We have two brilliant new interns who are furiously working through our backlog of interviews, transcribing, fact checking, looking up historical context. As we get up to date, we will provide deeper backgrounders, and, of course, you’ll get to meet them though their bylines and bios. This interview was transcribed by Kayley Ingalls.

Kayley received her BA in International Studies in 2012 from the University of Chicago. Though her coursework includes African Politics, the Modern Middle East, and the Politics of Islam, she wrote her thesis on fairy tales and their use as a vehicle for discussing the Holocaust. A good-natured stickler for grammar, she enjoys taking the odd class on mechanics and usage. Since graduating, she’s tried her hand at working as a Library Assistant and teaching summer school at an exclusive private school in Oakland, California. She dreams of exploring the world and hopes to find her place in it eventually, whether it be in writing, editing, law, or something she has yet to dream up.

—————-

When I arrived in the first country for the project, Guatemala, I stayed in the home of a former student activist, congressman and architect, now retired. Cesar’s grandson Marco Antonio picked me up at the airport, and, over Johnnie Walked Red, the three of us spent the night talking about the historic 1954 CIA overthrow of the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz. Marco took me out to the countryside, where he is a teacher and we hung out with one of his friends. This is my conversation with his educator friend, Fabio an extroverted young man in his twenties.

BG: Okay. What do you know about 1954? Jacobo Árbenz. 

(Guatemalan president overthrown by the United States in 1954.)

What do I know? He was overthrown by the American CIA. He was labeled a communist. Because he wanted to make some reforms.

BG: Was there truth to that? Was he a communist?

No, he wasn’t. The Americans were very nervous about the Soviet Union and the ideas of Marx. They were trying to use communism as an excuse to keep control of many countries in Latin America. That’s what I think.

BG: You can say both were real, there was genuine hysteria, paranoia, fear of the Soviet Union, communist China, Stalin, Mao, Eastern Europe.

I think American society was entitled to be paranoid to a certain degree, but in Latin America that was used as an excuse, again, to be in control of the region. I don’t know if you remember McCarthy?

BG: Sure.

He was talking about the domino effect, if one country fell down, then the next one, and so on.

BG: The domino theory.

Yes. But I don’t think Árbenz was a communist, or Allende in Chile.

(Salvador Allende, the first Marxist to be elected president in free elections in Latin America. Elected 1970, overthrown in a 1973 CIA-supported coup.)

BG: What do you think is the line between being a communist and having some communists in your political coalition or legislature, or pushing for long overdue reforms? The Spanish oligarchy controlling the economy for decades or centuries…

Historically, what we have in Guatemala is a situation in which a minority controls the majority. The wealthy class controls the working class. That is the situation in this country, but every time the working class wants to see changes in society, they always label us. Drug gangs, terrorists.

BG: It’s a convenient way for…

…to get rid of certain people.

BG: Even Obama is called a socialist. Compared to who?

No way! I don’t think he’s even close.

BG: But these words are used to paralyze public discourse. Instead of debating how we affect healthcare reform, well, he’s socialist.

Two things, if the working class is in charge of making changes, the first thing that they probably will change is healthcare for everybody and education free for everybody. And that’s Marxism.

BG: Well, it’s what some Marxist countries have as a priority. I don’t think that’s Marxism though.

The working class being in control of the–

BG: Being in control, that part. But free education and healthcare? Is that socialism?

That’s a little bit. More Marxism than… But Sweden has both things. Free healthcare and free education. And they are capitalist.

BG: That’s right. A lot of Americans think that ensuring good health care for people and good education is a priority. A lot of Americans think that no, that’s socialism. You’re taking my money, my taxes. I want to lower my taxes, not raise them. Take my money so that some other kid can get good education or healthcare? That’s socialism. This is a significant political view in the United States.

I think that this is like a, how do you say, Obama… I used to have friends from Austria talking about Obama, good things about him. One of his attributes is basically that he is a well articulated person. He can explain things carefully and clearly. But he fails many times because he cannot explain the important things to the American community.

BG: I think that’s true.

People don’t want to be labeled as whatever, communist for instance. So they have to clarify. This is what I am offering, it has nothing to do with being a socialist. He has failed to distance himself from labels, philosophies, or ideologies, I don’t know.

BG: If I can ask, how old are you?

I don’t answer that.

BG: (Laughter.) Okay, you don’t have to answer that. As you were growing up, learning about what happened in 1954, and then seeing the civil war or reading about it, how did you feel about the United States as you heard those things?

I think that it’s a process because it takes time to… As you have more details and more details, you start putting everything together. All the pieces. It fits in time. But I think the American goal was really bad, you know? If you were in school here, you probably would understand what I’m talking about. Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in the elections and he was actually dealing with the Iranians. They were using Iranians to pass weapons to the Contras.

