Guatemala
Wearing Down and Tearing Down
Envío team
The phrase that describes Guatemala these days is "wearing down." In 18 months of "governing," the Jorge Serrano administration has been unable to achieve any of its three key objectives: the signing of a peace accord with the National Revolutionary Unity of Guatemala (URNG) guerrilla forces; the negotiation of a social pact among the private sector, government and labor; and the end of impunity.
The second civilian President after three decades of military dictatorship, who assumed power through an election in which over 60% of the voters opted to stay home, seems to have lost even the little support with which he began his mandate. In addition, he has the same problems as his predecessor, Vinicio Cerezo, with respect to reorganizing the security forces. Not even a third of the way through his term, Serrano is on his fourth Minister of Government since the dismissal of Fernando Hurtado Pré at the end of July. Because of his government's loss of legitimacy, the very small space that he had in which to try to rein in the armed forces has closed, and it is obvious that the army still has the last word.
The wearing down is noticeable in the President's own actions. Very sensitive to any press criticism, Serrano has visited or called several different media in recent months—and their differing criteria have resulted in shouting matches. In diplomatic circles, it is commented that a coup will not be necessary because Serrano will not touch the army. In July, some sectors criticized him for traveling to the Olympic Games in Spain with an entourage of 80 people, given the national crisis, while some Guatemalan newspapers commented that his presence in the country would not be missed.
The drug economy: A "shot in the arm" It would appear that Jorge Serrano lives in another country. During a breakfast with foreign journalists in July, he painted a thoroughly optimistic economic picture, ranking Guatemala among the top ten economies of the world in terms of 1991 economic growth. This may be true according to macroeconomic data, but the majority of the population is living in a different reality: during the Cerezo administration, 60% of the people lived in poverty; according to development organizations, that percentage is currently close to 85%.
The stabilization of the currency was accomplished through severe fiscal discipline with respect to public services. In a country where, according to the Catholic Church, 53% of the population is illiterate and four out of every five children malnourished, 1991 education and health budgets were slashed 45% and 20% respectively. And while it is true that there is growth in certain financial sectors, there is none in production.
The "success" of the economic stabilization program is also due to less acknowledgeable factors such as drug trafficking. In 1991, the construction sector grew 60% in a bonanza unprecedented since the 1976 earthquake. Some analysts attribute this to the invasion of drug dollars, to be laundered through the building of luxury apartments and condominiums. The drug trade has also contributed to monetary stability by the unprecedented flow of dollars into the bank system. Just on March 4 of this year, $41.5 million entered the bank system—the highest single-day entry in the past five years, according to bank sources.
Another effect of the increase in drug trade is that US aid to combat it has more than doubled, from $1.2 million in 1991 to $2.5 million in 1992. Drug Enforcement Administration personnel also doubled, converting Guatemala into a regional center for fighting the drug trafficking.
Social peace: A distant dream The hope for a social pact disappeared in the first few months of the Serrano government, when several unions rejected the idea. In June of this year, 23,000 health sector workers demanding wage increases completely paralyzed the hospital system. Also in June, Serrano repealed the social compensation law, thus canceling the requirement that the state, upon a worker's departure, provide severance pay for years of service. That law had been passed in 1990 and was considered an important labor victory, but the business sector never approved of it and pressured Serrano until it was repealed. It was replaced with an annual Christmas bonus called "bonus 14."
Despite the propaganda campaign in the media accompanying the introduction of this new bonus, the most important unions rejected it, provoking the most serious labor crisis in the past few years. In July, the two state-sector union federations headed up a general work stoppage in protest and demanded wage increases for the 150,000 state employees. During this struggle, the unions organized protests and work stoppages in the capital and were able to paralyze some government ministries.
Political repression has historically left Guatemala's union movement weak. Only 4% of the workers are unionized, and many leaders have been forced into exile. In addition, the government has been very adept at dividing the labor movement. Consequently, the workers achieved a wage increase much lower than demanded, but the government was forced to negotiate with them instead of turning to its customary use of force.
