Guatemalan Violence and Ríos Montt's Political Resurgence
For Immediate Release
Saturday, 07/27/02
02.26
Ríos Montt's Political Resurgence in Guatemala Not Surprisingly Coincides with Increase in Violence with Impunity
* Pope should take advantage of approaching trip to Guatemala to seriously lecture ex-dictator Efraín Ríos Montt
and demand the facts behind Bishop Gerardi's murder
* Although it is doubtful that it has caught Otto Reich's eye, the time has come for the State Department and the
visiting Pope to sound the alarm over Guatemala's catastrophic slide into its old habits
* COHA director authors letter to the State Department calling for a U.S. travel advisory to be issued on
Guatemala because of death squad activities
* A travel advisory should be issued to the Pope as well; Guatemala ranked a close second behind El Salvador in
priest killings during the Cold War, with its death squads now launching a new campaign against the nation's clergy and
human rights functionaries
* Under the leadership of Ríos Montt, security forces have reverted to the violent paramilitary oppression of the
1980s
In a letter sent today to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Larry Birns, the director of the Council on Hemispheric
Affairs, suggested that a travel advisory be put into effect for U.S. citizens intending to visit Guatemala, and that
perhaps he should alert the Pope, scheduled to arrive in Guatemala Monday, to take special care over his personal
security, given that nation's reputation as a killing field for Catholic prelates. The letter cites the increasing
violence against human rights activists and dissidents, as well as the methods being used by the government to cover up
the names of past perpetrators of genocide, have created an alarmingly dangerous environment devoid of proper
accountability on the part of the country's security forces and its ranking political personalities.
Guatemala's Atmosphere of Intimidation
Although in June the Financial Times starkly proclaimed, "The death squads are back," Guatemalans have never been
strangers to government-sponsored violence. Their 36-year civil war pitted CIA-funded rightwing dictators against
indigenous rebels seeking basic reforms, which resulted in an estimated 200,000 civilians deaths. The Historical
Clarification Commission, one of the few realized components of the 1996 Peace Accords, has established the State's
responsibility for 93 percent of the human rights violations committed during the war, including 626 massacres, and the
systematic genocide against the Maya indigenous population.
Now, the political renaissance of former ruler General Efraín Ríos Montt, whose brutal, if short, dictatorship lasted
from 1982-83, has been accomplished in a climate of intimidation and remilitarization, profoundly threatening
Guatemala's fledgling democracy. The Peace Accords' proviso that an accurate assessment of the nation's sanguinary past
be made has led to a new cycle of military intimidation and violence against those carrying out the investigations. For
the most part, the army is entirely unregenerate for its murderous history.
The Second Generation of Death Squads
On April 26, 1998, two days after Bishop Juan Gerardi delivered his report itemizing the army's responsibility for
scores of massacres during the war, he was bludgeoned to death in his garage, marking the unmistakable return of
Guatemala's notorious death squads to the nation's political scene. Under intense international scrutiny, four men were
convicted for their involvement in an army assassination plot against Gerardi, two of whom belonged to the Presidential
Security Guard, Guatemala's brutal vigilante organization, which theoretically was dismantled two years earlier by the
Peace Accords. But the issue of who ordered his execution has never been resolved.
The historic verdict that appeared to redress past government impunity unfortunately has been followed by a period of
renewed corruption and violence, as Guatemala slides back to its bad old ways of the 1980s. The convictions in the
Bishop Gerardi murder case are pending an appeal, which even church lawyers predict will succeed, given the total
domination that the armed forces exercise over civilian institutions and the plenary power retained by Ríos Montt.
Instances of military intimidation have increased during the past year. On April 29, 2002, one day before a hearing
regarding an army massacre of 11 peasants, human rights activist Guillermo Ovalle de León was shot at least 25 times
while eating lunch at a restaurant in Guatemala City. That same day, a recording of Chopin's Funeral March was played in
anonymous phone calls to his organization, Fundación Rigoberta Menchú Tum, which provided legal counsel to survivors of
that massacre.
What Awaits the Pope in Guatemala
In a most recent development, a June 7 fax signed by Los Guatemaltecos de Verdad labeled 11 prominent Guatemalan human
rights activists as doomed enemies of the state because of their cooperation with UN Special Representative Hina Jilani
during her May visit to the country. In a June 12 memorandum, Jilani expressed outrage at the outstanding death threats
against rights activists and described specific aspects of the nation's current human rights crisis, citing Guatemala's
"climate of fear" and the "lack of a proper implementation of the Peace Accords due to the persistence of impunity and
an increased militarization."
