Premium Episode 145 - United Fruit Company, Blood Bananas and the Guatemalan Genocide pt. 12: Victoria 82, or, Rifles and Beans

[originally published on Patreon March 19, 2024]

I pick back up with Efraín Ríos Montt's pacification plan known as Victoria 82, informally known as Fusiles y Frijoles, or Rifles and Beans. Montt established secret courts, a scorched-earth military campaign and utilized counterinsurgency troops.

I share my personal experience with survivors of these incidents. I also read from a work of fiction, Senselessness by Horacio Castellanos Moya which more eloquently captures what it is like to be confronted by these stories. Then, I read an extended passage from a truth and reconciliation report from just one of the many massacres of Finca San Francisco Nenton in Huehuetenango. 

I discuss political opposition to the genocide. I also discuss the concentration camp program created with help from Israeli military advisors - they spoke frankly about the Palestinianisation of Guatemala. Further, the Israeli military provided arms and even a computer system which was used to compile death lists comparable to those of IBM and the Holocaust. 

In August 1983, Montt was deposed in a bloodless military coup. I discuss Guatemala in the broader Cold War and World Anti-Communist League context. Then, I examine Montt's mental state during La Violencia and raise the serious possibility that he was a controlled asset. I trace the history of La Iglesia El Verbo, Gospel Outreach, this broader Dominionist theology, and Pat Robertson's investment portfolio. To end the episode, I lay out the claims of an anonymous internet commenter who claims to have been present at Montt's baptism in Eureka, California, and for other darker events. More on Guatemala's mineral rights soon. Songs: Selections from Uaxuctum by Giacinto Scelsi Luna de Xelajú performed by Gaby Moreno & Oscar Isaac