No, Dennis, actually the US has been much more barbaric to the people living in its empire to the south. Do you recall Noam Chomsky's examination of the press coverage of the killing of a pro-Solidarity priest in Poland and the murder of Oscar Romero in El Salvador? The truth is that the Polish soldiers were apprehended in short order and brought to justice, while the murderers of Romero and countless other nuns and priests received the blessing of the United States. Roberto D'Aubisson, the architect of mass murder in El Salvador, was a frequent guest of honor in Republican Party circles.
I think that if the average Guatemalan awoke in the 1970s and discovered that his or her country had been transformed into East Germany or Czechoslovakia, they would have thought they had died and gone to heaven: free medical care, free education, low-cost housing, guaranteed employment. Okay, they could not vote or read what they wanted, but they never had that privilege in Guatemala anyhow.
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)