Independent Journalism – Page 20

Official Sources, Western Diplomats and Other Voices from the Mission

January 3, 1993/in Columbia Journalism Review/by Frank Smyth

On the post-cold war era, ethnic rivalry may have replaced ideology as the most likely cause of conflict, but while all else changes one journalistic habit picked up during the past four decades will, in all likelihood, persist — the habit of relying heavily on the mission, as the U.S. embassy is known, for assessments and information. In an increasingly unfamiliar world, in fact, the temptation to do so will be even stronger…

Guatemala’s Gross National Products: Cocadollars, Repression, and Disinformation

January 3, 1993/in Covert Action Quarterly/by Frank Smyth

In the early 1980s, leftist guerrillas in Guatemala blew up bridges, ambushed army convoys, and attacked military outposts. A decade later, the fighting in Guatemala’s civil war is winding down. Combat between the government and the guerrillas now occurs in only a few departments and only a few times each year. But political violence, almost […]

Salvadoran Rebels Anticipated Soviet Fall, Shifted Tack

May 6, 1992/in The Christian Science Monitor/by Frank Smyth

EL SALVADOR’S leftist guerrilla movement began moving away from Marxism-Leninism several years before the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, they and independent analysts say. Since the FMLN was already…

Guatemalan Army Crushes Land Protest

April 7, 1992/in The Christian Science Monitor/by Frank Smyth

San Jorge la Laguna — Security forces have ignored the exhortations of Roman Catholic Church officials and other mediators in a local land dispute here and violently put down a two-week-old indigenous peasant occupation of disputed land. Mediators were still hoping to find a peaceful resolution when military riot police attacked on Saturday.

Guatemalan Murder Probe Beset by Irregularities

January 7, 1992/in The Christian Science Monitor/by Frank Smyth

HER short stature and soft voice were deceiving. Among Guatemala’s highland Indians she was a legend. Among her colleagues in North America and Europe she was a rising academic star. An ethnic Chinese Guatemalan, Myrna Elizabeth Mack Chang had become one of Latin America’s most eminent anthropologists. Her research focused on Guatemala’s nearly 1 million indigenous refugees…

In El Salvador, Both Sides Say That New Year Pact Will End Long Civil War

January 6, 1992/in The Christian Science Monitor/by Frank Smyth

THE signing of a conditional agreement at the United Nations in New York to end El Salvador’s 12-year civil war is irreversible and likely to be respected, longtime activists on both sides of this embittered conflict say. Although there is still fear that violence by ultra-rightist groups opposed to the accords may escalate in the coming months…

Out on a Limb: The Use and Abuse of Stringers in the Combat Zone

January 3, 1992/in Columbia Journalism Review/by Frank Smyth

Somewhere just outside of Baghdad, I was blindfolded and led down a corridor into a room where, to judge by the sound of the voices, there were at least half a dozen men. The possibility of being beaten or tortured was on my mind. I was ordered to sit, and waited in the darkness. The interrogator asked me what was my “real job.”

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