"Do you know why I am a true political leader? Because I am here without your votes." Rios Montt, broadcast to the nation, May 24, 1982. Guatemala City's National Police headquar- ters is a turreted castle on Sixth Avenue and 14th Street, Disneyland reminder of former colonial grandeur. Three blocks up lies a symbol of its contemporary fairy tale: the transnational neon blur of fancy shopping centers. Donna Summer's voice blasts out of record stores to crowds of chic teenage shoppers, while dis- placed Indians, recent migrants from terror and starvation in the highlands, shuffle blankly past. This day, March 9, 1982, the streets were empty. Storekeepers, fearing trouble, had rolled down their steel shutters. It was two days after the presidential elections, and official fig- ures showed Defense Minister Gen. Anibal Guevara, hand-picked successor of Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcfa, with an implausible 35% of the vote. Informal polls on election day had him running third out of four. A small procession of enraged opposition can- didates, flanked by the world's press, made its way up Sixth Avenue. Bearing a formal letter of protest, the three defrauded candidates were headed for the National Palace. Alejandro Maldonado, candidate of the center-right coali- tion, turned to a reporter: "This is not a demon- stration; we are simply three citizens walking on the street carrying, peacefully and unarmed, a request for the nullification of the elections."' As he spoke, masked plain-clothes police and steel-helmeted riot squads fanned out from police headquarters, lobbing smoke bombs and tear-gas grenades at the procession. A police bus screeched to the curb and hauled the three away for interrogation. Their letter was never delivered. In military-ruled Guatemala, tiger eats tiger. Outgoing president Lucas . . President-designate Guevara . .and MLN coup leader Leonel Sisniega. 0 z 1112 Theater of the Absurd Though voting is compulsory, and Lucas raged on TV that "to abstain is to collaborate with the enemies of Guatemala," by the Army's own figure less than 46% voted. Independent observers put it as low as 35% . While voters showed mainly contempt, the campaign did bring into sharp focus the now gaping rifts among political competitors. The three opponents offered distinct proposals for rescuing Guatemala from economic collapse and "communist subversion," and all rejected linkage with the last six years. Guatemalan electoral law allows for all man- ner of last-minute coalition building, and pre- vious military regimes had made expedient alliances with one or another right-wing party. This time, the military coalition's declared aim had been to field one candidate on a joint six- party ticket. It was groping not only for a broader electoral base, but also for a way to avoid post-election scrutiny of the Lucas era abuses and corruption. But all the opposition parties spurned its overtures, except the minis- cule National Unity Front (FUN). Unity among the other right-wing parties proved equally hopeless. Though National Liberation Movement chief Mario Sandoval Alarc6n warned repeatedly of the dangers of splitting the anti-communist vote, there were too many points of friction between his MLN and the Nationalist Authentic Central (CAN) for the rumored "Great Anticommunist Alli- ance" to take shape." Each would wage its own The March 1982 Election Line-Up Popular Democratic Front (FDP) The official government coalition backed by the armed forces, its members were the military's own Democratic Institutional Party (PID), the Revolutionary Party (PR), and the tiny National Unity Front (FUN). All three offered policies of continuity with the Lucas Garcia regime. Their social base was restricted to high-ranking mili- tary officers and state functionaries, with the parties operating mainly as vehicles to personal enrichment and government patronage. The FUN, registered as a new party in 1978, espoused a more nationalist economic program than the other two. National Liberation Movement (MLN) Formed right after the 1954 coup, the MLN is Guatemala's largest party. Its candidate and leader, Mario Sandoval Alarc6n, was viewed as the likeliest winner of a clean election. The party traditionally represents large and small coffee planters, as well as some newer cotton and sugar exporters. Though it retains some support among young officers, it has been marginalized from state power since the 1974-78 Laugerud Ad- ministration. Modeled on Franco's Falange and Chile's fascist shock-force, Patria y Libertad, the MLN offers few policies beyond a war of exter- mination. Nationalist Authentic Central (CAN) Founded in 1969 as the personal platform of Gen. Carlos Arana Osorio, the CAN's main support derives from sections of urban-based Industrial capital, importers and financiers, especially those with ties to foreign capital. Presidential candidate Gustavo Anzueto Vielman, a member of the right-wing business lobby, Amigos del Pals, put forward a radical monetarist program-- "The Path to Peaceful Prosperity"-proposing to abolish 50 out of 56 existing taxes, deregulate consumer prices, remove exchange controls, free interest rates and eliminate all restrictions on foreign capital. This hardline monetarism made Anzueto an Embassy favorite, but the par- ty's power base was too narrow, enmity between it and the current military high command too deep-rooted for it to have a chance at victory. National Opposition Union (UNO) This was a coalition of the Christian Democratic Party (PDCG) and the business-dominated Na- tional Renovation Party (PNR), formed after the PDCG abandoned the notion of a broad front with the military. The Christian Democrats, closely linked to the agrarian bourgeoisie, had conservative and anti-communist origins in the 1950s, but active involvement in rural peasant leagues and cooperatives during the 1960s led the party to adopt more progressive positions. Severe repression, the dismantling of the coop- erative movement and acrimonious debates within the party over participation in the electoral process left it split and badly weakened. Many left to join the guerrillas. Today, its main support Is among the urban middle classes. Its coalition partner, the PNR, embraces the more dynamic sectors of urban industrial capital, favoring limited reforms within a capitalist framework. The PNR's populist campaign de- clared the party "the voice of the silent and silenced majority." Like many top PNR officials, presidential candidate Alejandro Maldonado Aguirre pulled out of the MLN to form this new party in 1977. This coalition looked the most attractive political option, the most responsive to the need for some economic reforms, but the military would never allow it to take power. A coalescence of Christian Democrat-military interests a la Salvador's Duarte-Garcia duo was not in the cards. NACLA ReportMar/Apr 1983 separate campaign. The Christian Democrats, meanwhile, gravitated into an electoral alliance with the National Renovation Party (PNR). (See box.) The sympathies each had within the domi- nant classes did not translate into significant campaign funding. There was little incentive since, without reliable military backing, none was a viable option; since the raging war outside of Guatemala meant that only the military can- didate dared venture out; and since Lucas was likely to overturn any result he disapproved. The U.S. Embassy, too, was between a rock and a hard place. For months, it had pressed Lucas for clean elections-the best hope for remedying Guatemala's pariah status and breaking the Congressional boycott on military funding-but he ignored the signals. The Reagan Administration was obliged to keep its channels open to the likely future government. From Boom to Bust Underlying the ruling class divisions is Guatemala's economic slump. Few had come to terms with its significance, least of all the Lucas regime. The indicators were certainly alarming enough. Guatemala's growth rate had gone from 7.8% in 1977 to 1.8% in 1981, with worst predictions for 1982 at minus 5%.' From a high of $1.3 billion in 1978, currency reserves had fallen to $450 million by the end of 1980, and the slide showed no sign of abating. 