The URNG: Dancing alone An end to over 30 years of war is also still far away. The dialogue with the URNG guerrilla force has been at an impasse for several months over negotiations on human rights, the second part of the first issue on an 11-point agenda.
Since the first round of negotiations in February, when the government and URNG negotiating commissions met face to face in Mexico, there has been no progress in the talks. In fact, negotiations have been close to breaking off several times in the past few months. Agreements were reached on several points in February, but the negotiations stalled around four URNG demands: 1) government recognition of the Geneva conventions; 2) the formation of a "truth and justice" commission, similar to the one established in El Salvador, to investigate past human rights violations; 3) abolition of the Civil Self-Defense Patrols; and 4) the immediate application of all agreements related to human rights, without waiting for the signing of a full peace accord as the government proposes. With the intervention of the National Reconciliation Commission, headed by the Catholic Church, it seems that it should be possible to reach a preliminary accord, but the government has remained intransigent. According to observers, Serrano ordered government negotiators in March to harden their positions and reject all guerrilla proposals.
This hardening of positions is due, among other things, to pressure from army officials. In addition, the signing of peace accords in El Salvador generated intense opposition to the talks among Guatemala's private sector. Large landowners fear that the government will make economic concessions to the URNG. For the first time, some business associations publicly demonstrated opposition to the talks.
The international backing given Guatemala in forums such as the United Nations' human rights meeting in Geneva in February contributed to a triumphal attitude within the Serrano government. Some Latin American countries that had criticized Guatemala in previous years, such as Mexico, gave Serrano important support, which kept Guatemala from being listed, once again, among the world's worst human rights violators.
"The guerrillas should understand that the Guatemalan people do not support them, that the international community turned its back on them in Geneva, and that the world community has extended its hand to the Guatemalan government. We have won the war militarily. We have won the international struggle. And we are winning the support of the Guatemalan people," warned Serrano in March.
The URNG responded by increasing its military activity, and, by April, it was feared the talks would be broken off altogether. In May, however, the situation began to improve due to the Reconciliation Commission's constant efforts and the presentation of another proposal to break the ice. Serrano accepted this proposal almost immediately, because it was very ambiguous about the fulfillment of international human rights agreements and the abolition of the Civil Patrols. With respect to the latter, for example, it only proposed forming a commission to "investigate them," leaving their structures intact for the time being.
Naturally, the URNG rejected the proposal and, at the end of May, made public its counterproposal, again demanding the reduction, purging and reorganization of the armed forces. It also addressed the issue of the return of thousands of refugees living in Mexico and their voluntary reintegration into society. The URNG demanded the direct participation of indigenous leaders in the negotiations and of the indigenous population in general in local governments. It also demanded the reestablishment of the rights that had been lost over communal lands and called for the incorporation of other social sectors into the dialogue in order to make it a forum for national debate. According to this proposal, the negotiations would still be bilateral, but other sectors would be invited as "observers" to be consulted on all the issues under discussion; their points of view would be incorporated into a final accord.
The publication of this proposal had the deliberate and precise objective of provoking debate about the negotiations, which, by that time, had lost certain credibility nationally due to the lack of progress. Different social sectors are, in fact, interested in participating in the dialogue, and, during the past few months, some groups have published their positions and proposals through paid newspaper ads, thus enriching the debate.
The URNG's demands with respect to agrarian reform, tax reform and other economic issues generated a wave of opposition from the private sector. On June 8, the powerful business association CACIF, the Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Associations, published an extensive and virulent criticism of the proposal, rejecting every point. According to CACIF, the reforms proposed by the guerrillas "would undermine institutions and destroy private property."
Nor was the army's reaction encouraging. At the end of May, General Jose Garcia, Guatemala's Minister of Defense, said that the army opposed any reductions, even if the war were to end. According to Garcia, the coming of peace would not diminish, but actually increase, the army's primary role in Guatemalan society, because, he said, it is the only institution capable of combating drug trafficking and putting together serious development projects, such as infrastructure construction, environmental preservation and educational programs in isolated rural areas.
