As Guatemalans go to the polls there is an ad running on TV encouraging parents to give DNA samples to the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (INACIF) to help with the identification of human remains found near the US border.
In the ad an anxious mother plays and replays a voice message from her son who says that he will contact her “as soon as I cross the frontier.”
The presumption is that the call never comes. The loved one has “disappeared.”
It is, as the print version of the ad says, the fulfillment of “your greatest fear.”
When the CIA invaded in 1954 and ended Guatemalan democracy it also put an end — for a time, at least — to the hope of basic human equality.
— source allannairn.org | Allan Nairn |