BG: Illegally.

And also they paid the Iranians to keep the American hostages a little bit longer. Yeah, check that.

BG: I’ve been reading about that lately.

Bill Moyers discusses that in one of his documentaries.

BG: They paid or made certain promises.

No, they were payments.

BG: I have heard that. I love Bill Moyers.

So the Americans came. I think that the agreement… He asked for a favor, if they could maintain the hostages a little bit longer, until after –

BG: The Iranians hated Carter because of the Shah.

(The Carter administration seemed to be complicit with the Shah, who came to the United States for medical treatment after being overthrown in 1979. Carter toasted him on television.)

They wanted to portray Ronald Reagan as a powerful guy, that he is not negotiating with terrorists.

BG: He did negotiate with terrorists, more than once.

Yeah, he did! But they were saying, no, he’s not negotiating with terrorists.

BG: So during the civil war, were you aware that the United States government, particularly during the Reagan administration, was supporting Guatemala’s military dictatorship? What was your attitude about that?

We didn’t know that until we were much older Because that’s part of our history and at that time we weren’t sure. Instead of saying, “You guys have a threat of communism in the area. We are going to help you to eradicate that problem.”

BG: That was the justification.

Yeah, but the money was used to maintain the status quo, to maintain the rich families in power, and keep the military strong.

BG: Did you know any people who were kidnapped, or tortured, or killed?

Just one. He was an old guy. He was kidnapped and killed. Apparently he was associated with a Catholic group.

BG: Catholic?

They say that sometimes the Catholics were indoctrinating.

BG: (It’s estimated that) US-backed military dictators in your country, over time, killed 200,000 people.

Now, they (former political leaders) are using that as justification. Yes, people were brutalized and really badly tortured in Latin America, But you know what? We didn’t do it. It was our military, when it was in Guatemala, Chile, or Argentina. It was the military. We were not involved in that. We weren’t physically there.

BG: The political leaders are saying that it was the military?

Yes. The Americans weren’t involved. You were not doing it. It was the Guatemalans in control of the wrong paramilitary groups, of which there were many. Or, in Latin America as well, we weren’t there. It’s like saying that Hitler is innocent because he wasn’t in Treblinka or Auschwitz. He wasn’t there physically, yeah, but he was the mastermind. The point that I am trying to make is that Ronald Reagan, he was the mastermind behind that machinery.

BG: What do you think was going through Reagan’s mind when he was supporting these brutal dictators?

I think he was really scared during the missile crisis in Cuba. Americans were very scared. We have nuclear weapons, they are no longer in Russia, they are in Cuba. And this is how many miles out of the United States?

BG: 90 miles from Miami.

Suddenly, they can nuke us. And that’s the thing that really scares me. And after Vietnam? Wow.

BG: Yeah, we can lose.

There was a certain degree of paranoia among the military. Among the politicians in the United States. It probably was related to the right wing. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.

BG: What’s happening now in Guatemalan politics?

I am totally disconnected from Guatemalan politics. I read the New York Times, La Stampa Italiana. I only read news from other countries.

(Laughter.)

I was trying to be in tune with the Guatemalan congressmen who were opposed (to legislation supporting privatization of seeds for) Monsanto.

BG: I heard that today, yeah.

And they decided to go in favor of Monsanto. Something that was really disappointing. In part because they don’t even know what the hell is going on. Because they don’t have the education. They don’t understand our genetics in a way. It’s frustrating. But I am totally disconnected from American politics, too. I don’t understand anymore what’s going on and I have no interest.

I visited  leading Guatemalan policy institute ASIES and talked to analyst and scholar Hugo Novales Contreras. We talked about the culpability of the United States, whether democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz would have been overthrown without the CIA-sponsored invasion of 1954, and why modern military leaders and landowners pursue their grievances through democratic means (including the paying off of politicians).

Jacobo Arbenz was a Guatemalan military officer when he participated in a coup to overthrow U.S.-backed dictator General Jorge Ubico in 1944. He became Secretary of Defense serving under President Juan Jose Arevalo, then was elected president himself in 1951. He was overthrown in a CIA-financed and managed coup in 1954.

BG : Why was Arbenz overthrown ?

HN : There are a lot of theories. The one which I like best was brought by Piero Gleijeses in his classic book “Shattered Hope.”  The Guatemalan revolution had a lot of enemies from the beginning. There were several attempts to overthrow (previous president) Juan Jose Arevalo, who implemented some important reforms such as the Labor Code, revolutionary for its time. In order to sustain the revolution, the Arbenz government needed to have an actual citizen base, and this support was provided by the worker and peasant unions, and eventually this led to the agrarian reform.

