Silence of the Mountains: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala

A common favorite from RAs is the story of terror of people from another country; this particular read again demonstrates RAs’ commitment to learning about a heritage, either from their family roots or something they learn through course work at NYU.  In Silence of the Mountains: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala by Daniel Wilkinson, we learn of one man’s journey to find out the truth about a generation of people in Guatemala who were silenced by the military of their country and also the military of the United States of America.  Daniel Wilkinson, a scholar, sets off to learn about the thirty-six year war that had recently ended through the secret past of the coffee plantation farms.   During the conflict, over 200,000 people were killed by the government that was backed by the United States and covered up by the CIA.  It is only through the work of people like Wilkinson that the true story begins to emerge and we once again learn politics and war go hand-in-hand.  Wilkinson presents not only the end of the recent conflict but connects it to the history of the beginning of the German influence with the early days of the coffee plantations on the farms.  The people of Guatemala learned to escape death with coping strategies such as “amnesia” caused by fear for life based on the mass killings by the government.  This chronological review of how the rich fertile ground of Guatemala became the home for coffee and how the Germans capitalized on the people to work to produce riches for the foreigners offers yet another story on how the elite visitors of a country capitalize on the lack of education of the natives (can you see the Native Americas in the US).  History continues to repeat itself over and over again in this life.  The Guatemalan people almost reach some level of freedom from the foreign leaders when one of the elected officials supports a movement for the establishment of a union.  Wilkinson is intrigued by this history and tries to identify what happened to bring the union efforts down.  When he arrives in Guatemala the first time he gets no assistance as fear remains embedded in the culture based on murders of family members who speak the truth about the past.  Wilkinson returns many years later with a new approach and finally story is revealed of what happened to spurn the building of a fair and equitable society where the people of the land are offered land in return for work.  The uncovering of the stories gives a glimpse into the nightmares and utter degradation of a people who were abused and torn apart for a few leaders’ benefit.  When will we as a people learn our lessons?  While the story in Guatemala is centered on coffee plantations, it remains the same outcome.  Wilkinson’s work serves as a reminder that in this age of social media we have the chance to stop this madness before it goes too far.  Great investigative reporting by Wilkinson and a sad reality that the US does not always put its best foot forward in supporting those who need it the most.