Guatemala to apologize to former president's family

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Guatemala to apologize to former president's family
29 Sep 2011 16:22

Source: reuters // Reuters


GUATEMALA CITY, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Guatemala will seek to make amends to former president Jacobo Arbenz, ousted in a violent coup nearly 60 years ago, as the Central America nation tries to emerge from generations of violence and political unrest.

The populist Arbenz was only the second freely elected president in Guatemala when his promise to redistribute land irritated fruit exporters and led to a 1954 coup backed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom will issue a public apology to the former leader's family on Oct. 20, a national holiday to commemorate a revolution that started in 1944 and paved the way for the country's first democratic elections.

The government will also add a retelling of Arbenz's legacy to school textbooks that do not recognize the former president, who spent almost three decades in exile before dying in Mexico in 1971, and name a stretch of major highway after him.

Read more: http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/guatemala-to-apologize-to-former-presidents-family

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. Gee, that's nice of them.

Now, when is the CIA going to apologize to Guatamala for the coup?

[dpbrown]

2. +1

That'll be the day.

[marasinghe]

3. yea; would be nothing more than justice, if some perpetrators went to jail for the shit.

but, i guess the Guatemala Govt's still getting their life-lessons from their CIA handlers.

[uppityperson]

4. Or to all those tortured/killed?

[gratuitous]

5. Guatemala can learn

Can large fruit corporations? Can the United States? I don't think the U.S. is any closer to following its own laws today than it was in 1954. Who will be around to accept our apologies if they're ever proffered?