Pedro Zapeta‘s case is a case of the US government robbing the very poor to give to the National Security State.

He was a Guatemalan trying to get back to his native country with savings from his extremely low paying US job as a dishwasher. Instead, the US government seized his piggy bank at the airport! Then they set his deportation up after lifting his wallet, so to speak. So how does the US government treat the well-to-do Guatemalans? Does it rob them, too, like they did this poor Guatemalan, Pedro Zapeta ?

I can answer that myself. In 1985 I flew back from Guatemala City to Houston, Texas. On board, their was a fellow US citizen who was scared to death because we were seated 2 rows right behind a wealthy Guatemalan who I started euphorically making fun of. I have a big mouth and was excited to be going home but my American companion was scared to death. It seems we were seated right behind Mario Sandoval Alarcon.

Who was he? Why was he being waited on by the air steward as if he was royalty? Why was he on a plane going to the US? Below is a little about the guy. The American woman next to me on this flight had to return to Guatemala so I shut up for her sake. Maybe that is what kept me from being thrown out an open door as we flew over Mexico that day. Who knows?

Now here is a bit about ‘Mario’ taken from some info published by Right Web about the US based World Anti-Communist League (WACL) headed up by Jesse Helms for so long ….
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Guatemala: In 1954, with the formation of the CIA-sponsored Army of Liberation (AOL) organized to overthrow reformist President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, Guatemala became fixed in a pattern of anticommunist political violence which persists today. (11)

The Eisenhower administration tagged Arbenz as procommunist and sent E. Howard Hunt of the CIA (and, later, of Watergate fame) to organize the AOL. (45) In 1957, a radical right faction of the government set up by the U.S. to replace Arbenz assassinated his successor, President Castillo Armas, and formed a new party, the National Liberation Movement (MLN).

Mario Sandoval Alarcon was the driving force behind the government, and the MLN became the legitimizer of his paramilitary operations. (11)

Sandoval Alarcon, known as the “godfather,” launched his career in the AOL, and has been head of the WACL in Guatemala since 1972. (11) He was the coordinator of La Mano Blanco, which oversaw the operations of many of the death squads in Central America. La Mano Blanco was coordinated by CAL.

The death squads have terrorized Guatemala since their formation in the 1960s. When interviewed by the authors of Inside the League a political analyst said,”People ask if the death squads are controlled by the [Guatemalan] Army. They are the Army.”(11)

Sandoval Alarcon was head of the National Congress and vice president under Colonel Kjell Laugerud Schell from 1974 to 1978. While vice president, he established close ties with Taiwan through his leadership of WACL. He sent an estimated fifty to seventy Guatemalan army officers to the Academy in Taiwan for training. (11) In 1980, WACL requested that Sandoval Alarcon help D’Aubuisson establish death squads in El Salvador. (11,45)

In 1979, John Singlaub and Daniel Graham of the American Security Council and soon to be founders of the new U.S. WACL branch, the USCWF, visited Guatemala. The purpose of their junket was to begin to heal the relationship between the U.S. and Guatemala that had become strained under the Carter administration. They also informed the Guatemalan government that a Reagan victory would lead to a resumption of military ties between the countries.

Mario Sandoval Alarcon attended President Ronald Reagan’s inaugural ceremonies. (11) Alberto Piedra, WACL member, was appointed ambassador to Guatemala by President Reagan. (38,40)

While Sandoval failed in his bid to become president of Guatemala, he remained the power behind the throne. In 1985, he was still the head of WACL, claimed to have a private army of three thousand, and the ability to put thousands more paramilitary troops into action on short notice. (11)
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(End of article. Alarcon is now dead.)