The leader of Guatemalan dockers’ union STEPQ has been murdered, in what looks like a cold-blooded paramilitary execution.
Pedro Zamora, 43, was shot 20 times by multiple assailants who ambushed him in his car on Monday night.
After the attackers had fired 100 shots from 9mm pistols, one of them walked up to the wounded man and shot him at point blank range in the face, in front of his two children.
This use of the ‘tiro de gracia’, or ‘shot of grace’, is a hallmark of the country’s rightwing death squads.
Zamora’s last act was to push his children to the floor to try and protect them.
Nevertheless, his three-year-old son was seriously injured in the incident.
Zamora had recently been involved in negotiations on behalf of striking dockers at Puerto Quetzal, the country’s main port, and had earlier complained of intimidation by the police.
According to his widow, he had also received death threat phone calls. But the Guatemalan police insist they have no idea of the motive for the killing.
Reuters reports the case [in Spanish] here, and adds that even leftwing discussion groups regularly face death threats too:
Comments (6)
Another fine example of neo-liberal "democracy" in action.
This sort of fascistic terror is par for the course in Guatemala:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/guatemala/land_of_injustice/index.html
Alongside Colombia (the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist) Guatemala is one of the strongest US allies in Latin America. And its US imperialism that turned that country into a killing field. Read Chomsky's succinct article here:
http://www.doublestandards.org/chomsky3.html
The US recently used this puppet regime to prevent Venezuela getting a seat as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
At the time Noam Chomsky,noted that anyone who supports Guatemala is supporting the “genocide, tortures and deaths that have occurred in that country.” He contrasted that with Venezuela, which “lives in a climate of total democracy.”
For a good source of info about what's going on in South and Central America from a left-wing perspective I recommend Upside Down World:
http://upsidedownworld.org/
Pedro Zamora's blood calls out for a worldwide boycott of bananas until that industry is unionized, made sustainable, and the banana republics turned into democratic societies of free people. I have never understood how bananas even get off the dock in the US and Europe. What price solidarity?
It's good to have Dave highlighting this murder and the absolutely appalling rates of child malnutrition in central America.
With the reelection of Chavez and the failing health of Castro there has been a lot of focus on Venezuela and Cuba in the mainstream media, and a good deal of tut tutting of the governments of those countries. But the sins of Chavez and the Cuban regime pale into insignificance beside the immense human tragedy that posts like this hint at. I'm unaware of any trade unionists being murdered in Venezuela.
Scott,
Yeah its an old tactic. Its like in the 1980s when the CIA sponsered military dictatorships in Guatemala, Honduras and other central american countries were commiting mass rape, torture and genocide.
Whilst the reactiony mass media was silent on this US bankrolled near genocide they were up in arms about "Sandinista totalitarianism" as that fledgling socialist government sought to defend itself against a US backed terrorist insurgency.
There's always a section of liberals and self styled "leftists" that wilfully aid this propaganda crusade - look at the jerks at Harry's Slaughter House for a present day example. The more deranged sectarian wing of trotskyism often aids this campiagn too - intentionally or not.
It's notable that the likes of Fox News are busy simultaneously a) panning Chavez as a dictator, because he has asked for and received the right to create legislation by decree on a limited range of issues for a limited time, as provided for in the democratically mandated 1999 constitution and b) defending Bush's right to send more troops to Iraq and kick off a war with Iran without consulting Congress and the House of Reps, even though the American people voted against war last year and overwhelmingly oppose the surge and war plans against Iran. Cognitive dissonance?