Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala: Amazon.ca: Daniel Wilkinson, Daniel Wilkinson, Wilkinson: Books

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From Publishers Weekly

Written in the vein of a Robert Kaplan travel journal, this profound book traces the history of Guatemala's 36-year internal struggle through personal interviews that recount the heart-wrenching stories of plantation owners, army officials, guerrillas and the wretchedly poor peasants stuck in the middle. Wilkinson's narrative unfolds gradually, beginning with his quest to unlock the mysteries of the short-lived 1952 Law of Agrarian Reform, which saw the redistribution of land to the working class. He goes on to explain many of the causes and consequences of the country's political and social problems. At one point, Wilkinson vividly describes how the entire town of Sacuchum uncharacteristically gathered to recount for him and thus record for the outside world how the army raped, tortured and massacred members of the community because they were believed to have supported the guerrillas. Much of what's revealed in Wilkinson's account of the country's trials is hard to stomach, especially his description of CIA involvement in Guatemala. In many instances, Wilkinson's personal story gets in the way of the larger account he is trying to tell, and the book becomes more about him (he was just out of college in 1993, when he made the trip) than about events in Guatemala. However, this book is both easy to read and compelling, and Wilkinson's little self-indulgences are easily forgivable given the powerful subject matter and how well it is told by Wilkinson, now a lawyer with Human Rights Watch. B&w photos.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

A member of Human Rights Watch, Wilkinson considers Guatemala's 36-year civil war and the 200,000 lives it has cost.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A balanced & well-written chronicle of state terror, Mar 12 2003

By

Bert Ruiz "Author" (Pleasantville, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala (Hardcover)

Daniel Wilkinson's "Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala" is a balanced and well-written chronicle of State terror. The author dedicates many years, abandons law school and runs up credit card debt to research and write a glaring historical account of the struggle between large landowners and the poor in Guatemala.

Wilkinson's early focus is on the 1950 presidential victory of Jacobo Arbenz Guzm�¡n. He then explains the daring 1952 implementation of a far-reaching Agrarian Reform law called Degree 900. The author reaches out to Guatemalan students who favored the reforms and declared that peace, "required greater equality and greater equality required a redistribution of land in the countryside."

Wilkinson then flashes back to 1892 when twenty-three-year-old Friedrich Endler leaves Germany for Central America. Endler eventually becomes a large coffee plantation owner and it is through him the author explains the historical struggle with poor illiterate workers who provide the labor that builds a coffee nation.

From there Wilkinson flash forwards to 1954 and the carefully choreographed CIA overthrow of democratically elected President Guzm�¡n. Shortly thereafter agricultural students protested, "We who receive an education paid for by the people have a debt to the people! We who have the power to analyze have the responsibility to criticize! An agronomist should carry, in one hand, a machete...and, in the other, a machine gun."

The remainder of the book is a painstaking tale of documenting the State terror of the 1980's when 200,000 Guatemalans perished. Quite frankly, parts of this book are brutal. Nevertheless, the author must be commended for risking his life and traveling to the interior and urging the poor to testify before the Guatemalan Truth Commission that officially investigated the atrocities of the armed forces.

In conclusion, Daniel Wilkinson courageously points a finger at Washington for being so obsessed with the fear of insurgency that they rationalize away qualms and uneasiness. He even quotes an American embassy official who was uneasy with early military abuses and wrote in 1968, "the record must be made clearer that the Untied States Government opposes the concept and questions the wisdom of counter-terror; the record must be made clearer that we have made this known unambiguously to the Guatemalans; otherwise we will stand before history unable to answer the accusations that we encouraged the Guatemalan Army to do these things." Unfortunately, no one in Washington was listening. This is a tier-one book...buy it.

Bert Ruiz

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3.0 out of 5 stars difficult to follow, April 10 2004

By

ogden "ogden" (Mid-Atlantic USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala (Hardcover)

The book was not organizeed chronologically based upon events as they occured, but rather organized according to the author's travels. This makes the book difficult to follow with glimpses of various time periods revealed here and there. I finished the book feeling as though I hadn't really gotten the full story.

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2.0 out of 5 stars Understanding Guatemala, April 2 2004

By

E. Shipman "EShipman" (Long Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala (Hardcover)

I could not put this book down.
It was well written and well researched and after all of that, it was interesting. Spell binding.
If you are interested in understanding what happen(ed) in Guatemala, you will want to read this book.
Good visual descriptions.
Who has the movie rights?
Read it!

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars to Brady L. Buchanan
I have to wonder how America's role in Guatemala's civil war and in the oppressive history of most Latin American countries has managed to escape your attention.

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