OneWorld.net (U.S.)

June 10, 2003

I was shocked to hear on March 25th that one of "our" kids from Casa Alianza Guatemala - José Antonio Gutierrez, 28 - had been the first US Marine killed in the Iraq war. It was one of life's cruel coincidences. We grieved and struggled to understand what had happened. He was buried alone in a rich man's graveyard in Guatemala City, paid for by the US government, far from his true family of Casa Alianza kids in an overpopulated graveyard in Ciudad Vieja. The US Ambassador to Guatemala said Jose Antonio would be laid to rest alongside his parents, another un-truth in a war of un-truths.

As our collective grieving was coming to an end and resignation that our newly anointed "hero" - as the US military now called him as they buried him with full military honors - was gone, we have been hit with the truth that José Antonio was actually a victim of "friendly fire". He was killed by a hail of bullets paid for by the taxes of the people whose foreign country he wanted to serve as a Guatemalan.

José Antonio's Unit Commander, US Marine Colonel T.D. Waldhauser, said José was "a true warrior for a righteous cause" in a typical public relations spin trying to cover the fact that the young Guatemalan who joined the Marines so he could get his education paid for was murdered.. Friendly fire is a contradiction of terms.

According to the military confession, José Antonio had just finished clearing a building when he was shot - not by "the enemy", but surely by another young soldier who, scared out of his wits in those first few days of war, when he saw something move he closed his eyes, opened his sphincter and emptied his rifle, pissing himself with fear and notching up another Rambo-style kill.

José Antonio, the eternal optimist just struggling to move forward in life, the former street kid, the "wetback", was given US citizenship when he was in his coffin. José Antonio, the poet, the soccer star, the babysitter of my first son, wrote, "I come from a place where the angels reside in misery. They are clothed in filth, and they devour dreams. Don't you see that loneliness terrifies me?"

José Antonio is not alone now, but surely surrounded by the souls of the hundreds of Guatemala's murdered street children who, like him, only wanted a family, to be loved and to have hope. But instead, they were murdered by politics and indifference.

Bruce Harris is Executive Director of Latin American Programmes, Casa Alianza/Covenant House Latin America, San José, Costa Rica.

---

OneWorld Guest Editorials represent the viewpoint of the authors and not necessarily that of the OneWorld Network.

Read and comment on previous Guest Editorials.

If you would like to contribute or suggest a future OneWorld Guest Editorial, please contact Miles Litvinoff .