this book is the polar opposite. I probably felt too invested even though I knew it wouldn't end well. The author addresses her husband directly in every chapter and as you read you feel the frustration of every road block and the weariness of chasing your own tale. Despite that though, and despite the fact it will probably be months before I can even contemplate reading it again it's a book I highly, highly recommend everyone reads, at least once. It might not change your life, but it should make you grateful & appreciative that you're living the one you're living.… (altro)

Note: It seems like a lot of my reviews are starting to sound the same, so I thought I'd try to make this one interesting by attempting to review this book in the form of a rap song. Obviously, some detail has been sacrificed. My apologies to any hip-hoppers I may have offended...

[beat box intro]

Smedly Butler wrote it true in War is a Racket
Foreign policy’s a tool of the highest income bracket.

Financial Elite in New York call the shots,
Top of the pyramid, safe on their yachts,
Sending our troops off to war, and for what?
Use public-wealth cash to fund private-wealth plots.

Bought-off politicians stand by to take their orders,
Underclass soldiers sent to march on foreign borders,
In the name of the banks, they spread death and disorder,
Media giant always sends a reporter,
Question the war, and they’ll give you no quarter.
Call you a traitor, if you’re not a supporter.

Layin’ a claim on the American sphere,
Owning a share of the war profiteer,
Using the C.I.A. to spread fear,
Locals who raise up a voice, disappear,
Propping up dictators year after year,
Putting their Treasury into arrears.
Puppets of the World Bank puppeteer,
Distributing drugs, and it’s perfectly clear:
What they sell on the streets back at home, they grow here.

[short instrumental]

In 1954 we covertly overthrew
An elected Guatemalan with a plan for something new-
A man who seemed to understand his land was getting screwed;
We called Arbenz a socialist and authorized a coup.
In his place, a Colonel, who predictably was shot,
After him, some others, not a good one in the lot.
All this carnage didn’t matter, we just raised a margarita;
Didn’t do it for security; we did it for Chiquita.

Later in Hondoras and El Salvador,
The Agency ran drugs to fund another war.
Kidnapping and rape, but none of it's official,
Murder on the side, but none of it's judicial.
Human rights abuses goin' down in Argentina.
Arms are being traded in the Panama arena...

[beat box breakdown]

During the peace, C.I.A. will invent,
Methods to generate profit percent,
Renegade agents collecting the rent,
Trafficking humans without their consent,
Never disclose how the money is spent,
Torturing leaders of local dissent,
Corrupting the plans of reforming intent,
Bustin’ up unions and tracking the scent,
Of just indignation and fair discontent.

[instrumental and fade-out]… (altro)

Note: It seems like a lot of my reviews are starting to sound the same, so I thought I'd try to make this one interesting by attempting to review this book in the form of a rap song. Obviously, some detail has been sacrificed. My apologies to any hip-hoppers I may have offended...

[beat box intro]

Smedly Butler wrote it true in War is a Racket
Foreign policy’s a tool of the highest income bracket.

Financial Elite in New York call the shots,
Top of the pyramid, safe on their yachts,
Sending our troops off to war, and for what?
Use public-wealth cash to fund private-wealth plots.

Bought-off politicians stand by to take their orders,
Underclass soldiers sent to march on foreign borders,
In the name of the banks, they spread death and disorder,
Media giant always sends a reporter,
Question the war, and they’ll give you no quarter.
Call you a traitor, if you’re not a supporter.

Layin’ a claim on the American sphere,
Owning a share of the war profiteer,
Using the C.I.A. to spread fear,
Locals who raise up a voice, disappear,
Propping up dictators year after year,
Putting their Treasury into arrears.
Puppets of the World Bank puppeteer,
Distributing drugs, and it’s perfectly clear:
What they sell on the streets back at home, they grow here.

[short instrumental]

In 1954 we covertly overthrew
An elected Guatemalan with a plan for something new-
A man who seemed to understand his land was getting screwed;
We called Arbenz a socialist and authorized a coup.
In his place, a Colonel, who predictably was shot,
After him, some others, not a good one in the lot.
All this carnage didn’t matter, we just raised a margarita;
Didn’t do it for security; we did it for Chiquita.

Later in Hondoras and El Salvador,
The Agency ran drugs to fund another war.
Kidnapping and rape, but none of it's official,
Murder on the side, but none of it's judicial.
Human rights abuses goin' down in Argentina.
Arms are being traded in the Panama arena...

[beat box breakdown]

During the peace, C.I.A. will invent,
Methods to generate profit percent,
Renegade agents collecting the rent,
Trafficking humans without their consent,
Never disclose how the money is spent,
Torturing leaders of local dissent,
Corrupting the plans of reforming intent,
Bustin’ up unions and tracking the scent,
Of just indignation and fair discontent.

[instrumental and fade-out]… (altro)

I'm always on the lookout for interesting reads on Guatemala, and while I found the history of the civil war engaging I felt that the title was misleading...I expected more about the CIA involvement in Guatemala. So, while the book was thin on the historical involvement, I thought it presented an interesting persepctive on the racism and classism that is still part of Guatemala today. Further, I thought the prose, particuarly the author's constant private dialouge between the author and her deceased husband detracted from what is otherwise an engaging and compelling read.… (altro)