# Kiriakou's volunteer trip to Guatemala

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
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> Cite as: "Kiriakou's volunteer trip to Guatemala," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kiriakou-guatemala-orphanage-trip/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*A visit John Kiriakou made to Guatemala to volunteer for a couple of weeks at an orphanage, which he recounts as the closing evidence in his argument about the 1954 coup: the orphanage was ringed by a twenty-foot concrete wall, and he could barely sleep for the gunfire outside.*

- **Purpose:** Two weeks volunteering at an orphanage
- **The compound:** A twenty-foot concrete wall on all sides
- **At night:** Gunfire outside
- **The point he draws:** 'It''s a terrible place, and it''s a terrible place because we made it that way'

[John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) ends his account of the [1954 overthrow of the Guatemalan government](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/united-fruit-arbenz-coup) 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."*[1]

*"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."*[2]

## See also

- [United Fruit and the Arbenz coup](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/united-fruit-arbenz-coup)
- [Allen Dulles](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/allen-dulles)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [Kiriakou on travel](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kiriakou-on-travel)

## Sources

1. One America News Network (2026-02-27), at 49:29. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulc3YGqjKvk&t=2969s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-27-one-america-news-network-one-america-news-network/
2. One America News Network (2026-02-27), at 50:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulc3YGqjKvk&t=3000s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-27-one-america-news-network-one-america-news-network/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kiriakou-guatemala-orphanage-trip/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt