Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

A view of the world from an Irish hole

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Good news from Guatemala

From Guatemala comes the welcome news that four men have finally been arrested for their part in the notorious Plan de Sanchez massacre of July 1982, in which 268 innocent people lost their lives. This even occurred during the blood-stained regime of General Efraim Rios Montt, The Guatemalan army had been fighting various left-wing guerrillas for over two decades, and Rios Montt and many of the country’s pampered elite believed they were receiving the backing of Guatemala’s indigenous population. On grabbing the presidency he instituted new policies for the war, including the burning of crops and whole villages, as well as the establishment of local vigilante groups or Self Defence Patrols or Petrullas de Autodefensa Civil (PAC) who would work with the army in their fight against the insurgents. Many of these patrols were made up of indigenous Guatemalans, who were thus being insinuated, often against their will, into the struggle against the guerrillas. The inhabitants of the village of Plan de Sanchez in the country’s central highlands refused to join up, not necessarily because they sympathised with the guerrillas, but because they found that the persistent struggle for survival took up much of their time. They were increasingly victimised for their recalcitrance and their complaints to the authorities were often met by fines, leading many of the men to leave the village for the surrounding mountains.

 Market day in Plan de Sanchez

 Sunday 18 July was the day of Plan de Sanchez’s weekly market that attracted visitors from other villages and the surrounding countryside. Early in the morning other visitors appeared on the scene: uniformed soldiers accompanied by men from the Self-Defence patrols (PAC). Forstly they fired two artillery rounds at the villagers, causing sever panic and several injuries. They then proceeded to rough up the village’s inhabitants and to carry out house-to-house searches. Then, in the afternoon, an ominous event occurred when they sealed off the village, preventing anyone from entering, or more important, from leaving. The villagers were collected and the young girls were separated and moved to a house in the village. Here they were interrogated, abused, beaten, raped and finally killed. Meanwhile the remaining villagers were housed separately. The older inhabitants were subjected to intensive physical beatings, after which they were killed. These obscene salami tactics continued with the separation of the young children and even babies as young as nine months old from their parents.  The soldiers did not think them worth a bullet; instead they either had their heads bashed in with rifle butts or they were swung against the ground with such force that their skulls cracked. The only ones left were the women and such men as had not fled from the village. A grenade was thrown in to the house where they were packed. The explosion started a fire, but just to make sure no one got out, the house was surrounded and sprayed repeatedly with automatic fire. Anyone who attempted to leave the village was shot. The visitors eventually left before midnight, having murdered at least 268 people.

 Identification and burial

 The next day those who had fled from the village, as well as the handful who had managed to conceal themselves or escape the killing returned. It was impossible to identify the bodies of the burnt. Many had already been partly eaten by dogs and other wild animals. In the afternoon the visitors returned. They forced the villagers they found there at gun point to hastily dig eight graves into which the victims were piled. Surprisingly, these witnesses of the atrocity were not killed; they were only threatened with death. Any houses that had not been consumed by the flames were ransacked and then set on fire.

A code of enforced silence

The soldiers left the field of carnage and lust they had created, though they threatened the survivors that they would suffer dreadful reprisals if they spoke of the events. Then they left, followed gradually by the survivors who left Plan de Sanchez a smoking ruin, suffused with the stench of burning flesh. In subsequent years a handful of the villagers drifted back and the military allowed them to resettle, on condition that they maintained their silence and joined the Self-Defence patrols.

 The search for justice thwarted

 It is difficult to conceal horrid feats. It took ten years, and the return of Guatemala to a form of civilian rule, (though under military tutelage) before attempts were made to launch a criminal investigation. These came to nothing, as witnesses were often intimidated or killed, while the Guatemalan judiciary showed a marked lack of appetite to pursue justice. In 1996 came the formal end of the hostilities that led to the massacre. Unfortunately, one of the terms demanded by the military before they’d agree to a peace settlement was a blanket amnesty for their misdeeds.

 A glimmer of hope

 In 2000 the then president of Guatemala Alfonso Portillo admitted government involvement and promised to pay relatives of the survivors compensation, but still the Guatemalan courts or police refused to get involved. 

