"Silence on the Mountain- Stories of terror, betrayal, and forgetting in Guatemala" is a book written by Daniel Wilkinson who is a graduate from Yale Law School who works for Human Rights Watch. It chronicles his journey through Guatemala on a motorcycle trying to find out what happened there after the CIA coup in 1954 in which the democratically elected government was overthrown. What he meets is a type of collective amnesia. Most people will not speak to him about what went on because they fear repression. This eventually changes when he gets one entire village to open up to him and share their collective stories of a massacre that had occurred there. He talks to people who tell him about the guerilla movement that grew in opposition to the US backed government. They tried to give back the land rights to the peasant population that had been taken away from them.

The Guatemalan government never really had a chance in implementing the agrarian reforms that they planned to pull through in the 1950s where peasants where to get their own land. Much if not all of the land in the country was owned by private land owners. When the president Arbenz said that he would give some of the land back to the workers a plan was set in motion to take him out. The working system was structured in the following way in Guatemala. Germans had come there in the late 1800s and started coffee plantations. Here people got jobs but where always immediately put into debt. This debt became a trap that they usually ended up paying off the rest of their lives meaning that they where more like slaves. This indebted servitude was something that Arbenz wanted to stop with his land reforms in the 1950s. But with the CIA's help a man called Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas overthrew Arbenz in the operation PBSuccess. Creating a reign of US backed rightwing dictators that ruled the country for 40 years. The amounts of repression that the people of Guatemala lived through during these regimes was immense. It reached its peak in the early 1980s. Then the army started to use its "scorched earth" methods to fight the guerillas. This meant that often whole villages where erased of the face of the earth with their entire populations being ruthlessly killed. Most of these villages where Mayan Indian villages and the contained mainly innocents. About 400 villages where eradicated under this campaign and the genocide was in effect. It is said that 200,000 civilians lost their lives in total during these years. And this is truly the dark side of a guerilla war. That the army has no idea of where he enemy is or what they look like since they are not wearing uniforms and therefore attack civilians as a way of influencing, intimidating and hurting the guerillas as well as the locals. The same thing is starting to happen now in Iraq. That more and more reports are coming in that American soldiers are wounding and killing civilians. But Guatemala is truly a very graphic example of state sponsored terror where rape, violence against women and children, and slaughtering of innocents was used as a weapon.

This was all done by a government that had full American support and even trained its soldiers at the now infamous School of the Americas(which has now changed its name). America was complacent in the bloody history of Guatemala. On the contrary to Ronald Reagan who gave the most oppressive dictator in Guatemala, Hector Gramajo, his full support, Bill Clinton fessed up and gave the Guatemalan people a formal apology in the late 1990s for his countries involvement in the genocides and bloody history of this poor country. Not that this changes much for the people of that country because as Daniel Wilkinson writes: "For Guatemala was a place where terrorism did in fact win."

Now the situation in Guatemala is starting to gradually change. With globalization more and more people have started take an interest and see what is happening within the country. Many more human rights activists are working there and it is not possible for the government to implement the same brutal techniques they did before without having an outcry from the international community. The Mayan indians have managed to get an agarian reform where land has been granted them but they are far from finished. They are still working to see that more land is given to them. After reading this book I was both shocked, angered and felt sick. I had always been fascinated by the Mayan indians and loved their art. I even went with my friend to a Mayan art exhibit in Helsinki in the late 90s. Its only now that I realize their history is closely interlaced with American foreign policy. And its only now that I realized how much these people suffered. These types of human rights abuses are unacceptable.

For anyone interested in learning about Guatemala, the Land of Eternal Spring , and the horrors and intricacies of the 36 year Civil War and it's aftermath, this is a must read. I found Wilkinson's writing to be inviting, compelling and informative. It is one of the best books I have read about the country so dear to me.