5 Industrial stagnation was accompanied by rising inflation, and rising external debt by capital flight. While everyone acknowledged economic dif- ficulties-and each candidate offered his own remedies-all thought the problems were short- term: the imported effects of global recession, the ravages of war, the Lucas clique's gangster- like methods and inept government strategies, all with a consequent loss of business confi- dence. For them, the essential crisis was politi- cal. Clean up government corruption, annihi- late the revolutionary movement, change a few economic policies to make the temporary reces- sion more comfortable for the privileged, and wait for things to return to normal. But Guatemala's problem goes much deeper. As in much of Central America, it is rooted in the inherent inflexibility of its cash-crop growth model. When market prices for its products col- lapse, as they did in 1981, there is no alternative economic activity to fall back on. The disparity between lowered demand for exports and higher import costs-above all for petroleum- related products-was especially acute. With the collapse of cotton, coffee and tourism, to- gether with the unexpected closure of the Exmi- bal nickel plant, Guatemala's trade deficit widened from $30 million to more than $200 million over the course of 1981." Social repercussions from previous ebbs of the international market had always been met with repression rather than adjustment. But by 1982, the economic situation was moving out of control, and the masses had gone beyond the point of easy repressibility. The political crisis and the economic had become one, and the out- look for Guatemala's dominant classes was grim. The Guatemalan economy cannot guarantee work for the majority of the rural population. D CC 13NACLA Report There is no question that the war itself has taken a heavy toll, particularly on the tourist in- dustry. Some 100 companies have been driven into liquidation since 1980, and the industry is now three-quarters paralyzed.' The U.S. State Department issued a "Travel Advisory" in 1980, urging U.S. citizens not to travel to "high risk" Guatemala. As in El Salvador, a prime tactic of the Left has been to hit key infrastructural targets-in Guatemala's case the oilfields, burn the farms of right-wing landowners and destroy stockpiles of cotton and coffee. Not only aggravating the immediate economic situation, such sabotage also contributes to investment decline. U.S. Embassy figures show that private investment dropped off by 13% in 1981. Those who still have the power of accumulation increasingly exercise it abroad, and in dollars, leaving be- hind and demoralized those with less liquid capital. Grappling with the surge of the Left and its own internal conflicts, the private sector was pushed to the limits of its tolerance by the ser- ious credit squeeze and the concomitant greed of the Lucas government. Even the powerful planters felt the lash of Lucas' death frenzy. Facing a cutback in world coffee export quotas and mounting production costs, the growers' associations complained bitterly that their members were unable to repay outstanding credits or secure new government loans. When Lucas replied by raising coffee export taxes, the growers moved into open revolt. 8 Many resorted to highly conflictive land rental schemes in lieu of payment for peasant labor. These attempts to slough their losses onto the 400,000 peasants who depend on the coffee trade for their livelihood only exacerbated class animosity. Finally, and inevitably, the Lucas govern- ment called in the International Monetary Fund. In November 1981, the IMF agreed to provide $110 million to stabilize currency reserves. In exchange, Guatemala was to re- duce its social expenditures (already the lowest per capita in Central America), rechanneling the savings to the private sector. One more log on the fires of revolution. The crisis deepened daily, and Lucas offered no way out. With agroexporters petitioning for tax exemptions on one side, industrialists de- manding rigid monetarist measures on the other and the ranks of the revolutionaries swell- ing with untold thousands who had nothing left to lose, Lucas flailed onwards, satisfying nobody. Losing the War In the field, the fight against the Left was go- ing disastrously. The inept conduct of the armed forces provided a major campaign thrust for the opposition candidates. "The present government," stormed Sandoval Alarc6n, "is wholly incapable of putting a brake on the guer- rillas." In October 1981, the Army-now under the command of the President's brother, Gen. Benedicto Lucas Garcifa-launched a four- month-long scorched-earth campaign. For the first time field commanders glimpsed what they were up against, socially and militarily. Officers became convinced that a radical new political solution was needed. West of the capital, in the area code-named "Vietnam," the Left's roots among the population were solid. Large stretches of El Quich6, Huehuetenango and San Marcos turned into no-go areas for the Army, and U.S. diplomats were forbidden to venture further west than Antigua, 28 miles from the capital. In desperation, local Army commanders began to pressgang Indian peasants into military re- serve service-the first Civil Defense Patrols. But they could not stop the advance. Guerrilla columns intercepted traffic on the Pan American and Atlantic highways with relative impunity, ran free in much of the new development area known as the Franja and controlled long stretches of the Mexican border. Army losses ran unacceptably high, with 57 officers, mainly captains and lieutenants, killed in combat dur- ing 1981.'0 In a political and military quagmire, internationally isolated, senior officers began to mutter despondently of inevitable defeat within three years. Suddenly, five weeks before elections, the Left threw the regime yet another curve. The founding declaration of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) on January 25, and that of the Guatemalan Com- mittee of Patriotic Unity (CGUP) two weeks later, sharpened the crisis. A Different Kind of Solution Guevara won the March 7 election, but no one