Mano Blanca
| Movement of Organized Nationalist Action | |
|---|---|
| Movimiento de Acción Nacionalista Organizado MANO | |
Guatemalan Party of Labor | |
| Battles and wars | Guatemalan Civil War |
Mano Blanca (Spanish for 'White Hand'), was a Guatemalan right-wing, anti-communist death squad,[1] set up in 1966 to prevent Julio César Méndez Montenegro from being inaugurated as the president of Guatemala. While initially autonomous from the government, it was absorbed into the Guatemalan State's counter-terror apparatus and evolved into a paramilitary unit of the Guatemalan armed forces, and was responsible for the murder and torture of thousands of people in rural Guatemala.[2] The group received support from the Guatemalan army and government, as well as from the United States. The group was officially known as the Movimiento de Acción Nacionalista Organizado (English: Movement of Organized Nationalist Action) which gives the acronym "MANO", (Spanish: hand). The group was variously known by its full name, by MANO, or most popularly by Mano Blanca, or "White Hand."
History
Background
The
After the 1954 coup d'état, the MLN became in effect the party of the Guatemalan landowners and military.
Mano Blanca as a death squad
Mano Blanca, or the Movement of Organized Nationalist Action, was set up in 1966 as a front for the MLN to carry out its more violent activities,
Armed with the support and coordination of the Guatemalan Armed Forces, Mano Blanca began a campaign described by the United States Department of State as one of "kidnappings, torture, and
Human rights activist Blase Bonpane described the activities of Mano Blanca as being an integral part of the policy of the Guatemalan government, and by extension the policy of the United States government and the Central Intelligence Agency.[4] One of the deaths Mano Blanca was responsible for was that César Montenegro Paniagua, a communist politician who was killed in retribution for the killing of West German ambassador Karl von Spreti by FAR guerrillas.[9] Mano Blanca also sent death threats to one of the leaders of a student organization. Bonpane reported that the leader of Mano Blanca had told him the death threats had been made because he was a communist, and would "give his life for the poor."[10] Overall, Mano Blanca was responsible for thousands of murders and kidnappings, leading travel writer Paul Theroux to refer to them as "Guatemala's version of a volunteer Gestapo unit."[2]
Mano Blanca was active during the governments of colonel
References
- ^ a b Batz 2013, pp. 64–65.
- ^ a b c Theroux 2014, pp. 100–103.
- ^ a b c d Levenson-Estrada 2003, pp. 94–104.
- ^ a b Bonpane 2000, pp. 30–50.
- ^ a b Rothenburg 2012, pp. 112–113.
- ^ a b Ibarra 2006, pp. 191–208.
- ^ a b c d e Grandin & Klein 2011, pp. 87–89.
- ^ McClintock 1985, p. 95.
- ^ Washington Post 1970.
- ^ Blum 2003, pp. 233–234.
Bibliography
- Blum, William (2003). Killing Hope: US Military and CIA interventions since World War II. Zed Books. pp. 233–234. ISBN 978-1-84277-369-7.
- Bonpane, Blase (12 May 2000). Guerrillas of Peace: Liberation Theology and the Central American Revolution. iUniverse. pp. 30–50. ISBN 978-0-595-00418-8.
- Batz, Giovanni (2013). "Military Factionalism and the Consolidation of Power in 1960s Guatemala". In Garrard-Burnett, Virginia; Lawrence, Mark Atwood; Moreno, Julia E. (eds.). Beyond the Eagle's Shadow: New Histories of Latin America's Cold War. University of New Mexico Press. pp. 64–65. ISBN 978-0-8263-5369-6.
- Ibarra, Carlos Figueroa (June 2006). "The culture of terror and Cold War in Guatemala". Journal of Genocide Research. 8 (2): 191–208. S2CID 72555904.
- Grandin, Greg; Klein, Naomi (30 July 2011). The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War. University of Chicago Press. pp. 87–89. ISBN 978-0-226-30690-2.
- Levenson-Estrada, Deborah (Winter 2003). "The Life That Makes Us Die/The Death That Makes Us Live: Facing Terrorism in Guatemala City". Radical History Review. 2003 (85): 94–104. S2CID 143353418.
- McClintock, Michael (1985). The American connection: State terror and popular resistance in Guatemala. Zed books. ISBN 978-0-86232-241-0.
- Rothenburg, David, ed. (2012). Memory of Silence: The Guatemalan Truth Commission Report. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 112–113. ISBN 978-1-137-01114-5.
- Theroux, Paul (2014). The Old Patagonian Express. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 100–103. ISBN 978-0-547-52400-9.
- Washington Post (7 April 1970). "Guatemala Red Killed For Revenge". Washington Post.