Former Guatemalan President Romeo Lucas Garcia, whose rule was marked by a bloody police raid on the Spanish Embassy, has died at a hospital in Venezuela.Bloody police raid...
Revolutionary Suicide or Massacre: The Spanish Embassy Occupation and Assault as History, Guatemala 1980
Depending on the source, either the Guatemalan police murdered a bunch of innocent people in an illegal raid on sovereign diplomatic territory, or communist revolutionaries committed a tremendous, fact-creating murder/suicide. I tend toward the latter, and that the fact-creators were wildly successful.
My uncle Jack was a friend of the police commander at the scene of this event, Colonel Chupina. My uncle told me that Colonel Chupina had told him that the police had not fired a single shot, and that the fire was started by those inside the embassy. I wish I could recount my uncle's entire story, but so much time has passed that I've probably forgotten most of it. But why would my uncle's friend lie to him, and why would my uncle lie to me?
I have another close relative down there who personally knew at least one of the dead inside the embassy, an indigenous leader with whom he had worked on some social programs. This relative of mine believes that his associate and many others inside the compound had been duped by organizers of the operation.
This embassy occupation came three months after the Iran embassy invasion, which had, of course, dominated the news and generated global publicity for the hostage-takers. Though it flies in the face of most of what one reads about the event, my interpretation of the event in Guatemala, based on what I've been told by people I trust, is that organizers, which included the Spanish embassador, intended to create a similar spectacle on the global stage.
Oh, to hell with it...
