Letters
Guatemala's Peace Accords Agree with Susanne Jonas ["The Peace Accords: An Ending and a Beginning," May/June 1997] that the signing of the Peace Accords in Guatemala was an historic...
...Yet I have some reservations...
...Letters can be sent by e-mail to: nacla @nacla.org...
...Reducing inequality requires a strong state, yet the Arzdi Administration is having a fire sale on state-owned enterprises...
...The Accord on Identity and Rights of Indigenous People mandates the official recognition of the indigenous population and requires reforms in educational, judicial and political systems...
...Taking into consideration that those spaces did not exist even a few short years ago, I believe we owe it to the Guatemalan people to throw our energy behind those struggles rather than questioning their importance...
...dotting the rural landscape which offer silent testimony to the extent of the violence...
...There are hundreds of clandestine cemeteries Readers are invited to address letters to The Editors, NACLA Report on the Americas, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 454, New York, NY 10115...
...If we miss this opportunity to support those struggles, we may not have such an opportunity again for many years to come...
...Evidence from throughout the world suggests neoliberalism tends to intensify poverty rather than ameliorate it...
...Linda Green, New York, NY Susanne Jonas Replies ereading Linda Green's letter IXafter having spent seven weeks in Guatemala this summer and several days again in September, I remain puzzled by her argument that "even if totally implemented, the Accords may actually undermine the possibility of peace and justice in Guatemala" (my emphasis...
...Similarly, on social-economic issues (including the weakness of the Accord on land reform), Green and I are in agreement...
...rather, I viewed them as presenting an opportunity for addressing those problems...
...especially so when one considers that in the United States, demands for peace and justice are rarely won from a state that, in many quarters, has been heralded as an exemplar of democracy...
...The amnesty law and Truth Commission are troubling not only because they leave the generals in the barracks rather than in jail and the repressive state apparatus intact, but also because they overlook the ways in which repression and violence operated locally...
...Indeed, some of the fears foreshadowed in my article have already materialized, most notably increased social violence and common crime-driven partly by poverty-leading to governmental actions that reinvolve the army in maintaining internal security...
...However, it fails to address the question of land reform...
...al., but also reform of the judicial system to end impunity, constitutional reforms to limit the army's role to external defense and the redefinition of Guatemala as a multiethnic, multicultural and multilingual nationto mention a few...
...My article never suggested that the Peace Accords would solve Guatemala's monumental problems...
...Furthermore, even if totally implemented, the Accords may actually undermine the possibility of peace and justice in Guatemala...
...In short, even recognizing the problems in the Accords as signed, the most dangerous threats for the future lie not so much in the Accords themselves as in the endless resistances, excuses, sabotage and search for loopholes to avoid compliance with what has been signed...
...The government has been reopening military bases and maintaining army patrols in city streets-actions which violate the Accords...
...As Jonas herself indicates, the full implementation of the Accords is far from assured...
...Finally, I take issue with Green's assertion that my assessment of the importance of the political opening for democratic stuggles to make demands on the state is "overly optimistic...
...But it is difficult to understand the suggestion that the Continued on page 44 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 Accords themselves (in contrast to current government policies) could be a step backward...
...Moreover, an untoward number of former civil patrol members and military commissioners continue to live next door to widows whose husbands they murdered...
...This includes not just tax reform, as is currently being emphasized by donor countries, the IMF, the World Bank, et...
...Secondly, basing the Accord on Socioeconomic and Agrarian Issues on a neoliberal model is contradictory if its aim is to alleviate poverty...
...The paving over of farmlands for the construction of maquila factories or second homes for wealthy Guatemalans, and the production of non-traditional export crops leave the majority of rural Mayans to bear not only the high costs of war, but also the high costs of peace...
...My article pointed to neoliberal policies as the most likely Achilles heel of Guatemala's posguerra and a potentially serious threat to democratic gains...
...Lastly, Jonas' assertion that the Accords open spaces for making demands on the state seems overly optimistic...
...Guatemala's Peace Accords Agree with Susanne Jonas ["The Peace Accords: An Ending and a Beginning," May/June 1997] that the signing of the Peace Accords in Guatemala was an historic occasion, formally ending a 30 year-old civil war that left around 200,000 mostly Mayan Indians dead or disappeared...
...Land is a crucial site of rural Mayan material and cultural production...
...Green and I are in agreement in our criticisms of the flaws, limitations and weaknesses in the Accords on the Truth Commission and the amnesty law-although it is not the case that the Accords leave "the repressive state apparatus intact...
...Those of us concerned about Guatemala should take seriously the need to monitor the government's compliance with the many positive provisions of the Accords and pressure our own government to condition its assistance on compliance with all of them...
...Furthermore, it seems clear that the government's actual economic agenda conflicts directly with even the (very insufficient) commitments agreed to in the Accords...
Vol. 31 • November 1997 • No. 3