There were internal causes for the overthrow. There was a privileged, land-owning elite that wasn”t happy with the agrarian reform. More importantly, there was an army that  had been trained to be anti-communist. They did not support Arbenz and his government, and that”s what eventually led to the overthrow. The so-called intervention didn”t really imply an excessive use of military force. Arbenz was overthrown by a ragtag army formed by peasants with very little training, with no significant weapons. But the army feared that the United States might intervene. And what they didn”t want was the army to be humiliated by fighting as grand an opponent as the United States. So this is a responsibility that we tend to ignore in Guatemala, because we just want to say the United States came in and crushed us. It wasn’t really that way. There is part of that responsibility that”s right here in Guatemala, the army included.

BG : Your point is it wasn”t a full scale military invasion, and therefore there had to be internal dissension and support for the overthrow for it to happen…

HN : Exactly.  This is something I heard from my grandmother. I don’t know if you want to record this because it’s more personal…

BG : Personal is relevant.

HN : My great-grandfather supported the revolution at the beginning and he eventually moved against the revolution during the next ten years. Basically he started out helping overthrow Ubico, then he also helped to overthrow Arbenz. There were a lot of people in Guatemala who were anti-communist, and they feared the fact that Arbenz was surrounded by communists. They feared that something greater might happen after the agrarian reform. The peasants would be empowered to pursue options. So, there was an actual fear of communism in Guatemala, and it was probably supported by propaganda from the United States and from the Church.

BG : When you talk about the land owners and the twenty, thirty families who historically had tremendous economic power in this country, how do you see the evolution of their thinking? There is a coup led by Arbenz in ’44, followed by the election of Arevalo. Did a lot of them just say, ”Hey, this is progress, we have less control in a democracy, but the world is changing,” or, do you think, from 1944 they were saying, “This must stop and we must find a way to take back control?”

HN : Well, when you look at the actual protagonists of the revolution, or the actual coup against Ubico, you know a lot of the people who supported the coup were, I wouldn”t say they were the twenty or thirty families, but they were the bourgeoisie. So it wasn”t really a popular revolution strictly speaking. Many of the Arbenz and Arevalo cabinet members were actually coming from those families, starting with Jorge Toriello, who was one of the leaders of the original coup in 1944. I guess this class was alienated from the revolution two different times. The Labor Code, which I think was in 1947, distanced them from the revolution, and then later on with the agrarian reform. One thing that needs to be pointed out is that the revolution could have carried on without the agrarian reform. For example, in order for you to be able to receive land from the agrarian reform, you actually had to form a committee with a couple of representative from the peasant unions. Some might have thought that agrarian reform was fair, but they felt that it wasn”t going to be carried out in a fair way.

BG : If the United States did nothing, would Arbenz eventually have been overthrown?

HN : I would not be able to say, but what I can say is that there would have been attempts to overthrow. What really made the difference is that the threat of an eventual United States intervention actually turned the army against Arbenz, so that was the main role of the United States.

You couldn”t just blame everything on the United Fruit Company. They would have still been able to sustain their business here in Guatemala, even with the agrarian reform. I mean there wasn”t a real threat to their operation. They had such a huge operation that they could have even disregarded their “ hard drive recovery software security standards are set high by CompuCom to ensure that our customers’ data is never vulnerable. Guatemalan operation and still be a profitable Company.

BG : Why do you think the Reagan administration provided so much aid to the Rios Montt administration?

HN : Nicaragua was already under Sandinistas rule by that time. So what a lot of people in the army in Guatemala and the United States feared was a domino effect, that Nicaragua would fall and then El Salvador and later Guatemala. There was a strong ideological component to the relationship between the United States and Guatemala during the Cold War, and, obviously, some corporate interests.

BG : Was Arbenz a good leader for the years he was in power ?

HN : It”s a really subjective question, but I would say yes. In comparison to what we had so far to that point, and what then had until 1985, in principal he was a democratically elected leader, so that was a qualitative difference from other leaders. Second, he had a program, a nationalistic program,. He had four points, you know, the agrarian reform, the building of a dam to produce hydro-electric power, which is still working, and the building of the road from Guatemala City to Puerto Barrios which was a key issue based on the fact that the United Fruit Company also owned the national railway.

BG : That was a competitive threat to them?

HN : Right. So it wasn”t only the agrarian reform. It was a challenging of the monopoly that American companies had in Guatemala.

BG : How would you characterize Guatemala politics today ?

HN : Right now we have 27 parties, we have people moving from one party to another, we have a very volatile system. It is a very corrupted system but it”s also a system that”s really unpredictable and it”s hard to actually know what”s going to happen.

BG : What do you mean by corrupted: people getting paid, people paying for influence, people looking after their own interests?

