Searching for Everardo: A Story of Love, War, and the CIA in Guatemala [Hardcover]

Jennifer K. Harbury (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1997

Harvard-educated attorney Jennifer Harbury went to Guatemala to help refugees, and found herself drawn into a political drama that would test her beliefs, courage, and moral strength. She fell in love and married Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, better known as Commander Everardo, a Mayan Indian resistance leader. Soon after, he vanished in combat. This is the story of Harbury's search for Everardo, one that grew into an impassioned crusade to expose those responsible for the human rights abuses suffered upon the victims of Guatemala -- one woman's heroic stand against the Guatemalan oligarchy, the U.S. State Department, and the CIA. A headline-making story of love, war, and courage, this is the personal account of an American woman and her unrelenting fight to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of her husband, a Guatemalan guerrilla leader.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Though the civil war in Guatemala ended in December of 1996, the conflict still rages for human rights activist Jennifer K. Harbury. Searching for Everardo is an often chilling account of her search for her husband, a communist guerrilla leader, who was tortured and killed in 1992 by members of the Guatemalan army. While desperately clinging to the hope that he was still alive, Harbury spent three years battling the governments of both Guatemala and the U.S. to discover his fate, gaining insights into the covert dealings of the CIA in Guatemala.

Her contention is that members of the CIA knew what happened to her husband, but withheld the information in an attempt to cover up the actions of its agents. The Guatemalan government did a similar dance around the facts in order to hide the brutality of its own military forces. After unwavering pressure and protests, legal action, and three hunger strikes, Harbury finally forced the two governments to release the information they held on her husband and reveal the painful truth. This powerful memoir details her struggle in the most personal terms while offering a detailed--if one-sided--examination of the insidious political forces at work in the conflict.

From Library Journal

In 1990, two people from utterly different worlds?Harbury, a graduate of Harvard Law School, and Commandante "Everardo," a Maya Indian rebel?met in Guatemala, where he had been fighting against the military right-wing governments that used U.S. arms and training to oppress the poor. In 1991, after they married, he disappeared. Although American citizens have been tortured and killed in Guatemala for less and despite official U.S. refusals to help, Harbury's grief drove her to persist in learning his fate. When her hunger strikes caught the attention of 60 Minutes, it was revealed that a CIA-paid lackey had Everardo killed in 1992 and that the CIA knew it all the time. Harbury urges us to learn the truth about the U.S. role in abetting oppressive regimes. Another book to read along with this is I, Rigoberta Menchu (Routledge, 1985) by the Maya Indian Nobel prize winner. This sensitive book is highly recommended.?Louise F. Leonard, Univ. of Florida Libs., Gainesville
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1St Edition edition (March 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446520365
• ISBN-13: 978-0446520362
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.2 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #521,944 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #65 in Books > History > Americas > Central America > Guatemala

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Searching for Everardo is not the cold, analytical treatise, August 6, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Searching for Everardo: A Story of Love, War, and the CIA in Guatemala (Hardcover)

The "Kirkus" review above criticizes Harbury for being unwilling to recognize that her husband Everardo was a combattant, indeed a commander, in a war and therefore subject to the consequences of war. Firstly, the accusation is false; Harbury was well aware that her husband was fighting a war, and she never demanded that the Guatemalan government release him. Her constant demand was that the Guatemalan authorities acknowledge his capture, treat him humanely and try him in a public and fair manner. One almost has to wonder if the "Kirkus" reviewer read the book or only someone else's synopsis! Secondly, Harbury's emotional attachment to the subject of her book might allow her to be less than analytical and reserved in the language she uses to describe the events she lived through and her love for the man whom the Guatemalan authorities brutally tortured for months on end. Torture, whatever the "Kirkus" reviewer might think, is not a morally acceptable practice which we just must expect without protest in wartime. This book probably does not have the enduring classic value of "I, Rigoberta Menchu", but it is significant and powerful reading for anyone who cares about Guatemala or justice.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eloquent and heartbreaking...., August 10, 2000

By 

mystuff "mystuff" (United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Searching for Everardo: A Story of Love, War, and the CIA in Guatemala (Paperback)

Searching for Everardo is an emotionally moving book that tells the story of not just one man - but an entire race of people during a very violent period for their country. The Kirkus Review condemns the author for not acknowledging that her husband was a commander of the guerilla forces and therefore,they imply, somehow deserving of his capture, torture and death. Harbury clearly recognizes her husband's position in the war throughout the book and the Kirkus Review makes one see how necessary his struggle, the struggle of class and race, has been throughout history. We still have a long way to go in ending racism - the world over.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I found this book to be haunting., July 14, 1998

By 

Katherine Martin - See all my reviews

This review is from: Searching for Everardo: A Story of Love, War, and the CIA in Guatemala (Hardcover)

... and was left with a deep gratitude to Jennifer Harbury for so vividly and compellingly giving us Everardo, for so intimately letting us into their intimacies and love, for revealing to us a Guatemala few know, for having the courage to go there, deep into the mountains, and to bring out so vibrantly all these people who live precipitously on the edge in their quest for freedom - and for daring to love so deeply in such a dangerous situation, for holding fast to that love in her search for Everardo. Her speaking to him throughout the book reminds me, the reader, over and over, that this is not simply story, but real life. I found Jennifer's language to be utterly absorbing and her telling of this real life to be striking, commanding. It's a book I can't push away from, it keeps following me around weeks after I've finished reading.