Drug War Capitalism

by Dawn Paley

  2 Mexican painter Diego Rivera depicts the scene in a painting titled “Gloriosa Victoria”: Allen Dulles, who was on the board of the United Fruit Company, stands beside his brother John Foster, the US secretary of state, who shakes the hand of Castillo Armas, Washington’s choice for president. A bomb in front of the men is painted with the face of Dwight Eisenhower, then president of the United States. The US ambassador and the Archbishop of Guatemala stand by, giving their blessings to the coup. In the background, Guatemalan laborers carry stems of bananas onto a waiting cargo ship; the foreground is littered with dead bodies. Ernesto “Ché” Guevara, who was in Guatemala when the coup took place, fled to the relative safety of Mexico with other progressives, and it was there he would meet Fidel Castro.

  3 Luis Solano, “En manos de quién estará la seguridad en el futuro gobierno PP?,” Enfoque, November 28, 2011, http://www.albedrio.org/htm/documentos/EnfoqueAnalisisSituacion182011.pdf, 5.

  4 Dawn Paley, “Conflict, Repression, and Canadian Mining & Oil Companies in Guatemala,” May 14, 2012, http://dawnpaley.tumblr.com/post/23043137951/conflict-repression-and-canadian-mining-oil.

  5 Paula Worby, “America’s Country of Origin Series: Guatemala Background Paper,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, October 2013, http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/53832fe84.pdf, 14.

  6 InSight Crime, “Special Series: The Zetas in Guatemala,” InSight Crime, September 2011, http://www.insightcrime.org/special-series/the-zetas-in

  -guatemala.

  7 Romina Ruiz-Goireina and Martha Mendoza, “200 US Marines Join Anti-Drug Effort in Guatemala,” August 29, 2012, http://bigstory.ap.org/article

  /200-us-marines-join-anti-drug-effort-guatemala.

  8 CNN Wire Staff, “Guatemala’s President Calls on Troops to ‘Neutralize’ Organized Crime,” January 16, 2012, http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-16/americas/world_americas_guatemala-military_1_alta-verapaz-peten-civil

  -war?_s=PM:AMERICAS.

  9 Rodrigo Baires Quezada, “Presupuesto: más represión que investigación y justicia,” Plaza Publica, November 7, 2012, http://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/presupuesto-mas-represion-que-investigacion-y-justicia.

  10 Department of Defense, “Western Hemisphere Defense Policy Statement,” October 2012, http://www.defense.gov/news/WHDPS-English.pdf, 6.

  11 Ibid., 8.

  12 Annie Bird and Alex Main, “Collateral Damage in the Drug War: The May 11 Killings in Ahuas and the Impact of the US War on Drugs in La Moskitia, Honduras,” August 2012, http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/honduras-2012-08.pdf, 20.

  13 Carlos Hernández, “Estados Unidos concluye ‘Operación Martillo’ en el país,” Diario de Centro América, October 23, 2012, http://www.dca.gob.gt/index.php/template-features/item/5940-estados-unidos-concluye-%E2%80%9Coperaci

  %C3%B3n-martillo%E2%80%9D-en-el-pa%C3%ADs.html. Further proof of the whereabouts of US Marines during Operation Martillo is based on visual evidence posted by US Southern Command and the US Embassy in Guatemala. Note that the image of Santa Elena is mislabeled with the dateline RETALHULEU: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ussouthcom/7979820592/in/photostream/. The same dateline issue appears here: http://www.2ndmaw.marines.mil/Photos

  .aspx?mgqs=2207160. Puerto Quetzal: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ussouth

  com/7979821816/in/photostream. Guatemala City: http://www.flickr.com/photos/usembassyguatemala/sets/72157631809378179/.

  14 The media silence around the deployment of US combat troops to Guatemala has been deafening. To illustrate, a Los Angeles Times article purporting to review US involvement in anti-narcotics activities in Central America left it out entirely. See: Tracy Wilkinson and Richard Fausset, “US Gingerly Expands Security Role in Central America,” Los Angeles Times, December 4, 2012, http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-us-central-america-20121205,0,7198665,full.story.

  15 The original 1949, 1954, and 1955 agreements (in Spanish) are available here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/TowardsFreedom/1949+agreement.pdf; https://s3.amazonaws.com/TowardsFreedom/1954+agreement.pdf; https://s3.amazo

  naws.com/TowardsFreedom/1955+Agreement.pdf

  16 Organismo Ejecutivo. “Acuerdo por Canje de Notas entre el Gobierno de la Republica de Guatemala y el Gobierno de Estados Unidos de America Relativo a la Operacion Martillo,” Diario de Centro América 18, tomo CCXCV (August 20, 2012), https://s3.amazonaws.com/TowardsFreedom/Canje+De+Notas+Martillo+2012.pdf.