knows who won the count. For four days after the opposition leaders' arrest, Guatemala City seethed with tension. The losers, setting their differences to one side, banded together in 14Mar/Apr 1983 Tear gas awaited demonstrators on March 9. an Anti-Fraud Front, but to no avail. On the 13th, Congress hastily ratified Guevara as president. Inevitably, it was not the politicians but the military which defused the crisis. Two months earlier, long-simmering resentment of Lucas had matured into a near-unanimous decision by the 900-strong officer class to remove him." The loudest rumblings of discontent came from the Air Force, anxious to reopen channels to U.S. spare parts for the Huey choppers so cru- cial to their aerial counterinsurgency war. On March 23, helicopters, troops and ar- mored vehicles sealed off the presidential palace. Lucas, caught off guard, offered no resistance, and apart from a brief skirmish with Army loyalists in Quezaltenango the operation was smooth and bloodless. If some observers had smelled the impending coup, few predicted the identity of Guatemala's new leader. Dressed in camouflage fatigues, gesticulating wildly to the cameras, a half- remembered Army general treated his audience to a 13-minute diatribe, littered with invoca- tions to God, "my Lord and King." Slowly, TV viewers put a name and a mem- ory to the face. Gen. Jos6 Efrain Rios Montt, defrauded of electoral victory in 1974 at the head of a Christian Democrat-backed coalition, had sunk into obscurity. A 1975 newspaper horoscope wrote him off as a "has-been" whose star sign offered no political future." Rfos Montt certainly sounded different than the others. The coup, he said, was designed "to put an end to corruption, guarantee human rights and revitalize our institutions." More im- portant, he vowed "to change the image of Guatemala...especially with the United States."'" The political message was implicit. Where elections had failed, the coup would suc- ceed in narrowing the rancorous splits within the ruling class. It would also offer a way out of the intolerable levels of class conflict. The Lucas fraction had certainly proven dysfunctional in every sense. But what new pro- gram could rally the battered Right? Something Old, Something New The first clues were dizzying. A changing cast-list of MLN leaders, provisional juntas and young officers made the events of March 23 hard to follow. But by the end of the day, it was clear that Rfos Montt was on top. Flanking him in the three-man junta was Gen. Horacio Mal- donado Schaad and Col. Fernando Gordillo. Maldonado Schaad, whose name was linked 15NACLA Report often to the death squads, had been commander of Lucas' Guard of Honor regiment. Now he enjoyed the backing of the two most right-wing parties, the MLN and the CAN. Gordillo, even closer to the Lucas camp, had been an energetic director of counterinsurgency operations in El Quich6 and Chimaltenango. " Behind the junta stood a seven-man advisory council. Though drawn from intermediate ranks, this crest of the young officers' movement held many of the strings of power. The vested interests left intact by the coup, and Rios Montt's need for unity in the armed forces, dictated this fragile compromise with the old guard. Pentagon sources spoke of a pact be- tween the new defense minister and outgoing Lucas sympathizers under which "no Army of- ficer would be arrested or brought to trial as a consequence of the coup.' 15 The promised purge of those involved in the scandalous corruption of the Lucas years ran aground on these power-brokering realities. There were a few minor arraignments, with the full glare of publicity, but the real culprits went unmolested. Soldiers raided the house of the former interior minister, Donaldo Alvarez Rufz, uncovering a printing press (used to forge election ballots), underground jail cells, 50 stolen vehicles and a safe deposit box full of gold graduation rings, wrenched from the fingers of victims of police torture. But Donaldo was al- ready safe in Miami.' 6 True to the pact, not a single officer stood trial. Will the Real Rioa Montt. .. While partly hostage to the wishes of the offi- cer class, Rios Montt is nobody's puppet. His strident evangelism is one unique asset, but most important, he is a disciplined career sol- dier, an authoritarian with dependable anti- communist credentials. He represents a mod- ernized, technologically-minded trend within the Guatemalan Army. A graduate of U.S. counterinsurgency training, versed in civic ac- tion and psychological warfare, he knows that hearts and minds matter as much as cadavers. 1 7 The officer corps respects his long rise through the ranks, from private to chief of staff, com- mander of the country's most powerful garrison and principal of the military Polytechnic School.' 8 This model professional career has not left Rios Montt with clean hands. As Arana's Chief of Staff in 1973, he commanded the massacre of peasants involved in a land takeover at Sansiri- say. Exiled to Spain as military attach after the 1974 elections, he left the country a rich man, with large estates in Alta Verapiz and El Pet6n. 1 m In 1974, when Rios Montt took his place in the long line of electoral fraud victims, his allegiance to reformist military rule on the Peruvian pattern was noted. Today, Washington policymakers at- tempt to refurbish that democratic image. But those tendencies-never prominent-have now been expunged from the Guatemalan military. The dapper young officers in pressed fatigues who staff the capital city's public relations offices may breathe an elusive hint of that Peruvian era; but like Rios Montt's, their authoritarian politi- cal agenda is quite different. Palace Coup-A Guatemalan Pinochet? Rios Montt's hold on power has often seem- ed tenuous, his first months marked by barely disguised conflicts with his fellow junta members. Maldonado Schaad in particular ex- ploited his position to shield pro-Lucas bureaucrats from prosecution under the vaunted anti-corruption drive. By June 9, Rios Montt had had enough. In a surprise move, he ousted his two partners in a swift palace coup, buying off their protests with checks for $50,000; inauspicious if effective beginnings for a new moral order. 2 " The audacious show of authority was a calcu- lated risk, and though it placed absolute execu- tive power in his hands, it was not a clean sweep. There are Lucas supporters in key posi- tions, and other traditionalists, disquieted by Rios Montt's evangelical fervor, command sup- port in key Army barracks. Since June, at least four coup attempts have been dismantled. 2 ' Yet, while he remains in power, Rfos Montt has drawn a noose around all political activity. Human rights monitors call his concentration of power, "despotic and totalitarian...overtly abandoning the rule of law."" 2 Initially the right-wing and centrist parties welcomed Rfos Montt. In their first pronounce- ments, the young officers spoke of fresh elec- tions within 60 days; taking this on trust, the parties of the Anti-Fraud Front rallied in sup- port. PNR candidate Maldonado Aguirre was designated intermediary between the trium- virate and the parties, while the Christian Democrats' secretary general sped off to Washington to lobby support for the new regime. 