[originally published on Patreon March 19, 2024]

I pick back up with Efraín Ríos Montt's pacification plan known as Victoria 82, informally known as Fusiles y Frijoles, or Rifles and Beans. Montt established secret courts, a scorched-earth military campaign and utilized counterinsurgency troops.

I share my personal experience with survivors of these incidents. I also read from a work of fiction, Senselessness by Horacio Castellanos Moya which more eloquently captures what it is like to be confronted by these stories. Then, I read an extended passage from a truth and reconciliation report from just one of the many massacres of Finca San Francisco Nenton in Huehuetenango. 

I discuss political opposition to the genocide. I also discuss the concentration camp program created with help from Israeli military advisors - they spoke frankly about the Palestinianisation of Guatemala. Further, the Israeli military provided arms and even a computer system which was used to compile death lists comparable to those of IBM and the Holocaust. 

In August 1983, Montt was deposed in a bloodless military coup. I discuss Guatemala in the broader Cold War and World Anti-Communist League context. Then, I examine Montt's mental state during La Violencia and raise the serious possibility that he was a controlled asset. I trace the history of La Iglesia El Verbo, Gospel Outreach, this broader Dominionist theology, and Pat Robertson's investment portfolio.