  17 Ibid. Recall that, in February 2011, a US Air Force cargo plane arriving in Argentina for joint police training exercises was found to contain weapons and morphine that were not declared by the US soldiers: CNN Wire Staff, “Cargo Sparks Dispute between Argentina, US,” February 16, 2011, http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/02/15/argentina.us.spat/index.html. The agreement allowing US Marines arriving in Guatemala prevents Guatemalan agents from revising the contents of aircraft or other vehicles entering the country.

  18 Greg Wolf, “After Partnering to Disrupt Trafficking, Detachment Martillo Departs Guatemala,” October 16, 2012, http://www.hqmc.marines.mil/News/NewsArticleDisplay/tabid/3488/Article/128618/after-partnering-to-disrupt-trafficking-detachment-martillo-departs-guatemala.aspx.

  19 Central Intelligence Agency, “Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation: Participation in the Conduct of Foreign Policy, Volume II,” October 1979, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB353/bop-vol2-part1.pdf, 13–14.

  20 US Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, is responsible for Mexico, as well as the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Canada, and the US.

  21 United States Southern Command, “Beyond the Horizon, New Horizons 2012,” June 19, 2012, http://www.southcom.mil/newsroom/Pages/Beyond-the-Horizon--New-Horizons-2012.aspx.

  22 Southcom, “Seabees, Preventive Medicine Specialists Team Up in Guatemala,” October 22, 2012, http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=70228.

  23 Ruiz-Goireina and Mendoza, “200 US Marines Join Anti-Drug Effort.”

  24 Leon E. Panetta, “Speech: Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce,” October 19, 2012, http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1729.

  25 Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, “12 Questions for Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs Frank Mora,” January 2012, http://www.ndu.edu/chds/news.cfm?action=view&id=57&lang=PT.

  26 William Brownfield, “Regional Security Cooperation: An Examination of the Central America Regional Security Initiative and the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative,” June 19, 2013, http://docs.house.gov/meetings

  /FA/FA07/20130619/101032/HHRG-113-FA07-Wstate-Brownfield

  W-20130619.pdf.

  27 Ibid., 40.

  28 Ralph Espach, et al., “Criminal Organizations and Illicit Trafficking in Guatemala’s Border Communities,” CNA Analysis and Solutions, December 2011, http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/research/IPR%2015225.pdf.

  29 Julie López, “Guatemala’s Crossroads: The Democratization of Violence and Second Chances,” in Wilson Center Reports on the Americas 29: 151, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/LAP_single_page.pdf.

  30 Democracy Now!, “Genocide-Linked General Otto Pérez Molina Poised to Become Guatemala’s Next President,” Democracy Now!, Septemer 15, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/15/genocide_linked_general_otto

  _prez_molina. In March 2011, Harbury filed a lawsuit in Guatemala against President Pérez Molina, alleging his role in the disappearance, torture, and assassination of her husband, guerrilla commander Efraín Bámaca. See: Corelia Orantes, “Jennifer Harbury acciona contra Pérez Molina,” Prensa Libre, March 23, 2011, http://prensalibre.com.gt/noticias/Acciona

  -Perez_0_449355088.html.

  31 Elyssa Pachico, “How Much Is Guatemala Arming the Zetas?,” InSight Crime, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/how-much-is-guatemala-arming-the-zetas.

  32 Siglo21, “Fiscal dice que ex kaibil capturado dirigió massacre,” May 19, 2011, http://www.s21.com.gt/node/39187.

  33 Cpl. Daniel Ne
grete, “Marines Sweat It Out With Guatemalan Kaibiles,” Marines, September 18, 2010, http://www.2ndmaw.marines.mil/News/

  ArticleView/tabid/357/Article/32610/marines-sweat-it-out-with-guatemalan

  -kaibiles.aspx. Tim Padgett, “Guatemala’s Kaibiles: A Notorious Commando Unit Wrapped Up in Central America’s Drug War,” Time, July 14, 2011, http://world.time.com/2011/07/14/guatemalas-kaibil-terror-from-dictators

  -to-drug-cartels/#ixzz2EguGbDZW.

  34 Sylvia Gereda Valenzuela, “El capítulo negro de Fernández Ligorría,” El Periodico, January 15, 2011, http://www.elperiodico.com.gt/es/20110115/opinion/188624.

  35 Douglas Gámez, “Crearán Fuerza de Tarea militar contra el narcotráfico,” March 30, 2012, http://goldcorpoutnews.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/crearan

  -fuerza-de-tarea-militar-contra-el-narcotrafico/.

  36 Elyssa Pachico, “Key Zetas Ally Walther Overdick Arrested in Guatemala,” Insight Crime, April 3, 2012, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/key-zetas-ally-walther-overdick-arrested-in-guatemala.

