Through a Glass Darkly: The U.S. Holocaust in Central America by Thomas R. Melville, 2005, Xilibris, 652 pages, $38.99 cloth, $28.99 paperback.
The horrors of Guatemala’s “silent holocaust” are meticulously recorded and portrayed in this searing book. From the CIA-backed coup of 1954 to the village-by-village massacres of the 1980s, the full history of the 36-year “internal conflict” is set forth in a manner that makes the book hard to put down. The insider information and accounts offer unique insight to a chapter of history best known for official distortions and the fearful silence of the survivors. For those of us who wish to know the difficult truth about Guatemala, this book is a must read.
The story is told through the eyes of Father Ron Hennessey, an Iowa farmer-turned-priest working in the Mayan hinterlands when the military crackdown began in the late 1970s. The author, Thomas Melville, himself a former missionary in Guatemala and close friend of Hennessey, offers intimate details about the Mayan communities, their culture and their struggle to survive under apartheid-like conditions.
Melville also traces the efforts of remarkable Church leaders like Father Hennessey and Father Bill Woods to work with starving villagers to clear remote swampland for agricultural cooperatives. As the “scorched earth” counterinsurgency campaign reached its mad zenith in the early 1980s, their hard-won successes were swept aside as the Army burned the crops and savagely massacred the locals. After many threats, Father Woods perished when his small plane, with four other U.S. citizens aboard, was suspiciously shot down. Father Hennessey remained in Guatemala, standing by his Mayan friends in the face of the terrifying campaign. The story of his personal journey, as a thinker, a man and a priest, is both moving and inspiring.
The book also provides crucial facts and evidence that have never before been fully revealed. There is the harrowing account, for example, of the notorious burning of the Spanish Embassy in 1980. This resulted in the fiery deaths of dozens of Mayan protesters as well as virtually all of the Embassy staffers. The Ambassador, badly burned, leaped through the flames and survived, only to be chased from his hospital bed and pursued through the streets by death squad gunmen. The sole Mayan survivor was less fortunate and was dragged from his bed and murdered. The Guatemalan government has long insisted that protesters caused the fire, but the terrifying details offered in this book set the matter to rest.
Particularly moving are the accounts of Father Hennessey’s friendship with Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. As the violence and savagery grew to unimagined extremes, the two Church leaders found solace in one another, grew together and stood their ground together. Both cried out against the repression. Hennessey survived, yet again, alone.
The text is dotted with the sinister appearances of the “ugly Americans” from the Embassy and other U.S. agencies. No matter how damning the evidence or how gruesome the deeds, these shadowy figures always seem on hand to insist that things are not clear, that perhaps the army is not to blame, that nothing should be said or done and that no protection can be offered.
In 1999, the UN-sponsored Truth Commission (CEH) issued its grim report, “Memory of Silence,” finding the Guatemalan military and paramilitary forces responsible for genocide against the Mayan citizenry and 93% of the atrocities, including 660 massacres and the torture and murder of some 200,000 civilians. The CIA was harshly criticized for its support of the responsible intelligence divisions. This is a harsh reality that all U.S. residents must learn and face. Thomas Melville has brought this reality to life in an unparalleled, clear-eyed work of love.
