A fact rarely noted, but quite germane, is that the first U.S. ambassador ever to die at the hands of terrorists was our envoy to Guatemala. In 1968 Ambassador John Gordon Mein was shot dead on a Guatemala street. For three decades afterward the country was riven by insurgency; it continues to be plagued by lawlessness. Two years ago Claudia Paz y Paz, a doctor of law, was appointed attorney general at the behest of a United Nations commission that now exercises legal authority in Guatemala. Paz y Paz and the UN commission both have sweeping mandates to address issues left over from decades of conflict.
At the time of Ambassador Mein’s killing, Claudia Paz y Paz’s father was a member of the “Rebel Armed Forces” (FAR) that had carried out the crime. Due to the anonymous manner in which that group functioned, we cannot know whether Enrique Paz y Paz took part in the murder itself; but we do know he belonged to the FAR. Claudia Paz y Paz has spent much of her adult life litigating her country’s conflict — but less, it seems, on the side of strict legality than on the side of a political agenda that has an irresistible appeal to Leftists around the world. And the Obama administration has fallen closely in line behind her.
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