The Battle For Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, And U.S. Power 0813306140, 9780813306148

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The Battle for

GUATEMALA Rebels, Death Squads,

and

U.S.

Power

SUSANNE JONAS Latin

American Perspectives

Series, No. 5

Westview Press

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2010

http://www.archive.org/details/battleforguatemaOOjona

The for

Battle

Guatemala

Latin American Perspectives Series Ronald H. Chilcote, Series Editor

Dependency and Marxism: Toward Ronald H. Chilcote The

Fitful Republic:

a Resolution of the Debate, edited

Economy, Society, and

Politics in Argentina,

Juan

by

E.

Corradi Latin America: Capitalist and Socialist Perspectives of Development and

Underdevelopment, Ronald H. Chilcote and Joel C. Edelstein Haiti in the World Economy: Class, Race, and Underdevelopment Since 1700,

Alex \

Dupuy

The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, and U.S. Power, Susanne Jonas Repression and Resistance: The Struggle for Democracy in Central America,

Edelberto Torres Rivas \

"

Radical Thought in Central America, Sheldon B. Liss

Available in hardcover and paperback.

The for

Battle

Guatemala

Rebels, Death Squads,

and

U.S.

Power

Susanne Jonas Foreword by Edelberto Torres Rivas

Westview Press Boulder, San Francisco,

& Oxford

Latin American Perspectives Series,

Number

5

Cover illustration by Rini Templeton, from El Arte de Rini Templeton: Donde Hay Vida y Lucha/The Art of Rini Templeton: Where There Is Life and Struggle. Copyright © 1989 Capp Street Foundation/Rini Templeton Memorial Fund (Seattle: The Real Comet Press, 1989). Reprinted with permission. "Retorno a la sonrisa" ("Return to Smiles"), by Otto Rene Castillo,

reprinted here with permission.

is

All rights reserved.

No

part of this publication

may be reproduced

or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage

Copyright

and

©

retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the publisher.

1991 by Susanne Jonas

Published in 1991 in the United States of America by Westview Press, Inc., 5500 Central Avepue, Boulder, Colorado 80301, and in the United Kingdom by Westview Press, 36 Lonsdale Road, Summertown, Oxford OX2 7EW

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jonas, Susanne, 1941-

The battle for Guatemala rebels, death squads, and U.S. power / Susanne Jonas foreword by Edelberto Torres Rivas. cm. (Latin American perspectives series no. 5) p. Includes bibliographic references (p. ) and index. :

;

—

;

— —

ISBN 0-8133-7462-6. ISBN 0-8133-0614-0. 1945-1985. 2. Guatemala 1. Guatemala Politics and government 19853. Government, Resistance to Politics and government Guatemala History 20th century. 4. Violence Guatemala Relations United States. History 20th century. 5. Guatemala

—

—

6.

—

—

United States

F1466.5.J66

—

— —

—

— Relations — Guatemala.

I.

Title.

II.

Series.

1991

91-13137

972.8105'2— dc20

CIP Printed and

bound

in the

United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials

10

Z39.48-1984.

987654321

To Guatemala's 87 percent majority, to their children,

and

to

my

daughter Rebecca

Retomo

a la Sonrisa

mediados

Los ninos

1957,

nacidos

del siglo 20,

a finales

en un lejano pais de America, en la cuna del maiz. Desde mi tiempo aspero veo un rostro de nino inundado de gran felicidad

del siglo

seran alegres.

(Su sonrisa es de sonrisas, colectivas.)

Yo,

Veo

hombre en lucha a

mediados del

y colectiva.

silvestre

siglo,

digo: a finales del

mismo

ninos seran alegres, volveran otra vez a reir,

los

ninos alegres

rodeado de inquisidores; polizontes con hambre y funcionarios con miedo,

los

otra vez a nacer en los jardines.

Desde mi oscuridad amarga salgo y sobresalgo

de mi tiempo duro y veo el final de

la corriente:

ninos alegres!

nomas

alegres!

aparecieron

y se levantaron como un sol de mariposas despues del aguacero tropical.

y>

soy

feliz

en mi presidio

lleno de casas y calles

y latigos y hambre,

porque porque veo la salida del sol lleno de flores, talcos y juguetes. Soy feliz por la nifiez futura, cuya agil estatura nueva llevo guardada en mi corazon pobrismo.

Soy feliz con mi alegria, porque nada puede impedir el nacimento de los ninos al finalizar mi siglo 20, bajo otra forma de vivir, bajo otro aire profundo.

Los ninos inundaron el

mundo

con su canto, le veo hoy,

Soy

feliz

venidero,

por

la nifiez del

y, lo

proclamo

mundo

a

grandes

voces, lleno de jubilo universal.

— Otto

Rene

Castillo

Guatemala, 1957

Return

to

Smiles

1957, in the middle

Children born at the end

of the 20th century,

of the century

American country,

will

in a

be happy.

remote

in the cradle of corn.

From my own (Their smile is

made

time

bitter

see a child's face

I

flooded with a great,

of collective

wild, collective joy.

smiles.)

see the

I I

a

man

in the tell

struggling

middle of the century

you: at the end

of this century

the children will

be happy,

they will laugh again, be born again in gardens.

happy

children,

surrounded by inquisitors, hungry policemen, and frightened bureaucrats, and,

my

I'm happy in

fortress

and streets and whips and hunger, because I see a sun rising full of flowers, and tinsel, and I'm happy for the children of houses

toys.

of the future,

From

my

whose nimble new bodies

bitter

darkness I

go beyond my own hard times and I see at the end of the line

I

happy

children!

only happy!

guard in

my

poor heart.

I'm happy with my joy because nothing can stop the birth of the children at the

end of

into another

my

way

20th century of

into another purer

life

air.

they appear

they rise like a

sun of butterflies

after the tropical cloud-burst.

I'm happy for the children of the world to

and

I

at the

Children flood the world

with their song, I

see

it

today,

full

proclaim top of

come it

my

lungs,

of universal rejoicing.

— Otto

Rene

Castillo

Guatemala, 1957

Otto Rene Castillo, one of Guatemala's leading poets, joined the guerrilla movement in the counter1960s. In 1967, he was captured, tortured, and burned alive by government insurgency forces.

Contents

xv

Foreword, Edelberto Torres Rivas Acknowledgments

xix

Introduction

and Guatemalan Realities, 3 Major Protagonists and Themes of the Battle for Guatemala, 6

Theoretical Considerations

Notes, 9

PART

1

Revolution and Counterrevolution, 1944-1970

1

Legacies of the Past: 1524-1944

13

Notes, 20

2

The Revolution of 1944-1954: "The Democracy That Gave Way" "Spiritual Socialism" in Power, 23

National Capitalism on Trial, 25

The United

States Responds, 28

Perspectives on the "Liberation," 30

Reinterpreting Guatemala's Democratic Revolution, 34

Notes, 38 xi

21

Contents

xii

3

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

41

The Ruling Coalition of the Counterrevolution, 42 Economic Foundations: Export-led Growth, 45 Industrialization and Foreign Investment, 47 The Central American Common Market, 49 The Nickel Mirage, 52 Notes, 53

4

Rebels and Death Squads

I:

The 1960s

57

Counterrevolution and Terror, 59 Sources of Resistance: The Beginning of Guatemala's Thirty Years' War, 64 Counterinsurgency Laboratory for Latin America, 69 Politics of

Notes, 71

PART

2

Crisis, 1970-1990

5

Economic Growth and Crises of the 1970s and 1980s

75

Modernization of the Capitalist Economy, 75 Rural Subsistence Crisis: The Other Side of Capitalist Growth, 79 External Shocks and Generalized Economic Crisis in the 1980s, 80

The Neoliberal Response and the Paquetazos

of 1989, 83

Notes, 84

6

Social Polarization, Social Crisis

87

Evolution of the Bourgeoisie, 87

The Ruling Coalition and the Role of the Army, 92 Social Crisis and Changes in the Proletariat, 94 Notes, 99

7

Ethnic and Gender Dimensions of Crisis

"New Ways

of Being Indian," 103 Roots of the Indian Uprising, 106 Gender, the Unexplored Dimension, 108 The "Popular Bloc," 111

Notes, 112

103

Contents

8

Political Crises of the

State

1970s

xiii

115

and Counterinsurgency

State: Theoretical

Considerations, 116 Institutionalization of the Counterinsurgency State,

120

Popular Movements, the Church of the Poor,

and CUC, 123 9

The Revolutionary

Crisis

131

Transformation of the Highlands

Popular Movements, 132 Recomposition of the Insurgent Movement, 135 A Difficult Reassessment, 139 Interpretations of Guatemala's Revolutionary Uprising, 142 10

Rebels and Death Squads

145

II

The "Guatemala Solution": Total War at the Grassroots, 148 The Counterinsurgency Apparatus, 150 Recomposition of the Counterinsurgency State, 152 of 1983-1985: Bringing the Politicians Back In, 154 The Election of 1985, 156 Notes, 159

The Process

11

Contradictions of Guatemala's "Political Opening"

Pluralism and

Its

161

Limits, 162

"Political Warfare,"

165

New

Cracks in the Ruling Coalition, 167 Civilian Politics as "The Continuation of

War

by Other Means," 169 Theoretical Issues: State State Revisited,

and Counterinsurgency

171

Notes, 175

12

Popular Bloc and Popular/Revolutionary Convergence Structural Impoverishment:

A

Statistical Profile,

177

Austerity Protests and the Cerezo Response, 180 Crises of Uprooted Populations and War, Interpreting Guatemala's Popular

182

Movements, 186

Resurgence of a Revolutionary Project, 189 Notes, 192

177

Contents

xiv

13

Restructuring Relations with the United States

The Roots

195

Guatemalan "Neutrality," 199

of

Cerezo's "Active Neutrality" and Relative Autonomy, 202

Washington's Double Game, 204

How Much Autonomy Was

"Relative

Autonomy"? 207

Notes, 209

PART

3

Conclusion: 14

An

Unlighted Path Toward the Future

Central America in the Balance:

213

Prospects for the 1990s

Nicaragua and El Salvador, 214 The Central American Peace Process, 217 The Hemispheric Context, 218 Central America in the New International Disorder, 220 15

The

Battle for

Guatemala

225

The Two Guatemalas, 225 Stabilization of the Neoliberal/Counterinsurgency

Model? 226

The Reformist Option, 232 New Paths Toward Democratization: "Dialogue," Negotiations, and Redefinitions in Popular and Revolutionary Strategies, 233

List of

Acronyms

Chronology

243 247

Bibliography

251

About the Book and Author

277 279

Index

Foreword

Susanne Jonas's long years of experience writing about Central America and particularly Guatemala make her one of the best-informed North American social scientists on the region. Her new book constitutes a valuable testimony of double significance. On the one hand, it brings up-to-date her previous works and has been written in light of the structural changes in Guatemala and Central America. On the other hand, the analysis in it reflects intellectual changes on the part of someone who has been a qualified witness of those structural transformations. The result is a book that is new and current. Many analyses of the Guatemalan situation have taken as their point of departure the overthrow of the nationalist, popular government of Jacobo Arbenz. This has introduced an accurate but now outdated element into the historical perspective and even more than that, an inappropriate analytical bias. The history of the country cannot be summarized simply as the story of a failed revolution and of counterinsurgency as the method of governing. Guatemala's situation must be viewed in light of the political crisis that arose in Central America during the decade of the 1970s and that has been very persistently prolonged during the last fifteen years. In this sense, the crisis is the fundamental factor for developing our description and our analysis. In speaking of crisis, I am referring to an abnormal condition in the reproduction of society, an alteration of the foreseeable unfolding of events. The theoretical analysis of the crisis has lent itself to various interpretations. It is a crisis of legitimacy for some, a crisis of hegemony for others, or simply a crisis that begins at the level of politics and ends up affecting other dimensions of society. What remains clear is that the armed challenge by massive numbers of Guatemalans, a response to the state violence that Susanne Jonas analyzes in the second part of her

—

xv

xvi

Foreword

book, constitutes a historical process that has continued for more than a decade.