  CHAPTER 8: DRUG WAR CAPITALISM IN HONDURAS

  1 Hillary Clinton, “Remarks at her Meeting With Central American Foreign Ministers,” September 27, 2012, http://www.state.gov/secretary

  /20092013clinton/rm/2012/09/198315.htm.

  2 Peter Meyer, “Honduras-US Relations,” Congressional Research Service. July 24, 2013, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34027.pdf, 21.

  3 Ibid.

  4 Clinton, Hillary, “Remarks at her Meeting With Central American Foreign Ministers,”

  5 Observatorio de la Violencía, “Mortalidad y Otros,” January 2013, http://iudpas.org/pdf/Boletines/Nacional/NEd28EneDic2012.pdf.

  6 Ibid.

  7 Observatorio de la Violencía, “Mortalidad y Otros,” May 2006, http://iudpas

  .org/pdf/Boletines/Nacional/NEd01EneDic2005.pdf.

  8 Observatorio de la Violencía, “Mortalidad y Otros,” February 2014, http://iudpas.org/pdf/Boletines/Nacional/NEd32EneDic2013.pdf.

  9 Darío Euraque, Reinterpreting the Banana Republic: Region and State in Honduras, 1870–1972 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 43–44.

  10 Marvin Barahona, Honduras en el siglo XX: Una síntesis histórica (Tegucigalpa: Editorial Guaymaras, 2009), 72.

  11 Alison Acker, Honduras: The Making of a Banana Republic (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1988), 74.

  12 Ibid.

  13 John Booth, Christine Wade, and Thomas Walker, Understanding Central America: Global Forces, Rebellion and Change, Fourth Edition, (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2006), 135.

  14 Euraque, Reinterpreting the Banana Republic, 73–74.

  15 Booth, Wade, and Walker, Understanding Central America, 135, 218.

  16 Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America, Second Edition (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1983), 182. Tim Merrill, Honduras: A Country Study (Washington, DC: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1995), 147.

  17 Noam Chomsky, Turning the Tide: The US and Latin America, Second Edition (Montréal: Black Rose Books, 1987), 40

  18 Edelberto Torres Rivas, History and Society in Central America (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993), 104.

  19 Booth, Wade, and Walker, Understanding Central America, 135, 218.

  20 Alcides Hernández, El Neoliberalismo en Honduras (Tegucigalpa: Editorial Guaymuras, 1983), 93.

  21 Meyer, “Honduras-US Relations.”

  22 William I. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy, 62.

  23 Tom Barry and Kent Norsworthy, Honduras: A Country Guide (Albuquerque: The Resource Center, 1990), 17.

  24 Torres-Rivas, History and Society in Central America, 127.

  25 William I. Robinson, Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change and Globalization (New York: Verso, 2003), 123.

  26 Booth, Wade, and Walker, Understanding Central America, 135, 218.

  27 Ibid.

  28 Robinson, Transnational Conflicts, 125.

  29 Booth, Wade, and Walker, Understanding Central America, 135, 137.

  30 Jorge L. Fernández and Luis M. Martínez, A veinte años del auge de la maquila en Honduras: La situación de los derechos humanos laborales de las trabajadoras y los trabajadores (El Progreso, Yoro: Comunicaciones Comunitarios, 2009), 32.

  31 Jack R. Binns, The United States in Honduras, 1980–1981: An Ambassador’s Memoir (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2000), 2.

  32 Robinson, Transnational Conflicts, 118, 125.

  33 Ibid., 125.

  34 Ibid., 118, 125.

  35 Raymond Robertson, Drusilla Brown, Gaëlle Pierre, and María Laura Sanchez-Puerta, Globalization, Wages and the Quality of Jobs: Five Country Studies (Washington, DC: World Bank Publications, 2009), 177.

  36 Robinson, Transnational Conflicts, 129. Booth, Wade, and Walker, Understanding Central America, 135, 144.

  37 SICE. “Honduras: Exports to Partner Countries 1980–2002,” SICE, 2005. http://www.sice.oas.org/tradedata/HND_e.asp.

  38 Alcides Hernández, Del reformismo al ajuste structural (Tegucigalpa: Editorial Guaymuras, 2007), 75.

  39 Ibid., 60.

  40 Robinson, Transnational Conflicts, 130.

  41 Meyer, “Honduras-US Relations.”

  42 Mark J. Ruhl, “Redefining Civil-Military Relations in Honduras,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 38, no. 1 (Spring,1996): 49.

  43 Booth, Wade, and Walker, Understanding Central America, 135, 145.

  44 Ibid., 135, 145.

  45 Morgan Lee and Alexandra Olson, “Honduran Coup Shows Business Elite Still in Charge,” The Associated Press. August 6, 2009, http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2009/Aug/06/lt-honduras-coup-elite-backlash-080609/.

