America's Somalia

We did this. We saw it coming, we let it happen, we aided and abetted the perpetrators, we ignored and continue to ignore the atrocities, we sit by and do nothing to stop it. Just like we did for United Fruit, and Somoza, and Rios Montt, and Noriega and all the other Central American terrorists we put into power and kept in power.

From someone who was there from the beginning, who watched the cold-blooded murder of Honduras' democracy, and the resulting slow torture of its people and their society.

Finally, there were the things for which there were no words in either English or Spanish. What did I say to my close, beloved friend when his daughter and son-in-law were shot and killed in one of those incidents of “random violence” that happen when there is no functioning judicial system, the police are largely corrupt, and you can kill anyone you want and nothing will happen to you? What did I say to another close friend, who’d been sheltering a young victim of domestic violence, when drug traffickers who were tight with the abuser showed up one day and told my friend she had twenty-four hours to leave the house and no one from her family could ever live there again, and she had to flee across the border to Mexico, with no money? What did I say to the sweet, loving young man who finally found a good job in his cousin’s new shop, and six months later the gangs showed up and demanded a tax, and she said no, and after five days they came back and killed her, and he lost his job in her shop, and the family lost all their investment? For every word I learned, there was a new horror, a new atrocity report to write.

Read the whole moving thing.