Premium Episode 142 - United Fruit Company, Blood Bananas and the Guatemalan Genocide pt. 9: Cabeza Clara, Corazón Solidario, Puño Combativo

Programmed to Chill

[originally published on Patreon March 16, 2024]

By 1970, the literal former head of a death squad was running Guatemala - Colonel Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio. He took the death squad model to the next level, and disappearances skyrocketed. In 1972, the survivors of FAR formed the EGP (Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres, or the Guerrilla Army of the Poor) and shifted from foquismo to a protracted people's war model of insurgency.

I discuss the Catholic church's complicated legacy in Guatemala on both sides of the political spectrum. I discuss Liberation Theology, the Melville Affair, and CUC (Comite de Unidad Campesina, or the Committee for Peasant Unity) which interacted with the EGP.

I explain the major earthquake of February 1976 which triggered the influx of foreign missionaries which would have wild repercussions. I go over the 1980 Spanish Embassy Massacre. In 1982, URNG was formed - Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca, or Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity. There was a serious possibility that Guatemala would have a revolution similar to the one that occurred in Nicaragua in 1979. This context is important to understand what is to come.

Songs:

Interview with Marco Antonio Yon Sosa

Vos Sos el Dios de los Pobres / Canto Entrado by Carlos Mejia Godoy Canción al EGP by unknown