16Mar/Apr 1983 But this optimism turned sour as Rios Montt replaced the junta with one-man rule, and elec- tion talk with informal, token parleys in the Na- tional Palace. The armed forces' monopoly of politics was to be absolute. "Political parties in Guatemala are electoral machines and inopera- tive," he reminded the party chiefs. "For this reason, the Army must now project itself politi- cally."2': It projected itself above all to the urban mid- dle class, many of whom-panicked by Lucas' urban terror-had begun to gravitate leftward. Cleaning up the cities was a priority for Rios Montt, to create the reassuring impression that the Army was in control. Much of the middle class sighed with relief. They groped for a fan- tasy "third way," enthralled by Rios Montt's unfamiliar moral fervor. As repression in the cities waned, their selective conscience calmed. Moods brightened as marimba bands replaced unmarked Cherokee station wagons in the streets of Guatemala City. U.S. government opinion, too, brightened. The military had still not offered a govern- ment program, but it did put out a comprehen- sive Plan of National Security, a more vigorous version of the recent innovations of Gen. Bene- dicto Lucas Garcifa. In a word, the Plan in- volved the total militarization of political strug- gle. Popular opposition was not just to be over- come, but annihilated. It would not be a force to reckon with, in Rios Montt's vision, in any restructuring of the political order." The rural slaughter increased, out of sight and out of mind. Towards a New Political Model Every Sunday evening, President Rfos Montt speaks to the nation on television. Changing from fatigues to a smart lounge suit, he delivers a moral homily from an idyllic tropi- cal garden, filled with bird-song and canned marimba music. The week after the June palace coup, his Sunday broadcast brought a new mes- sage. Guatemalans, he declared, "are going to stop talking about political divisions, political ideas, political parties.' 25 The press is free to report such tidbits. But it is free to do little else. With the centralization of power came a new legal framework, drastically suppressing political freedoms, even those of the subservient right-wing media. Control of the press would allow the Army to cordon off the war, imposing an image of military self- confidence. Censorship was accompanied by a harsh and indefinite State of Siege. To "betray Next generation of the Guatemalan Army trains at the Adolfo Hall academy. E 17NACLA Report c oo E (n For the Guatemala City elite, life has returned to normal. the nation [or to] act against the integrity of the state" became an arbitrarily defined offense subject to capital punishment. All major consti- tutional guarantees were suspended. Rios Montt offered an amnesty to Left and Right, but on terms he knew the Left would not take seriously. The guerrillas swiftly denounced the amnesty as a smokescreen for rehabilitating Army criminals: any soldier accused of rape, murder or other crimes against the civilian population would be pardoned if his acts were committed "while fulfilling duties in anti-sub- versive actions." As to the Left, Rios Montt made clear the underlying rationale of the amnesty offer in his address to a business con- vention: "The amnesty gives us the juridical framework for killing. Anyone who refuses to surrender will be shot.' 2 6 The military announced that it was extend- ing its rule by 30 months to January 1985. Con- gress was to remain closed, all political activity outlawed. Rule would be by presidential fiat, the only machinery of consultation a Council of State, whose functions would be apolitical and purely advisory. While limitations are neither surprising nor unrealistic in a state of war, this surpassed all "[Rios Montt is] a man of great personal integrity, totally committed to restoring democracy." Ronald Reagan, after meeting with Rios Montt in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, December 1982. previous controls, and was directed almost as much at the Right as at the Left. It was soon ob- vious that the strictures ostensibly imposed to protect national security would also permit the Army, unencumbered, to embark on a sweep- ing restructuring of Guatemalan politics. The contrast between Rios Montt's Guatemala and "reformist" El Salvador became clear: in Guatemala, the armed forces, openly and alone, would dictate the terms of the new political process. Electoral Competition vs. Corporatism Are these short or long-term measures? While nothing is yet firmly defined, there are signs that allow for more than random specula- tion. Concentration of state power in military hands has been even more exaggerated than under Lucas. An already impressive list of mili- tarily controlled institutions has now swelled to 18Mar/Apr 1983 embrace the Social Security Institute, immigra- tion authorities and the National Cooperative Institute. The Police has been put under the control of the Ministry of Defense, and the Ministry of the Interior will likely become the jurisdiction of the military. Article 4 of the State of Siege provides for the militarization of public transport and education, and Interior Minister M6ndez Rufz speaks longingly of doing the same with local government. Already, the first steps have been taken in that direction: in July, Rfos Montt named all local mayors by decree, with the threat of legal sanctions against any who refused their designated posts. While such militarization renders any discus- sion of the state's political profile somewhat moot, there are two options under discussion. Some argue for establishing full-fledged corpo- ratism, with the permanent suspension of elec- tions and political parties. Others favor restor- ing the rituals of electoral democracy, after an emergency period has cleansed the body politic of the ''cancer of communism" and eviscerated effective opposition. Both alternatives have their devotees in the ruling elite, but it is the cor- poratists who seem to have the ear of Rfos Montt. The General has been impressed by talk of an "equicracy," in which the business of govern- ment would be conducted by a non-elected Council of State made up of the military, private enterprise and professional bodies. 2 7 His Cabinet already shows signs of this balance. The business federation, CACIF (Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, In- dustrial and Financial Associations), holds the key ministries of Economy and Agriculture, while former Army Bank president Leonardo Figueroa Villate is Minister of Finance. 2 8 The new, supposedly interim, Council of State, introduced after the June palace coup, in- deed has the early earmarks of a corporatist en- tity. Of its 34 members, four represent the var- ious economic sectors (finance, agriculture, commerce and industry); seven the professional sectors (colleges and universities, a judicial as- sociation, a municipal organization and the press); and one each the five legally registered parties not expressly excluded for their Lucas taint. Rounding out the list are ten indigenous representatives, and one each from rural work- ers, urban workers, the cooperatives and the women's association. A five-member secretar- iat, hand-picked by Rifos Montt, directs the limited business of the Council. Under its born-again Christian president, Jorge Serrano Elias, the Council of State has made great play of its Indian members. State Department officials, keen to justify a resump- tion of military sales, eagerly picked up the cry that Guatemala's indigenous majority has final- ly found its voice. 