Garcia's declarations are backed by Serrano's actions: the President authorized an additional $24 million to the defense ministry this year for salary increases and other benefits for officers as well as equipment repairs. He also gave a green light to another counterinsurgency campaign, which began at the start of this year, to attack the guerrillas' most important rural fronts. The army won important military victories, and the URNG suffered its greatest infrastructure losses in recent years. The armed forces dismantled the largest URNG bomb factory in El Quiche and destroyed one of its most important military bases in that same zone. This military offensive has been accompanied by a government propaganda campaign aimed at destroying the guerrillas' public image and obtaining greater concessions at the negotiating table.
While internal pressure on the government to harden its position has increased, international pressure that it negotiate in earnest appears to have decreased. At the end of May, UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali withdrew his observer from the dialogue at the request of Serrano, who criticized the envoy's efforts to "mediate" instead of "observe."
In June, the government published its response to the May URNG proposal, ignoring all of its most important ideas and accusing the guerrillas of delaying the negotiating process through their insistence on the participation of other sectors. It also rejected all the points relating to changes and reductions in the role of the army in civil society.
In the cities: A reign of chaos Meanwhile, violence and crime have become generalized problems. In the newspapers, questions such as whether or not the common citizen should carry a weapon as well as the issue of impunity continue to be commonly discussed. For example, the judicial process in the case of the assassination of Myrna Mack, the anthropologist brutally stabbed to death in 1990, has already gone through several judges as a consequence of the death threats those officials have received. Nor are there advances in other cases of human rights violations.
In April and May, a wave of bombings and other attacks spread through the capital, while rumors of a coup drifted through the streets. In April, three powerful bombs exploded in government offices, wounding more than 20 people. On April 30 alone, there were more than 1,000 bomb scares in a three-hour period, mainly in government offices, creating an atmosphere of panic among the population. In May, this destabilization campaign by unidentified sectors expanded to another wave of bombings in commercial establishments, schools and restaurants, including a McDonald's in downtown Guatemala City. Two bombs also went off behind the army's General Headquarters in the capital. Panic grew into terror. The police deactivated a number of bombs in different public places, including the university.
Before, threats and bombing campaigns had coincided with military coup attempts, such as in May 1988 and 1989. Those plans involved establishing an atmosphere of chaos and anarchy in order to justify a coup with the goal of "reestablishing order." In Guatemala, where conspiracy seems to be a national pastime, theories abound as to who is behind this latest campaign. The government blamed the guerrillas, who vehemently rejected the accusation; that idea was discarded even by embassies closest to the government.
These same embassies believe that the campaign could only have been the work of the government itself, to justify a "state of exception," or of emergency, and the temporary suspension of citizens' rights. Some analysts speculate that it could have been the work of the US Embassy in collaboration with military personnel. According to this theory, the campaign's goal was to pressure Serrano to seriously combat drug trafficking. Curiously enough, the end of the campaign coincided with the extradition of three drug traffickers to the United States. According to still other analysts, various small groups of politicians, business interests and former military personnel—dissidents from the right—masterminded the campaign, not to provoke a coup, but to pressure the government not to make concessions in its negotiations with the guerrillas, or with peasant and labor sectors in their demands for land and wage increases.
In June, the campaign ended as suddenly as it had begun. The turbulence over, those who came out ahead are in the army and some financial sectors. The government's response to the latest guerrilla proposal appears to have been written by the army itself. And in the streets, many Guatemalans, afraid and tired of the chaos and anarchy created by the campaign, comment that a "firm hand" is needed. With the repeal of the social compensation law, the business sector had its victory. And according to a respected economist, the fiscal reform approved on July 1 turned the country into a "banker's paradise." That reform eliminated all taxes for financial institutions.
Human rights abuses: Quality, not quantity Human rights violations have decreased only in numeric terms, according to the Archbishop's Human Rights Office in Guatemala, and only because the repression has become increasingly selective and efficient since the beginning of the so-called democratic transition. In the case of Myrna Mack, for example, the repressive forces were using the strategy of assassinating one key person in order to terrorize and silence an entire sector, though that tactic does not always achieve the desired results.
