El Diablo

Guatemala's native priests have vowed to use ritual cleansing ceremnies to purify ancient burial grounds (shown above) that are to be visited by Bush today. The news has been reported by hundreds of news organs. The reason I decided to post about it was the fact that fewer than 1 out of every 25 of those news organs (none in North America) bothered to mention the reason for the Mayan people's anger. Much of the rest of the newsmedia have trivialized or marginalized this news item, for instance by assigning it to the "Offbeat" section (as in USA Today). The previous efforts of the powerful to suppress the historical truth have obviously failed in Guatemala, as they have and will elsewhere.

According to Reuters:

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Mayan leaders will spiritually "cleanse" ancient ruins in Guatemala after a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush, unpopular here because of foreign policies going back to Central America's civil wars.

The leaders said they would hold a spiritual ceremony to restore "peace and harmony" at the Mayan ruins of Iximche after Bush tours the site on Monday.

"No, Mr. Bush, you cannot trample and degrade the memory of our ancestors," said indigenous leader Rodolfo Pocop during a press conference. "This is not your ranch in Texas." ...

The CIA helped overthrow a democratically elected socialist government in Guatemala in 1954 and U.S.-backed troops destroyed entire Mayan villages in a counter-insurgency campaign at the peak of Guatemala's 1960-96 civil war.

U.S. involvement in the war, which left nearly a quarter of a million people dead or missing, makes Bush's presence in Guatemala offensive to the nation's ethnic Mayan people, youth leader Jorge Morales Toj said. ...

Bush will visit farm cooperatives and schools in the Chimaltenango district to the west of the capital, an area where forensic scientist have uncovered numerous mass graves from wartime massacres. ...