In March, the range of intimidations against government critics expanded when U.S. citizen and international rights
activist Barbara Bocek, while traveling in her home state of Washington, was driven off the road, bound and gagged and
warned in Spanish to cancel her intended trip to Guatemala.
The aforementioned effrontery-terrorism in the U.S. by suspected Guatemalan government agents-is only one of the latest
and highest profile cases in a growing number of abductions, beatings, tortures and disappearances signaling the
resurrection of a sordid tradition that broadened during the Ríos Montt dictatorship. The Guatemalan Republican Front
(FRG), the ruling political party that Ríos Montt founded and still controls, uses the threat of violence to prevent
some of the more embarrassing revelations of its murderous past. In the first half of 2002, the U.N. Mission to
Guatemala (MINUGUA) has reported approximately 125 cases of human rights violations against activists. MINUGUA also
recorded a total of 347 lynchings between 1996 and 2001, only three percent of which resulted in criminal convictions.
Other crimes are simply ignored by the ultra-conservative regime, such as the routine assassinations of rural workers
and land reform leaders.
General Ríos Montt: Guatemala's Next President?
Two decades after engineering the height of his nation's paramilitary butchery-a period lasting from 1982 until Ríos
Montt's ousting by General Mejía Victores in August 1983-the ex-dictator again is facing charges of genocide, just as he
prepares for a possible return to the executive office. On June 15, the FRG reelected Ríos Montt to his third term as
party leader. President Alfonso Portillo, also a party member, is held in much lower esteem in the FRG, with Ríos Montt
and his strategically placed family members and military colleagues dictating party policy. Guatemala's Prensa Libre
reported on June 21 that, pending questions regarding legality, Ríos Montt, already 75, will be the FRG candidate for
the 2003 presidential elections. In 1990 and 1995, constitutional courts disqualified his bid for the presidency due to
his 1982 coup. Despite such obstacles as Portillo's plummeting approval rating, anticipated strong-arm tactics may
promote Ríos Montt's victory in 2003.
Meanwhile, Mayan plaintiffs are courageously suing Ríos Montt for his connection to 1,887 deaths in massacres staged in
22 different indigenous villages in 1982 during his infamous "Scorched Earth" genocide campaign. In connection to this
case assaults and witness abductions have reportedly increased throughout the year. A February 21 death threat against
forensic scientists digging in the country demanded that no more evidence be brought forth that could lead to the
prosecution of former military officials. The investigators already had uncovered victims of rape, torture and mass
executions, including chilling indications of children being grasped by their ankles and beaten against trees until
their skulls were crushed.
U.S. Policy in Guatemala: Then and Now
On January 7, 1983, President Reagan-prompted by a State Department white paper blaming Guatemala's violence on
Cuban-backed leftist "extremist groups"-lifted a ban on military aid and authorized the sale of $6 million in arms to
Guatemala. Despite their rhetoric, U.S. officials were aware of the military's endemic human rights violations. A
February 1982 CIA report detailed the reckless actions of the Guatemalan military in the El Quiche province and a
"secret" 1986 State Department document noted, "Kidnappings of rural social workers, medical personnel and campesinos
became common between 1979-83. Often innocent victims were accused of being insurgents by military commissioners." Not
until 1999 did the U.S. apologize for its actions, when President Clinton admitted, "Washington was wrong to have
supported Guatemalan Security Forces in a brutal counter-insurgency campaign that slaughtered thousands of
civilians"-adding, "The United States must not repeat that mistake." This is precisely what Otto Reich, the State
Department's current chief Latin American policymaker is now prepared to do by continuing to give aid and comfort to the
current regime.
In a post-September 11 political atmosphere that tends to prioritize immigration and drug-trafficking concerns over
human rights, the U.S. may indeed repeat past errors by allowing remilitarization in Guatemala, albeit on a smaller
scale. In 2001, the U.S. sponsored two "Light Infantry" training courses for Guatemalan soldiers, which activist groups
condemn as a violation of the spirit of the 12-year U.S. ban on International Military Education and Training (IMET).
Despite clear evidence that the Guatemalan government has failed to implement required military reforms under the Peace
Accords, there is speculation that Congress might consider lifting Guatemala's IMET ban, in favor of hemispheric
security, before its August recess.
USAID, which coordinates U.S. funds for an estimated 6.4 million Guatemalans living in poverty, has observed, "National
elections in 2003 make the coming year critical, given Guatemala's need to democratically elect a new president who will
address key national issues." Without international awareness, Ríos Montt may become Guatemala's next president and
revamp his 20-year-old legacy of violence with impunity.
- This analysis was prepared by Andrew Blandford of the COHA research group. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded
in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been
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