The Left in Guatemala
COLBURN, TORREST D.
A Talk with Alvaro Colom The Left in Guatemala By Forrest D. Colburn Guatemala City Guatemala is the largest, most ethnically diverse nation in Central America. It is also one of the...
...Only in 1996, with the signing of the peace accords, could the Left begin to contemplate participating in elections...
...How do you have a functioning nationstate, one where indigenous groups participate actively in protecting their political interests, and yet still respect the cultural practices of other indigenous groups for whom participation in Western political institutions is deemed undesirable...
...they drag on forever because everyone has to speak and everyone seeks to prevail...
...Colburn: Why were you, in particular, selected to be the candidate of the Left in the last elections...
...But there is another, more complex reason why the Right won...
...What does its electoral strength tell us about Guatemala...
...Significantly, many of those attempting to consolidate the country's democracy and promote broad-based economic development are political survivors of the ideologically-charged violent era...
...In the case of television, all four of the country's channels are owned by one individual, a wealthy Mexican who lives in Miami...
...Even his political opponents respect him for being intelligent, articulate and intellectually honest...
...I do not worry about losing my life, so many in my family have already died...
...Many of their cultural institutions are wholly intact, unbroken by the "conquest" and 500 years of colonialism and neocolonialism...
...Perhaps ironically, peace brought more divisions...
...In contrast, in El Salvador and Nicaragua, where the Left is a significant electoral force, recent governments have excluded it...
...Colom: The Left has been shaped by the country's history...
...Colom: Some members of the Left have served with the Right because they are opportunists...
...there remain in Guatemala, though, dangerous individuals who are hostile to the Left and are capable of violent acts...
...Colom: The Right—particularly Alfonso Portillo, Efrain Rios Montt and the (FRG)—won in part because of our warped electoral laws...
...As elsewhere in this part of the globe, though, the military has now returned to the barracks, "peace accords" have been signed and democracy has taken hold, ending a grim 30-odd year cycle of guerrilla activity and Army repression...
...In effect they split with their colleagues...
...Colburn: Why did the Right win the latest elections...
...Colom: Guatemala's multicultural character is fundamental, so if democracy does not become multicultural here, it will fail...
...In contrast, we had no experience in election campaigns, we had no money, but we still won 12 per cent of the national vote...
...and (3) a functional democracy...
...Forrest D. Colburn, apastNL· contributor, is the author of the forthcoming Latin America at the End of Politics...
...They do not instinctively gravitate toward the Western system of governance...
...Ibelieve, in fact, that three out of five votes I received in the presidential elections were from voters who thought I was the son of Manuel Colom...
...The ensuing massacres were carried out by an Army that was overwhelmingly drawn from the poor majority of the country...
...Year after year the Left lost its leadership—in political parties, in student organizations, in unions, and elsewhere...
...Not a state that is bureaucratic and sluggish, but a state that is responsive and efficient...
...Many of these tended to be sympathetic to the Left and ultimately became part of it...
...Finally, the Left in Guatemala is distinguished by its utter exclusion from electoral politics...
...The New Nation Alliance (ANN) was formed in February 1999 and includes, most prominently, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) guerrilla organization...
...Some peasants have to walk two and a half miles to cast their ballots...
...Improving economic conditions is therefore primary among the numerous challenges confronting the new political regime...
...Another FRG victor, in the race for Congress, was former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, who in the early 1980s savagely repressed an incipient guerrilla insurrection...
...I spoke this morning with PAN leader Mario Tarcena, and he decried how political parties in Guatemala have traditionally been little more than electoral vehicles for powerful individuals...
...Colburn: The Left has to date not been a significant electoral force in Guatemala, yet several of its prominent members have served in conservative governments—for example, in the governments of Alvaro Arzu and now Alfonso Portino...
...And their thinking provides a strong clue to exactly what Left and Right mean today in Latin America...
...Even members of the former guerrillamovement believe candidates not associated with the insurrection are more appealing candidates...
...That is a concern one hears elsewhere in Latin America...
...Colburn: What is the Left in Guatemala committed to, what does it believe in, what is its program...
...But building a multicultural democracy is exceedingly difficult...
...But the FRG and the other party on the Right, the PAN, spent enormous amounts of money to attract votes...
...Their political choices will détermine the future of Guatemala...
...The elections were also notable, however, because the Left, long fragmented, united and garnered a surprising 12 per cent of the votes cast...
...With the exception of 1970-1974, when my uncle, Manuel Coloni, a decided Leftist, served as mayor of Guatemala City, the Left has been denied the opportunity to participate in electoral politics...
...It is not merely a matter of wrestling with 24 indigenous languages and the divisions they represent...
...What I think would be most practical, indeed the only hope for the Left in Guatemala, is an alliance where different views are voiced and incorporated into decisions...
...In the course of 36 years of armed struggle, many divisions developed...
...Many of the guerrilla movement's leaders were originally in the Army...
...But it lacks experience in participating in democratic politics, especially in the all-important election contests...
...Colom: Yes...
...they speak of community consensus, and their conception of community is very local...
...The ANN's presidential candidate, Alvaro Colom, was agreed upon only fourmonths before the balloting...
...Colom: Note that I said one of the Left's goals was a functional democracy...
...The institutional machinery of repression has been dismantled, of that there is no doubt...
...Repression of the Left was select and it was brutal...
...The FRG received 48 per cent of the vote in November and the incumbent PAN received 30 per cent, necessitating a presidential runoff in late December that Portillo won handily...
...My uncle, who was considered an attractive candidate for the presidency, was assassinated in 1979...