9 " But few Indians in the high- lands would recognize the names of their "representatives," since they had no role in choosing them. Most are government employ- ees, hand-picked by the Army-run Reconstruc- tion Committee for "security reasons." 3 0 Much the same applies to the Council's token trade union representatives, designated directly by Rfos Montt after not a single union proved will- ing to nominate a representative. The marginalized political parties have no il- lusions about this scheme either. The Council began its ineffectual deliberations on September 15 with the right-wing split of the tiny social democratic FUR the only party to have named its representative. The others boycotted the Council to form their own "Multi-Party Con- stitutional Front," demanding the "free and clean" elections which the young officers had appeared to promise back in March. "A new alliance is necessary to confront the military and its habits of power," fumed'PNR leader Maldonado, "so that sovereign powers can be returned to the people."" 1 Battles with the Private Sector If Rfos Montt has not endeared himself to the political parties on grounds of exclusion, he has done little better with the economic sectors they represent, and for the same reason. The strong- est fractions within CACIF are the Chamber of Commerce and the modernized agroindustrial- ists. While agreeing that monetary stabilization is the key short-term objective, their solution is diametrically opposed to the state-intervention- ist policy Rfos Montt is pursuing. Favoring a devaluation of the currency, and a let-'er-rip unbridling of international trade, the free mar- keteers of CACIF have condemned military planners in the most strident terms. Import controls are "absurd"; suggestions of a $60 million private sector contribution to fight the counterinsurgency war are "harebrained"; moves against speculators constitute "a threat to two million Guatemalan traders."" 3 2 Tight credit policies and high interest rates have driven their blood pressure to the danger point. 19NACLA Report Some Army officers display signs of panic at the regime's fragile social base, and the fissures in the government's search for corporatist dia- logue brought about by CACIF's stridency. While CACIF has influence in important min- istries, it is often sidestepped in the formation of economic policy. A major package of proposals in October was presented not to CACIF or to any of its chambers, but to a grouping of promi- nent individual capitalists-the so-called "Honorable 14"-whose identity is a closely guarded secret." CACIF has dug its heels in with some suc- cess. Its prime target has been Central Bank president Jorge Gonzalez del Valle, a leading protagonist of import controls as a means of conserving currency and an opponent of de- valuing the quetzal, long pegged to the U.S. dollar. Powerful agroexporters have pushed devaluation not only because it would make their thus-cheapened products more attractive on the international market; it would also help ease their domestic indebtedness, since their overseas dollar accounts would pay off more debts in quetzales than the current exchange rate allows. Blocking devaluation as well as resisting the clamor for a moratorium on debt repayments, GonzAlez del Valle instead offered the agroex- porters a $50 million credit line to roll over their obligations with the Central Bank." 4 CACIF was not satisfied, and eventually the pressure told. On December 23, Gonzilez del Valle re- signed, and Rfos Montt forfeited one of the few people respected for both his professional talents and his centrist political views. CACIF has begun to win some concessions for its other members as well. For the industrial- ists, it got foreign exchange controls on capital goods imports relaxed for spare parts, tools and pharmaceutical inputs. For the agrarian oligar- chy, there has been a guarantee that the land tenure pattern of 1954 will remain untouched. These disputes should not obscure the fact that CACIF and its allies share many of the goals of the current regime. They are in basic agreement, for example, with Rfos Montt's Reaganesque plan to revive production and ease the foreign exchange crisis by placing the burden of austerity on the poor. Health, educa- tion and public works will be the worst casual- ties of an 11% budget cut. Given the state of war, they are also not too perturbed by a 62% leap in defense spending, to $142 million." 3 "He who resists authority is resisting that which has been established by God." Francisco Bache, Assembly of God preacher, in Cunen, El Quiche. They have also supported Rfos Montt's vig- orous campaign to promote fresh foreign invest- ment, including a revised petroleum code easing many drilling rights restrictions. When trade delegations from the United States, Israel and Taiwan swarmed into Guatemala during the summer asking to set up assembly plants, the government rewarded them with incentive leg- islation which included the tax-free import of raw materials and semi-finished goods."' Guatemala's private sector did not object since it has no serious conflicts of interest with these runaway shops. With God on Our Side In the ornate National Palace, there is a new look. Piles of cheap mass-produced Bibles fill bureaucrats' shelves; a hand-lettered sign on the doorman's desk tells visitors that "Jesus loves you." Spearheaded by two special presi- dential advisers, evangelism is sweeping the palace. Whenever the onerous duties of state permit, "Brother Efrafn" drives out to an ele- gant suburb for Sunday morning worship. In an airy green tent donated to Rifos Montt's Church of the Word by a grateful convert-a Guatemalan circus wrestler named Tarzan the Terrible-the General joins hundreds of fellow believers in hymn singing and the laying-on of hands. A fierce competition against the Roman Catholics of the "popular church" is on for community loyalties. Evangelical sects now reckon that they have brought more than 1.6 million Guatemalans to the Lord-a full 22% of the population. In 10 years, their strength has quadrupled. Pentecos- tals lead the way; dozens of micro-sects like the Church of the Word, a mission of the Eureka, California-based Gospel Outreach, bring up the rear. Rallies in December 1982 to mark the 100th anniversary of evangelism in Guatemala were attended by half a million.37 The armed forces' romance with evangelism is nothing new. Lucas' presidential candidate, Gen. Guevara, had delivered a keynote speech to a pre-election rally of 50,000 faithful in the national soccer stadium. Presenting him was Yiye Avila, the Puerto Rican preacher who 20Mar/Apr 1983 claims the honor of evangelizing Chilean dic- tator Augusto Pinochet. Not all the sects are conservative, to be sure. Some have identified with the forces of social change, and have paid the price in death-squad killings and harassment. But many, tacitly or overtly, have collaborated with the counterin- surgency drive, organizing joint Protestant- Army rallies against the guerrillas and their Roman Catholic sympathizers. Posters in their temples equate Catholicism with "communist subversion." In return, they receive favors such as free passage through Army roadblocks. Pas- tors can pass on to their congregations the pro- mise of protection against repression." 