The Secret
History of the American Empire
An Excerpt “Hired Guns in Guatemala”
By John Perkins
07/06/07 "ICH"
-- -- -The elevator door opened. Three men stood inside.
Unlike Pepe and me, they were not wearing business suits.
They were dressed casually in slacks and sweaters. One wore
a leather jacket. What got my attention, though, were the
guns. All three carried AK- 47s.
“An unfortunate necessity in Guatemala these days,” Pepe
explained. He ushered me toward the waiting elevator. “At
least for those of us who are friends of the United States,
friends of democracy. We need our Maya killers.”
I had flown from Miami to Guatemala City the day before and
checked into the city’s most luxurious hotel. It was one of
those few occasions when Stone and Webster Engineering
Corporation (SWEC) asked me to do something for them, other
than refraining from writing about EHM. Pepe Jaramillo (not
his real name) had signed a contract with SWEC agreeing to
help the company develop privately owned power plants in his
country. He was one of the most powerful members of a small
group of rich elites who have controlled the country since
the time of the Spanish conquest. Pepe’s family owned
industrial parks, office buildings, housing complexes, and
huge agricultural estates that exported to the United
States. The important thing from SWEC’s perspective was that
he had the political clout necessary to get things done in
Guatemala.
I had first visited Guatemala as an EHM in the mid- 1970s.
My job was to convince the government to accept a loan for
improving its electric sector. Then, in the late 1980s, I
was invited to join the board of directors of a nonprofit
organization that helped Mayan communities organize
microcredit banks and other grassroots endeavors aimed at
pulling themselves out of poverty. Over the years, I had
become very familiar with the tragic violence that had torn
this country apart during the latter half of the twentieth
century.
Guatemala had been the heart of the Mayan civilization that
flourished for roughly a thousand years. That civilization
already had entered a period of collapse that many
anthropologists attribute to its failure to cope with the
environmental damage caused by the growth of its spectacular
urban centers, when the conquistadors invaded in 1524. Soon
Guatemala became the seat of the Spanish military authority
in Central America, a position that lasted until the
nineteenth century and resulted in frequent clashes between
Mayan and Spanish populations.
By the end of the 1800s, a Boston- based company, United
Fruit, had beaten the Spanish at their own game and
established itself as one of the most powerful forces in
Central America. It ruled supreme and essentially
unchallenged until the early 1950s when Jacobo Arbenz ran
for president on a platform that echoed the ideals of the
American Revolution. He declared that Guatemalans ought to
benefit from the resources offered by their land; foreign
corporations would no longer be permitted to exploit the
country and her people. His election was hailed as a model
of the democratic process throughout the hemisphere. At the
time, less than 3 percent of Guatemalans owned 70 percent of
the land. As president, Arbenz implemented a comprehensive
land reform program that posed a direct threat to United
Fruit’s Guatemalan operations. The company feared that if
Arbenz succeeded he would set an example others might follow
throughout the hemisphere, and perhaps the world.
United Fruit launched a major public relations campaign in
the United States; it convinced the American public and
Congress that Arbenz had turned Guatemala into a Soviet
satellite and that his land reform program was a Russian
plot to destroy capitalism in Latin America. In 1954, the
CIA orchestrated a coup. American planes bombed the capital
city; the demo cratically elected president was overthrown
and replaced by a brutal right- wing military dictator, Col.
Carlos Castillo Armas.
The new government immediately reversed the land reform
process, abolished taxes paid by the company, eliminated the
secret ballot, and jailed thousands of Castillo’s critics. A
civil war erupted in 1960, pitting the antigovernment
guerrilla group known as the Guatemalan National
Revolutionary Union against the United States– supported
army and right- wing death squads. The violence intensified
throughout the 1980s, resulting in the slaughter of hundreds
of thousands of civilians, mostly Mayas. Many more were
jailed and tortured.
In 1990 the army massacred civilians in the town of Santiago
Atitlán, located near the high- altitude Lake Atitlán,
renowned as one of the most beautiful spots in Central
America. Although just one of many massacres, this one made
international headlines because it happened in a place
popular among foreign tourists. According to eyewitness
reports, it began when a group of Mayas marched to the gates
of the military base. One of their neighbors had been
abducted by the army and, fearing that he would join the
ranks of the thousands officially classified as
“disappeared,” they demanded his release. The army opened
fire on the crowd. Although exact numbers are disputed,
dozens of men, women, and children were seriously wounded
and killed.
My trip to visit Pepe Jaramillo came shortly afterward, in
1992. He wanted SWEC to partner with him and obtain World
Bank financing. I knew that the Mayas believe the earth is a
living spirit and that places where steam gushes from the
land are considered sacred. I suspected that any attempts to
construct a power plant over geothermal springs would result
in violence. Based on the United Fruit experience—as well as
more recent ones I was intimately familiar with in Iran,
Chile, Indonesia, Ecuador, Panama, Nigeria, and Iraq—I
believed that if a U.S. company like SWEC called for help in
a place like Guatemala, the CIA would show up. The violence
would escalate. The Pentagon might send in the marines. I
already had enough blood on my conscience; I was determined
to do everything I could to prevent more mayhem.
A car had picked me up at my hotel that morning and driven
me into the circular driveway of one of Guatemala City’s
more impressive modern buildings. Two armed doormen ushered
me in. One escorted me on the elevator to the top floor. He
explained that the building was owned by Pepe’s family and
all eleven floors were occupied by them: their commercial
bank on the ground floor, offices for various businesses on
two to eight, and family residences on nine, ten, and
eleven. Pepe met me at the elevator door. After coffee and a
brief introductory conversation, he gave me a quick tour of
his building, except for floor nine, which he said was
reserved for the privacy of his widowed mother (I suspected
additional reasons). If the intent of the tour was to
impress SWEC’s representative, it succeeded. Following a
meeting with him and several of his engineers on floor five
to familiarize me with the geothermal project, we lunched
with his mother, brother, and sister on eleven, then headed
for the elevator and a visit to the proposed site. We
boarded the elevator with the AK- 47–bearing men.
The elevator door closed. The man in the leather jacket
pushed the bottom button. No one spoke as the elevator
descended. I kept thinking about the AK- 47s. I realized
they were there to protect Pepe and me from the Mayas, the
very people I worked with through the nonprofit. I wondered
what my Mayan friends would think of me now. The elevator
stopped. When the door opened, I expected to see the
afternoon light through the portico where I had entered
earlier. Instead, I saw an immense concrete garage. It was
well lighted in the extreme and smelled of damp concrete.
Pepe’s hand gripped my shoulder. “Stay here,” he commanded
in a soft voice.
John Perkins has lived four lives: as an economic hit man
(EHM); as the CEO of a successful alternative energy
company, who was rewarded for not disclosing his EHM past;
as an expert on indigenous cultures and shamanism, a teacher
and writer who used this expertise to promote ecology and
sustainability while continuing to honor his vow of silence
about his life as an EHM; and as a writer who, in telling
the real-life story about his extraordinary dealings as an
EHM, has exposed the world of international intrigue and
corruption that is turning the American republic into a
global empire despised by increasing numbers of people
around the planet. Visit his website
http://www.johnperkins.org
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