Kiriakou's volunteer trip to Guatemala
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John Kiriakou ends his account of the 1954 overthrow of the Guatemalan government with a personal visit rather than a historical judgement. Having described the installation of a military dictatorship that "brutalised the population for the next twenty-plus years," he adds that the country "still hasn''t gotten over that coup, it''s still one of the most dangerous places in the world."

"I went to Guatemala a couple of years ago to volunteer for a couple of weeks at an orphanage. And thank God that the orphanage had a twenty-foot-high concrete wall all the way around it, because I could barely get to sleep at night for all the gunfire outside." His conclusion is causal and unqualified: "It''s still a terrible place. And it''s a terrible place because we made it that way."

See also

- United Fruit and the Arbenz coup
- Allen Dulles
- John Kiriakou
- Kiriakou on travel