For information to become knowledge, an intellectual elaboration that mediates between empirical data and theoretical analysis is necessary. The latter is done with an appropriate mastery of theory through the

formulation of hypotheses or analytical propositions that organize the

an analysis would have to dwell on the configuration of social classes whose conflict unleashed the crisis. In addition, it would have to establish how, over the long range, the social profile or class structure has been altered. In this regard, there are two fundamental factors. First, political violence has facilitated the concentration of capital by other (noneconomic) means and has strengthened the bourgeois character of the dominant groups. This violence, in turn, has disorganized the ability of the popular masses to win economic demands, leading to their further impoverishment. In order to be political, an analysis should be able to determine whether state violence and the responses of popular insurgency constitute the last stage of the old crisis of oligarchical power: a loss of consensus available historical material. In order to be structural,

and legitimacy that made it necessary to exercise violent control over the dominated sectors and that led the countries involved into a virtual civil war. In 1982, in Guatemala, there was a weakening of forms of government headed by military officers, who justified their presence in the government as the best guarantee of the counterinsurgency. We should not forget that it was the army that called for the return to constitutionality and electoral processes. As Susanne Jonas shows quite accurately, this transition cannot really be viewed as "democratic." Nevertheless, the return of civilian presidents, a legislative assembly,

and competition among

political parties

(weak as

it

may

be) cannot be

regarded simply as part of a counterinsurgent action.

The economy

became unmanageable, initially as a result of and the rise in fuel prices. But the crisis that started in this way and first affected the export sector was only the detonator of an already potentially explosive internal situation and also

international financial disorder

exposed the backwardness of Guatemala's economic structure. For example, poverty and unemployment were already part of the "norm" of underdevelopment. The crisis exacerbated these phenomena, taking them

which 40 percent of the work force is found forms of the so-called informal sector, thus increasing

to their current extreme, in

in the various

the profound heterogeneity of the country's social structure. of "informalization"

is

The process

not just economic, and this substructure

is

best

understood as forming part of the complex dynamic of social differentiation in which the logic of production ("microempresarios") is complemented by that of family survival.

—

Foreword

xvii

Finally, an analysis of the Guatemalan situation in the critical period covered by Susanne jonas's work needs to dwell on the variations in the political system, the components of an authoritarian culture, and

the successive modalities in the decade of the 1980s. Beginning in

March

1982, the army, exercising de facto rule, decreed the creation of political-

mechanisms that are still in existence: It established an independent Supreme Electoral Tribunal, a Voter Registry, and a Law of Political Organizations. With ups and downs, this effort gave rise to a process of political recomposition that, if successful, would convert Guatemala into an electoral democracy of a particular land. There were electoral

Assembly in 1984 and for president in Susanne Jonas characterizes this entire period as the stabilization

elections for the Constituent

1985.

of a counterinsurgency model, because violence against the people continued side by side with competing political parties and the return to a scenario of legal jurisdictions.

The Guatemalan situation has other aspects that are at times forgotten. of these, which this book emphasizes, is the historical difficulty of social integration in a society where half of the population is indigenous.

One

We

are not referring to the often-mentioned challenge of subsistence

economies that case,

we

resist

change or incorporation into the market. In

are referring to the fact that the crisis,

military phase

and

later in its

first

in

its

this

repressive-

socioeconomic dimension, has put the

so-called indigenous question center stage

—a

question

whose

roots

lie

profound resistance, on ethnic/cultural grounds, to the formation of a national state. The integration of the indigenous populations implies not only resolving the old problem of land ownership but also recognizing their linguistic identity and some form of political independence in managing their communal life. We are talking about a totality of problems that can be resolved only within the framework of a profoundly democratic political culture, which Guatemalan society today still lacks. The historical analysis offered by Susanne Jonas makes her book the most recent and complete to be published in English about Guatemala. An understanding of the Christian Democratic government, which represents a frustrated hope for a civilian and democratic awakening, gives rise to a discussion of the problem of reformism and its possibilities or, presented in another way, to the future redefinition of a popular revolutionary strategy. The lessons of the Central American crisis are in the

in interpreting the Guatemalan experience: They outline the weakening of the old revolutionary strategy, the end of goals to be

useful

achieved through "seizing state power," the redefinition of the popular

dominant forces. And none of this can be understood simply as a result of U.S. foreign policy successfully applied. Certainly, there is an international dimension. There are also local factors that

as well as the

Foreword

xoiii

explain the channeling of the crisis toward a resolution along conservative lines.

The reformism of the 1990s, as Susanne Jonas puts it, will be of and have a different meaning in strategies for social

a different nature

change.

The future

of

Guatemalan society

is

a great

unknown, because thirty good part

years of civil war, violence, and economic crisis have rotted a

Susanne Jonas confronts this situation but and am grateful for her unflagging solidarity with the people of Guatemala, which has become her second homeland. of

Guatemalan

social

remains optimistic.

I

life.

share her optimism

—

Edelberto Torres Rivas

Pavas, Costa Rica

Acknowledgments

This book owes a great deal to friends and colleagues both in the United States and in Guatemala and Central America. Financial support for

my

recent research in

Guatemala came from the Social Sciences

Division of the University of California at Santa Cruz and Global Options

San Francisco. Elizabeth Martinez, Ed McCaughan, and Nancy provided ongoing encouragement and invaluable comments; thanks to Betty Doerr at GO for her support and to Jon Frappier, who first introduced me to Guatemala in 1967. Among Guatemala scholars, Central Americanists, and colleagues at U.C. Santa Cruz who gave extremely helpful feedback on drafts of sections of the book are Margarita Melville, Norma Chinchilla, Jim Handy, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Richard Adams, Jorge Castaneda, Barbara Epstein, Bill Domhoff, Terry Burke, Wally Goldfrank, David Sweet, Sonia Alvarez, and Guillermo Delgado. Although gained new insights and perspectives from each of them, they bear no responsibility for the final contents. Special thanks to (GO)

in

Stein at

GO

I

Marjorie Bray,

my

who reviewed

editor at Westview;

the entire manuscript; to Barbara Ellington,

and

to

Ron

Chilcote, series editor, for their

patience and help.

whose research assistance was and dedicated; to Tom DeLorme, who helped get the manuscript out the door; to Marvin Stender, who contributed significantly to my peace of mind during trips to Guatemala; and to my daughter Rebecca, who was patient during months of "working Sundays." Many thanks to the Guatemala News and Information Bureau (GNIB) and the Data Center in Oakland for sharing resources and in Guatemala, to colleagues at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), at the Asociacion para el Avance de las Ciencias Sociales en Guatemala (AVANCSO), and at Inforpress Centroamericana for generous research Special thanks also to Elena Aguilar,

tireless

—

xtx

Acknowledgments

xx

and feedback on sections of this Guatemalan friends and colleagues in their grief and

collaboration, intellectual exchange,

book.

I

join with

outrage over the brutal (September 1990) assassination of Myrna Mack, one of Guatemala's leading anthropologists.

A

wide variety of Guatemalans

willing to be interviewed, in

my

at all levels

some owe

of state

AVANCSO's

and society were

cases despite their disagreements

perspective. Finally, I a special debt to the Guatemalan and scholars (both in the country and in Central America, Mexico, and the United States), who must remain unnamed, with whom have had the privilege of exchanging ideas for the last twenty-four years. Many of these ideas were expressed in informal discussions during my trips to Guatemala since 1967 (four in the 1987-1989 period). Without their generosity, I would have been limited to what my own two eyes could see; they enabled me to see from many perspectives. Of the written work by Guatemalan and Central American scholars, most has never been translated into English; one of my purposes in

with

activists

I

make available their ideas to an English have learned not only about Guatemala but also an intellectual worldview combining political wisdom, theoretical breadth, precision, and flexibility. Special thanks to Edelberto Torres Rivas, whose twenty-three years of friendship and discussion have kept me on my toes. this

book, therefore,

readership.

to

is

From them

I

Susanne Jonas May 1, 1991

San Francisco and Santa Cruz

—

International

boundary

Departmento boundary *•

National capital

Departmento

®

-

NORTH

h

Railroad

Road

capital

Introduction

Is social revolution still on the agenda in Latin America? If so, in what forms, and by what combination of means? What are the prospects for peace, democracy, social justice, and popular sovereignty in the

twenty-first century? Is

it

possible to build a society that belongs to

its

dispossessed majority, and what path or paths are open toward the

can there be any lasting peace or democracy without major structural transformations? Will the dominant classes in Latin America and their U.S. partners be able to achieve stability while excluding the majority of the population in Guatemala, the 87 percent majority who live in poverty, over 50 percent of them realization of that vision? Conversely,

—

Indians?

The Guatemalan experience temala

— contains

many

clues

of recent decades for

— the

battle for

Gua-

addressing these questions, whose

answers are by no means obvious. Minimally, I hope to point the way toward some answers in regard to Guatemala. Beyond that, I hope that some broader implications for Latin America will emerge from this case. Certainly, the Guatemala experience has had a profound impact upon all

of

its

students, as well as

who

its

protagonists.

I

am

part of a generation

we found by an invisible magnet; memories of what we had seen pursued us, haunted us, compelled us to do something, or at least to tell others what we had seen. As David Tobis and I noted in the Preface to our book for NACLA (North American Congress on Latin America) in 1974, "We are writing about Guatemala because the country, the people, and their struggle have deeply affected our lives." The more we saw, the longer we saw it, the more deeply we were drawn in. Perhaps because the United States had so profoundly shaped events in Guatemala, through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) intervention of

North Americans

ourselves drawn

in, as if

first

visited

Guatemala

in the 1960s;

2

Introduction

it became an Guatemala all the more so because the fruits of those interventions have been veiled in a vast shroud of silence in the U.S. press and public domain. Beyond the obligation, I have felt privileged to write about Guatemala, because I have learned so much from its ever-changing, ever-surprising realities. Despite the environmental ravages left by counterinsurgency

of 1954

and subsequent interventions of

different kinds,

—

obligation to write for U.S. audiences about

warfare,

it

is

also a country of breathtaking natural beauty, of lights

and shadows and incredible greens. To be there, to write about Guatemala, has always been a labor of love. But there is also great pain and anger in seeing at close hand a country where, by 1991, 200,000 unarmed civilians have been killed or "disappeared" by government security forces and semiofficial death squads during thirty years of counterinsurgency war, and where less than 15 percent of the population lives above the poverty line. Although this book is analytical in tone and attempts to balance passion with an objective view of often painful realities, its motivation or inspiration is very personal. I have continued to write about Guatemala because I have been touched by the lives of countless individuals over the course of twenty-three years. These individuals, acting collectively 1

analyzed here, are the real players in the battle Guatemala. In order to see their faces, perhaps this book should be read in conjunction with the poems of Otto Rene Castillo, Rigoberta Menchu's autobiography, the photos of Jean Marie Simon, or the many films about Guatemala. This book began as an "update" or extension of a long chapter on Guatemala that I had written almost twenty years ago for a textbook on Latin America, covering Guatemala's history from the pre-Conquest defined it in planning era to the early 1970s (Jonas 1974). My task, as this book, was to bring Guatemala's story up-to-date. As so often happens, however, the process of writing changed the product and the overall conceptualization. What began as an "update" to cover the years 1970-1990 became the heart of the book, to which the several chapters on the pre-1970 period became more of an introduction or background. This is first and foremost, then, not a comprehensive history, but an specifically/ of the multiple interpretation of contemporary Guatemala and chronic crises of the 1970s and 1980s. As a consequence of this focus, much of what I had written twenty years ago has been compressed here: Part 1 deals primarily with Guatemala's modern history, beginning with the Revolution of 1944-1954; this in turn forms the background for understanding contemporary Guatemala in Part 2 (1970-1990). In part this redefinition of the book's focus can be attributed to significant changes during the past twenty years. Some of these are in the "social forces" for

I

—

Introduction

3

Guatemala and

in the world. Guatemala experienced being understood here as the breakdown of the social order and structures of domination. This crisis and the subsequent counterinsurgency war of the early 1980s were unique in

objective changes in

a revolutionary crisis

Guatemala's history

—

"crisis"

— indeed,

in

that of Latin

America, in massively

involving the Indian population. (The great silence about this in the

United States

is

perhaps

a reflection of the fact that the heroes

and the

victims were mainly Indians.) There have also been significant changes

Guatemala, and nonclass factors have taken on a new dynamism as the basis for social conflict. Outside Guatemala, the United States experienced its first major defeat in the Third World (in Vietnam) and underwent a relative decline of its hegemony among the advanced capitalist Western nations. The capitalist world economy entered into profound economic crises and major reorganizations. In Central America, the Nicaraguan Revolution and the explosion of civil war in El Salvador combined with massive economic crisis to modify hemispheric relations, redefining Guatemala's relationship to the United States. Aside from these objective developments, the last twenty years have seen major theoretical and empirical advances in the scholarly and interpretive literature (both Spanish and English) about Guatemala and Latin America generally. Entire areas of inquiry have been opened up or significantly expanded for example, concerning Guatemala's indigenous population. This issue and others like it were beginning to receive attention in 1971, but today they have been elaborated at a much more sophisticated level. By contrast, an area that remains almost totally undeveloped in regard to Guatemala is the articulation of gender with in the processes of class formation in

—

class

and

ethnicity.

Theoretical Considerations and Guatemalan Realities

The project of

this

book

is

not to elaborate (or defend) a particular

theory but to interpret the Guatemalan experience. Theoretical issues

be addressed as they emerge throughout the book, with a view toward suggesting in each case the extent to which new realities require

will

new

theories or modification of older theories.

At the same time, this book is informed by a fundamental worldview or theoretical approach that should be clarified at the outset. I have attempted to develop a historical/structural analysis, a class analysis, in the broadest sense using the word "structural" to include both economic and noneconomic causal factors. (Among the latter are natural disasters such as earthquakes, upheaval in the Central American region, and thirty years of war in Guatemala itself.) As a starting point, in

—

Introduction

4

Torres Rivas's terms (1989a, 47), " 'structure' organizational nature and

dynamic

[is]

understood as the

of the society's productive system."

viewed as "a contradictory totality in a continual state of flux. economic dimension is a decisive element of Within ." (Torres Rivas 1989a, 12). However, "economic analysis. any Economic contradictions alone cannot explain the present crisis. processes develop in the context of socio-political conflicts and are conditioned by them" (Torres Rivas 1985, 38). In order to avoid a one-sided structuralism, this analysis views political, cultural, and subjective factors as more than simple "reflections" of the material or economic base. The complexities and contradictions of the Guatemalan experience are best understood through a dialectical and Society

is

that notion, the .

.

.

interactive approach:

Human

.

.

actors are not simply "carriers of structures"

but also "generators of them" (Perez Sainz 1987, 45-46); to put it another way, classes "form themselves" in the process of struggle (Zeitlin 1984, 236). "Subjective" factors (consciousness, organization) can

determinative; the actors are real

men and women,

become

in particular historical

situations.

developed here begins from an understanding of the social categories growing out of the productive structure; but this does not mean that class is always the dominant factor. Class must be related to ethnicity and gender, incorporating factors such as ethnic identities and divisions within a multicultural nation. This is particularly the case in a country where, in Richard Adams's compelling interpretation (1989), the "Conquest tradition" has left a very bloody stamp on Indianladino relations. Although feminist studies of Guatemala are scarce, I shall also attempt to reflect the ways in which class analysis itself is being enriched by feminist scholarship in Latin America (e.g., in the works of Lourdes Beneria and Martha Roldan, June Nash, Helen Safa and Carmen Diana Deere). Finally, in response to significant changes in the process of class formation, class analysis has been updated (e.g., in the works of Alejandro Portes and Juan Pablo Perez Sainz), and even

The

class analysis

the definitions of class have been broadened.

hope to weave a broadened contemporary realities of Guatemala. 2 threads,

I

I

From

class analysis,

these intellectual

adequate to the

also characterize this analysis as "structural" in order to distinguish

much

on Guatemala which focuses on the apparent dominance of the Guatemalan state, in particular the army. Even among some critics of the counterinsurgency state and the army, the state is reified into the "ultimate authority," while the bourgeoisie and class conflict virtually disappear from view. A broad structural approach, by contrast, does not take political actors (or the state) as totally autonomous, it

from

a

tendency

in

of the contemporary literature

(especially the literature in English),

—

Introduction

5

but attempts to link their visible behavior to less visible factors that lie surface. By explaining the internal mechanisms of political

below the

may provide some keys to the mysteries and contradictions Guatemalan politics. contemporary of Finally, a broad structural approach is the most appropriate for understanding why, despite unparalleled repression, processes of social revolution have been constantly regenerated in Guatemala and remain on the agenda for the future. This cannot be taken in redefined forms for granted or asserted as an article of faith, given the international context of the 1990s, and the widespread belief even in Latin America (in the Southern Cone) that revolution has been "replaced" by democracy as the central concern. Rather, the dynamics of Guatemala must be explained concretely, as a consequence of ongoing structural pressures and multiple levels of response. Perhaps a structural approach will also shed light on the factors that have limited the ability of the Guatemalan insurgents to seize state power and the ways in which they are currently having to redefine what they mean by "revolution." These issues, as well as the various options for Guatemala in the 1990s, will be addressed power, this

—

in Part 3.

On

another issue, the

last

twenty years have seen major debates

regarding "dependency" as a formulation of Latin America's relationship to the capitalist world that affects the internal dynamics of Latin societies. Without attempting to summarize those general debates, I shall say a few words that are necessary for this book. My original chapter (Jonas 1974) was significantly influenced by "dependency theory." It was written in the early 1970s, at the height of the critique of modernization theory. Since that time, there have been important advances in the discussion of capitalist development in Latin America. Today, it seems clear that "dependency" by itself cannot be the theoretical framework for explaining Guatemalan reality: It is not so much an incorrect formulation as it is incomplete and outdated in important respects. As other scholars have pointed out, explaining the Central American crisis as the result of the failure of the dependent capitalist order to integrate all classes into the market still does not explain why those failures occurred nor how the crisis was in many respects the result of capitalist growth (Torres Rivas 1989a, 46; also Chilcote and Johnson 1983). Another major critique of dependency theory in general (and of its further refinement, world-systems theory) was that its emphasis on Latin America's integration into the international capitalist system gave insufficient theoretical primacy to internal class conflict. 3 What is important for our purposes here is not so much the theory per se but the fact that the analysis of contemporary Guatemala has been greatly enriched by these debates and, even more, by the advances

—

—

6

Introduction

in concretely

analyzing complex internal factors (class and ethnic

conflict).

an attempt to interpret those factors. However, This book is, question: dependency between nations or exploitation either/or it is not an between classes (Dussel 1990, 72). Hence, a comprehensive analysis of internal factors does not negate the importance of Guatemala's integration into the capitalist world system as a peripheral nation and the continuing impact of international factors, especially pressures from the United States. Much more than Brazil, for example, Guatemala remains extremely vulnerable to external pressures, because of its small size and proximity to the United States. Any analysis of Guatemala, therefore, must identify the focal points of external influence in their changing forms. Specifically with regard to the United States as an external force, modern Central American experience demonstrates that U.S. intervention can be decisive at particular moments (Guatemala in 1954 and in 19661968, Nicaragua in the 1980s). Despite the emergence of Central American "relative autonomy" from the United States during the 1980s, the realities of the "post-Cold War order" at the beginning of the 1990s attest to the ongoing importance of U.S. power in the region. Of all the Central American countries, Guatemala is particularly strategic to the United States. In various ways, U.S. power has played a constitutive role within Guatemalan society for decades and continues to do so, although its functioning today is far more complex and contradictory than in the above

all,

1950s.

Major Protagonists and Themes of the Battle for Guatemala

The approaches outlined above provide a context for introducing the major players in the battle for Guatemala. The "rebels" are not simply those who have taken up arms but also are the unseen hundreds of thousands among Guatemala's 87 percent majority who have refused to accept a fate of poverty and discrimination. The "death squads," introduced to Latin America in Guatemala, are not simply the ultraright extra-legal paramilitary bands that were founded in the 1960s under U.S. supervision, to carry out the "dirty work" of the counterinsurgency war; more ominously, they have become an integral part of the official security forces a "bureaucracy of death" that operates out of government offices to draw up death lists and eliminate progressive opposition forces. They function as an arm of Guatemala's ruling coalition as a whole. Finally, given its constitutive role in Guatemala's structures of domination in recent decades, the third major player in the battle for Guatemala is the United States.

—

Introduction

The following are among the major themes developed is

in Part 2,

7

which

the analytical focus of this book:

Guatemala's current development is a product of the combination economic growth and economic crisis since the early 1970s. Growth and crisis are themselves products of great structural transformations in both the domestic political economy (diversification and modernization of the agro-export productive structure and new waves of land expropriation and concentration) and the international political economy (oil shocks, falling commodity prices, crisis and restructuring in the capitalist world economy). All of these factors destabilized the Guatemalan economy in ways that are being aggravated by the neoliberal, cheap-labor austerity 1.

of

policies of the late 1980s.

These transformations, especially the diversification of the productive and their contradictions significantly modified the traditional class structure of Guatemala and reshaped the ruling coalition. Among 2.

structure,

meant incorporation upper ranks of military officers and a redefinition of the alliance between the army and the bourgeoisie. But these modifications have other things, diversification of the ruling class has of the

only intensified the overall polarization of the class structure, to the

where we must recognize the emergence of "two Guatemalas." At the bottom pole of Guatemalan society, where more than 85 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, massive population shifts and dislocations have resulted from land expropriation, economic crisis, and thirty years of war. The physical and human geography of the country has been decisively transformed. As a result of the particular point 3.

the consolidation of the rural — among and seasonal migrant laborers) and of the urban "informal proletariat" — only 35-38 percent of the economically

patterns of class formation

these,

semiproletariat (landless peasants active population

is

fully

employed.

The profound changes at the level of society have produced new generations of social movements (labor, peasant, community), first in the late 1970s and again in the late 1980s. In the absence of any serious attempt to meet lower-class needs or to use the benefits of growth during the 1960s and 1970s to redistribute wealth, the activities of these movements have exerted new pressures upon the state and the established social order. These pressures have been contained at times by a level of repression unmatched anywhere else in Latin America; but even the repression has not stopped the reemergence of these movements in one 4.

or another form. 5.

The

specific class questions in

Guatemala are made much more

explosive by their intersection with ethnic divisions. In a situation that

approaches de facto apartheid, issues of ethnic identity and democratic rights for the indigenous majority of the population have become central.

Introduction

8

with ethnic tensions accounted for the revoand remains a source of social recent decades have also laid the objective foundations unrest. The crises of for a new protagonism of women, but this is only beginning to find specific forms of organized expression. 6. These massive social conflicts have defined Guatemalan politics

The combination of

class

lutionary upsurge of the early 1980s

—

mostly direct military rule, with two Even more profound has been the impact of a thirty-year counterinsurgency war, which reached genocidal proportions in the early 1980s and consolidated the primarily counterinsurgent character of the Guatemalan state. As a consequence, "normal" during the past thirty-five years

significant civilian interludes.

politics has come to have very little meaning; all political arrangements since 1954 have been based upon an explicit rejection of

electoral

and upon the exclusion of the majority of the population. Although the elected civilian Cerezo government (1986-1990) initially raised great hopes for a "democratic transition," the hopes were not fulfilled; there is overwhelming evidence that Guatemala did not evolve into a "democracy." 7. The illegitimacy of the ruling coalition and the refusal to permit reformist options

reformist options has

left

political

space for a revolutionary guerrilla

movement. While having twice dealt that movement nearly fatal blows, the army has been unable to defeat the guerrillas strategically or to prevent their resurgence again in the late 1980s. However, the movement has itself undergone profound crises and redefinitions of strategy. Like its historical enemy, the counterinsurgency army, the movement has had to learn through bitter mistakes; but like the army, it seems to have nine lives. Current reassessments are occurring at a time of major questioning of Marxist and socialist strategies worldwide; even in Guatemala, the paths toward the future are not obvious. 8.

At the

level of international relations, there

and restructuring of the

has been a redefinition

traditional relationship to the United States. In

contrast to the traditional relationship seen in Part

1

(1954-1970), the

Guatemalan ruling coalition developed a certain "relative autonomy" in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet Central America, perhaps more than any other region of the world, remains in the "backyard" of the United States particularly because U.S.

economic and military

interests

function as

domestic ruling coalitions in these countries. "Relative autonomy" has proven extremely relative and may have reached its part

of the

historical limits, at least for the time being,

with the exhaustion of the

Central American Peace Process and the ouster of the Sandinistas from

power in Nicaragua. Future progress will require profound internal changes in the Central American countries. state

Introduction

9

ago, Eduardo Galeano wrote, "Guatemala is a key America." It is a crucible in which Latin American revolution has been forged. To this day, Latin Americans regard both the Revolution of 1944-1954 and its overthrow as turning points for the entire continent; the uprisings of the 1960s and 1970s-1980s also took on a significance beyond Guatemala, each in its own way. From the other side, the United States has made Guatemala a test case of its ability to suppress social revolution in Latin America; Guatemala has become a "laboratory of counterrevolution," from the CIA intervention of 1954 to the Pentagondirected counterinsurgency of 1966-1968, to the scorched earth "Guatemala solution" of the 1980s. On all counts, Guatemala remains, in Galeano's words, "a source of great lessons, painfully learned." The Guatemala experience abounds with lessons about the bankruptcy of the old order. Perhaps, as well, it holds some lessons about the possibilities

Over twenty years

to Latin

for Latin

American

social transformation in the

coming decades.

Notes 1. This shocking figure on extrajudicial deaths and "disappearances" since 1954 (which amounts to over 2 percent of the population) is based on the best

available information

mission on

Human

from international organizations (the Inter-American Com-

Rights of the Organization of American States, as well as

and church sources. Guatemala, theoretical questions have been raised about the applicability of class analysis, on the grounds that its indigenous population makes it significantly different from classical Western societies. While agreeing private groups) 2.

In the case of

with criticisms of one-dimensional class analysis,

I

shall argue that

an analysis

whole cannot be said to break down along ethnic rather than class lines. (See Chapter 7.) A different critique is characteristic of "post-Marxist" theories, which view class analysis as necessarily reductionist, hence inapplicable (e.g., "None of the social processes in Latin America can be understood within the Marxist tradition, where 'social' subjects had an a-priori objective existence in the form of social classes" Evers 1985, 59). By contrast, I shall argue that the need for a complex analysis of social formations is not of social conflict in

Guatemala as

a

—

in contradiction

with class analysis, broadly understood.

As summarized by Cueva (1976), speaking of Latin America generally: "Dependency theory holds that the nature of our social formations is dependent on how they are integrated with the world capitalist system. But, is it not more 3.

correct to state the inverse? its

links with the capitalist

not the nature of our societies that determines world? ... It is the analysis of classes and class

Is it

." dependency theory. have addressed this and related issues directly or indirectly in regard to Guatemala. Their research contests the implication (characteristic of some versions of dependency analysis) that Guatemala "was capitalist" since the sixteenth century because of its integration into the capitalist world-

conflict

which

A number

is

the Achilles heel of

of scholars

.

.

10

Introduction

system since that time; whatever its relation to the world market, the internal relations of production were not capitalist until at least the end of the nineteenth century (e.g., Figueroa Ibarra 1980, 24). Some maintain that Guatemala was not really integrated into the capitalist world economy until the advent of the coffee

economy

at

the

end of the nineteenth century (Bulmer-Thomas 1988b,

155).

Other implications of dependency theory are disputed by Smith (1984c, 1978) on the basis of research in the western highlands region of Guatemala. Finally, Chinchilla (1983, 168) argued that Guatemalan history, seen only

from a dependency perspective, was forced into the theoretical straitjacket of one mode of production (capitalist); more appropriate would be the analysis of "articulated modes of production" (capitalist and precapitalist). Further, a strict dependency approach gave insufficient emphasis to nonclass questions for and to the centrality example, ethnic oppression, as opposed to exploitation of legalized forced labor to all social relations in Guatemala until the 1940s. The discussion has been advanced by Perez Sainz (1989a, 43 ff), who suggests the need to understand the articulation of transitional forms (not modes) of production within capitalist development, particularly in order to take account of the nontraditional activities so prevalent in the urban informal sector. Today, the entire discussion is being updated. In a major new article, Enrique Dussel (1990) argues that the critics were as mistaken as the dependency theorists, in that neither based themselves on a rigorous use of Marxist categories, and that the critics of dependency created false dichotomies. Furthermore, economic theories developed in recent years have addressed new developments in capitalism (internationalization of capital, reorganization of capital) that were not fully analyzed by dependency or world-systems theory.

—

—

PART

1

Revolution and Counterrevolution, 1944-1970

1 Legacies of the Past: 1524-1944

On

October 20, 1944, with the uprising of students, workers, and

young army

Guatemala began

officers,

its

transformation into a "modern"

country. Before analyzing this transformation, the evolution of the "old order" that

Of

I

shall briefly

was overthrown by

summary

summarize

the October

be schematic and overly I have done elsewhere (Jonas 1974) and others have done far more completely, but simply to set the stage for the modern and contemporary eras that are the subject of this book. Contemporary Guatemalan underdevelopment is the product of a 450year process that began with the Spanish conquest. Pre-Hispanic indigenous Guatemala was by no means "primitive"; what the Spaniards found in 1524 was a complex, stratified proto-class society, torn by multiple social tensions. Further, it was a society in transition; had it not been interrupted by the conquest, it might well have developed, Revolution.

general;

my

necessity, this

goal

is

will

not to analyze pre-1944 Guatemala as

1

although in a different direction, into a society as sophisticated as Western Europe.

At no time before the conquest did the Indians suffer the systematic material deprivation that has characterized Guatemala since 1524. Malnutrition

was not

a chronic condition of the Indian population, as

today. Prior to 1524,

Guatemala was

it

is

a primarily agricultural society in

which land was cultivated both individually and communally to produce food and other necessities. Guatemalan society was not integrated on a subordinate basis into a world market that determined its production priorities and systematically channeled its surplus into the pockets of foreign ruling classes. In this sense, underdevelopment as 13

we know

it

Legacies of the Past

14

today did not exist in Guatemala prior to 1524, but

is

the direct

outcome

of the conquest and the integration of Guatemala into an expanding world capitalist system.

The conquest itself represented the violent clash of two socioeconomic systems and two cultures; the forcible "integration" of the Indians into "Western civilization" was an unmitigated calamity for them of genocidal proportions. The total cost of the conquest in human lives is difficult to determine: Although Bartolome de Las Casas's figure of 4-5 million Indian deaths in Guatemala between 1524 and 1540 may be exaggerated, thrust

its

is

accurate.