...A 1999 United Nations report concluded that 86 per cent of Guatemalan households are mired in poverty...
...But there is a continued risk of violent repression, and the risk may well rise if the Left becomes successful in elections...
...A serious, softspoken man, he gives the impression— at least in private—of being someone who has witnessed hardship...
...Meetings are impossible...
...There is a pronounced urban bias...
...Under the circumstances that was a triumph...
...But no one has ever accused me of being a tool of the Right...
...During a recent visit, I talked with Alvaro Colom about the present state of the country's political affairs...
...Its presidential candidate was Alfonso Portillo, a cattle rancher who admitted to killing two men in Mexico ("Just as I defended myself, so I will defend Guatemala," he boasted during the campaign...
...It is also one of the countries in Latin America most severely battered by ideological wars between the Left and the Right...
...Our guerrillas did not evolve out of ideological debates, they emerged in reaction to the overthrow of the Jacobo Arbenz government in 1954...
...2) social justice, again with a special effort to extend justice to the poor...
...Colburn: If, in the future, the Left does prevail at the polls, and otherwise becomes a stronger political force, will it need to worry about a resurgence of violence, of repression...
...Nor does the electoral system encourage wide participation in voting...
...Public opinion polls I have seen suggest to me that some 70 per cent of Guatemalans have a natural affinity for our policies and programs...
...The problem on the Left is that everyone is a "leader...
...Following is a transcript of our conversation: Colburn: What is your perception of the Left today in Guatemala...
...In addition, I have done extensive development work in the highlands where the country's indigenous population is concentrated...
...We are in a different era...
...Is it a coincidence that in the recent campaign none of the four channels interviewed me...
...Colom:The Left has to move forward...
...Indeed, what I did in the government of Jorge Serrano took me deep into rural Guatemala, where I won the respect of the indigenous community and the guerrilla movement...
...There is no guarantee, either, of equal access to the press...
...Extreme poverty has increased since we joined the ranks of countries scaling back the government's role and embracing unfettered markets...
...And those caught in between, hungry and scared, were often won over by General Efrain Rios Montt's gifts of "beans and guns...
...Thus the Left is focused on Guatemala...
...It played on the widespread perception that the Left represents violence and disorder...
...In addition, peace stimulated the emergence—or heightened activity—of a number of social movements, including indigenous organizations and women's groups...
...There were differences within the guerrilla movement about how to respond to the opportunities presented by the peace accords signed in 1996...
...Colom: I was selected in large part because of my surname, of my association with my uncle, Manuel Colom...
...Coloni: Perhaps...
...Colburn: What do you see as the greatest political challenge in Guatemala now...
...The general elections held here on November 7,1999, resulted in a victory for the Right—not of the mainstream, business-oriented National Advancement Party (PAN), but the eclectic, populist Right of the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG...
...Is it worrisome that the Left has been unable to escape the weight of individual personalities...
...Why the difference in Guatemala...
...Frankly, I abhor political parties...
...But I believe I can say the Left in Guatemala has three steadfast commitments: (1) Social welfare for all, including particularly the poor majority...
...There are, of course, members of Congress who are themselves indigenous, but inevitably a distance arises when individuals leave their communities in the highlands and move to Guatemala City...
...For example, they do not commonly give importance to Congress...
...A second characteristic of the Left is its fragmentation, or its plurality...
...Indigenous groups do not speak of a "political system...
...I was also selected in part because I was not a guerrilla...
...Governments require skilled people, and there are positions in any government where one can do useful work and not be a tool of the Right...
...it is too easy for them to be manipulated by a handful of powerful individuals...
...Money facilitated showmanship and demagogy...
...Possibly, too, the Left will win future elections because the Right will have exhausted or discredited itself...
...It shouldbefurthernoted that recent regimes, although on the Right, have taken some steps toward national reconciliation, and that entailedacknowledging the diversity of political thinking in the country...
...Rios Montt, meanwhile, assumed the leadership of Congress, where the FRG took 63 of the 113 seats...
...Resolving this dilemma is the greatest challenge to Guatemala's democracy...
...it cannot continue with datedmodels...
...Moreover, the stark difference between the Right and the Left is that we believe in a strong state...
...He also cracked jokes, but said solemnly that "Che" Guevara is the man he most admires...
...My efforts there were well received...
...When we have a level playing field the Left can win elections...
...Each vote they won cost them, according to my estimates, 156 times as much as a vote cost us on the Left...
...In other cases, the government simply needed to draw on some of the many talented people in Guatemala who are Left...
...Colburn: Is it regrettable that even on the Left individual personalities are so important...
...Some Guatemalans rebelled, but others repressed their brethren...
...The conflicts fueled by poverty and inequality in turn exacerbated misery...
...At present, our electoral laws do not guarantee democracy within political parties...
...An estimated 60 per cent of the country's population is indigenous...
...There is much work to be done in Guatemala and we are convinced only the government can do it...
...I myself have served in some capacity or other in the last three governments...
...Globalization and liberalism have proved incapable of redressing Guatemala's poverty...
...Finally, I am a businessman—I am a successful shirt manufacturer—so it was felt that I could reach out to the all-important private sector and at least engage them in a dialogue...
...it is nationalist in orientation and overwhelmingly concerned with domestic political and economic issues...
...In 1980, half of the departments of the country had a guerrilla presence...
...Colburn: Can the Left win elections in Guatemala...
...But the majority of Guatemalans are still wrestling with economic hardship...
Vol. 83 • November 2000 • No. 5
