Obama’s Death Squads

As Annie Bird reports in Upside Down World, the resurgence of Central American death squads, now targeting public health worker unions, are the direct descendents of those that committed genocide against the Mayans in the 1980s. Partnered then as now with US security agencies, the death squads — engaged in murdering community organizers and health workers critical of transnational corporate abuses — involve criminal networks in collusion with the military and police.

As officials trained by the US military and advised by the CIA during the Reagan Administration return to power, the new police units beholden to US State Department initiatives favoring privatization of public resources are once again terrorizing Mayan communities and the health workers who try to help them.

When US President Obama campaigned on the theme of advancing the Reagan agenda, few realized just how lethal that was. Of course, those who were paying attention knew exactly what it entailed.