An

estimated two-thirds to six-sevenths of the

Indian population in Central America and Mexico died between 1519

and 1650, as a consequence not only of the conquest per se but also of subsequent raging disease epidemics.

which lasted from 1524 to 1821, lie the Guatemalan underdevelopment and dependency. seeds of contemporary social, and political priorities came to be determined After 1524 economic, interests the dominant classes in Spain. This of by the needs and dependent relation to Spain which was on the defensive, subordinate to other countries in the international capitalist market, and jealously protecting its colonies from encroachment by other European powers meant that the fluctuations and depressions in the Spanish economy reverberated sharply in Guatemala. It also established the complementary nature of the Guatemalan economy: production based on Spanish rather than Guatemalan needs and varying with the ups and downs of international market demand. Finally, productive activities were now part of In the colonial experience,

—

a

system that defined wealth not in terms of

its

direct use to producers

or buyers, but in terms of surplus accumulation to enrich the Spanish

and its counterpart in the colony. merchant class, the urban counterpart of the landed criollo (Spanish settler) elite, monopolized export/import relations with Spain; it constituted the embryo of a dependent bourgeoisie, dominant within Guatemala, yet dependent on the international market. In addition to maintaining a trading monopoly, Spain imposed strict monetary controls, an elaborate series of taxes on colonial settlers, and tribute on Indian communities. In short, for the dominant classes in Spain, Guatemala was not a colony to be developed but a source of wealth to be extracted for the benefit of the peninsula. The land remained the primary source of wealth, and one pillar of colonial society was the land tenure system. Colonial relations were defined largely by the Spaniards' expropriation of land from the indigenous population. The colonial period saw the beginning of a pattern of land concentration in the hands of a small minority, although this state,

the merchant class in Spain,

The dominant

was

sector of the

greatly intensified in the nineteenth century. Large privately

owned

Legacies of the Past

15

were organized for large-scale cash-crop production The other pattern that was definitively established was monoexport, the use of large extensions of land to produce one or two exports for the world market. The particular export changed over time (from cacao, to indigo and cochineal dyes for the British textile industry, to coffee and bananas), but the basic structure of the mono-export economy estates, or haciendas, for profit.

remained constant. The hacienda system involved vast expanses of unused land, permitting the owners to operate inefficiently. Complementary to the large tracts of good land appropriated by the criollos in key areas of the country were Indian communities not the natural groupings of the pre-Hispanic era but social units created by and for the benefit of the dominant class. Within these communities, land was parceled out to be worked by Indians in their "time off" from the hacienda (i.e., off-season). Thus was born the latifundia-minifundia system (large underutilized rural estates surrounded by tiny plots used for subsistence), which dominated the Guatemalan political economy for centuries. The colonial system required only a limited amount of capital; its

—

basic resource

was forced Indian labor. This took a number was not definitively abolished until

forms. Formal slavery

pendence, in the 1820s, but

from Africa to compensate

it

of different after inde-

applied principally to blacks imported

for shortages of Indian labor.

The indigenous

population was subjected to other forms of forced labor and debt peonage,

which served the purpose of subjugating the Indians and compelling to produce an economic surplus. These methods of organizing the work force were maintained by coercion and terror. Violent abuse of the indigenous population became routine, essential to making the system work. Class exploitation was facilitated in Guatemala because of the racial divide between Indians and criollos. The latter justified their dominance over a captive labor force through the racist ideology of criollo superiority, which denied the humanity of the indigenous population. Justification for the system also came from the Catholic church: While deploring the most flagrant cruelties, the church functioned as a part of the Spanish state apparatus and provided the ideological underpinning for the pacification and cultural subjugation of the Indians (see Chea 1988). Nevertheless, in some respects the conquest was never consummated. Particularly in the highlands areas, the Indians discovered numerous forms of resistance and self-defense not only periodic uprisings which had to be put down by military force, but also abandonment of the "communities" into which they had been forcibly concentrated, refusal to work hard, and maintenance of their own religious and cultural all

of

them

—

traditions.

16

Legacies of the Past

A final, crucial mainstay of this violent system was the subjugation and exploitation of Indian women, which often took the form of rape. This became, in fact, one source of racial intermixing, from which originated Guatemala's ladino population. Beyond its definition as Spanish-speaking and culturally Westernized, the ladino identity is one of the most elusive elements of Guatemalan society. The ladinos have sometimes been defined as neither criollo nor Indian. Seeking to enter the elusive world of the criollos, they easily adopted the criollo values (competition, individualism, accumulation of wealth). Their alienation (self-denial)

and individualism contrasted markedly with the surviving community and communal labor. Economically, the ladinos were neither property owners nor forced laborers,

Indian values of majority of

but landless free laborers, initially in a constant struggle for survival,

working either on haciendas for a wage or in the colonial towns. From the beginning, the urban ladinos were not a cohesive social class, but constituted the ranks of the urban poor and laborers, small artisans. Finally, there was an upper middle stratum, the embryo of an urban petty bourgeoisie whose economic advance into the criollo elite (landed or merchant) was blocked by the colonial structure. In summary, by the time of independence, Spanish colonial policy had established the basic patterns of underdevelopment in Guatemala: mono-export, extreme concentration of wealth juxtaposed with extreme poverty, decapitalization (channeling of the economic surplus abroad or to

a tiny local minority that

was

tied

to overseas

interests),

lack of

an impoverished state, a polarized class structure, and systematic oppression of the indigenous population. By the early nineteenth century, severe economic crisis combined with natural disaster to produce discontent at all levels, from Indians to criollos. Moreover, nearly all sectors, each for its own reasons, came to view the colonial relationship to Spain as burdensome and unjust; by 1821, only the church hierarchy and representatives of the Spanish Crown opposed independence. Following the 1820 Indian uprising of Totonicapan, the criollo elite declared independence in 1821 not only to end the colonial relation to Spain but also to maintain order and preempt social upheaval from below. Independence brought little change in the old order; the basic economic and social structures of the colonial era and of the mono-export economy were left intact. The most important immediate change in the neocolonial era was a diversification of external contacts and the replacement of Spain with Britain as the dominant external commercial power. Within Guatemala, power alternated between Liberals and Conservatives from 1821 to 1871. After the initial upheavals of the postindependence years, the Liberals consolidated power under Mariano Galvez infrastructure,

—

Legacies of the Past

17

from 1831 to 1838, and the Conservatives from 1839 to 1871, during most of that period under the "dictadura criolla" of Rafael Carrera. The Conservatives represented latifundistas, the monopolistic merchant clique, the established church, and some artisan sectors. Conservatism stood for centralization in Central America, state-protected commercial monopolies, and preservation of colonial-era privileges of the church. The Carrera "dictatorship," ironically, did more than the Liberal governments to protect lower-class

indigenous interests

(e.g.,

communal

lands,

some

control over local government).

The Liberals represented

a

combination of

criollo latifundistas, the

incipient ladino petty bourgeoisie (including small

and medium land-

owners), intellectuals, and ideological proindependence activists. Liberalism stood for federalism in Central America, free trade and laissez faire,

and

political

reforms,

including opposition to the privileged/

established position of the church; the Liberals also favored "develop-

mental" reforms in the colonial structure that benefited the interests of ascendant ladinos but were especially harmful to Indian communities. In the end, despite their differences, both parties

the criollo

were dominated by

elite.

After the long Conservative rule, the Liberals retook the 1871 military revolt led

by Justo Rufino

power through

Barrios. Except for a brief

democratic interlude in the early 1920s, the Liberals remained in power

overthrow of dictator Jorge Ubico in 1944. In class terms, their triumph represented the incorporation into the ruling strata of a new class of propertied ladinos (landowners and urban commercial interests) which had been on the rise during previous decades. The stimulus or opportunity for this adjustment in the internal power structure came not only from internal pressures (from the ladino upper middle class) but also from changes in the world market that gave them an economic base: specifically, the shift to a coffee economy. Their ascendance, concretized in the Liberal triumph, did not displace the old criollo elite, but challenged its exclusive power and forced an expansion of the dominant class. The shift from a mono-export economy based on cochineal (no longer in demand since the invention of chemical dyes in the 1850s) to one based primarily on coffee necessitated basic transformations: (a) land tenure coffee required far larger expanses of land than previous export crops, and ownership became markedly more concentrated in the hands of a few; (b) much larger concentrations of cheap labor than had been necessary for indigo and cochineal production; (c) expanded infrastructure, particularly transport and port facilities, more credit, and significant state support for private enterprise. The "reforms" carried out to meet until the

—

Legacies of the Past

18

these needs significantly modified colonial institutions and class relations,

making them more exploitative. The main sources of land in large concentrations required for coffee were the mass of church holdings, nationalized as part of the Liberal reform, and the lands expropriated from Indian communities and other small holders. Entire Indian communities that had previously survived were destroyed in what McCreery (1976) called this "massive assault upon village lands." The vast reparceling of the land to new finqueros, owners of fincas, or large farms (some of whom were Guatemalan; some foreign, mainly German), greatly intensified the use of the best land for export crops. To the extent that Guatemala came to depend on coffee for foreign exchange earnings (92 percent by 1880), the entire economy was subjected to fluctuations in world demand and coffee prices. At the same time, by 1900, Guatemala became an importer of basic food staples and suffered periodic food shortages. The "modernizing" Liberal ideology projected a more active role for the state in protecting and subsidizing (but never regulating or restricting) private enterprise and in encouraging foreign investment. The political expressions of increased and more centralized state power were dictatorship and coercion, particularly in regard to the mobilization of Indian labor to meet the coffee growers' need for a cheap labor force and to build public works. The government took a much more active role in applying forced labor laws, and debt servitude became much more widespread and systematic, as Indians were forced into debt to guarantee cheap labor to coffee growers. In 1934, debt bondage was abolished, to be replaced by a vagrancy law that required all landless peasants (Indians and poor ladinos), not just those in debt, to work at least 150 days a year for private growers or for the state (for example, in public works construction). These systems of forced labor also brought the beginning of seasonal labor migrations,

which kept down finqueros' labor

by making them responsible

for

costs

maintenance of workers only during

harvest seasons.

The

full

the Labor

power of the state was used to enforce these "reforms," with Department in 1934 becoming an adjunct of the National

Police. Indians

who

permission were

resisted their "obligations" or left their fincas without

jailed. In short,

Liberalism subjected the Indians to the

institutionalized violence of a police state,

than previous governments villages.

As

a

at

and proved more

consequence, as one historian points out, the Guatemalan

army, which was fully established under the Liberal rural

Guatemala

position there

efficient

suppressing periodic revolts by highlands

.

as .

.

its

particular preserve

state,

and reveled

in

"came to see its dominant

[and regarded as a threat] any attempt to alter that

position and organize peasants or rural workers into independent as-

Legacies of the Past

sociations"

(Handy 1986b,

407).

More

19

generally, Liberalism greatly re-

duced the autonomy of indigenous communities and institutions, including their subsistence economy. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, there were also major changes in the capitalist world economy which affected Guatemala profoundly: the expansion of world capitalism, driven by the consolidation of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States, and the monopolistic concentration of wealth in key sectors of the industrial economies, generating capital surpluses that needed outlets in profitable investments abroad. Monopolization resulted in more frequent and more profound crises within these countries, which were more easily resolved through overseas expansion than through domestic reform. Thus, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, monopolistic interests began to export capital as well as commodities and to seek increasing control over raw materials resources throughout the world. For Guatemala this meant a new kind of foreign investment, giving control over important productive sectors of the economy to foreign interests, and producing a new alliance between those interests and the Guatemalan bourgeoisie. Finally, this same period saw the beginning of the definitive rise of the United States as a world power after the end of the Civil War and the consolidation of industrial capitalism domestically. The expansion of U.S. capital, as well as the influence of the U.S. government, became particularly important in Central America and the Caribbean. In Guatemala, U.S. imperialism took the form of three great monopolistic U.S. investments, invited in and given concessions to operate monopolistically by the Liberal state: The United Fruit Company (UFCo) totally monopolized banana production and became by far the largest landowner in Guatemala; its subsidiary, International Railways of Central America (IRC A), monopolized transport facilities; and Electric Bond and Share (EBS) totally controlled the country's electrical

facilities.

