Foreign Policy In Focus

As horrible as that 17 month period during the Reagan administration was for the indigenous people of Guatemala it was only a brief moment of horror in the macabre drama of U.S.-Guatemala relations.  For many in the world there is no doubt that U.S. support, encouragement and guidance made it culpable in the genocidal policies of its’ client State during that 17-month period. The history of U.S. and Guatemalan relations since the U.S. inspired coup of 1954 that overthrew Guatemala’s reformist President Jacobo Arbenz has been a sordid history of criminal collusion against the people of Guatemala.

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For those of us who lived through the 1980s and opposed the genocidal policies in Guatemala, we celebrate the small sliver of justice that the conviction of Rios Montt represents.  But our moment of satisfaction is tempered by the awful memories of what occurred in that country, our knowledge of the role that the U.S. played in those horrors and the possibility that the hegemonic puppeteer might once again escape accountability if we don’t act.

Others suggest that this data could inadvertently paint an unduly rosy picture – and one that may not be filtering down to all of a country’s inhabitants.

“Countries are now in the midst of this global recession, facing really desperate conditions, so even in a country where you have growth, this growth is coming primarily from extractive industries, particularly oil, gas and mining,” Emira Woods, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank here, told IPS.

“So the successes on this list only represent the ‘one percent’, the elites who are benefiting. So for the World Bank to highlight that these countries are meeting at least one of the MDGs seems a bit superficial – remember, there are eight goals.”

. . . The alternative, she says, would create the space for national governments in developing countries to more actively choose their own development paths. This would include ensuring that those countries maintain the ability to protect particularly valuable sectors.

Countries with large rural populations and agriculture potential, for instance, need to be able to focus on creating opportunities for smallholder farmers to maintain their livelihoods.