3 For an Army which has butchered a dozen priests, not to mention countless catechists and grassroots organizers, the opportunity is heaven-sent. "We make no distinction," de- clared the colonel in charge of operations in El Quich6, "between the Catholics and the com- munist subversives.""9 In mute testimony, only one priest in the whole department-a conser- vative-has kept his church doors open. Else- where, the evangelical sects mop up the debris. The Catholic Church is riven between the community activism of Liberation Theology and a largely conservative hierarchy which sup- ports the Rios Montt dictatorship. But there is more to the rise of these sects than the changes within the Catholic Church and the scars of counterinsurgency. Economic devastation, natural and human violence all provide fertile terrain for talk of the Second Coming. The 1976 earthquake was a vital turning point. Evangeli- cals offered apocalyptic reasons for the disaster and warned that a further year of earthquakes would follow if Catholics did not separate them- selves from social action programs. Many did. 4 0 As violence escalates, the escape of passivity beckons harder. A massacre in a predominantly Protestant village provoked wild responses about impending apocalypse. Said one observ- er, "Women cried that what had happened was a prophecy foretold in the Bible."" 4 In the sweeping modernization of the rural economy, too, the sects find rich raw material for conversion. The degradation of plantation wage labor breaks down traditional ties, over- turning long-held moral values and replacing them with alcoholism and wife-beating. Protes- tantism offers the appeal of sobriety, individual self-worth, answers in Christ. As a by-product, it offers landowners enhanced productivity from a submissive workforce. The appeal to traditional indigenous values of austerity, hard work and rectitude is similar to the morality promoted by the revolutionary organizations. But in stressing individuality and subservience to earthly and heavenly au- thority, the appeal of the sects lacks a key dimension offered by the Left: organization and participation. Throughout the new strategic hamlets, the temples may be overflowing, but there is no guarantee of the depth of conversion. Faced with threat, the Indian population will choose to survive, as it has historically, by adop- ting the protective coloring of the chameleon. Evangelism is a color the military can never ful- ly trust. Three Blue Fingers of Virtue Meeting with Ronald Reagan in Honduras, Rios Montt held up three fingers to explain his divine mission. The first finger, he explained to the enraptured U.S. President, signifies "Do not steal"; the second, "Do not lie"; and the third, "Do not cheat." In the shape of a blue poster, the slogan will cover Guatemala during 1983, emblematic of the "new moral- ity" of the regime. In the absence of even the illusion of plural- ism, new forms of legitimation must be found. The search has led the armed forces into the novel terrain of ideology and morality. The version offered by Rios Montt-no matter how colorful or arcane-is the response of an authoritarian regime in deep crisis. Prevailing economic structures, argues the General, do not engender class hatred, and will not be touched. Rather, conflict springs from "the rottenness of mankind. The mind hurls out insults like a weapons factory, instead of saving 'I love you.' "" The rottenness has a name: communism, the antichrist, and all means must be used to defeat it. "We are neither Russians nor North Ameri- cans," Rios Montt is fond of saying. "Why can't we just be Guatemalans?" 4 3 Side by side with the sweeping appeal of his born-again evangelism goes an exhortation to nationalism- without regard to social class--and lip-service to the country's Mayan identity. Rios Montt calls it Guatemalidad. No mere whim of a quixotic leader, the new nationalism is a clearly elaborated strategy of the Army high command. The National Plan of Security and Development calls for "building 21NACLA Report up nationalism as a doctrine opposed to interna- tional communism." Military leaders such as Defense Minister Mejfa Victores are even more explicit: "We must do away with the words 'indigenous' and 'Indian'."" More than just the words, counterinsurgency in the guise of nationalism actually does away with the Indian communities themselves, scat- tering their people and their cultural traditions. But while physical displacement of entire popu- lations does part of the job of breaking down community cohesion, the Army also drives every possible wedge into existing local con- flicts. In the name of love and nationalism, In- dian is pitted against ladino; Civil Defense Patrol against guerrilla sympathizer; village against village; evangelical against Catholic. Scientific Counterinsurgency Guatemalan field commanders take on a smug look when asked how their "Plan Vic- toria 82" compares with counterinsurgency doctrine in El Salvador. The problem with the Salvadorean military, the Guatemalan officers say, is that they make 2,000-man sweeps through Morazin and Chalatenango, then pull out and let the guerrillas roam free. Search-and-destroy missions need a follow-up; you have to establish a permanent presence. 4 " Much of the current military strategy is bor- rowed from U.S. recommendations of the mid- 1970s, formalized in a Program of Pacification and Eradication of Communism. But Israeli and Argentine assistance, and the Guatemalan Army's own chauvinistic sense of purpose, have also guided the campaign after increasing fric- tions with Washington. The "new" Rios Montt approach was pre- figured in the dying months of the Lucas regime, when brother Benedicto took over mili- tary command. General "Benny" might have stopped short of Rfos Montt's "Bullets and Beans" epithet, but probably would have agreed with his military philosophy that "if you don't take food into people's homes, what you take there is subversion."" For neither of them is the determination to win social bases in the war incompatible with mass murder. But it is murder with a scientific purpose, not carnage for its own sake. General Benny had learned his tradecraft at France's famous St. Cyr military academy, and had seen it put to good effect in Algeria. Rios Montt learned his at Fort Gulick in the Canal Zone and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and saw it work in Guatemala in the brutal successes of the late 1960s.f Just Pins on a Map Where the situation has slipped so badly that the Army sees no distinction between the guer- rilleros and