I agree with the other reviewer who suggested that US citizens have a responsibility to read this book, since the US is responsible for much of the suffering that's been going on in Guatemala - and other parts of Latin America. Fortunately, there are civic groups like the School of the Americas Watch ([...])that are providing assistance to the victims of our violence.
I worked with an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala and the story he told of his village being destroyed was heart-breaking. I'm always glad to discover authors like Daniel Wilkinson who are sharing the sort of information that our establishment media marginalizes. Information that people like us can disseminate in our own grassroot networks.
Along with Wilkinson's book, I'd recommend the DVD "When the Mountains Tremble," which features Rigoberta Menchu - who, predictably, has been smeared by defenders of our military establishment and self-serving myths that go with it. Additionally, I recently bought "Guatemala: Never Again!" to honor Bishop Juan Gerardi, who was murdered a couple days after he turned in the manuscript.

Some may be interested to know that the song "The Flowers of Guatemala" by R.E.M. is about US foreign policy in Central America. Lead singer Michael Stipe mentions his intent during an interview in the progressive Christian magazine "Sojourners."

time and again i let myself be surprised by the atrocious acts committed or supported by my government. the hypocricy of the CIA and of US foreign policy in general is nothing new, but this book tells guatemala's story from a very personal angle. the repressive practices of the post-50's guatemalan government are shocking and important to understand in and of themselves, along with the US involvement in those practices. but what is most outstanding about this book is the human face wilkinson puts on the tragedy. in his travels on a harvard fellowship, he meets many of the major players in the drama, as well as the ordinary people who suffered from the violence. the result is a book not entirely sympathetic to the guerrilla fighters, not entirely condemning of the guatemalan government, but entirely focused on the outcomes of the civil war that are still being faced by the rural poor in the guatemalan highlands. we are responsible as us citizens -- if we are us citizens, that is :) for understanding this story, since our government is largely responsible for supporting the violence over so many decades.

also, this is an amazing read. it's intelligent, funny, well-written all around. it's not entirely chronological, but more like a travel journal-cum-historical flashbacks. i read it in preparation for a trip to guatemala, and am so glad that i did. everyone should read this book.

Good work for Mr Wilkinson.For some time i was looking for a book on the Guatemalan civil war and this was definetly a good start.Mr Wilkinson goes deep into the Guatemalan jungle to talk to people,soldiers and politicians that were involved in this terrible war.The way he explains the importance of the events is very good and he also describes the involvement of the United States which is not a good one. I specially enjoyed Mr Wilkinson's conclusion in which he explains the ramifications of recent political upheavals in Guatemala where a lot of people are not afraid anymore of expresing themselves and how minorities like indians are getting some of their land back.The only problem that i had with this book is that Mr Wilkinson is too "slow" in his account.He spends way to many pages describing situations and personal experiences that have no relations with the topic of the book whatsoever.For example, he describes how some chickens eat what's on the floor, he describes an accident he had in his motorcycle and he even describes an encounter with a "witch". For me this was just pages in which i just wanted to finish reading so i could get to the important stuff.BUt again its a good book.

So you know that the civil war in Guatemala was between the military and the guerillas with, tragically, so many of Guatemala's indigenous population caught in the middle. You might even know that lack of land and racist policy drove the war. But do you really know how it came to be and why?

This is what this book will do for you. It will take you deep into the politics and events that led to the bloodshed that was most apparent during the 1980's. It will reveal why Guatemala is still bleeding from this war. It will show you why so many Guatemalans are for the most part silent about what really went down during that war.

Silence that spurred Daniel Wilkinson, a young Harvard graduate from the States, to hop on a ratty motorcycle and travel throughout the country interviewing countless numbers of people in a quest for the truth of what went on on the mountain, and why there has been silence there for so long. This book isn't stuffy, it's not authoritative. In fact, most of the time it is apparent that Wilkinson doesn't know what he is doing half of the time he is in Guatemela. Which makes him very real as a person. You kind of travel along with him, it's THAT good. Wilkinson doesn't go for shock value in the retelling of his events. His is a firm, quiet truth and he tells his tale, his experience in this book, focusing on why getting to the truth is nearly as horrifying as the truth itself.

Pick this one up for a better, deeper understanding of the civil war in Guatemala. As you read it in your comortable house your perception on life just might change. I know mine did.

It is difficult to explain the mixed emotions when you read something so horrible about the history of your own country. The only thing I can say is that guatemalans are hard workin' people that faces the adversity with great courage. This is a book that digs the reality that Guatemala live during the years of the internal war, and how that lead to todays daily life in the country.