HN : Well, you know, there”s corruption in every political system. Hopefully it”s not natural, hopefully we can have politics without corruption but, you know, so far, we don”t. But the Guatemalan system is particularly different. Public interest usually doesn”t play a role in legislation for example. I mean, we”ve come to that point. There were two recent examples. One of them is the, they’re calling it the Monsanto law which is…

BG : GMO’s.

HN : It”s basically a law to protect patents on developing new varieties of seeds or vegetables or whatever. It was still a rather unpopular law. You had a congress vote almost unanimously for that law in June and now we had them revoking that law which basically happened yesterday because of the social pressure because nobody, I mean, on both sides of the ideological spectrum, nobody wanted it to go…

BG : I heard that many legislators were given direct cash payment by Monsanto.

HN : I mean the budget, the national budget is used to buy legislators because many of them have links to companies; so if your brother owns a construction company, then you”re gonna try to use the national budget to give contracts to this construction company. I mean, most of them probably didn”t read it. They just want to make sure how much am they going to get out of this particular law..

And the other example is a recent reform to the telecommunications law, that actually benefited just one company, Tigo by allowing them to build antenna towers without the studies approval, without the municipal approval, which is something that clearly violates Guatemalan legislation on municipal autonomy, and really weakens their capacity to extract taxes from such a large company.  .. That’s worth to Tigo several times the state’s budget. I guess that”s the way a lot of laws are working in Guatemala working right now.

BG : When”s the last time the military was in control of the country ?

HN : Ah, well, in control, an actual control I would say just before the transition to democracy which was in 1984.

BG : Do you think they want it back ?

HN : Want it back ? I”m not sure, I”m not sure… On one hand, you can access power through democracy right now and they would be able to do it. A lot of former military men are actually involved in the government so, you could say that there is really no reason for the army to take power back because they can access it through different channels, democratic channels, which is basically what makes the democracy stand, the fact that you feel that you can access power through democratic means and you don”t need to do it through violent means.

BG : And that”s probably similar throughout Central America with the taste that people have for democracy. Businesses that may be in the past have preferred a military dictatorship now want it to at least seem it like a constitutional democracy that is not controlled by the military.

HN : Families would actually realize that they could have better business by actually allowing a certain degree of democracy, because nobody is gonna trade with these military dictators who have been in Central America.

BG : In 1998, Clinton came to Guatemala and apologized for past U.S. interventions.

HN : Well, you know, that”s really cool about the States that even though apologies don”t change, discourse does change. Can I add one more thing?

BG : Please.

HN : Guatemala still has strong ties to the United States, immigration, drugs, but even though I don’t see an intervention in the near future, the United States still meddles in Guatemalan affairs in a very direct way and probably the best example…have you heard of Claudia Paz y Paz?

BG : No.

HN : She was the Attorney General that left office a few months ago. The Rios Montt trial would not have happened without her being in office. There were several drug lords that were captured and extradited during her time in office. And the United States was supporting her.  The previous ambassador McFarland, he actually supported the trial openly, he went to the hearings, and we need some to assume certain responsibility as Guatemalans for whatever happen, but it”s really not fair that the United States doesn”t want to take their own responsibility for that. You would think that the United States have nothing to do with Rios Montt, when in fact they had a lot to do with it. Right now, everybody in Guatemala loves the States, even the left are saying we need United States support and I agree with that. But it”s really unfair for us to take full responsibility for…

BG : What would you like to have seen during that trial from the United States?

HN : I really appreciated McFarland being there, but, what I would have expected as well was a recognition of responsibility. Not so much putting Rios Montt on trial and pointing at him, saying no, he”s the bad guy, which he was, but also assuming a certain responsibility as a government, similar to what Clinton did. The relationship with the United States did not end in1954.

BG : I think you only get one apology every fifty years, so….

HN : I guess that’s too much to ask from a superpower.

Jorge Serrano is a former president of Guatemala, a businessman, an evangelical Christian. And in our meeting in Panama, it struck me that even conservatives and capitalists spoke with some touch of respect for Fidel Castro. I asked him why.

Where do you meet with Fidel?

“On two occasions. Once in Mexico, in Guadalajara, and another time in Spain.”

Did you like him personally?

“First meeting was, you know, he was very impressive, because Fidel, when you talk to him, he is charming, he has a strong personality, but very open. He had respect for me because he always recognized that I kept an independent course. He was following me since I was one of the members of the National Reconciliation Commission, the national body promoting the peace accords. So, I had some indirect communication with him. But the first direct meeting was in Guadalajara.”

President Serrano talked to Fidel about his efforts at ending the thirty year civil war, and asked him to be a positive influence with the guerillas.

