Harris Whitbeck Pinol (1933 – 4 December 2019) was a Guatemalan businessman. Whitbeck was a presidential candidate for Guatemala's Partido Patriota or

Patriotic Party The Patriotic Party (), also known as the Patriot Party or, in English, as the Reform Party, was a political movement in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the period of the Four-Year Sejm (Great Sejm) of 1788–1792, whose chief achieveme ...

(PP) during national elections held in 2003. Whitbeck had previously been in the Frente Republicano Guatemalteco or

Guatemalan Republican Front The Institutional Republican Party (, PRI), until 2013 known as the Guatemalan Republican Front (''Frente Republicano Guatemalteco'', FRG), was a right-wing to far-right political party in Guatemala. History It was created in 1989 by former pres ...

(FRG), the political party founded in 1989 by the former Guatemalan strongman and president, former Brigadier General

Efraín Ríos Montt José Efraín Ríos Montt (; 16 June 1926 – 1 April 2018) was a Guatemalan military officer, politician, and dictator who served as ''de facto'' President of Guatemala from 1982 to 1983. His brief tenure as chief executive was one of the blo ...

, a

Christian evangelist Evangelism, or witnessing, is the act of sharing the Christian gospel, the message and teachings of Jesus Christ. It is typically done with the intention of converting others to Christianity. Evangelism can take several forms, such as personal ...

who seized power in a coup toppling then dictator General

Romeo Lucas García Romeo Montague () is the male protagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Romeo and Juliet''. The son of Lord Montague and his wife, Lady Montague, he secretly loves and marries Juliet, a member of the rival House of Capulet, through a prie ...

in 1982. Montt's regime was favored by Ronald Reagan's administration as a staunch U.S. ally and anti-communist bulwark during the turbulent 1980's when civil wars plagued

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...

and

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

. Prior to breaking away from the FRG, Harris Whitbeck had been one of Rios Montt's closest advisers. Whitbeck died on 4 December 2019, at the age of 86. He was the father of

Harris Whitbeck Harris Lee Whitbeck Cain (born 1965 in Guatemala City, Guatemala) is a Demographics of Guatemala, Guatemalan journalist, author, and television personality currently serving as the director of the Guatemalan Institute of Tourism (INGUAT) for the ...

, a notable journalist.

References

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20071010112042/http://www.denjustpeace.org/Featured%20Articles/GuatemalaElectionsandImpunity.html * https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1DF133CF932A25753C1A966958260 * https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEEDD1339F93AA35753C1A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all * http://gsn.civiblog.org/blog/Video/offset=35 * http://www.preventgenocide.org/americas/guatemala/ * https://web.archive.org/web/20071007074132/http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/ACF18E5.pdf * http://www.jackhicks.com/e107_files/downloads/Indigenousthesesanddissertations.pdf * http://www.envio.org.ni/articulo/1798 * http://www.envio.org.ni/articulo/2146 * http://www.giga-hamburg.de/dl/download.php?d=/content/publikationen/pdf/wp19_oettler.pdf * http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cases/21-94-GUATEMALA.htm * https://web.archive.org/web/20060922040733/http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=3261 * http://farmertofarmer.org/Winter04newsletter.pdf * http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/commission/country52/15-gtm.htm * https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEFD91739F932A15753C1A966958260 1933 births 2019 deaths Guatemalan businesspeople Institutional Republican Party politicians Patriotic Party (Guatemala) politicians {{Guatemala-politician-stub