Intimidation in Guatemala

Guatemala remains of the most horrifying legacies of the work of Edward Bernays, the legendary "father of public relations." On behalf of the United Fruit company, Bernays orchestrated the propaganda behind a military coup that overthrew Guatemala's elected government, ushering in decades of tyranny under regimes whose brutality rivaled the Nazis as they condemned hundreds of thousands of people (mostly members of the country's impoverished Maya Indian majority) to dislocation, torture and death. Kevin Sullivan reports that this legacy continues today, as human rights activists "face increasing death threats and other forms of intimidation aimed at preventing exposure of atrocities committed during the country's 36-year civil war."