their supporters, then whole Indian villages are erased from the map. Where the influence is more ambiguous, terror and threats may force sympathizers into submis- sion, exposing and isolating the "hard core" revolutionary cadre, who are then picked off clinically. If the Left has made more recent or superficial inroads, why kill needlessly? Con- centrate on the beans here, less on the bullets. All this translates into the maps which line the walls of high command offices in Guatemala City. Pins of four colors classify the villages of the Indian highlands. Many were red-enemy territory-when Rios Montt took power. But now, 10,000 inhabitants of the red villages are dead, their huts charred hulls. Hundreds of thousands more escaped and are who knows where. Some are waiting out the trauma in neighboring countries; some are dead; many are starving on leaves and grub worms higher in the mountains; and some have been forced down 'into the towns to "surrender" to the Army. 4 5 Throughout the altiplano, vast stretches have been occupied and militarized; anyone in pink and yellow hamlets is suspect. In a year of Rios Montt's iron rule, the green pins-safe villages -have sprouted like trees in a graveyard. Guarding the entrances to the green villages are files of nervous men with sticks and ma- chetes. A few have old shotguns. As far back as late 1981, General Benny had seen the attrac- tion of recruiting Indian peasants from the war zone into a permanent military reserve, some- what like the death squads, only on a vaster scale. Some, in fact, are the old death squads with a new name, organized by ex-soldiers and conser- vative small property owners. Others, in more prosperous areas, may be willing accomplices of the military. But the bulk are not given the lux- ury of choice. For all able-bodied men between 18 and 50, patrols are obligatory. The reward is food and partial deliverance from Army repres- sion; the penalty for refusal is to be considered a subversive. This is Bullets and Beans. The Civil Service Patrols serve as cannon fodder; pitifully armed advance detachments 22Mar/Apr 1983 Refugees at Choatalum. shielding the regular troops from the line of fire, their casualties vaunted as civilian victims of communist terror. If they engage in combat, they are "the people" defending themselves from the guerrillas. In the moral wasteland of the Army's making, everything becomes its op- posite, and neutrality is not permissible. By September 1982, the military boasted that it had recruited 40,000 patrol members. Even- tual membership, says Army public relations chief Col. Pablo Nufla, will reach 300,000.49 But can the patrols be trusted? Joining them, even turning them to the advantage of the Left, is another survival technique. In May 1982, CUC activists seized the Brazilian Embassy in Guatemala City to spotlight continuing massa- cres in the countryside. Interviewed afterwards in Mexico City, one of the group revealed that he had been a Civil Defense Patrol member in his native Indian village. That, apart from the Army's budget restraints, is why the patrols carry sticks instead of M-16s. Rios Montt's Brave New World By November 1982, some human rights groups were reporting nearly 10,000 dead in rural massacres. 5 0 Bishops accused the military of creating a six-mile-wide free-fire zone along the Mexican border. The same tactic has devas- tated the interior of El Quich6, Sololi and Chi- maltenango, severing guerrilla supply lines and removing the local population. The revolu- tionary organizations can neither feed nor pro- tect the survivors. Public debate on Rfos Montt's Guatemala "The [Guatemalan] government's atrocities make the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Beirut pale by com- parison. Guatemala may be the most dangerous powder keg in the region." Wayne Smith, former head of the U.S. interest section in Cuba, October 1982. has centered on the body count, and the respon- sibility of the security forces for the carnage. But it is necessary to look beyond moral outrage and beyond explanations about winning back mili- tary territory. What is to be built on the ashes of the Indian highlands? The National Reconstruction Committee in Guatemala City, set up after the 1976 earth- quake and run by the military, holds some of the answers. The colonels in charge show off their plans with pride-ambitious architectural scale models of new rural settlements, with concrete houses, water supply, a market place, an evan- gelical church and, central to the design, a mili- tary post. The strategic hamlets are no tempo- rary holding operation until the scorched-earth phase is over, those killed who must be (Sando- val Alarc6n would estimate half a million), and the displaced thousands decanted back into their home villages. No, once the communities of those who survive are militarized, there must be long-range resettlement and new develop- ment plans for the areas of conflict. 5 1 For the first time, the counterinsurgency state is systematically confronting economic realities. The existing economic model, domi- 23 o :ENACLA Report nated by traditional cash-crops, has run into the ground; it cannot absorb the labor force. Land- owners' old need for cheap plantation labor is drying up; scarce capital feeds mechanization, not more salaries. Only an optimist would pre- dict that the world market again will demand Guatemalan coffee, cotton and sugar in the old quantities, at the old high prices. At the same time, the subsistence farms of the Indian peas- antry are ever less viable, their poor soil de- clining, their acreage shrinking. The old equa- tion of survival-nine months on the family plot, three on the plantations-is collapsing. New sources of income must be created for those whose starvation has become a threat to the state. Agrarian reform was explicitly denied in the new economic plans conveyed to the private sector in October 1982; any such initiative would have been suicidal.2 But the landowners had no need to fret; Rfos Montt himself regards reforms as superfluous, not to say dangerous. For him, the cardinal error of the 1944-54 democratic revolution was its assault on private estates, above all those of the United Fruit Company. The watchword is transformation without re- forms. Rios Montt foresees a three-phase pro- gram, to be coordinated between the Army, the private sector and the evangelical churches, the regime's staunchest liaison with the emerging structures of local military control. The first is the phase of feeding those who remain after suc- cessful counterinsurgency. The second-called "pre-development"-is to put these survivors to work. These two phases are already well underway. Maize, flour, oil and milk from the United Na- tions' World Food Program (administered lo- cally by regional military commanders) keep the rural poor alive. In return, under the watch- ful eye of Army patrols, Indian forced labor gangs hack out new access roads and carry out reforestation schemes. This virtual slave labor has created 60,000 "new jobs" building a new highland infrastructure, and will cost the im- poverished regime scarcely a penny. All this will lay the basis for phase three of the program, which