I have a new post up at Al Jazeera on the US media's recent coverage of the immigration trial of Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes in California. Sosa was only facing immigration violations, but the violations stem from his lying about his role in the Guatemalan military and the massacre at Dos Erres. Unfortunately, nearly all the domestic coverage left out the context and/or the role of the US in the Guatemalan civil war. Given the 1998 and 1999 truth commission reports, Bill Clinton's apology, several other immigration and extradition trials, and this year's Efrain Rios Montt trial in Guatemala, it's inexcusable that the media has done such a poor job linking this trial to historical and contemporary events.
I fully support the efforts of the US' Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Unit and other agencies pursuing human rights violators living in the US. But the US comes out looking way too clean in these articles - portrayed as vigorously pursuing a bad guy who committed dastardly deeds and then dared to seek refuge in the US. This is not entirely accurate.
By its omissions and lack of context, the US media is failing to tell the story of the Guatemalan civil war in a responsible, just way. That's not just unfair to the victims and survivors of the war: it's also dangerous.
Not everyone will agree about US support for the Guatemala military and its government during the war, or US support for prosecuting human rights violators in the postwar period, but you just can't omit those issues from the coverage.
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