Fidel agreed. “I am going to help you. I don’t have too much influence in Guatemala, but I am going to speak to them. And he did. He helped me. At least they knew that the opinion of Fidel was going to be in my favor.

“At that time, he was explaining all the liberties in Cuba, and talked about religion. I said, oh Fidel, if it is so, I would like to send some Bibles to Cuba. If I can send them, let me how can I do that?”

“How many Bibles?” Fidel asked.

“Half a million.”

“OH, CHICO!! You want to evangelize all the island. Why, so many?”

Serrano answered, “Exactly for the same reason that you were sending propaganda to Latin America.”

Somebody called Serrano from the ministry of foreign affairs and told him that President Castro said that he can send the first ten thousand Bibles. “So I made all the connections to the Bible societies. And then the ministry said, you are going to give us the Bibles to distribute. And I said no, I am going to send the Bibles to somebody to distribute. I came to send thirty thousand, a big difference (from a half million), but it was OK.”

It’s interesting to me that, you are a capitalist, and a Christian, and Fidel is neither, and yet it seems that even those who oppose his ideology or history have appreciation or  respect for him at some level.

“I told my wife we were going to meet him. And my wife said no. Look at what he has done to my country. I am not going to meet with him. But I said it was a piece of history. After 20 minutes with Fidel, she was laughing and they were best friends.

“In Madrid, some of the presidents of Latin America had a meeting. And President Felipe Gonzalez, instead of having the seats in the usual way, they put the seats in the round. So all the presidents had the opportunity to be seeing each other. Then Castro gets into the room and the Paraguayan president gets into the room and they sit across from each other.

“When I come into the room, Fidel says, Serrrano come sit here. I sat with him and started to talk. So, in order to pass the time, Fidel asks the Paraguayan President, “How many hectares do you have?”

He answered, twenty.

Fidel said, “Oh, but that is a minimum!”

“Twenty THOUSAND.”

Fidel laughed, “Oh, Chico you are a lacayo (a servant of the imperialists)!”

Felipe Gonzales said, “And you Fidel, what are you talking about, you have a complete island!”

Fidel said, “Yes, but I cannot sell it, and I am not selling it!”

Why do you think Fidel didn’t liberalize after some years?

“Ah, I asked him. You know there was a meeting with the presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Bolivia  and they got together in Vera Cruz, because at that time there was a rumor that the Americans were going to try to start a conflict over the bases in order to get into Cuba.

“The meeting was a disaster. After the problem was presented, after twenty minutes, Fidel stands up, and asks all his people to get ready and go back to the island. He cut all communication with these presidents. So the president of Venezuela called me and said, Jorge, Fidel Castro appreciates you, so we would like to ask you to talk to him. We need to open his eyes because a bloodbath can come to Cuba.”

Which year was this?

“1992-1993.

“So the next day, I saw Fidel in a reception, and I said I need to talk to you alone. He said, let’s do it in Barcelona, because we were going there for the inaugural ceremony of the Olympic Games.

“I was resting in the hotel before the inauguration, and a knock comes on my door, and I was told President Castro is available if you have the time. I told Fidel we are really worrying about this situation because it will cause a real problem for Latin American countries. He listened. He was not alone, as I asked, there were two guys, one from the government party and the other from foreign affairs.

“Fidel said, ‘Serrano, I accept your concerns. Because it is from you and not from one of these servants of the imperialists. But I am going to live with the revolution, and I am going to die with the revolution. I am not going to be like (Ceaucescu of Romania). If I open the door THIS much, they are going to get in, and destroy the revolution. So the revolution will continue till I die or I die with the revolution.'”

I am the son of a New York City cab driver and a Californian with a convertible. So, buses are not my thing. My last regular experience with buses was as a teenager. In our Brooklyn neighborhood, you needed a bus to get to the #3 IRT subway. When we moved to Long Island, I rode the school bus to Oceanside High. So, the decades old “chicken buses” I rode in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama felt familiar for a good reason: I rode in them forty years ago.

Blue Bird has been making school buses since 1927. Coincidentally, during my travels through Central America, the company was sold to Hennessy Capital for $500 million. You know a Blue Bird by their distinctive design, and in these parts by the English language safety signs in otherwise all espanol buses.

“Chicken buses” were named, as legend goes, by an intrepid “Lonely Planet” writer. I find the term a little condescending. The origin of the name comes from two phenomena: people are packed in like livestock, and sometimes, riders bring along their livestock.