the Army calls "development." The emergent vision of the National Recon- struction Committee planners is of militarized model hamlets, where tamed Indian communi- ties-no longer a political threat-will generate new income for themselves and the tottering na- tional economy by farming new cash crops, car- damom, perhaps, or citrus fruits. Again, there is both continuity and rupture between Lucas and Rios Montt. Candidate Guevara spoke in his electoral campaign of a sweeping remodeling of the highlands: "We will attack forcefully with social and economic action the causes that can push a man into en- tering the guerrilla ranks." "Integral Develop- ment of Rural Communities" was a watchword of Lucas' Third National Development Plan (1979-82) which had proposed 118 model settle- ments in the insurgency zones.5 The difference is that Rios Montt has brought more efficient planning and improved Army morale. Equally important, landowners with declining labor needs may accept social ac- tion programs-and even cooperatives-in the altiplano more readily than they did five years ago, especially if the experiment takes place under the guarantee of tight military surveil- lance. Most vital perhaps is the international selling of the program. Internal resources alone cannot underwrite the development plan. Governmen- tal allocations to the Assistance Plan to Conflict Areas (PAAC) have been a scant $1 million, enough to serve only 500 hamlets out of the total 50,000 affected by the war. Two decades ago, Venezuela eradicated a guerrilla movement and then launched an ambitious program of corrective social action. But the analogy stops there. First, Venezuela's guerrillas were never so pervasive, and second, Guatemala does not have Venezuela's booming oil economy. The money must be found elsewhere." A wide array of international actors have a stake in the outcome, from the United States and Israel to Mexico and the international banking community. Only large sums of cash- in the high nine figures-will allow Rios Montt to carry his plans to fruition. But those who seek to aid his stalwart anti- communism, above all in the Reagan Adminis- tration, must overcome human rights oppon- ents and congressional restraints. In part they will resort to subterfuge; in part they will chan- nel dollars to Guatemala's authoritarian exter- minism under the guise of humanitarianism. What could be touted as a greater advance from the "Two F' s-fusilesyfrijoles" than the "Three T's-techo, trabajo y tortillas"; from ''"bullets and beans" to "roof, work and bread"? Who will argue with that? ALL CHANGE, NO CHANGE 1. Washington Post, March 10, 1982. 2. Inforpress, March 11, 1982; ALAI, March 26, 1982. 3. Inforpress, October 1, 1981. 4. Cynthia Arnson and Flora Montealegre, IPS Resource Update (Washington D.C.)June 1982. 5. Excilsior (Mexico City), July 31, 1981. 6. Business Latin America, November 10, 1981. 7. Latin America Weekly Report, August 20, 1982. 8. ANACAFE report, El Grdfico (Guatemala City), June 16, 1981; and Prensa Libre, June 10, 1981. 9. Inforpress, November 26, 1981; Latin America Regional Report, February 12, 1982; New York Times, March 14, 1982. 10. Arnson and Montealegre, IPS Resource Update. 11. Washington Post, March 24, 1982. 12. El Grifico, December 29, 1975. 13. Unomdsuno, March 24, 1982. 14. El Dia (Mexico City), March 24 and 29, 1982; Latin America Weekly Report, April 2, 1982. 15. Excilsiou; May 8, 1982. 16. Panama City ACAN in Spanish, 2146 GMT, March 23, 1982, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), March 26, 1982; also NACLA interviews in Guatemala City, June 1982. 17. Susanne Jonas, "The Guatemalan Counterinsur- gency State: The Complicity of the U.S. Government and U.S. Capital in the Violation of Human Rights in Guate- mala'' paper prepared for the Tribunal Permanente de Los Pueblos, Madrid, Spain, January 1983, p. 15. 18. Guatemala Cadena de Emisoras Unidas, 0023 GMT, March 25, 1982, in FBIS, March 29, 1982; Latin America, November 2, 1973. 19. Latin America Weekly Report, April 2, 1982. 20. Latin America Weekly Report, July 30, 1982. 21. Latin America Weekly Report, June 18 andJuly 30, 1982; Unomesuno, June 24, 1982. 22. Americas Watch, "Human Rights in Guatemala-- No Neutrals Allowed"' November 1982, p. 3. 23. Latin America Weekly Report, April 2, 1982. 24. For a full discussion of the counterinsurgency state in Latin America, see Ruy Mauro Marini, "The Question of the State in the Latin American Class Struggle:' Contempor- ary Marxism (San Francisco) No. 1 (Spring 1980), pp. 1-9. 25. Prensa Libre, June 21, 1982. 26. Unomdsuno, June 25, 1982; see also El Di'a, June 23, 1982 and Washington Post, May 26, 1982. 27. Latin America Regional Report, July 9, 1982. 28. Unomdsuno, March 26, 1982: Panama City ACAN in Spanish, 0216 GMT, March 26, 1982, in FBIS, March 29, 1982. 29. See for example the comments of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Af- fairs Elliot Abrams, on the "McNeil-Lehrer Report:' (PBS), January 11, 1983. 30. This Week in CentralAmerica and Panama, September 20, 1982; see also Los Angeles Times, September 19, 1982. 31. Latin America Regional Report, September 24, 1982. 32. Guatemalan press reports, August 1982; Inforpress, November 18, 1982. 33. Inforpress, November 11, 1982. 34. Inforpress, December 16, 1982. 35. Ibid.; also This Week in Central America and Panama, December 13, 1982. 36. Business LatinAmerica, July 7,1982; Inforpress, October 7, 1982. 37. See, This Week in Central America and Panama, September 6 and December 6, 1982; and Cor Bronson, "Guatemala's Coup-A Protestant Perspective,' in Washington Office on Latin America, Guatemala Update, No. 5, May 7, 1982. 38. Los Angeles Times, September 30, 1982. 39. NACLA interview, Santa Cruz del QuichM military base, August 24, 1982. 40. James D. Sexton, ed., Son of Tecdn Umdn (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1981), pp. 139-141. 41. Prensa Libre, September 17, 1981. 42. Rios Montt, weekly broadcast to the nation, in El Grdjico, June 17, 1982. 43. NACLA interview with Rios Montt, Guatemala Ci- ty, August 23, 1982. 44. Radio Televisi6n Guatemala, 0400 GMT, September 2, 1982, in FBIS, September 7, 1982. 45. NACLA interviews with Guatemalan Army officers, August 1982; see also New York Times, September 12, 1982. 46. El Grdfico, June 21, 1982. 47. Diario de Centroamirica (Guatemala City), March 26, 1982. 48. National Catholic Reporter May 21, 1982. 49. Los Angeles Times, September 19, 1982. 50. These groups called Amnesty's figure of 2600 dead by July 1982 "responsible and conservative" See for example, Americas Watch, Human Rights in Guatemala, pp. 10, 101-102. 51. See Inforpress, August 19, 1982; ElDia, April6, 1982. 52. Ministry of Finance memoradum, "Situaci6n ac- tual de Guatemala y urgencia de actuar concertadamente," October 11, 1982; see also Die Tageszeitung (Berlin-Frank- furt), June 3, 1982. 53. Miami Herald, December 4, 1981; Inforpress, August 19, 1982. 54. See the report of a National Council of Churches dele- gation to Guatemala, in Christianity and Crisis, December 27, 1982. The NCC report is one of the first attempts to decipher the long-term economic logic behind the massacres.
