If I Had A Rocket Launcher

I am about halfway through the 500+ page memoir of Bruce Cockburn, “Rumours of Glory” that I blipped earlier. I always wondered about the backstory of his song “If I Had A Rocket Launcher.” Most of his songs have such peaceful imagery, and this one is so anger filled. He wrote about it in the chapter I read today.

In the early 80s, Cockburn and two other Canadian musicians were invited to Mexico to visit Guatemalan refugee camps there. These refugees had fled the genocide by the Guatemalan army, an army supplied with weaponry from the United States. The U.S. turned a blind eye to the atrocities happening to whole villages: murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, wholesale genocide. Hundreds of thousands of villagers, mostly Mayan, died, and thousands more were displaced. Cockburn visited the camps in Mexico, those still under attack from Guatemalan armies crossing the Mexican border, while Mexico did nothing to stop the attacks.

So very little has been told about the cruelty and violence of this period, only 40 years ago. While I have enjoyed this book immensely, this was some of the most painfully disturbing writing, much in graphic detail, that I have read in a long, long time.

Cockburn and his partners spent more than a week in two camps. He wrote about returning to Mexico City, so full of anger that the world was so oblivious to this genocide. He described getting a bottle of whiskey, going back to his hotel room, and writing the song. Here is the last verse:

“I want to raise every voice - at least I’ve got to try.
Every time I think about it, water rises to my eyes.
Situation desperate, echoes of the victim’s cry.
If I had a rocket launcher,
some son of a bitch would die.”

The song:

https://youtu.be/_AG7g0eCtcI