Update/ Guatemala: Turning Back the Clock

...The army is returning to public life as well...

...to appoint representatives to that commission, but work will only begin in September...

...Sadly, that would be the end of the Peace Accords...

...The electoral system provides for a second election for president and vice president if no majority exists in the first round...

...The armed forces and the President are threatening to use force against any further violent demands...

...Although it is true that many generals and other officers have retired since 1996, most of them retain military-economic power outside and within the army...

...The PAC were supposed to be dismantled during the final phase of the peace negotiations process, but the process took place without formal U.N...

...In this agreement, the President committed himself to requesting the Organization of American States and the U.N...

...All efforts made by President Portillo and the FRG to scrounge the necessary funds failed: the international community and donors denied any resources for that purpose...

...In response, ex-PAC members took over highways, border posts, an oil drilling station and violently confronted the police in the first weeks of April...

...Troops continue to play a role in internal security, such as patrolling towns and cities and guarding prisons...

...By tolerating and encouraging secret groups and clandestine intelligence structures, those in power maintain a climate of intimidation and fear, which helps minimize dissent...

...And the military budget is again drastically increasing--in the second part of December 2002 by 24 percent...

...His disdain for the recent teachers' strike that interrupted the school year for almost two months reflects his "populist" strategy...

...Campesino activists Marfa Antonia Asencio and Romero L6pez received death threats following the February 2 murder of fellow activist Pedro M6ndez...

...Most of these parties are from the right and are acting under the premise that the FRG will be defeated, because the population is seeking a new option...

...Only the strong support of other sectors of civil society forced the government and Congress to finally meet some of the teachers' economic demands, ending the strike on March 13...

...A recent State Department report on Guatemala states: "The obstruction of justice, threats, and intimidation also were traced to 'parallel forces' or 'clandestine groups' related to the Government...

...Polanco's whereabouts and took away files and computers...

...Since then, all the provisions in the Peace Accords regarding the transformation of the army have been ignored...

...Although it is too soon to reach conclusions about the forthcoming electoral process, it looks like no party will reach the necessary majority to win...

...monitoring and is apparently incomplete...

...and a leader of another opposition party, New Nation Alliance (ANA), Arnulfo Guti6rrez, was shot to death in Chiquimula...

...Generals Ortega Menaldo and Alfonso Callejas, for example, are using the organization of veteran officers to promote their political-economic-military agendas...

...Trying to appeal to the poor population, the FRG and its leader General Rios Montt have appointed a number of leftists to government posts in the last three years...

...several "caudillos" see themselves as that new option...

...First, it guarantees the support of the hardliners within the former PAC system...

...And the stagnation of the process to implement the 1996 Peace Accords has frustrated the expectations of the vast majority of Guatemalans, particularly the indigenous populations and the social movement...

...Increasing violence and violations of human rights are creating a climate of terror...

...Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA) clearly indicated that secret armed groups were amassing power and increasingly exercising it...

...By the end of last year the government was left with a demand by approximately 628,000 former patrollers, for which a payment of $1.57 billion was due...

...In fact, Rios Montt might be elected president in the coming elections despite a constitutional ban...

...The mayor of Colotenango, Arturo M6ndez, a member of the Guatemalan Revolutionary National Unity (URNG) escaped unharmed after an attempt on his life...

...The social movement and other important sectors of civil society, which continue to identify themselves as progressive forces, will be equally split, with some organizations even willing to support moderate center-right parties...

...Even before these events, the findings of both Amnesty International and the U.N...

...Pop Caal's decapitated body was found on December 17, 2002...

...The military's doctrine and education has not changed...

...Portillo was quick to respond to the ex-PAC and validated its claim by offering to pay despite the fact that victims of the state's repressive policies have yet to be compensated by the government, thereby putting himself in direct violation of recommendations made by the U.N...

...There, pro-democracy actors, including human rights groups, are under attack, as the country prepares for the forthcoming November 2 general elections...

...Additionally, as in the 1999 general elections, the FRG will have access to funds from the United States, both from the extreme right and from fundamentalist churches...

...have also engaged in a whole new range of economically motivated crimes, abetted and covered up by state agencies, in what has been referred to as Guatemala's 'Corporate Mafia State...

...patrollers are demanding $2,500 per person and the government is suffering a financial crisis...

...Second, actions of ex-PAC members, including killings and lynchings, instill fear in rural communities...

...As a reaction to this, human rights defenders insisted on the need to dismantle all clandestine groups, and urged the government to accelerate the process to establish the Commission to Investigate Illegal Armed Clandestine Security Groups (CICIACS) that they had been proposing since last October...

...Unfortunately, the teachers' movement had to pay for its gains with blood...

...new taxes were rejected...

...Analysts also believe that state resources and foreign aid will probably be used for the electoral campaign...