Until the mid-1940s, these three monopolies enjoyed unchallenged privileges in Guatemala: unlimited use (for twenty-five to ninety-nine years) of

much

of the country's best land

exemption from

taxes,

from duties on

and of all

all

Guatemala's resources;

imports, and from

all

but a

small export tax; unlimited profit remittances; freedom to construct

have the government do

new

them; and nonregulation of their activities, including their labor practices. They operated truly as "states within a state," exerting political power, additionally, infrastructures, or to

it

for

government policies decisively, to make and unmake rulers. The key to the maintenance of this system was the very tight alliance between the Guatemalan oligarchy and U.S. interests. The Liberal regimes and the oligarchy they represented perceived an overwhelming compatibility between their interests and those of the U.S. investors the to influence

—

Legacies of the Past

20

same economic structure, the same political "stability" (dictatorship), and so on. In striking contrast to the larger Southern Cone countries of Latin America, Guatemala under the Liberals had no national bourgeoisie, no nationalistic development project, no import-substituting industrialization based on an internal market. The power arrangements that prevailed in the Liberal order of the early twentieth century culminated in the dictatorship of Jorge Ubico,

who

ran Guatemala from 1931 to 1944. Ubico

came

to

power with overt

U.S. support, having begun his career working closely with the Rockefeller

Foundation and having attracted the interest of the U.S. State Department as early as 1919. U.S. maneuvering helped secure his election in 1930 against "undesirable" (nationalistic) candidates, and his reelection in 1936; the latter coincided with contract revisions and additional privileges to

UFCo and IRCA. Liberalism, then,

up

to

and including the Ubico

dictatorship, signified

a re-formation of colonial class relations, permitting the incorporation

and their urban counterparts within It was the logical expression of the ladino cafeteleros' aspiration to become criollos. Their very ascendancy was based on the general underdevelopment of Guatemala, as evidenced by their intensification of the mechanisms for exploiting the labor force of the cafetaleros (coffee growers)

the dominant criollo bourgoeisie.

(primarily the Indian labor force). Liberalism also introduced the paradox

and main functions were protect them by preserving

of the "strong" state that yielded control over national resources

production to private (largely foreign) interests; to subsidize those private interests

and

to

its

law and order.

Notes 1.

Among

the best analyses of the pre-1944 period (especially the literature

of the last twenty years) are the

works

cited in the Bibliography

by Cambranes,

Figueroa Ibarra, Gonzalez Davison, Handy, Lovell, Martinez Pelaez, McCreery,

Smith, Solorzano Fernandez, Torres Rivas, Wolf, and Woodward.

2 The Revolution of 1944-1954: "The Democracy That Gave Way

Seventy years of Liberalism had deepened mono-export underdevelopment in Guatemala and had left the nation in a crisis of stagnation. The underlying internal instabilities were finally revealed and the collapse of the Liberal order was triggered by external events: the contraction of world capitalism in the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression of the 1930s, followed by World War II. The shock of the 1929 crash was transmitted to the Guatemalan economy via the sector most closely linked to the world market, the coffee export sector. During the 1930s coffee prices fell to less than half of the 1929 level. The advent of World War II effectively foreclosed Guatemalan access to European markets, greatly increasing dependence on the United States, enabling the United States to set prices almost unilaterally, and resulting in a significant loss of export earnings. The crisis in the foreign trade sector was translated into general and prolonged stagnation: drastically reduced state expenditures; rising unemployment; and loss of property by smaller producers. The major contraction in world capitalism, specifically in U.S. expansion abroad, presented opportunities for Latin American countries; the larger South American nations and Mexico took advantage of the hiatus in foreign control to undertake import-substituting industrialization based

on an expanded domestic market. But the Ubico regime

in

Guatemala,

instead of seeking alternatives, attempted to reinforce the status quo.

No measures were new areas

ulating

taken to alleviate unemployment. Rather than stimof production, Ubico adopted deflationary policies. 21

The Revolution of 1944-1954

22

Nor did he take advantage

of the outflow (disinvestment) of foreign

capital to establish national control over

key sectors of the economy;

new contracts extended the privileges of the United Fruit Company (UFCo) and the International Railways of Central America instead,

'

(IRC A).

Why was the

modernizing the Guatemalan economy? Ubico regime, specifically the cafetelero-export-import oligarchy allied with U.S. monopolies. Rather than industrializing, they responded to the world economic crisis by

The

state incapable of

crucial factor

was the

social base of the

securing state cooperation in protecting their specific interests, in

facil-

and in maintaining law and order. Thus the 1930s brought lower wages and new repressive labor legislation (e.g., vagrancy laws), supplemented by politically repressive measures (e.g., executions of labor and opposition leaders). However, even these measures could not contain the structural pressures itating exploitation of the Indian labor force,

for

change.

also external pressures: Even the dependence on the United States backfired. During World War II, the United States enforced the liquidation of the sizeable German economic interests and interned German Guatemalans in U.S. camps. Thousands of U.S. troops were stationed in Guatemala to defend the Panama Canal and to keep Ubico in line with the Allies. U.S. anti-Fascist propaganda provided an ideological base for Ubico's opponents, not only because he was a dictator but also because he was seen as having pro-Fascist sympathies. By 1944 the certain defeat of Fascism internationally had opened space within Guatemala for a frontal attack on the dictatorship. The crisis came to a head in June 1944, two months after popular pressure had ousted the dictatorship in El Salvador. What began as a student strike, demanding university autonomy from government control, mushroomed into a general strike in Guatemala City, after the government denied the students' demands, suspended constitutional guarantees, and fired on antigovernment demonstrators, killing one. Within a week the general strike and continual demonstrations forced Ubico to resign. He appointed a military triumvirate which maneuvered the "election" of Federico Ponce as provisional president. After promising a few token concessions, the Ponce regime consolidated its power, kept on many Ubiquistas in high positions, and stepped up the level of repression. Discontent spread: Workers throughout the country, and even army officers, protested low wages. The political opposition, recognizing that Ponce had no intention of holding elections, finally opted for armed revolt. On October 20, 1944, armed students and workers joined the dissident military officers to oust Ponce. The interim junta, headed by two army officers, Francisco Arana and jacobo Arbenz, and a civilian,

By the 1940s, there were

—

The Revolution of 1944-1954

23

and presidential elections. On March became president, having received 85 percent

Jorge Toriello, held congressional 15, 1945, Juan Jose Arevalo

of the (literate male) vote.

Who were the October Revolutionaries? The dominant force was the urban petty bourgeoisie, generally educated but frustrated by the absence of political liberty and of opportunities for economic advancement. The movement was spearheaded by a generation of university students mostly of middle-class origins, who perceived themselves as "classless." The coalition also included intellectuals and professionals; small businessmen and merchants, whose economic prospects had been limited; and underpaid public employees, particularly teachers and junior army officers. These groups were joined by progressive, nationalistic property owners who had been out of favor with Ubico. The movement was also supported by a limited number of politicized peasants and by the incipient proletariat, both rural (primarily banana workers) and urban (impoverished artisans and workers in the few factories). The Indian labor force was not central to the October movement itself, although general unrest among Indians had undermined the stability of the Ponce regime. What made the Revolutionary coalition possible was the desire of broad sectors of the population to establish a constitutional democracy. But beyond that, the needs of the various classes were quite diverse. The question for the future was: Whose hands would guide the Revolution, and for what ends? "Spiritual Socialism" in

The

first

educator.

He

Power

Revolutionary president, Arevalo, was an intellectual and referred to his ideological orientation as "spiritual socialism,"

was "socialist" only in being inspired by a concern for humanitarian ideals and public welfare. An idealist, he opposed both Liberal individualism and Marxist socialism as "materialist" (see Diaz Rozzotto but

it

1958, Ch.

The

III).

first

task of Arevalo,

days before he took

office,

and was

of the

new

constitution adopted a few

to establish political democracy.

"Uni-

was granted to all adults except illiterate women (76.1 percent of women and 95.2 percent of Indian women as of 1950). Basic freedoms of speech, press, and so on were guaranteed. Political parties could be organized and function freely, with the exception of the Communist Party and other "foreign or international" parties. After the seventy-year Liberal dictatorship which had excluded all politics, elections versal" suffrage

might have

real contenders, offering real political alternatives. Political

power was decentralized, as the university, municipalities, armed and the other institutions were made autonomous.

forces,

The Revolution of 1944-1954

24

The Arevalo government devoted one-third of state expenditures to an ambitious social welfare program, with emphasis on construction of schools, hospitals, and housing. The social legislation would have been meaningless, however, in the absence of an organized labor movement. The Guatemalan labor force as of 1945 was 90 percent rural, consisting mainly of unorganized, unprotected Indian coffee workers. The only force recognizable as a

rural

point of production, with the history of spontaneous strikes

modern germ of

proletariat,

concentrated

at

the

and a before 1945, were the 15,000 workers on a collective consciousness

two UFCo plantations. In the cities, too, the largest concentrations were in the company's railroad (5500 IRCA employees) and port installations. The industrial proletariat, working principally in light the

of workers

industry

food processing) constituted 1.7 percent of the eco-

(textiles,

nomically active population, complemented by an artisan semiproletariat.

Wage

1945 were extremely low: an average 6.08 quetzales with one Guatemalan quetzal equalling one U.S. dollar (Q) ( at the time) per week for the few industrial workers (Q4.59 for women) and Q2.00 weekly in agriculture (Guerra Borges 1969, 31). For the first time, new labor legislation protected workers rather than further exploiting them. The 1945 Constitution effectively abolished vagrancy laws and all forms of forced labor. The 1947 Labor Code levels as of

= US$6.08,

defined basic rights: compulsory labor-management contracts,

minimum

wages, equal pay for equal work, decent working conditions, social security coverage, the right to strike and to organize unions. Nevertheless, the government

retained the

arbitrate labor disputes,

and

power

to

recognize specific unions, to

to dissolve "illegal" unions, including those

engaged openly in politics. Urban, banana, and railroad workers quickly began to organize to secure their rights under the labor code, and several labor confederations emerged, representing diverse political positions. The main objectives were immediate improvements in working conditions. By 1950, a number of collective pacts and limited gains had been achieved, despite strong opposition from organized employers. The majority of rural workers did not fare as well. Rural wages rose little or not at all. The 1947 Labor Code made no provision for unionization on fincas employing fewer than 500 workers. A 1948 amendment permitted their organization, but under limiting conditions. These unions attempted to enforce their new rights, but the Arevalo government did not seriously promote rural that served "foreign interests" or

unionization.

Guatemala's heritage of underdevelopment

left

no doubt as

to the

necessity for changes in the nation's productive base. Arevalo initiated a

program

of investment promotion, directed mainly toward

diversification. Financing

was

facilitated

economic

through a rationalized banking

The Revolution

of

1944-1954

25

system under the state-run Banco de Guatemala. But the real test of Arevalo's intention to transform the economy concerned foreign enclaves and land tenure, both of these areas controlled by deeply entrenched interests.