I promised friends and family that I would opt for safe travel and risked breaking that promise my first morning of the trip. My airbnb host Marco offered a list of places to see upon my arrival in Guate (local slang for Guatemala City). I didn’t take my iPad or iPhone as I wanted to sort out the safety issues, so I trusted my instincts to find my way around. No map. No GPS. No web access. Virtually no street signs. And calle 10 or Avenida 6 in Zona 1 were entirely different streets in Zona 9. I quickly got lost, but it was a Saturday, I had no appointments, and I love getting to know a city by wandering.

I jumped on the modest 1 Quetzal (US$0.13) metro light rail after a few hours walk and then looked for a bus back as it started raining. Oddly, the less comfy and more dangerous chicken buses, or camionetas, cost double the metro. In Panama, they are called “diablo rojos,” or “red devils.” As in, they are painted red. And, as in, riding them might be your straight shot to hell.

How dangerous are the buses? Let’s put aside, for the moment, mad speeds and rollicking driving styles, the roiling mass of humanity that fills the vehicles, the frequent breakdowns, the strain on parts built when Nixon was still claiming Watergate was no big deal.

How dangerous? This dangerous. Over 900 Guatemalan bus drivers have been murdered driving these buses for refusing extortion demands by the maras, or local gangs. After the 1954 CIA overthrow of the country’s second democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, a thirty-five year civil war claimed an estimated 200,000 lives, many brutally murdered, sometimes in mass killings. After the civil war ended, many of the government militia entered the narco trafficking and extortion rackets. The genesis of a culture of violence.

The buses are colorful. Not colorful as in, a nice coat of paint, but colorful as in rolling works of art, with intricate designs, sometimes sacred, sometimes profane, sometimes glorifying the driver, sometimes an eye-popping psychedelic theme. The Panamanian buses seem to have more personal themes. The designs are a badge of honor and pride for the owner/drivers.

My effort at poor Spanish brought jeers from the brocha as I boarded. The drivers have a sidekick, part money changer, part master of ceremonies, part barker. The brochas often hang by their fingernails out the open front or rear door of the bus, screaming at people on the street, at fifty miles an hour, promoting the destination and the urgent opportunity to hop aboard. The buses will stop anywhere for a fare, bringing the speeding bundle of loose bolts, worn tires and rickety windows to a screeching stop in seconds on any highway. Other drivers rarely seem to mind. If they do, they lean on their horns. Two things I noticed. The relentless, aggressive use of horns. And the ever present smell of exhaust fumes. Think environmental regulations have not made a difference in New York or LA? Your memory is not serving you well.

The brocha answers my broken Spanish questions in, well, Spanish. I have only a general idea where I’m headed, unsure how to describe it, but I decide to just board and see where I end up. They appear to be going in the general direction of my temporary home. The bus is filling up so I can’t choose seats based on comfort or distance from the front, i.e., extortion shooting avoidance.

In the front, above the windshield, the bus declares it is number 1329. I suspect that more likely means the 1,329th bus in the New York public school system, than any local numbering system.

The seats are badly battered (naugahyde?).The Pull Down For Ventilation sign above us is being ignored, either because of language comprehension or because the escape/ventilation hatch is long broken. I try to write, but my bad handwriting is made unreadable by the bouncing motion and sudden stops. The intense fumes are actually pleasant, in the way glue-sniffing might hold charm for a junkie. The loud, nervous engine grinds gears.

As we go through what-neighborhood-I’m-not-sure, the streets are coming alive. It’s about 4pm on a Saturday. The afternoon sky is growing darker, as it does most days here, making way for a light sprinkle. Another phenomenon– each driver pumps furiously loud music into the bus. If he’s a Pentecostal, with Jesus bumper stickers slapped all over the bus, and violent scenes of crucifixion or the Apocalypse on the exterior, it’s nonstop, upbeat preaching. If he’s a hip hop fan, you might get lurid misogyny in English or Spanish. Mostly, it’s Latino country music, “melting underwear” music as Brazilians call it. I get off on Calle 10, and walk in the direction of  Oakland Mall, Guate’s upscale shopping pavilion, asking for directions along the way.

That’s Kevin to the left. He was wearing a University of Oregon T-shirt, sitting at the next table on the marina in Livingston, Guatemala when we struck up a conversation.

Traveling by bus offers harrowing moments, especially when your Spanish is pathetic, and the bus schedules and locations are confusing. On my last day in Guatemala, I travel from Livingston on the Caribbean side through the country to Guate, and hope to find an all night diner where I can hang out, drink coffee and write, then collapse on the bus for the long ride through El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. The “executivo” bus promises wifi and electrical outlets, essential for my long trip. What the bus brochure meant was there was a rumor of wifi and electrical outlets, and please, please, my friend, please don’t count on it. Climbing on a bus for a 12 hour ride with dead batteries and no wifi is far more dangerous to my well being than a ride on a chicken bus.

