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The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War

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Many books discuss the violence and political turmoil in Guatemala. What Grandin has done is add a wonderfully distinctive and long-overdue Mayan voice to a terrible history.

He describes the May 29, 1978 massacre of approximately 100 Q'eqchi' Indians in Panzos, Alta Verapaz. Grandin profiles a number of Q'eqchi' throughout his book culminating in Mama Maquin, the Q'eqchi' woman leader who was killed attempting to deliver a letter of protest to the local governmental authorities in Panzos.

Grandin lays the foundation for the 1978 massacre by going back to the critical events of the 1950s Arbenz adminstration. He describes how the Q'eqchi' were increasingly dispossessed of their land, going from 97 Q'eqchi' in 1888 owning fincas, or large plantations, to just 9 in 1930 and then dropping to none in 1949. (p. 26) After World War I, German immigrants to the Alta Verapaz acquired more and more land. Grandin notes: "Swastikas hung from municipal buildings and flew above German plantations." (pages 24-25.)

Perhaps the gem of Grandin's book is a quotation from a portion of Arbenz's sole campaign stop to the Alta Verapaz during the election of 1950. The speech was translated into Q'eqchi' word for word as it was given by Arbenz. Here is an excerpt:

"From the time when Alta Verapaz was populated by only the brave Q'eqchi' race until this moment...from the exploitation of the conquistadores' whip to the infamous exploitation of the plantation onwers...they have taken your property, your liberties, your rights...Alta Verapaz workers are the most exploited in all the country. The struggle of the reactionaries, of these 'friends of order' who scowl at us on the street, is to impose this regime on the whole republic. We, in contrast, want to destroy this system. It is not only agrarian reform that will resolve the problem. We need to treat Indians justly..with respect like human beings. We promise you better houses and a better salary. We promise you a little more justice." (p. 44.)

Arbenz won the election and instituted land reform that placed hundereds of thousands of acres of previously fallow land in the hands of Mayans. He was deposed in a CIA-sponsored coup in 1954. Grandin shows how that tragic loss of democracy led to the Panzos massacre in 1978, which set the fuse for the explosion of the long-simmering guerilla war and the genocidal military campaign in 1982 of President Rios Montt, who was praised at time by Ronald Reagan as getting a "bum rap" on human rights and being a man of "great integrity."

Grandin's book for the first time tells the story of the Q'eqchi' and their quest for justice. Kudos to him.

Although the book contains an abundance of information on an important topic within the broader scope of Cold War and Latin American history, the book's somewhat disjointed organization makes it more of a challenge to follow that it would otherwise need to be. I've rarely read a more informed discussion of the events in Guatemala, and Grandin presents difficult information with sensitivity and without a strident tone. He relates the complexities the Cold War caused for nations attempting to emerge from colonialism, a topic that needs more discussion.

However, my students found him miserably difficult to follow, primarily because he jumps around in time, backtracking and sidestepping in a manner that creates a sense of immersion, but not the clarity that the book could have had. The chain of events may not have been perfectly clear, but in a way it captures the essence of the compression of memory he describes. The events do gain a sense of jumbled timelessness that intensifies the numbing sense of horror the book conveys.

I benefited from some familiarity with Mayan culture and religion before reading the book, but for the average undergraduate, more explanation of Mayan beliefs and culture would have given more depth to Grandin's assertion that communism melded with aspects of their beliefs. He says it, and I can see it, but he does not demonstrate it.

For all that the book has flaws, it is still worth reading, but expect an impressionistic, flowing narrative that may be a challenge at times, since the reader needs to retain facts in mind to connect them later.

- originated in Washington, not Moscow, and was far more bloody and destructive than in eastern Europe. Grandin's tour de force of the cold war's hot-blooded reign in Latin America focuses on Guatemala, where it began with the emergence from dictatorship in the "democratic spring" of 1944, and ended with the US-backed return to business as usual in 1954. The cynical rhetoric employed in Guatemala and elsewhere was identical to Moscow's in its own sphere, and makes this book a revealing comparison to Constantine Pleshakov's "There is no Freedom Without Bread" (reviewed elsewhere.)

The essential origin of the modern cold war began, of course, in Russia in 1917, when the propetyless classes began entering the political sphere demanding forms of democracy relevant to themselves, going beyond the middle class interpretation of constitutional rights and civil society to give democracy a material basis. Ever since, confused liberal reformers have recoiled in horror and sided with counter-revolution, leaving Lenin or Castro to harvest the fruits of mass movements they refuse to touch or lead. In Latin America, this spectacle of "democrats" fearing democracy reaped the grisliest harvest in formal peacetime, and remains unknown to most North Americans for whom Solidarity and Lech Walesa are household names.

Grandin's style is anecdotal, as a previous reviewer states, and somewhat rambling; but he is assuming a familiarity with the subject that may be a stretch for the general reader precisely because Latin America in the cold war is terra incognito north of the Rio Grande. He is right to question the notion of "radicalism as the cause of radicalization," as American/conservative academics are prone to do to explain why this movement or how that leader "went Communist;" seeing Latin Americans as "children of Cain" out to kill for killing's sake. But while it's essential to focus on the context of the cold war as producing this carnage, it's also true that this period dovetails with a history of state and insurrectional violence in the region. Like eastern Europe, repression did not just descend from the sky after 1944, but rather world politics outside stimulated and exploited old desires for new deals and the traditional reaction to them by those holding the cards.

Of all the books on Guatemala and Latin America in this period, one of the better ones.