...undergone a transformation...

...Both foes and friends of the government understood the recognition of the ex-PAC as a political maneuver aimed at guaranteeing exPAC members' votes, and the votes of poor rural communities, through false expectations and fear...

...Based on these unreal assumptions, they are disregarding the support that the FRG still enjoys with apolitical poor masses...

...First, there are financial limitations...

...Therefore, alliances will be difficult before November 2. It appears now that the FRG will be the first or second strongest force...

...and placing special bonds in the financial market, despite the misuse of national resources from state agencies, has not yielded enough money...

...Their strategy also includes co-opting other opposition figures and dividing the opposition, as well as conIncreasing violence is creating a climate of terror while the right-wing government strengthens its hold on power...

...Now a split exists between ex-PAC members linked to the army, who are to get compensation, and the rest of the former patrollers...

...The further dissolution of the middle class and the acute economic problems created by the coffee crisis have prompted Portillo to concentrate his electoral efforts on the very poor...

...In its latest human rights report, in August 2002, MINUGUA wrote: "Clandestine structures and illegal groups used in the counterinsurgency effort during the conflict have...

...During the last week of February, Isabel Enrfquez, Maricely Enrfquez and Carmen Judith Morin were accosted and threatened at the premises of CERIGUA, a news agency where they work...

...At the same time that teachers were confronting deaf ears, Portillo and the FRG were finalizing a financial plan to compensate former members of the Civilian Defense Patrols (PAC) for "services rendered to the country...

...The government is now offering to pay a smaller amount-less than $700, with one payment by this administration, and two payments by the future government-and only to some 250,000 ex-PAC members...

...Even worse, they tend to blindly believe in polls, which by relying on urban-oriented samples are presenting the FRG to be weaker than it is...

...fronting the private sector and the media associated with it to maintain a populist image...

...That moment is going to be crucial for the next four years...

...Meanwhile, the opposition political parties in Guatemala find themselves fragmented, with more than 15 already registered at the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and about 10 more waiting for final admission...

...From left: Guatemalan Vice President Francisco Reyes L6pez, President Alfonso Portillo and ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt...

...Many people with close ties to the FRG have amassed fortunes through corruption and illicit business...

...In its 2000 special report on the scourge of lynching, MINUGUA stated that it had verified that authorship by instigation, which was present in many cases of lynching, corresponded to former members of the PAC...

...Institutionally, however, the main alliances within the armed forces now seem to be moving in the direction of General Rios Sosa, Rios Montt's son and potentially the next Minister of Defense...

...Through internal rotations in the last few years the FRG has guaranteed that most troop commanders are loyal and supportive...

...a second round is already scheduled for December 21...

...The project and ideology of the current president of the Congress, former military dictator and founder of the ruling right-wing Guatemalan RaOl Molina-Mejia has been a Guatemalan human rights advocate since the early 1980s, and he served as an adviser in drafting and discussing the 1996 Guatemalan Peace Accords...

...Historical Clarification Commission (CEH...

...It is worth noting that according to polls and public expressions, a majority of Guatemalans oppose compensating the PAC on a matter of principle: It is unthinkable to pay victimizers, the perpetrators of massacres and NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 10UPDATE / GUATEMALA other serious human rights violations, while ignoring the victims...

...In its February 2002 report, Amnesty International stated: "Having committed mass murder with impunity during the conflict years, those responsible...

...Political leaders and journalists are also under attack...

...The real setback came when those who were forced to serve the army and participate in the PAC system against their will also applied for compensation...

...The men asked about Mr...

...The sinister Presidential High Command (EMP) has not been dismantled and continues to be in charge of security matters for the presidency and internal intelligence...

...At the end of a March visit to Guatemala, by an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights delegation, spokesperson Jos6 Zalaquette said, "The Commission has found alarming signs that efforts to protect human rights have suffered a setback...

...In 2002, the PAC officially reappeared as "ex-PAC," by occupying the airport at the world-famous Mayan archeological site of Tikal, detaining tourists as hostages, and demanding personal compensation for having served the Guatemalan state...

...All of this is happening without any governmental action to curtail criminal activities...

...On March 13, Sergio Morales, Guatemala's ombudsman, and President Portillo's representative signed an agreement creating CICIACS...

...Besides what many see as government inaction regarding human rights violations and violence, the Portillo government also faces widespread corruption allegations...

...Land continues to be at the heart of Guatemalan conflicts, and therefore violent action and judicial cases against campesinos by landowners and the state have intensified...

...Finally, it will not be a surprise if the FRG resorts to widespread fraud to win the elections...

...In the last three years, under current President Alfonso Portillo, the overall situation has grown worse, and the FRG continues to strengthen its hold on power...