So, I arrive in Guatemala City, down the road that President Arbenz wanted to build to compete with the United Fruit railroad, and I ask my taxi driver for an all night diner or bar or cafe. “No such thing in Guatemala,” he assures me. So, I reluctantly go the traditionalist route and asked him to take me to a hotel. My Afterparty budget is $60 a day all in, including transport, so if I can’t get away with a night without hotel expense, I ask if there is a hotel under $30. “No problem, poco. poco” he assures me, and even promises to come get me at 5am to take me to the bus station. We pass the Conquistador Hotel on the way, and I ask him to let me pop in for a quote. Too expensive. By the way, why would a hotel think it was attractive to name itself after Spanish soldiers who swept through Guatemala slaughtering and occupying villages in their path? I am discouraged from asking such questions.

I finally find the hotel and–great news! They not only have a room, but they rent by the hour! No, scratch that. By the half hour. Who said romance is dead!?!

Traveling on a tight budget offers its own titillation, trying to stretch dollars to achieve the mission.  And, sometimes, extreme deprivation or freak show circumstances provide comic relief. The picture to the right is my room. It had wifi! I got on Facebook and chatted with LiAnne. I showed her the room. The bed, the bars on the door (I had the first floor room by the entrance. Like a honeymoon suite, if on your honeymoon, your partner is a sexual predator).  I buy snacks from the receptionist (pimp?) with some (free!!) vile coffee as a sort of exclusive dining experience.

Amazingly, the taxi driver shows up at 5am, knocking on my door like an impatient family member wanting to get to Disneyland. He drops me in the middle of nowhere, a dark empty Guate street. It looks like it MIGHT be a bus station. There are no buses. He asks the security guy. Yup, get out, you’re here.

And there, in front of the station, stand two gringos. One is a vagabond from Los Angeles. And the other is Kevin. Kevin! My Kevin! We met at my hotel (hostel? hovel?) in Livingston and hung out together.  I was so happy. Kevin gave me contact information for an ex-Salvadoran guerrilla who has a little hotel on Lake Nicaragua. We talk about war and travel and buses.

The bus station opens and we buy our tickets. No wifi or electricity, but I’m happy for now, as we head off for El Salvador.

I meet Jorge Fuentes, Guatemalan congressman, Central American Parliament member, preacher and businessman at the home of Carmen Aida de Fernandez. I had been to the home earlier in the week, where I was invited for Sunday lunch, after I watched her sons and daughter run in the Guatemala City marathon.

Fuentes is dressed in a business suit, and speaks with an energetic, sometimes boisterous style. The voice of an evangelical preacher, which he is. Faith healer, too.

After opening pleasantries and a description of the project, we discuss the Main Event: the 1954 overthrow of democratically elected Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz.

Carmen acts as translator, but, in his enthusiasm, Fuentes frequently makes his points in English or performs his own translation. He uses his whole body when he speaks, often waving his arms or slamming things for dramatic effect. He begins with a provocative statement.

“The conditions of the time of Jacobo Arbenz are the same now. I understand that the North American government is the leader of the world. The world needs a leader. It”s a good leader. It has a philosophy of human rights. But the people in the CIA, the State Department, the embassies, their history with countries is not good. Because they partner with military governments and economic interests, so they put aside the interests of the people, as those interests have no value to them.

“Let”s say I am a dominant businessman in Guatemala and I have a problem with the president. And the President has ideas about social issues.” Fuentes knocks over the napkin holder with a wave of his right hand. “People? Bullshit. I will say, “The president is a bad man, a criminal, a communist.” I will talk to the army and give the cue. “Cut him down, he”s a communist.””

Does that still happen today?

“Yes, in Honduras, in many places. I could tell you some stories. OK, we are friends…”

Carmen and Marco hosted Jorge and I in their home in Guatemala City for the meeting.

Jorge reaches to hit the napkin holder again for effect. Carmen Aida objects, grabbing the holder, laughing, “I bought this in Chile!” I put my hand over my glass. “Just leave the water, Jorge.” We laugh, then he continues.

“An American comes and says I want to buy this company at x price. Then he eliminates the president if is not willing to give it to him. This is a real story, a real man, a friend, at 14 years old we went to school together. He had a lot of money. From Nicaragua, from the dictator Anastasio Somoza.”

He takes off his coat and tie.

“These names are in Serrano”s book, the second book. The second best seller in Guatemala. Jacobo Arbenz, he was fighting with commercial interests and they declared he was many things, including communist.”

Was he a communist? And if not, why was he called a communist?

“He took some ideas about redistribution of property. Let me tell you something. I am a businessman and a politician. My family, for many generations, has been in politics. I am trying to give you a bigger vision and Big broken hard drive data recovery is the latest trend to emerge because of these factors. with that vision you can change the names and times, and you will find exactly the same in all of Latin America. This originates in the colonies and the colonies had a certain structure.”

