Guerrillas in Our Midsts: Remembering the Progressives and Their Love for the Central American Insurgencies.

The eight readers of this blog might know that I served in Guatemala, 1988-1992. It was an odd time in Central America. The great armed guerrilla movements of El Salvador and Guatemala were on their last legs. At times it didn't feel like it, but the trend line was definitely downwards for them. Despite the best efforts of the Democrats in the US Congress, campus "progressives," European and American "human rights activists," leftist journalists, the Nobel Prize Committee, the Castro regime, the Soviets, the Sandinistas, and Mexico, the guerrillas were losing ground. In Guatemala, despite the many roadblocks thrown in their way by the US Congress, the Guatemalan army, then one of the toughest bunch of fighters you ever could meet, was grinding the guerrilla bands into military dust and political irrelevance. Using scarce and antiquated equipment, and relying on small units led by some excellent lieutenants, captains, and majors, the Guatemalans had developed their own anti-insurency doctrine and tactics, and were winning. It was tough, brutal fighting, and niceties were not often observed by either side; the guerrillas were on the run and barely kept alive largely thanks to the life-line from Mexico.

Those of us in the Embassy who spent a lot of time in the field knew this, and tried to tell Washington. The Great Ones back in DC, however, were not really listening, totally absorbed, as they were, by the battle with the "progressives" on the Hill, trying to appease them, and spouting the mantra that the 30-year war could not be won, and only a negotiated end was possible. They also were not interested in taking Mexico to task for its support of guerrilla movements--Mexico did eventually abandon the guerrillas as NAFTA negotiations with the US advanced and got paid back with the Chiapas conflict.

During my four years in Guatemala, we had countless visits from "human rights activists," leftist "journalists," and Congressional staff, usually of the Democrat variety. These, after all, were the days of Democratic rule of the lower house. For some reason, the Ambassador designated me as the primary on receiving  these American and European lefties who came through Guatemala and dropped in on the Embassy to hear our briefing--well, actually, they came in to yell at, spit on, and insult Satan, and I was Satan's designated flak catcher (to paraphrase Tom Wolfe). As a then relatively young officer, I was taken aback at how Americans, including members of Congressional staff, could be so anti-American and so pro-communist. It was a shock that made me understand that the Democratic Party had gotten on the bus to Loopyville and never gotten off. They wanted the communist guerrillas to win.

I had run into the opposition to America that came from the Democratic party before serving in Guatemala. I took part as a member of the US delegation to the 77th Conference of the Interparliamentary Union held at Managua, Nicaragua, April 27-May 2, 1987--you can click here and read the US delegation's report if you're sorely in need of dull reading material (I get mentioned in passing). It was an inconsequential meeting as such meetings go, although it was the first big do put on for the world community by the Sandinistas. The event was held at the newly built Olaf Palme Center, and Mrs. Lisbet Palme came and gave an opening speech in which she blamed her husband's assassination the previous year on the CIA. It all went downhill from there.

The Sandinistas had opted for what was then a technologically fancy translation system; delegates could walk around the center with wireless headsets over which the numerous speeches were simultaneously translated into the five or six official languages of the conference. Some African delegates thought the gadgets would work on the street; that they could engage Spanish-speaking Nicaraguans, and the headphones would translate--just like on Star Trek. The expensive sets began disappearing, and the Sandinista hosts had to dash about trying to wrestle them away from delegates before they walked out the door. I found quite interesting how racist Sandinista liberators of humanity could be--they, of course, didn't realize that I could understand their derogotory remarks about the Africans, even if I wasn't wearing a headset. A memorable personal encounter with the fact that racism and leftism go hand-in-hand.

If one went out into the field, and got away from the Sandinista handlers, there was no doubt that the "Contras" were winning the war. They had the support of ordinary people almost regardless of status. I saw first hand the so-called "sweaty palm" syndrome among Sandinista officials in the countryside; they would quietly sidle up to the gringos, and tell us how they, of course, did not really support the FSLN, and how they loved the USA, and that "everybody here is a Contra, and so are we." The obvious message being that when these Contras win, please use your influence to save us. Well, the problem was that the battle was being fought in the US Congress, and the Democrats managed to cut off all funding for the Contras soon after our visit to Nicaragua. The Sandinistas were saved by the Democrats, and the opposition lost all faith in the word and promises of the United States.

The pattern repeats and repeats and repeats . . .