tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10314030.post7413181092259645645..comments2023-07-01T05:46:43.130-05:00Comments on Out of the Woods Now: Díaz's problem with Vargas Llosaamcorreahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04952630644786569828noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10314030.post-48133189675608208752008-03-03T14:24:00.000-05:002008-03-03T14:24:00.000-05:00Thank you for the comment, although I had already ...Thank you for the comment, although I had already read <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/review/R3295G25UCQDBT/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm" REL="nofollow">your Amazon review</A>.<BR/><BR/>I will also point out the <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/review/R3295G25UCQDBT/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&ASIN=0802118283#wasThisHelpful" REL="nofollow">comments </A> that were made in response to this review for the benefit of those reading this post, as it contains more information. <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/review/R3295G25UCQDBT/ref=cm_cr_rev_detmd_pl?%5Fencoding=UTF8&cdMsgNo=4&cdPage=1&cdSort=oldest&cdMsgID=Mx1ZC194RSBJX8F#Mx1ZC194RSBJX8F" REL="nofollow">Mario Domingo</A> himself responds to these remarks.amcorreahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04952630644786569828noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10314030.post-84856964777696180582008-03-02T13:32:00.000-05:002008-03-02T13:32:00.000-05:00The Wrong Cast of Characters The essential questio...The Wrong Cast of Characters <BR/><BR/>The essential question here is: what is this book doing in the non-fiction section? This may be some of Goldman's best fiction yet. Unfortunately, he would like us to believe it is fact. And he almost pulls it off because he is a good storyteller. And that's what this is: good storytelling. Not fact. Good fiction simplifies reality while maintaining sufficient versimlitude to entrance the reader into the dream of the story. One way to do this is to maintain a single narrative point-of-view. Another is by heaping on the reality details. Mr. Goldman does both. His single-minded point-of-view is that of the Archdiocese's Human Rights Office(ODHA). In fact, he admits in his notes at the end of the book that his "indispensable source of information" was an "unpublished manuscript of a richly detailed account of the case" by one of ODHA's own lawyers, Mario Domingo. But what he never analyzes is how and why the directors of ODHA were coopted by ministerial posts in the outrageously corrupt Portillo government, and how that changed the direction of the investigation of the murder towards a political victory and then revenge, based on anonymous rumors and coached witnesses by one group of army intel officers and their political stooges against a previous political administration and its army officers that had drummed many of the former out of power. Goldman keeps referring to "The Military" as if it were a monolithic block. There we have that fictional simplification again. The names of the corrupt military officers, who had turned Cold War immunity into an immensely profitable criminal organization and were reinstated by the Portillo/Rios-Montt govt, are available in the WOLA study, Hidden Powers in Post-Conflict Guatemala. Is it possible that Goldman hasn't read it? ODHA's and Goldman's one and only real star witness, Ruben Chanax, was a street indigent, whose blood was found at the murder scene and who had identified the now convicted and long retired military officer, Col. Lima, as "tall, thin, and blackhaired", when in fact he is short, portly, and whitehaired. Also no mention of the fact that Lima was a bitter enemy of Gen. Rios Montt for his role in removing the fanatical, evangelical dictator from power in 1983. Once the Portillo/Rios Montt alliance won the elections and took power, the story kept changing to fit the new political winds. But Goldman never deviates from the compromised ODHA script ( or Domingo's unpublished manuscript). Up until that point this isn't an investigation but an ODHA dictation. Until Goldman publishes on the eve of the recent Guatemalan elections and we learn that he has included a new Chanax accusation against presidential candidate, retired Gen. Perez Molina. According to Goldman, Chanax claims that Perez Molina was sucking up beers with Col. Lima on that fateful night in a joint a hundred yards from the murder scene. Not even ODHA could have invented that improbable plot. General Perez Molina had once faced down Col. Lima's coup plot against the first democratically elected President, Vinicio Cerezo. Perez Molina was the Army's Signator of The Peace Accords and long considered an essential element of the reform wing of the Guatemalan Army. At the time of the murder, Perez Molina was the Guatemalan delgate to The Inter-American Defense Board in Washingon, D.C. US immigration corroborates this, but Goldman doesn't accept it. His argument is based on a UN investigator who told him once that Perez Molina had dined with UN Minugua Director, Jean Arnault, in Guatemala just a few nights after the murder. However, close associates of Arnault have categorically denied that any such dinner ever took place. But,damn, it sure got the book some publicity. <BR/><BR/>If you can read Spanish, I strongly suggest you read instead the other version of the truth in Maite Rico's and Bertrand De La Grange's Quien Mato al Obispo, which concludes that the actual murder was carried out by gang members, including the illegitamate daughter of the Archdiocese's Chancellor, perhaps with the prior connivance of the "Hidden Powers" but certainly with their protection and "plot" manipulation after they returned to power. The "Hidden Powers" in Guatemala are giving the Goldman book five stars. They love it when they make you get the cast of characters all wrong. That just helps keep them hidden a little longer. <BR/><BR/>Paul Goepfert <BR/>"Plgoepfert@conexion.com.gt"<BR/>Former correspondent of The Chicago Tribune and The Baltimore SunAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com