Human Rights Defenders Killed in Guatemala
Source: Voice of America
Human Rights Defenders Killed in Guatemala
FILE - Indigenous women pray holding wooden crosses during a ceremony by human rights activists in front of the Supreme Court in Guatemala City, Feb. 25, 2016. The U.N. human rights office reports, May 18, 2018, the recent killing of several human rights defenders in Guatemala shows an alarming deterioration in the rule of law.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND —
The U.N. human rights office reports the recent killing of several human rights defenders in Guatemala shows an alarming deterioration in the rule of law as threats increase against those working on behalf of indigenous and minority rights.
During the past 12 days, three human rights defenders working with indigenous and peasants rights organizations in Guatemala were killed. The activists were trying to secure land rights for indigenous people under an agreement worked out with the Government.
U.N. Human Rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani says human rights defenders in the country are operating within a climate of fear, harassment and intimidation.
"We call on the authorities to promptly investigate these murders and other attacks and threats against human rights defenders, and to ensure that those found responsible are held accountable. We also urge the State to adopt all necessary measures to ensure a safe, enabling environment for human rights defenders to be able to carry out their work free from threats and attacks," she said.
Read more: https://www.voanews.com/a/human-rights-defenders-killed-in-guatemala/4401886.html
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It's wildly depressing knowing one monstrous man with no sense of honor caused so much suffering to Guatemalans, and set in play methods of dealing with Latin American countries which continued.
Regarding this man's background, see this Wikipedia:
Edward Louis Bernays (/bərˈneɪz/; German: [bɛɐ̯ˈnaɪs]; November 22, 1891 ? March 9, 1995) was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".[2] Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Life.[3] He was the subject of a full length biography by Larry Tye called The Father of Spin (1999) and later an award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC by Adam Curtis called The Century of the Self.
His best-known campaigns include a 1929 effort to promote female smoking by branding cigarettes as feminist "Torches of Freedom" and his work for the United Fruit Company connected with the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan government in 1954. He worked for dozens of major American corporations including Procter & Gamble and General Electric, and for government agencies, politicians, and non-profit organizations.
Of his many books, Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and Propaganda (1928) gained special attention as early efforts to define and theorize the field of public relations. Citing works of writers such as Gustave Le Bon, Wilfred Trotter, Walter Lippmann, and his own double uncle Sigmund Freud, he described the masses as irrational and subject to herd instinct—and outlined how skilled practitioners could use crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control them in desirable ways.[4][5]
. . .
Freud
In 1920, Bernays organized the publication of Freud’s Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis in the U.S., sending royalty money back to his uncle in Vienna. Freud turned down further offers at promotion such as a possible lecture tour an invitation to write 3,000-word newspaper columns, for $1,000 each, on topics such as "The Wife’s Mental Place in the Home" and "What a Child Thinks About."[35]
"When a person would first meet Bernays," says Scott Cutlip, "it would not be long until Uncle Sigmund would be brought into the conversation. His relationship with Freud was always in the forefront of his thinking and his counseling." According to Irwin Ross, another writer, "Bernays liked to think of himself as a kind of psychoanalyst to troubled corporations." In addition to publicizing Freud's ideas, Bernays used his association with Freud to establish his own reputation as a thinker and theorist.
. . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
TimeSnowDemos, welcome to D.U. 
I have to post this incredible mural by Diego Rivera, which was posted by a great D.U.'er in a previous discussion on the vicious overthrow of Guatemala:
Diego Rivera: Glorious Victory!
Painted in 1954, the mockingly titled Glorious Victory has as its subject the infamous CIA coup of the same year that overthrew Guatemala’s democratically elected government. At the center of the mural, CIA Director John Foster Dulles can be seen shaking hands with the leader of the coup d’état, Colonel Castillo Armas. Sitting at their feet is an anthropomorphized bomb bearing the smiling face of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower - who gave orders to launch the military coup. In the background, a priest can be seen officiating over the massacre of workers, many of which can be seen lying slaughtered in the painting’s foreground.
The head of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time of the coup, Allen Dulles, and the U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala during the coup, John Peurifoy, are depicted handing out money to various Guatemalan military commanders and fascist junta officials, as indigenous Mayan workers slave away at loading bananas onto a United Fruit Company ship. I might add that Allen Dulles was on the board of directors of the United Fruit Company when the U.S. overthrew the government of Guatemala.
http://art-for-a-change.com/blog/2007/10/diego-rivera-glorious-victory.html
Thanks, scarletwoman.