Foreign investments were to be left intact but regulated in accordance with national interests. The govenment attempted to limit Empresa Electrica de Guatemala (EEG) (but not IRCA) rates and to gain compliance

with the

new

labor legislation.

pact. In 1947, the

government

IRCA was

forced to accept a collective

UFCo

insisted that

submit

to arbitration

wage disputes, both in the fields and in Puerto Barrios, although the company employed numerous forms of pressure (locking out workers and suspending shipping operations) and won both cases in the end. By 1950, thus, little headway had been made toward effective restriction of the power or privileges of the three monopolies. New laws regulated the participation of future foreign investors in exploiting Guatemalan resources (especially oil), while welcoming them in industry. Arevalo's agrarian program was implemented in fits and starts. Most of

German plantations, intervened during the war, remained under government administration as fincas nacionales to be rented out. Other government programs focused on credit and technical assistance. The 1949 Law of Forced Rentals was designed to stop the widespread finquero practice of kicking peasants off land formerly rented to them; in practice, this law mainly hit small landowners, leaving the property of the finqueros virtually untouched. Although the constitution had of the former

recognized "the social function of property," "prohibited" latifundia,

and permitted expropriation of private property in the public interest, there were no expropriations. All in all, Arevalo's program was one of moderate reforms. Certainly, as one U.S. observer pointed out in 1950, they were "not as radical as those of the New Deal in the U.S. or the Labor Government in Great Britain" (Inman 1951, 10). But conditions for the working class had improved and, far more important, labor could organize to demand change. In this sense, the Arevalo government paved the way for more far-reaching changes in the future.

National Capitalism on Trial

By 1949 the scramble

for the

1950 elections had begun. Francisco

Arana, head of the armed forces, had announced his presidential candidacy,

and the right-wing opposition saw

in

Arana

its

last

hope of

turning back the Revolution. In the already charged atmosphere of July 1949, Arana was mysteriously assassinated. The assassination touched 1

off a military uprising led

by Arana supporters. Students and organized

26

The Revolution

of

1944-1954

workers took to the streets to defeat the rightist insurgents, with arms Arbenz for the government. With order

distributed by Defense Minister

campaign continued, interrupted by one more aborted coup attempt, led by Col. Carlos Castillo Armas. In the newly established democratic environment, several political parties had formed, split, and finally coalesced into three major currents. Running against Ubiquista Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes and moderate conservative Jorge Garcia Granados, Arbenz was backed by organized labor, peasants, two of the three Revolutionary parties and the Communists. The election, universally acknowledged to be honest, gave Arbenz an overwhelming majority, with 63 percent of the total vote. Upon taking power in 1951, Arbenz clarified his objectives of transforming the economy from dependent capitalism (which he called "feudalism") to a national and independent capitalism, and significantly redistributing income. The strategy for breaking Guatemalan dependence reestablished, the

was import-substituting

industrialization, utilizing national resources

standard U.N. strategy. Private enterprise was to be encouraged, and

Arbenz adopted some key recommendations of the high-level 1950 World Bank Mission to Guatemala. In order to construct even a modern capitalist economy, however, the Arbenz government had to confront the two great entrenched interests left intact by Arevalo: foreign monopolies and the landed oligarchy.

New foreign investors would be welcome, so long as they respected Guatemalan sovereignty (e.g., complied with national labor legislation and paid taxes). They would have to refrain from demanding special privileges, creating monopolies, particularly in natural resources, and intervening in national politics. In regard to the three U.S. monopolies already operating in Guatemala, Arbenz's strategy was to limit their previously unchecked power, not by nationalizing them, but by competing with them and forcing their compliance with national laws. Thus he undertook three major construction projects: a government-run hydroelectric plant, which would provide cheaper and better service than EEG; a highway to the Atlantic, to compete with IRCA's expensive monopoly on transport; and a new Atlantic port, Santo Tomas, to compete with UFCo's Puerto Barrios. The game got somewhat rougher as Arbenz evidenced his intention to enforce Guatemalan laws and court rulings, which in several important cases supported worker demands. UFCo responded by curtailing its shipping services and laying off 4,000 workers; the Arbenz government then confiscated 26,000 acres from UFCo as a guarantee for payment of back wages. Nevertheless, in the end, the

the old labor contract in exchange for

company won renewal

US$650,000

in

back wages.

of

The Revolution of 1944-1954

27

All previous conflicts were a mere warm-up, however, for the storm unleashed by the 1952 Agrarian Reform Law. The precondition for capitalist industrialization on the basis of an expanded domestic market

was an agrarian reform. Because the Liberal Reform of 1871 had given much of the good land to a minority of private owners, no serious agrarian reform could avoid a confrontation with vested interests. The Arbenz government proceeded cautiously, making careful studies and all groups affected (including the finqueros' Asociaciun General de Agricultores, which was also represented by the minister of agriculture). The Agrarian Reform Law was finally approved by Congress in June 1952. The law provided for expropriation of idle land from holdings

consulting

over 223 acres and their distribution to eligible recipients. Peasants

would receive the land either in ownership or in usufruct (use) for life, and would pay for it at a rate of 3 percent or 5 percent of annual production. Compensation would be made through government bonds, the value of the land being determined by the owners' 1952 valuations for tax purposes. The law would be implemented by agrarian committees, the majority of members representing peasants; all appeals would be handled in the last instance by the president. Land from state-owned fincas nacionales would also be distributed. In January 1953, the expropriations began. The general objective (sometimes violated in practice) was to eliminate the fincas with large expanses of unused land, respecting the integrity of well-worked holdings of any size (Comite Interamericano de Desarollo Agricola 1965, 43). By June 1954, 2.7 million acres had been affected (although only 55 percent of that was actually taken). Approximately 100,000 peasant families received land, as well as credit and technical assistance from new state agencies. Rural social services were vastly improved. But the process did not go smoothly. Finqueros objected to nearly every aspect of the law and often retaliated violently against the peasants. Impatient peasants, in turn, sometimes took initiatives before settlement of the legal formalities; spontaneous land occupations and peasant violence were not uncommon; nor did they always discriminate between latifundistas and small landowners. Politically, the agrarian reform polarized the entire country into supporters and opponents of the Revolution as a whole.

Guatemala, UFCo could hardly expect over 550,000 acres, no more than 15 percent were under cultivation. (The company maintained it needed "large reserves" to combat the effect of banana diseases.) In several decrees, the government expropriated from UFCo a total of almost 400,000 acres, offering Ql, 185, 115 in compensation (Paredes 1964, 30). This figure was based on UFCo's own previous valuation for tax purposes.

As

the largest

to retain its

landowner

holdings

intact.

in

Of

its

The Revolution of 1944-1954

28

The company, backed by the U.S. State Department, claimed the property and damages for the Pacific holdings alone were worth nearly $16 million. The issue was important, not only because of the $15 million difference but also because

The United

it

States

climaxed a long-brewing

crisis.

Responds

between the Arevalo government and Washington with U.S. technical experts and cultural missions actively assisting Arevalo. Because he was receptive to foreign capital, U.S. private investment in Guatemala increased from $86.9 million in 1943 to $105.9 million in 1950. But the honeymoon was shortlived. When UFCo's violations of the labor code became a major issue, the U.S. ambassador "suggested" that the code be altered, because it "disInitial

had been

relations

cordial,

criminated" against

UFCo

(Bauer Paiz 1956,

41).

Instead of capitulating

government insisted on a legal settlement of the dispute. As nationalism grew in Guatemala, Arevalo canceled a contract with the U.S. educational mission (officially for budgetary reasons). The 1949 to pressure, the

petroleum law virtually closed the door to several U.S. U.S.

Ambassador

further

strained

Patterson's relations

open pressure on

by

ministers, as well as seventeen

telling

Arevalo to

"Communists"

oil trusts,

their behalf. fire

in the

despite

Patterson

several

cabinet

government.

When

he began attending clandestine opposition meetings plotting Arevalo's overthrow, the government demanded his recall. By this time, Arevalo

was being denounced as pro-Communist in the U.S. press; UFCo's friends and others in the U.S. Congress supported the company's claims and echoed the charges of communism.

The

economic conform to some World Bank recommendations, the Arbenz government was "non grata" in the international credit community, and received no further aid (although this was not formalized in U.S. policy until 1954). Washington also brought formal claims against the government on behalf of UFCo. By this time, U.S. and UFCo pressures found a strong echo within Guatemala. Arbenz's agrarian reform had polarized public opinion and shattered the Revolutionary coalition of 1944. Urban and rural labor and a majority of Indian peasants, along with nationalistic sectors of the petty bourgeoisie, were firmly committed to the Revolution. Opposing it were finqueros and much of the nonlanded bourgeoisie, the Catholic church, and many of the petty bourgeois professionals and military officers who had participated in the Revolution of 1944. Since 1950, conservative sectors had been demonstrating against "communism," with active church support. Upper-class government opponents were aid.

situation deteriorated after 1951, with the U.S. cutting

Particularly after refusing to

The Revolution of 1944-1954

29

women shopkeepers in Guatemala City's them devout church members. In short, the radicalization of the Revolution under Arbenz also laid the basis for the growth of a strong right-wing anti-Communist movement, with deep roots in the bourgeoisie and some sectors of the petty bourgeoisie. The rest of the story is well documented elsewhere. 2 By January 1954, the government had discovered clear evidence of plots for its overthrow involving Castillo Armas and Ydigoras. From Honduras and Nicaragua, Guatemalan exiles had been organizing the "Liberation" movement since early 1952. In early 1953, the CIA had made contact with them, choosing Carlos Castillo Armas (a graduate of U.S. military training at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas) as their leader and providing funds for training, equipment, and payment of a mercenary army. At the March 1954 Inter-American Conference of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Caracas, the United States twisted enough joined by a strong contingent of

Central Market, most of

arms

to

secure passage of a resolution directed against Guatemala,

calling for

hemispheric unity and mutual defense against "Communist

aggression"; in effect this gave the United States a free

hand

to intervene

any country where such a menace existed. Only Guatemala opposed the resolution, with Mexico and Argentina abstaining. The Latin American delegates vigorously applauded Guatemalan Foreign Minister Toriello's brilliant speech in defense of Guatemala, while capitulating to U.S. threats of withdrawing aid. Meanwhile, the United States was laying the groundwork for the operation through its team of ambassadors in Central America. Heading the team was the new (since October 1953) ambassador to Guatemala, John Peurifoy, a tough, expert anti-Communist troubleshooter, renowned for his role in making Greece "safe for democracy." In May 1954, Washington found its pretext for open hostilities against Guatemala, when a shipment of Czechoslovakian arms arrived in Puerto Barrios on the Swedish ship Alfhem. (Arbenz had bought the arms from Czechoslovakia only after the United States had imposed an embargo on arms to Guatemala from all U.S. allies in 1948 and had vigorously blocked all attempts to buy them from "free world" sources.) In response, the United States stepped up arms shipments to the conservative Honduran and Nicaraguan regimes and openly denounced Guatemala. The CIA stepped up its psychological warfare in Guatemala through Radio Liberty broadcasts. Isolated on the diplomatic front, having irrefutable evidence of the in

Arbenz government declared a state of siege in and took strong action against known collaborators. But these measures came too late. On June 18, Castillo Armas's mercenary force (160-200 men) invaded Guatemala from Honduras; instead of proceeding invasion conspiracy, the early June

The Revolution of 1944-1954

30

to

Guatemala City

for a battle,

they stopped just over the border in

would have up by the CIA's aerial operations. Guatemala lodged a formal protest against

Esquipulas. All observers agree that militarily the invasion

been

a fiasco,

had

it

not been backed

The day after the invasion, Honduran and Nicaraguan aggression to the U.N. Security Council. But U.S. delegate and head of the Security Council, Henry Cabot Lodge, ruled that it was not a case of international aggression but of internal "civil war," and therefore of no concern to the Security Council. After the council refused to consider it, the Guatemalan case was referred to the U.S.-dominated OAS, which had condemned Guatemala in March. Meanwhile, CIA planes, manned by U.S. pilots, began a regular bombardment of the capital and other cities, to demoralize the Arbenz government. Arbenz lost his nerve as the chiefs of the armed forces defected or refused to defend the goverment and told him to resign. On June 27, Arbenz resigned, turning over the government to three "loyal" military officers. At this point, U.S. Ambassador Peurifoy refused to accept Arbenz' replacement by the regular army officers and began maneuvering for the installation of CIA favorite Castillo Armas as president. Castillo Armas entered Guatemala City in a U.S. Embassy plane and became president on July 8.