Alvaro Colom

The election of the centre-left Alvaro Colom as president in 2008 ushered in a new willingness to address the problem of justice delayed being justice denied. The two men arrested are Lucas Tecu, military commisioner in the region when the massacre occurred and three PAC members Mario Julian Acoj, Eusebio Grave Galeano and Santos Rosales Garcia.  This is a start, but the overall responsibility for the events of that day in July n nearly thirty years’ ago include far more people, not all of them present in the village.

 The beginning or the end?

 These arrests are a start, but one worries that they may mark the end of the search for justice. President Colom’s term is coming to an end. His likely successor is Retired General Otto Perez Medina.  Guatemala

Perez Medina

 is a country racked by violent crime, much of it drug related (and some carried out by former members of the security forces who have found peace and lack of impunity for their crimes not to their liking), Retired General Perez promises to strike hard at criminals. Only a fool would believe he will fail to protect some of his former colleagues, especially if a full inquiry into past crimes were to reveal just how deeply the Guatemalan army is dyed with the blood of the innocent.

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D.D. Shostakovich: in memoriam

On August 9th 1975, the heart of Dmitrii Dmitrievich Shostakovich stopped beating, With his demise the world was not only robbed of one of the greatest composers of his time, but also of a unique yet complex witness to the history he had lived through.

He was a survivor. Sometimes people who have not known suffering or fear appear to criticise him because of this. It is as if by surviving he had made some sort of Faustian compact.

  There are two photographs which anybody familiar with Shostakovich will know. The first dates from c. 1929. It shows four people, of whom the youthful and energetic Shostakovich seated at the piano is a clear exemplar of his precocious genius. The three other people in the photograph are the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, armed with a cigarette; the theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold, who appears to be attempting to communicate or at least argue a point with the young Shostakovich; while the fourth personage, standing avuncularly over the rest is none other than Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevskii: like many leading communists he had sought to advance his prestige by “collecting” artists, whose patronage he could use in a protective way, though as a gifted amateur violinist he was no mere dilettante. Of the four Shostakovich alone did not die a violent or horrible death. Mayakovsky, perhaps armed with a prescient intelligence as biting and as sharp as his verse realised that time would eventually catch up with him, and ever an egoist. opted to end his own life by suicide in 1930. Tukhachevskii “fell from grace” in 1937 when he was accused of being a German double agent, on the basis of information leaked by Stalin (anonymously) to the Czechs, and then shot after a secret trial. As for Meyerhold, he was shot in February 1940.

There is another photograph which I have not included. It was taken of Shostakovich in his casket, which, according to Russian Orthodox custom, remained open during the funeral ceremony of 1975.  I believe that his face is governed by what appears to me to be a smile. It is the smile of the survivor, the person who has defied history, fate, the brutality of the state, the firing squad. It is the defiant smile of the survivor. To do this he had been compelled to offer numerous hostages to fortune. Perhaps that is why the first movement of his Symphony no.15 is peppered with references to Rossini’s “Wilhelm Tell” overture (though I think a more personal reason relating to his son Maksim exists for the quotation).

His true nature is to be found in his musical work, especially though not exclusively the works from the latter decade and a half of his life, including the late string quartets, the song cycles, and the enigmatic symphonies no. 14 and 15.

Shostakovich the atheist

Shostakovich was apparently an atheist. He admitted this in the controversial memoirs published under the title Testimony, in which he had no need to differ from the then current official ideology. It is possible to see signs of questioning of one’s existence in his work, doubts which not even the most fervent atheist can eschew when faced with the approaching unknowability of life’s extinction. This is evident in his penultimate song cycle, the settings of sonnets by Michelangelo. For me, at least, the final setting entitled “Immortality”” is like the “In Paradisum” of a requiem with its naive, even childish piano accompaniment. “…I am not dead, though buried in the earth … I live on in the hearts of all loving people, for I am not dust: mortal decay cannot touch me”.