He asks for paper and I give him my notebook. He grabs my red ballpoint pen and furiously draws a diagram.

“The Catholic Church. The government. The economic leaders. The military. That is what you see in every town. If you go to any Central Park, you see this.

“This is the colonial structure. And there are tunnels at that time. The presidential house, the residence of the cardinal.”

I interrupt, “Was this institutional structure inherited from Spain, this close relationship between the military and government?”

He takes my pen again.

“Please keep it,” I laugh. “I bought a package on the bus for twenty five cents. They”re not very good.”

“They make an understanding between the military, the church, and the government. The church is looking out for the people, but the people do not have the power. The political sector is relegated, because the military sector commands the government, and the church looks to both the people and the political elites. The rich families have a good relationship with the cardinal. He is invited to the family parties. And the cardinal says, please give me money for my purse. A little check! His dignity, values, righteousness, everything is affected.”

I say, “And I would think, Jorge, that there would be a theological structure put forward by the cardinal to suggest to the masses that this system is the will of God. Even in Arbenz” times, there was a religious component to anti-communism. Godless, atheistic communism.”

Jorge answers, “I am Christian, and I am a preacher. I am full of the Holy Spirit. I pray for people to be healed. I love my Lord, He is the first place in my heart.

“The Catholic Church was the only church by law in many Latin American countries. We had a university founded years before the U.S. People, Creole people, began to think and to protest. President Rufino Barrios put out all the nuns and priests, throws them out of Guatemala. He put out the properties of the church. The church had too many properties, got too rich. He was a reformer.”

“That”s pretty strong.”

Carmen Aida adds, “He closed all the convents. He started in 1871. Barrios built La Reforma Avenue (a central, tree-lined downtown street).”

Fuentes: “At this moment, there is a revolution and they proclaim freedom of religion. Many countries did not have that. Guatemala started this. Then the church returns to Guatemala but they come like a dog with their tail between their legs. They lost their money, their power, their influence.”

“What did the powerful Catholic families think about this?”

Fuentes shrugged. “There was a revolution, obviously, and it affected the politicians and the military. Then the power increased in this triangle (economic, military, religious elites). The political sector came to have very little power. The economic sector put the military officers in the government. We had this for many years.”

“What is your sense of United Fruit in the fifties? You talked about economic elites. United Fruit was a powerful company.”

“Guatemala was not a banana country. It has rich land. United Fruit had a strong position. But not as powerful as in banana countries like Honduras.”

I ask, “But Arbenz wanted agrarian reform and wanted to buy unused land from the company at the (undervalued) price that United Fruit paid as valuation for taxes. And United Fruit went to Washington and asked for an intervention. Weren”t they a significant factor?”

“Nah. United Fruit promoted another level of agriculture. They gave good salaries and promoted people. Nobody paid the salaries like the Americans, in any area that you looked. Communism, this is a phantom, a fantasy. Not real.”

“Fantasy? I think the Americans were legitimately concerned about communism in 1954.”

“Well. Let me explain something. Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were living here in Guatemala. They were promoting a liberation army. The initial guerrillas were military men who they saw that the officers were subservient to the economic sector.

“In my personal opinion, the business sector of the U.S. was responsible for Castro. Cuba was the destination for cheap casinos, liquor, for tourists from the U.S. The military from the U.S. betrayed the Cuban military. The U.S. sent the military to rescue the soldiers in Cuba. The military then received a contrary order. The government wanted to have a crisis in Cuba because the tourism industry in the U.S. wanted to hurt Cuba.

“I came to Christianity with a Cuban pastor named Victor Toranzo, who was one of the two ministers who supported Castro and the revolution. The original revolution used the imagery of the Virgin Mary and the cross and the bible, because it was about the rescue of morality, of the economy and of the liberty of Cuba. Because the North American interests and investors and tourism turned Cuba into a cabaret. They said, we need to be free of these influences, their money, their boot on our neck.”

“What happened when Cuba became communist?”

“When Castro doesn”t receive support from the U.S., the Russians come to help him and he shakes their hand.”

“Was he Marxist before that?”

“No no no no no. He has Marxist ideas, these ideas were the moda, the fashion of these times. The modern thinking was liberty, socialism… everybody, all young people were talking about that. Everybody. The anti-communist leader of Guatemala, he was at one time working in these social movements. I was a deputy with him in the Central American parliament. The revolution of Castro was a revolution of freedom from the influence of the United States.”

Part two of the interview, on the emergence of narco trafficking and it”s effect on Guatemala, will be posted soon, along with an interview in Panama with Fuentes uncle and former president Jorge Serrano.