Word: guatemala
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...speech to the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington, Reagan drew an ominous picture of worldwide consequences that would result from a Communist victory in El Salvador. "If guerrilla violence succeeds," he said, ". . .El Salvador will join Cuba and Nicaragua as a base for spreading fresh violence to Guatemala, Honduras, even Costa Rica. The killing will increase, and so will the threat to Panama, the Canal and ultimately Mexico." That, he added, would advance the aims of "Soviet military theorists [who] want to tie down our forces on our own southern border and so limit our capacity...
...script reads the same in Guatemala, where General Efrain Rios Montt seized power last year in a coup d' etat. Although estimates of the total deaths under Guatemala's several decades of authoritarian rule range from 50,000 to 100,000, Reagan decided that the country had gotten "a bad rap." So he certified Guatemala as having made notable progress in respect for human rights, and obtained $6.3 million in war materials for Gen. Montt (even though 8000 died in the first eight months after his takeover). The country officially remains in a "state of siege" as rebels fight authoritarian...
There were other reminders last week of the difficult political obstacles the Pope had to overcome if his spiritual mission was to succeed. John Paul's Guatemala stop, scheduled for Monday, ran into trouble when President Efrain Rios Montt ordered the execution of six suspected terrorists, ignoring a last-minute papal plea for clemency. In a message to Guatemalan Bishop Prospero Pernados del Barrio, John Paul confirmed that he still planned to visit Guatemala but condemned the executions. Said the Pope: "I cannot fail to think with immense pain of the recent executions that have taken place in your nation...
...Guatemala, John Paul is scheduled to meet with President Rios Montt, a fervent, born-again Protestant who represents a new wave of Protestant evangelism that is eroding the Catholic Church's traditional supremacy in Guatemala. Although church leaders give Rios Montt credit for bringing a rare measure of honesty to the country's government, his brutal crackdown on insurgents has drawn deserved fire from the Catholic hierarchy. Some Catholic leaders saw his decision to proceed with the six executions on the eve of the papal visit as a deliberate affront to the Vatican. Warned the apostolic nuncio to Guatemala City...
...visit, John Paul is expected to pay tribute to lay leaders, so-called Delegates of the World, who have helped to fill the gap by organizing rural Bible-study groups. The Pope will also make a brief stopover in Belize, where, in a reversal of the trend in Guatemala, Protestants have yielded their longtime superiority in numbers and political influence to Catholics...