The composer smiles

 Most of the surviving photographs show Shostakovich bathed in thought, either with his hand holding his jaw as if suffering from tooth ache, or holding his hand close to his mouth, almost biting his nails. Images of the composer smiling are very rare, but here is an excerpt of his attendance at rehearsals in the year of his death, 1975 of his brilliant opera The Nose, bristling with the anarchy of youth. We can see the influence it has on him as he hears his music performed after four and a half decades. He is ecstatic as he clearly recalls every note and sings along with the chorus. I find the first part of this film truly moving. Towards the end he talks about his music, but in is in an “official” way; he seems to be reading from a carefully censored script. His nervousness evident from the constant movement in his hands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjK7Hnxpmsg

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Is justice finally coming to Guatemala?

History was made this week in Guatemala: for the first time the perpetrators of mass murder have been convicted of their crimes. These were four soldiers who were found guilty of taking part in the massacre of Dos Erres in December 1982 when over two hundred peasants, many of them women, children and old people, were killed by the Guatemalan army during the short-lived but bloody regime of General Efraim Rios Montt.

The Rios Montt regime

 A struggle between various left-wing guerrillas and the military government of Guatemala had been going on since the early ‘60s with the Guatemalan army, backed by the United States and Israel  committing ever more disgusting violations of human rights.  Rios Montt was a career soldier who had dabbled in politics. Many observers felt that he had actually won the 1974 presidential election as candidate for the Christian Democrat party, but was denied victory by massive fraud. He came to power in June 1982 in a palace coup promising to pursue the war with

Efraim Rios Montt

... and the same to you!

renewed rigour. In 1968 he had left the Catholic faith, as like many conservative elements he believed that it had been taken over by “Marxists” and joined the American-based fundamentalist Pentecostal Church of the Word or Verbo Church, in which he became a lay preacher. When he took power he stated in his inaugural address that his presidency was the wish of God – and if God had demurred he would probably have been tortured and shot. His policy was summed up in three words: frijoles y fusiles: beans and guns. In other words: if you‘re with us you will be fed; if you are against us, you’ll be shot. Among those singled out for special treatment were the dirt poor indigenous Guatemalans. Centuries of discrimination at the hands of the Creole dominated governments, whether military or civilian, made them sympathetic to the guerrillas, but most found the backbreaking struggle for survival took up all their time. Any area of the countryside considered friendly to the guerrillas was subjected to a scorched-earth policy, whereby villages were burned to the ground, livestock killed and crops destroyed. The inhabitants – those who were not killed immediately – were often herded into concentration camps. Because Rios Montt was fighting a “communist-inspired” insurgency, as well as his links to the American right through his Christian fundamentalist beliefs, he enjoyed the support of the American government and CIA,

The massacre at Dos Erres

Peten

In late October twenty-one members of the military were killed and some weapons stolen in an ambush in the northern province of Petén. The landscape was dominated by swamps, jungle and lagoons and inhabited largely by subsistence farmers belonging to the Maya ethnic group. The army was itching for reprisals and early in the morning of December 6th members of the Kaibiles, the Guatemalan equivalent of the SAS entered the village of Doss Erres disguised as guerrillas.  They were convinced that many of the villagers belonged to the guerrillas or were concealing information about them. Male villagers were separated from women and children. They were corralled in the village church and school and subjected to brutal interrogation while the village was searched. No incriminating material – and crucially no weapons – could be found and the soldiers began to grow frustrated. The children were separated from their parents and were dispatched, often by having their head bashed against trees. Then it was the turn of the old and the womenfolk, who were usually raped prior to being killed. The last to die were the men. This went on for three days until the whole of the village’s population had been annihilated and their bodies thrown into a well. Apparently the last to die was a young girl brought off as a sort of trophy, gang raped and then strangled. 

 By wiping out the village and its population the soldiers and their superiors in the government hoped to erase any memory of what had happened at Dos Erres. However word did get out. The events were publicised by human rights groups but the Guatemalan army denied any responsibility, even though the country returned to nominal civilian rule in 1986. A peace deal ending the war was signed in 1996 but it included an amnesty for soldiers who had committed crimes during the war. In 1998 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that the amnesty did not cover seriou8s crimes such as genocide or mass killing. It was only in 2000, eighteen years after the massacre, that the then Guatemalan president, Alfonso Portillo, admitted that the Guatemalan army had been involved in the killings at Dos Erres and offered the victims’ relatives cash compensation.

Who was really responsible?