  46 Economist Intelligence Unit, “Honduras Politics: Mixed Report Card for Zelaya,” The Economist (May 10, 2007).

  47 COHEP, “Press Release,” Consejo Hondureño de la Empresa Privada, June 29, 2009, http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/PressRleaseJuneCohep.2009.pdf.

  48 ANDI, “Comunicado: Golpe de Estado? Manuel Zelaya Rosales ya lo habia llevado a cabo,” Asociación Nacional de Industriales de Honduras, July 1, 2009, http://nacerenhonduras.com/2009/06/golpe-de-estado-manuel

  -zelaya-rosales.html

  49 COHEP, “Documento de Posición,” Consejo Hondureño de la Empresa Privada, August 19, 2009, http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/PositionPaper.pdf.

  50 Adrián Burgos Padilla, “Honduras: promoción y protección de la inversion,” July 4, 2012, http://www.centralamericalink.com/es/Legales/Honduras_promocion_y_proteccion_de_la_inversion/.

  51 Meyer, “Honduras-US Relations,” 13.

  52 Alberto Arce, “AP Exclusive: Honduras Chief Denies Death Squads,” The Associated Press, November 2, 2013, http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-exclusive

  -honduras-chief-denies-death-squads.

  53 Rosemary Joyce and Russell Sheptak, “Re-militarizing the Police: Turning the Clock Back in Honduras,” Upside Down World, October 7, 2013, http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/4495-re-militarizing-the-police-turning-the-clock-back-in-honduras.

  54 Kaitlin Owens, Honduras: Periodismo bajo la sombra de impunidad (Toronto: IHRP/Pen Canada, 2014), 7, defensoresenlinea.com/cms/documentos/

  Honduras_Periodismo_sombra_impunidad.pdf.

  55 Sandra Cuffe, “Congress’ Last Stand: Privatizations among New Laws in Honduras,” Upside Down World, January 28, 2014, http://upsidedownworld

  .org/main/honduras-archives-46/4668-congress-last-stand-privatizations-among-new-laws-in-honduras.

  56 Redaccion, “Honduras: Redes del narcotráfico penetraron a altos oficiales,” El Heraldo, February 5, 2014, http://www.elheraldo.hn/Secciones-Principales/Al-Frente/Honduras-Redes-del-narcotrafico-penetraron-a-altos-oficiales.

  57 Redaccion, “Honduras: La lista de policías vinculados a delitos es escalofriante,” El Heraldo, February 5, 2014, http://www.elheraldo.hn/content/view/full/217348.

  58 Meyer, “Honduras-US Relations,” 1
1.

  59 G. Ramsey, “Cable: Honduran Military Supplied Weaponry to Cartels,” InSight Crime, April 25, 2011, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/cable-honduran-military-supplied-weaponry-to-cartels.

  60 Sarah England, “‘Worse than the War’: Experiences and Discourses of Violence in Postwar Central America,” Latin American Perspectives 39, no. 6 (November 2012), 246–247.

  61 K. McSweeny and Z. Pearson, “Prying Native People from Native Lands: Narco Business in Honduras,” NACLA, February 4, 2014, http://nacla.org/news/2014/2/4/prying-native-people-native-lands-narco-business-honduras.

  62 Annie Bird and Alex Main, “Collateral Damage of a Drug War,” Center for Economic and Policy Research, August 2012, http://www.cepr.net/documents

  /publications/honduras-2012-08.pdf.

  63 “The Drug War: Policing and US Militarism at Home and Abroad,” event, February 20, 2014.

  64 CRLN, “229 Politically Related Murders in Honduras Under President ‘Pepe’ Lobo,” Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America, November 20, 2013, retrieved March 11, 2014, http://www.crln.org/story

  /229_Murders_Honduras.

  65 Annie Bird, “Human Rights Violations Attributed to Military Forces in the Bajo Aguan Valley in Honduras,” February 20, 2013, http://rightsaction.org/sites/default/files/Rpt_130220_Aguan_Final.pdf, 4.

  66 UN Working Group on Mercenaries, “Report of the Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries as a Means of Violating Human Rights and Impeding the Exercise of the Right of Peoples to Self-determination on its Mission to Honduras,” UNHR, 18–22 February 2013, 13.

  67 Michael R. Fowler, “Honduras,” in Bribes, Bullets and Intimidation, eds. Julie Bunck and Michael Fowler (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2012), 265.

  68 Ibid., 273.

  69 Ibid., 307.

  CONCLUSION: THINKING THROUGH PEACE IN WARTIME

  1 Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), ix.

  2 R. Gomis, M. Romillo, and I. Rodríguez, “Reflexiones sobre la politica del terror: El caso de Guatemala,” Cuadernos de Nuestra América, Vol 1. (1983).