...After Monz6n wrote about the disappearance of Antonio Pop Caal last December, she was told by phone that unless she stopped writing about the case, she would meet the same fate...

...Only four days before, another GAM member, Diego Xon Salazar, 8 NAIA RPORTON TE ARNICA NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 8UPDATE / GUATEMALA was abducted and assassinated in his village in Chichicastenango...

...Shielded by impunity, these structures have regrouped and are pursuing illegal business interests and political influence...

...Finally, they have moved to have full control of the armed forces, Congress and key judicial bodies, like the Supreme Court and the Court of Constitutionality...

...The brother of Mois6s Fuentes, leader of the National Teachers' Assembly, was kidnapped and killed, execution-style on March 9; and elementary school teacher and strike supporter Enma Aguilar Durin, seven months pregnant, was shot by three unknown men in front of her 6-year-old son in Quetzaltenango on March 27...

...and Daniel Chanchavac, 16-year-old son of the leader of the National Coordination of Campesino Organizations (CNOC), was abducted on April 4 and remains missing...

...Congressional representative Anabella de Le6n reported that she was the victim of an armed attack in Guatemala City...

...Twenty policemen intimidated and harassed campesino leader Juan Tiney by surrounding his home in Guatemala City on March 8. On April 4, the Committee for Campesino Unity (CUC) condemned the assassination of Jorge G6mez, in Izabal...

...The URNG, the guerrilla movement that signed the Peace Accords and transformed itself into a political party, is the strongest expression of the left, but other smaller parties may attract URNG dissenters and new progressive groups...

...The FRG approach to the ex-PAC members serves two main purposes...

...Portillo was elected in 1999 mainly because the population was outraged at then-President Alvaro Arzdi and his National Advancement Party (PAN) for the implementation of neoliberal policies that people blame for increased poverty and deepening income disparity...

...The need to investigate and dismantle resurgent death squads arose from the constant wave of harassment, death threats, attacks and assassinations that human rights defenders and those involved with truth and justice cases have been enduring for the last three years...

...campesino activists and leaders are also targets...

...it was responsible for gross human rights violations...

...Several intruders broke into the house of Marielos Monz6n, columnist for the daily Prensa Libre...

...He pointed to death threats against judges and police corruption as important factors, but stressed that the proliferation of armed clandestine groups linked to drug-trafficking, kidnapping for ransom and smuggling, combined with a lack of compliance with the provisions of the Peace Accords to demilitarize Guatemala, plays a significant role...

...Judicial processes have not affected these structures or their members...

...The PAC is the paramilitary organization used by the army to control the population during the civil war...

...In Guatemala, he has been President of San Carlos de Guatemala National University and candidate for mayor of Guatemala City in the 1999 elections...

...Although CACIF, the main organization representing the private sector, opposes the government, the FRG has accumulated substantial funds...

...Their families are also at risk: On March 19, an attempted attack on Marcelino Choc, from the Verapaz Union of Campesino Organizations (UVOC), left his 7-year-old daughter wounded by several bullets...

...Republican Front (FRG), General Efrain Rios Montt, threatens to be consolidated unless a broad prodemocracy alliance recognizes that the key strategic objective is to vote out those in government...

...Violence is not only directed at human rights groups...

...One of the crucial amendments to the Constitution mandated by the Peace Accords was the elimination of the army's internal security role, aimed at the demilitarization of state and society...

...If the opposition does not realize that the strategic objective should be "regime change," Guatemala, under a new FRG government, will undoubtedly enter a much more violent and regressive period...

...The maneuver has backfired, however, because the government has found great difficulty in meeting the ex-PAC's demands...

...Abundant evidence exists showing continued links between PAC groups and the armed forces...

...On April 7, armed men broke into the home of Mario Polanco, leader of the Group of Mutual Support (GAM), and Nineth Montenegro, founder of GAM and current member of Congress...

...Now he teaches at New York University and directs the New York Office of the Rigoberta MenchO Turn Foundation...

...During February and March there was a sharp increase in cases of politically motivated violence, as reported by the Washington D.C.based Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA...

...The strategy also includes winning over rural poor communities with some infrastructure, food and agricultural supplies...

...This government has shown the highest level of flagrant corruption since the establishment of civilian government in 1986: The president, vicepresident and his son, are being investigated for allegedly transferring tens of millions of dollars to personal accounts in Panamanian banks...

...While 62,000 teachers were demanding an Vol XXXVI, No 6 MAY/JUNE 2003 9 Vol XXXVi, No 6 IVIAY/3UNE 2003 9UPDATE / GUATEMALA increase in salary and better conditions for education, Portillo elaborated a plan for defeating the movement and replacing the current school system with one run by parents...

...The FRG and other right-wing forces defeated this and other amendments in a 1999 referendum...