The real instigator of these crimes, Rios Montt, is still alive and is, by all accounts, hail and hearty as he goes into the eighty-sixth year of his miserable life. Even though he was deposed in 1983 he went on to become the speaker of the legislature and to stand for the presidency in 2003 in which he received 11% of the vote. In 2007 he was elected to the legislature and so enjoys parliamentary immunity from criminal proceedings. An attempt was made to pursue him through the Spanish courts, but this was thwarted due to the obfuscation of Rios Montt’s lawyers.

It is reckoned that as many as ten thousand people were killed during the time Rios Montt was president, the vast majority innocent bystanders in a conflict over which they had no control. What is more, just as the brutal repression of the Guatemalan people did not begin with Rios Montt but simply grew in intensity, neither did it end with his ouster.

Has justice been done?

One may ask whether such judgements are useful. What good does it do the victims? Should we not forget the past? It is important that those who carry out such barbarous acts should be punished and should not think that the passage of time exonerates them. They must be shown that the murder of the defenceless and the innocent will not go unnoticed by the civilised world.

The convictions of some of those involved in the Dos Erres massacre is but a start. The pursuit of those responsible for other massacres during Rios Montt’s time, such as those in the village of Plan de Sanchez, have been delayed because the judges have not found sufficient evidence for conviction. For far too long Guatemala has been bathed in a culture of impunity, created and maintained by its judiciary. Its courts are staffed by judges who make judgements in the interests of their patrons. Not only have the victims of the army looked for justice in vain. So too have the families of the girls and women who have disappeared, probably murdered. These people died not because of their political views, but solely because of their gender. The price of human life in Guatemala is still ridiculous low, compared to the price of justice.

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Europe’s real terrorists?

I don’t want to compound the grief felt by most Norwegians at the horrible events that occurred last Friday by point scoring. I do feel that what happens may point to the way in which the people of many countries in Europe have been hoodwinked into believing that the only source of terror comes from Islam or from the Middle East.

 I see myself as a Christian, yet I believe many so-called Christian fundamentalists to be no better than devil worshippers. As a Christian I neither fear nor hate Islam or those who practice it. For me followers of Islam actually live all facets of their religion. Many mainstream politicians in Europe will react with disgust to what happened in Norway and the views expressed by their perpetrator towards Islam, but aren’t those who have voted in favour of bans on Islamic dress not guilty of Islamophobia? A person wearing Islamic dress, or describing himself as an imam or an Islamic scholar will no doubt figure on the radar of Europe’s police forces, and will find it troublesome to cross borders. I very much doubt they  will gain entry to the United States, but the clean-shaven, blond-haired Anders Behring Breivik, a graduate of the Oslo School of Management who speaks fluent English, will  have no such trouble.

Islamophobia it must be stated, is the new anti Semitism of the extreme right. While it has been brewed up from the European gutters by people like Le Pen, the late Pim Fortuyn and his heir Wilders, the union with “Christian fundamentalism” is altogether American in origin. Remember the woman who, during the 2008 US presidential race, explained her distaste of voting for Barack Obama because he was “an Arab”. This anti-Arab and anti-Islamic element within the American government has infected Europe’s intelligence services who have been far too busy keeping “suspected Islamic extremists” under surveillance that they have turned a blind eye to the proliferation of home-grown, xenophobic extremists within Europe.

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Amy Winehouse

Like many people I sensed that Amy’s career would be as short as it was brilliant, yet when I heard of her death on Saturday evening I was shocked and horrified that my prediction had been realised.

 There is one adjective that is appropriate for her – unique. It describes her music, her vocals, her lyrics and her talent. Such talent only appears every few decades.

 Her song “Rehab” sounds a resonant  chord with anyone who has had to deal with depression or  addiction issues. She poured her pain into her music in a way that few artists were able to do.

 Those who knew her speak of a girl with a beautiful personality; perhaps it was too beautiful for this ugly world. May angels wing her to her rest.