This year, one of the groups that have suffered the most repression is the academic sector, especially the San Carlos University (USAC). On January 30, a bomb destroyed the offices of the Student Association of Guatemala. In February, unknown assassins murdered Manuel Estrada Peña, a history professor who organized the displaced population in his community. A week later, an engineering student was kidnapped in the capital, and an accounting student's shot and tortured body was found outside the city. Death threats against 15 USAC professors in the past few months have driven many into exile. A bomb in the USAC in March caused serious damages to one department, and the police deactivated other bombs in the center of campus in April and May.
On April 10, the police opened fire on a group of students preparing for a traditional march, "la Huelga de los Dolores," which has been celebrated for over a century. One student was killed and six others wounded. National and international pressure forced the government to put the 29 police and soldiers involved on trial. They were part of a new paramilitary force called the "Hanapu"—a joint force of mobile military police, national police and the armed forces—created by the government as a response to popular protest and as a new form of military control over the urban population.
Nevertheless, repression of university students and others who lead constant protests has not ceased. Secondary students mounted a wave of protests in the capital in April to demand greater infrastructure in schools and again in July to demand the government's compliance. Some protests became violent with the burning of buses and commercial establishments, and over 150 students were detained.
After the attack on the Huelga de los Dolores march, the University High Council met with Serrano and the defense minister, after which the campaign against the university seemed to quiet down for a couple months. Nevertheless, another blow came in July with the killing of three students when their vehicle was gunned down on the way to the airport. The assassins were driving an armored car, a common feature of political crimes. These killings show that, in spite of the High Council's demands to Serrano, the campaign against the student population, an important and dynamic sector in any country, has not ended.
The strategy of selective repression has not been completely successful, as is demonstrated by the Myrna Mack case. Mack worked with the displaced and refugee population, and two years after her murder, their work has proliferated. A coordinating body of nongovernmental development organizations and cooperatives was recently formed in Guatemala to support the repatriation of thousands of refugees from Mexico. During the last decade, 150,000 Guatemalans fled there to escape the violence; some 46,000 of those were recognized as refugees by the Mexican government and the UN High Commission on Refugees and live in refugee camps. A collective return is being planned for the next two years.
Meanwhile, the cold war continues to heat up in Guatemala. According to the most recalcitrant sectors of the army and government, organizations supporting the refugees' return are "allies of subversion." They fear that the refugee population, highly organized and politicized after two years in exile, will serve as a social base for the URNG, giving it greater strength at the negotiating table. The army, therefore, wants to control the repatriation zones, but nongovernmental development organizations are the only institutions, besides the Catholic Church, with the capacity to work in those areas, thus obstructing the government's plans to control that population.
When will the wall fall here? "We shared the people's joy when the Berlin wall fell, but there are still other walls that must be knocked down, until we're able to lead a dignified life. Let this land one day be multicolored, not in clothing and scenery but in projects, in possibilities for all," said Rigoberta Menchú, Guatemalan indigenous leader and Nobel Peace Prize candidate, during her visit home last July.
The only hope for Guatemala, in the midst of this constant crisis, continues to be the popular resistance of the different sectors that, in spite of the repression, continue to pick away at the numerous walls on a daily basis. It appears to many that anger is conquering fear. So far this year, 19 different indigenous communities in 11 provinces led massive and sometimes violent protests against municipal authorities and in demand of public services like potable water and sewer systems. In some cases, the protests became uprisings that provoked the mass resignation of local authorities.
Land occupations in rural and urban zones by landless peasants are constant. And groups of peasants and indigenous peoples continue to protest on the steps of the National Palace, despite tear gas and brutal beatings by the police. The violence used against these groups in June and July provoked even greater indignation among the general population, who saw televised scenes of the security forces brutally beating indigenous women and children.
At the national level, the picture is still bleak, but local efforts in numerous communities throughout the country are proof that Guatemala's walls are also being torn down, stone by stone.
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