Traditions

In recent days, I have re-read David L. Lindsay’s novel, Body of Truth. In it, he describes a cruel and gruesome civil war that terrorized the people of Guatemala for 36 years, from 1960 until 1996. It was the federal government, then run by a series of generals, who attacked the poorest of its citizens.

A United Nations report, dated March 1, 1999, declared that, “An estimated 200,000 Guatemalans were killed during the civil war, including at least 40,000 persons who disappeared.”

David L. Lindsay says the same thing, but he resorts to far more graphic terms.

“Guatemala was a Central American...