 

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On the Muppets’ Show tonight

Poor Mick Wallace has got into hot piss because he made an off-the-cuff reference to Fine Gael Deputy Mary Mitchell-O’Connor as Miss Piggy. This wasn’t as part of a debate but was picked up on his microphone which he had forgotten to turn off. I include a photograph of Deputy Mitchell-O’Connor and I’m sure some of my readers will see some resemblance. It wasn’t as if he had called  her Thunder Thighs or “Yan fat-arsed bitch  from Cabinteely with the double-barrelled name”. I’m sure she was called much worse names during her time as a teacher. Politicians should stop behaving like ninnies and realise that it’s a contact sport that needs a fairly thick skin. You can’t go crying when someone uses a term you (and possibly most people) might find offensive.  On my blog I have used quite a number of epithets which might cause those of great sensitivity to quail. For example, former taoiseach Brian Cowen wax called Benny, after the dim-witted character on Crossroacds; former tanaiste Mary Coughlan was referred to as Lady Gaga while the obese minister for health was called Mary Hernia, in honour of the condition she would have given her husband had she ever gone down on him in a moment of sexual passion. And let us not forget the public official around here whom I call Whacko Jacko because I know it annoys him.

 But Mick Wallace is probably aware that the Fine Gaelers and comrade comfies of the Labour party are out to get him. They’re hoping that he will be declared bankrupt, and that he will then have to resign his seat producing a by-election, which they have Buckley’s chance of winning.

Q. What’s green and has a taste of pork?
A. Kermit’s finger.

Spot the difference

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Let the hair sit

Our TDs and senators are supposed to adhere to a dress code in the forthcoming session. Gone will be the strapless minis and Doc Martins for the men, and the bomber jackets and dungarees favoured by some lady deputies, to be replaced by suits, cut jackets and button-down shirts and blouses. How Middle class and uncomfortable they will look. In fact, it is nothing more than treating our public representatives like school students who must wear a uniform, no matter how unflattering. The clothes worn by public representatives should be their own affair, and theirs alone. They have little enough real power as it is. Maybe this is just another attempt at the puppets’ humiliation by their puppet masters in the Civil Service. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett is correct in calling this move the height of absurdity and immorality at a time when many people are facing the repercussions of frequently cowardly cuts in public spending.

 This dress code is supposed to originate from the Ceann chomhairle. Well a former holder of the office, Rowery O’Hanlon, always looked like a constipated peacock in his regalia, while the costume worn by the present Ceann chomhairle looks as if it has come from a jumble sale or Oxfam shop, having been sewn together from a few black and green sacks. In fact he looks like a tramp trying to stay warm or a coal delivery man.

 Surely those who care so much about our public representatives’ appearances should be concerned that they always aim for authenticity and not attempt to mislead their public. Surely items such as platform shoes and hair pieces should be banned from the house.

 Of course this dress code will not apply to the Civil Service. Members of the Department of Social Victimisation will still wear outfits inspired by the sartorial ideals of Fuck It casual.

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Enda’s porkies

So an taoiseach Enda Kenny has finally been outed as a purveyor of porky pies. What is his excuse? “Ah well, sure I heard about  the hospital and they were all sorta cheerin’ like an’ I lost the head.” Maybe like John A. Costello, on declaring Ireland a republic, Enda had had a few. Maybe he is like a former taoiseach, no names mentioned, whose truthfulness was brought into question by a mutual friend who said: “Yan fella will always say what he thinks ya wanta hear. Ya mightav bought a new car an’ he’d come up tya an shake your hand an’ say ‘That’s a powerful cyar yev just bought yerself’ even though the world might know it was a haip o’ shite”. Enda has been round the houses long enough by now. He’s the father of the Dail. He’s not like some neophyte TD full of aspirations, who promises free condoms (of any flavour) every week, a free orgasm each month, all under the slogan “A vote for me is a shag for you.”. But once elected a sordid reality check kicks in. The new boy (and I’m not being sexist here. Most women know it already) discovers that he is only a member of the legislature, the poor relation amongst the powers (Did someone say Powers? Thanks, with lots of ice) and that the real power in the land are the un-elected heads of Civil Service Departments, parastatals and other associated quangos. No, the fact is Enda’s only defence is to sing that song beloved of Morecombe & Wise. “Why did you believe me when I said I loved you when you know I’ve been a liar all my life?”

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People of Ireland – God help you!

The people of Ireland are in a desperate state. They are being robbed blind by those who rule them. What’s more many are being denied their basic human rights by civil servants and public officials . These people try to justify their actions with reference to specious laws and regulations, but are often just doing what they want, riding roughshod over ordinary folk.

 When this happens many citizens complain to their public representatives, some of whom sound genuinely sympathetic. However they often prove ineffective; they may make representations but they get no where so they sink back into inactivity.

 The worst are the constituency offices of government ministers, staffed at public expense. These ministers connive in the illegal acts,  though they may try and dissociate themselves from them. They could, as government ministers, ring up the political bosses of the public officials concerned and tell them to back off, but they are unwilling to do this, especially for members of the public without large cheque-books.

 What is happening is that many Irish people are being illegally victimised by bureaucrats. As for our legislators, those whom we

The new government headquarters?

elect, – they’re on the booze. I have a rumour that the Fernley Convention centre, often used for government brainstorming and socialising, is to be quietly sold off – and the proceeds trusered. .Such events will now be held in St John of God’s, Stillorgan.

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The meaning of life

I once was pretty

I abhor the taking of human life; it is so wonderful, so marvellous, so unique, so miraculous. Life must have a qualitative aspect though; it must always be more than a heart beat.

Consequently I see wars as evil, along with acts of terrorism and military rebellions. I think that there are only two occasions when the taking of a human life may, just may be excusable. One of them is self defence. The other is suicide. When somebody feels that they can no longer carry the burden of living, when they feel that their life has been consistently devalued, or if they believe that there is no one with whom they can confide, they ought not to be castigated for thinking of suicide. They should, nevertheless, be given every opportunity to see that there are positive alternatives and to help them appreciate their own self value.

Our obese and hypocritical minister for Health, Harney, is hosting a conference or some media circus about suicide. This is about as sincere as holding a symposium on over-eating. The hypocrisy towards suicide shown by this and previous governments is appalling. People with potential suicidal tendencies are told by means of cinema advertising that help is available is they ask for it, but if they do they discover that because so much was spent on the cinema advertisements cutbacks have had to be made, and they have to wait maybe six months for a referral. But this government sees people with suicidal tendencies as losers. They’re not valuable like the over-paid and greedy bankers in whose interests this government formulates policies. What’s more they’re obviously not “real men” who respond to life’s problems in traditional, time-honoured fashion by having a skin-full and going home and beating the sh*($ out of the wife. So it is any wonder that the provision of adequate mental health services holds a pretty low priority.

I know of one man with suicidal tendencies who was placed on a waiting list to see a psychotherapist. Some might say he was impatient or a would-be queue-jumper. Anyway while on the waiting list he hanged himself. The HSE no doubt catalogued him as among the “DNAs” or those who Do Not Appear for their appointments, and who are, like sick people in general, the cause of our health system’s problems – at least that what Harney probably thinks. The problem isn’t just one of lack of funds. The HSE has lost quite a number of very valuable and hard-working psychotherapists, some of who have taken early retirement, citing their frustration at being bullied by HSE “littler Hitlers” who are worried that they might be squandering too many resources that are in truth only theirs to squander. managers and officials.

I'm not married to Mary Harney

Even though I can’t stand Harney I wouldn’t encourage her to take her own life – though she should resign. First, she should lost a bit of weight – in fact quite a lot of weight. She’ll have to have any chance of making it through the second part of the treatment: attempting to pursue a decent lifestyle using only the pittance paid to a single person by the Department of Social Protection. I’d grant her that, even though technically her husband’s inflated income must be taken into consideration for assessment purposes, especially as he probably earns in a fortnight what most people on Social Welfare are expected to live on for a year. She would have to separate from Mr Harney (Brian isn’t it?) temporarily and live apart from him and any cash advances he might make to her would have to be assessed as “cash on hands” and therefore deducted from her benefits. The treatment should not be permanent and might last only a year: this should act as a wake-up call so that Mary Harney can taste the reality faced by many Irish people. She might very well say that she found the quality of life available perfectly adequate. The treatment would not have been a waste, as she would therefore see that she didn’t need the expensive crap like the five-star hotel suites, the first-class air travel or the en suite pianist. I would certainly class this as a result – if it’s adequate for her, it’s adequate for all her colleagues as well, plus al the senior honchos in the civil service and parastatal organisations. The savings could be considerable.

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