An Apology and Sunshine for Revolution Day
So, what’s up with the crazy and weird title I hear you asking… well, let me explain.
First the sunshine part. After 11 days of continuos rains we were greeted with sunshine and chilly winds on October 20. If Twitter had hyper-local trending topics, then the #climaGT hash tag could had been the trending topic for Guatemalans on October 20, as almost everybody was tweeting about how good it was to have sunshine again.
The apology came next as President Alvaro Colom apologized to Mr. Arbenz’s son Juan Jacobo and asked for forgiveness on behalf of the state. This apology made to several major newspapers around the world.
Here a few fragments from the New York Times article:
More than a half-century after Guatemala’s elected president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was overthrown in a coup planned by the C.I.A. and forced into a wandering exile, President Alvaro Colom apologized on Thursday for what he called a “great crime.”
The Eisenhower Administration painted the coup as an uprising that rid the hemisphere of a Communist government backed by Moscow. But Mr. Arbenz’s real offense was to confiscate unused land owned by the United Fruit Company to redistribute under a land reform plan and to pay compensation for the vastly understated value the company had claimed for its tax payments.
Mr. Arbenz “was not a dictator, he was was not a crypto-communist,” said Stephen Schlesinger, an adjunct fellow at the Century Foundation and co-author of “Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala.”
The Arbenz family is seeking an apology from the United States for its role in the coup, he said…
Good luck with that! 🙁
Last but not least, the Revolution Day part. On October 20, Guatemala celebrates its Día de la Revolución (Revolution’s Day) and everybody gets the day off as it is a national holiday. If you want to know more about Día de la Revolución, follow the white rabbit to last year post.
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