Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala (Hardcover)

by Daniel Wilkinson (Author) "ALL I KNEW when I began was that a house had burned down..." (more)
Key Phrases: secret cable, San Marcos, United States, Guatemala City (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Written in the vein of a Robert Kaplan travel journal, this profound book traces the history of Guatemala's 36-year internal struggle through personal interviews that recount the heart-wrenching stories of plantation owners, army officials, guerrillas and the wretchedly poor peasants stuck in the middle. Wilkinson's narrative unfolds gradually, beginning with his quest to unlock the mysteries of the short-lived 1952 Law of Agrarian Reform, which saw the redistribution of land to the working class. He goes on to explain many of the causes and consequences of the country's political and social problems. At one point, Wilkinson vividly describes how the entire town of Sacuchum uncharacteristically gathered to recount for him and thus record for the outside world how the army raped, tortured and massacred members of the community because they were believed to have supported the guerrillas. Much of what's revealed in Wilkinson's account of the country's trials is hard to stomach, especially his description of CIA involvement in Guatemala. In many instances, Wilkinson's personal story gets in the way of the larger account he is trying to tell, and the book becomes more about him (he was just out of college in 1993, when he made the trip) than about events in Guatemala. However, this book is both easy to read and compelling, and Wilkinson's little self-indulgences are easily forgivable given the powerful subject matter and how well it is told by Wilkinson, now a lawyer with Human Rights Watch. B&w photos.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
A member of Human Rights Watch, Wilkinson considers Guatemala's 36-year civil war and the 200,000 lives it has cost.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (September 26, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618221395
• ISBN-13: 978-0618221394
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #434,586 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A balanced & well-written chronicle of state terror, March 12, 2003

By	Bert Ruiz "Author" (Pleasantville, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Daniel Wilkinson's "Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala" is a balanced and well-written chronicle of State terror. The author dedicates many years, abandons law school and runs up credit card debt to research and write a glaring historical account of the struggle between large landowners and the poor in Guatemala.

Wilkinson's early focus is on the 1950 presidential victory of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. He then explains the daring 1952 implementation of a far-reaching Agrarian Reform law called Degree 900. The author reaches out to Guatemalan students who favored the reforms and declared that peace, "required greater equality and greater equality required a redistribution of land in the countryside."

Wilkinson then flashes back to 1892 when twenty-three-year-old Friedrich Endler leaves Germany for Central America. Endler eventually becomes a large coffee plantation owner and it is through him the author explains the historical struggle with poor illiterate workers who provide the labor that builds a coffee nation.

From there Wilkinson flash forwards to 1954 and the carefully choreographed CIA overthrow of democratically elected President Guzmán. Shortly thereafter agricultural students protested, "We who receive an education paid for by the people have a debt to the people! We who have the power to analyze have the responsibility to criticize! An agronomist should carry, in one hand, a machete...and, in the other, a machine gun."

The remainder of the book is a painstaking tale of documenting the State terror of the 1980's when 200,000 Guatemalans perished. Quite frankly, parts of this book are brutal. Nevertheless, the author must be commended for risking his life and traveling to the interior and urging the poor to testify before the Guatemalan Truth Commission that officially investigated the atrocities of the armed forces.

In conclusion, Daniel Wilkinson courageously points a finger at Washington for being so obsessed with the fear of insurgency that they rationalize away qualms and uneasiness. He even quotes an American embassy official who was uneasy with early military abuses and wrote in 1968, "the record must be made clearer that the Untied States Government opposes the concept and questions the wisdom of counter-terror; the record must be made clearer that we have made this known unambiguously to the Guatemalans; otherwise we will stand before history unable to answer the accusations that we encouraged the Guatemalan Army to do these things." Unfortunately, no one in Washington was listening. This is a tier-one book...buy it.

Bert Ruiz

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An in depth look, April 15, 2005

By	Hammiesgirl "minrice41sec" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala (American Encounters/Global Interactions) (Paperback)

So you know that the civil war in Guatemala was between the military and the guerillas with, tragically, so many of Guatemala's indigenous population caught in the middle. You might even know that lack of land and racist policy drove the war. But do you really know how it came to be and why?

This is what this book will do for you. It will take you deep into the politics and events that led to the bloodshed that was most apparent during the 1980's. It will reveal why Guatemala is still bleeding from this war. It will show you why so many Guatemalans are for the most part silent about what really went down during that war.

Silence that spurred Daniel Wilkinson, a young Harvard graduate from the States, to hop on a ratty motorcycle and travel throughout the country interviewing countless numbers of people in a quest for the truth of what went on on the mountain, and why there has been silence there for so long. This book isn't stuffy, it's not authoritative. In fact, most of the time it is apparent that Wilkinson doesn't know what he is doing half of the time he is in Guatemela. Which makes him very real as a person. You kind of travel along with him, it's THAT good. Wilkinson doesn't go for shock value in the retelling of his events. His is a firm, quiet truth and he tells his tale, his experience in this book, focusing on why getting to the truth is nearly as horrifying as the truth itself.

Pick this one up for a better, deeper understanding of the civil war in Guatemala. As you read it in your comortable house your perception on life just might change. I know mine did.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY GUATEMALA, March 22, 2005

By	S. Quinto (Guatemala, Guatemala) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It is difficult to explain the mixed emotions when you read something so horrible about the history of your own country. The only thing I can say is that guatemalans are hard workin' people that faces the adversity with great courage. This is a book that digs the reality that Guatemala live during the years of the internal war, and how that lead to todays daily life in the country.