ABSTRACT
Deep in the Guatemalan jungle in 1990 an innkeeper named Michael DeVine was tortured and killed by soldiers of the Guatemalan army. Despite years of stonewalling by the American and Guatemalan governments, evidence mounted that murders had been ordered by top official in the Guatemalan army Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez, whose salary was supplemented by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Guatemala has been cited year after year by the United Nations and by human rights groups as one of the worst violators of human rights in the Western Hemisphere. The CIA's involvement in Guatemala dates back to 1954, when the agency "led a coup that overthrew the nation's President and helped install a right-wing junta". Official US policy finally changed after the fall of the Soviet Union, but it moved very slowly. The murder of DeVine in 1990 drew a strong American protest, followed by a $3 million cut in military aid to Guatemala by President George Bush.