Perspectives on the "Liberation"

Any doubts as to the U.S. role in "liberating" Guatemala were subsequently dispelled by President Eisenhower himself, by several Congressmen and diplomats, and by CIA-hired participants (see Wise and Ross 1964, Ch. 11; Eisenhower 1963; Toriello Garrido 1955; Cardoza y Aragun 1955). Relying on "Liberation" sources, one expert estimates that the United States spent $7 million on the operation (Cehelsky 1967, 58). The U.S. justification for overt intervention in Guatemala was to destroy the "Communist menace" there. Therefore, it is important to determine whether such a menace existed and to what extent this was the motivation. Subsequently, I shall consider the extent to which the U.S. intervention was decisive in overthrowing .the Arbenz government. "Communism in Guatemala" is a controversial issue in Cold War history. Arevalo's "spiritual socialism" was explicitly anti-Communist, viewing communism as "contrary

to

human

nature." His actions bore

out his words: suppression of the Marxist labor school Claridad; exile of

Communist

agitators; refusal to legalize the

Communist

Party; dismissal

of several government officials associated with the Communist newspaper and a general "housecleaning"; loyalty to the United States with regard to Korea. That Arevalo was widely denounced in the United States as

The Revolution

of

1944-1954

31

pro-Communist or a "fellow traveler" was an early sign of Washington's bad faith toward even a pro-American (but nationalist) government. The Arbenz government legalized the Communist Party as the Partido Guatemalteco de Trabajo (PGT) in 1951 and the PGT subsequently held four out of fifty-six seats in Congress. The PGT developed a strong base within the labor unions and peasant confederations. Several Marxists held important government positions, particularly related to implementation of the Agrarian Reform Law. As he was deserted by many 1944 Revolutionaries, Arbenz eventually needed Communist support for his more radical measures. Anti-Communists found no comfort in the capitalist nature of Arbenz' program because standard Communist Party strategy called for a two-stage revolution in underdeveloped countries; thus the Arbenz era could be seen as the national bourgeois democratic stage that was to precede socialism. But these facts hardly substantiated the conclusion that Guatemala under Arbenz presented a "Communist threat" to the United States; in reality, U.S. actions were motivated by economic interests as well as ideological anticommunism. To evaluate the Arbenz government in terms of the Communist numbers game, as many Cold War scholars did in the 1950s, distorts its nature. 3 Despite the presence of influential PGT members, the Arbenz administration was primarily composed of nonCommunist parties and individuals. At many critical moments, Arbenz relied more on his military colleagues than on the PGT. The economc measures of the Revolution did more to spread private property than to abolish it. Opposition views continued to be expressed freely and openly in meetings and in the press hardly the Communist policestate depicted in the United States. The prominence of the "communism" issue, furthermore, obscures other important issues. First, why was the United States unable to tolerate this national capitalist revolution? Second, why was there so little protest against the intervention either from within the United States or from the socialist world? Third, why did the U.S. intervention succeed: What were the internal contradictions of the Revolution that made it unable to withstand the attack? As part of this, what was the role of internal actors, especially the army high command, in bringing about the overthrow of Arbenz? The United States could not tolerate the Guatemalan Revolution for several reasons. First, the Arbenz government regulated existing U.S. interests there and threatened prospects for future investments. In the postwar era of capitalist expansion, U.S. investors (and the U.S. government, which was heavily influenced by these interests) were unwilling to accept any regulations or to work with revolutionary nationalist governments. The Eisenhower administration (1953-1960) was heavily

—

—

The Revolution

32

of

1944-1954

influenced by UFCo, with the Dulles brothers (John Foster as secretary

and Allen as head of the CIA) both members of UFCo's law and UFCo itself played a significant role in orchestrating support for the intervention. The overthrow of Arbenz is one of the clearest examples in modern history of U.S. policy being affected by direct ties of State firm;

4 of public officials to private interests.

is considerable debate over the extent to which between UFCo and the Eisenhower administration determined more broadly, over the mix between economic imperialism and policy policy as explanations for U.S. actions. 5 On the one hand, War Cold these ties were too close to be ignored; behind simple "anticommunism" as the motivation for the U.S. action lay powerful economic interests. On the other hand, it also seems clear that the United States would have moved against Arbenz even without the UFCo connections: U.S. policymakers believed that his government represented a "Communist menace" and acted partly out of that belief. The U.S. government and private U.S. investors became concerned over the increasing radicalization of the Revolution under Arbenz. The Revolution was directed primarily by nationalist sectors of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, but they had forged an alliance with significant sectors of the working class and peasantry. Particularly after the 1952 land reform, workers and peasants became more important in this alliance, and their level of mobilization and organization increased greatly. In land invasions, for example, the peasants began to take initiatives without waiting for government permission. From the U.S. point of view as well as that of the Guatemalan army, the situation could well get

Nevertheless, there

the ties

—

"out of control."

Arbenz government refused to submit blindly to WashCold War, such independence was an unpardonable sin, especially coming from a small Central American country. Finally, and no less important, the United States was afraid that the Guatemalan Revolution would spread. Clearly, the domino theory and McCarthyite visions of the Kremlin using Guatemala as a "base" for spreading communism in the hemisphere were paranoid and groundless. But the Guatemalan Revolution was a positive example to progressive and democratic forces in other Latin American countries. Reformers and revolutionaries came from the entire continent to learn from the Guatemalan experience. Since the end of World War II, the threat of a "good example" from Third World revolutions has terrified U.S. policymakers; in this sense, Guatemala did challenge U.S. hegemony Further, the

ington's foreign policy. At the height of the

in the

Western hemisphere, although not campaign.

U.S. Red-scare

in the

way depicted

in the

The Revolution

of

1944-1954

33

Seen in the framework of Cold War history, the U.S. intervention in Guatemala was the first expression in Latin America of a policy initially developed in Greece. In the period after World War II, U.S. capital was expanding worldwide on an unprecedented scale. Workers' movements both in the United States and abroad (especially those open to Communist ideas) were viewed as a threat to this expansion, and therefore had to be brought under control (see Immerman 1980-1981; Jonas 1983a). Abroad, the 1947 intervention in Greece set the precedent: The United States poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Greece to crush a revolutionary uprising militarily. The Truman Doctrine provided the justification, stating that the United States must "support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities." Guatemala was the first application of this logic in Latin America (seen also in the 1953 overthrow of the nationalistic Mossadegh government in Iran). In this context, the United States made Guatemala a test case and a model for reversing social revolutions in Latin America "covertly," without sending the Marines. Many aspects of the model were applied in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion against Cuba and in subsequent covert operations, including the 1980s Contra war against Nicaragua. From the broader Cold War perspective, it also becomes possible to understand why there was no significant protest against the "Liberation" within the United States or from the socialist bloc. Within the United States, the intervention was a bipartisan consensus policy, that is, a policy of the U.S. ruling class as a whole. Serious planning for an intervention was begun by top advisers in the Truman administration. The main changes in the plan under Eisenhower were tactical: how to overthrow Arbenz and whom to bring in as his replacement (Cook 1981, 227 ff.; Jonas and Tobis 1974, 57 ff.). Democrats in Congress supported the intervention overwhelmingly, with the House adopting a resolution 372 to

0.

By 1954, public opinion within the United States, antimilitarist and propeace at the end of World War II, had been molded into the "Cold War consensus" through a concerted campaign to convert the Soviet Union from World War II ally into the "evil empire" and to silence policy critics. This consensus lasted until the Vietnam War in the late 1960s. In the case of Guatemala, a carefully orchestrated prointervention campaign in the major media and Congress was waged by lobbyists ranging from UFCo public relations operatives to Cold War "liberals" with financial and political ties to the CIA (see details in Jonas and Tobis 1974; Jonas 1981). The lack of an anti-intervention movement was an artifact of the Cold War within the United States. The Communist Party opposed the intervention in its publications but was far too weakened by McCarthyite attacks to launch a real anti-intervention

The Revolution of 1944-1954

34

movement; and virtually all "liberal" non-Communist organizations remained silent. The CIO publicly attacked Guatemalan "communism," while the AFL leadership went on record as "rejoicing in" Arbenz's overthrow.

The

socialist

world did

little

Nations. The Soviet Union and

more than its allies

protest verbally in the United

basically accepted the fact that

Central America was part of the sphere of U.S. domination; certainly

warrant risking a major confrontation with the United States. These considerations gave the U.S. virtual freedom of action. The only real wave of protest came from popular movements in Latin America; as one pro-Liberation writer observed, "no one could U.S. action there did not

recall

so intense and universal a

entire history of Latin

wave

of anti-U.S. sentiment in the

America" (Daniel James, quoted

in Jonas

and

Tobis 1974, 73).

Reinterpreting Guatemala's Democratic Revolution But why was the Revolution so vulnerable to U.S. intervention? The obvious reason was the overwhelming power the United States brought to bear against it. Equally important, however, the Revolution was incomplete in some respects and had powerful internal opponents. Any evaluation of the structural reforms must keep in

mind

the historical

To reverse a heritage of over 400 years of underdevelopment within ten years was a monumental task. Even though the Revolutionary governments undertook a program of agricultural diversification, and Arbenz began to promote industrialization, they were not in power long enough to break from the economy of mono-export (coffee alone was 80 percent of all exports in 1952) nor from the economic grip of the United States. By 1952-1953, 85.2 percent of Guatemalan coffee exports and 83.2 percent of all exports still went to the United States while 62.9 percent of all imports originated there (Cardoza y Aragon 1955, context.

101).

The inability to alter Guatemala's basic relation to the capitalist world market and specifically to the United States was related to the objectives of the Revolution. Its leaders attempted not to eliminate capitalist structures but to modernize them. Private enterprise was respected and even encouraged in new areas; foreign capital was welcomed so long as it respected Guatemalan sovereignty. Even the agrarian reform was capitalist in nature. Armed with the vision of overcoming feudalism, the Revolutionaries (including the

PGT)

did not question the efficacy

of national capitalism in a small isolated country in fighting imperialism or breaking out of a

dependent relationship. Only a few years

later,

— The Revolution

of

1944-1954

35

Cuba, largely on the basis of the lessons of Guatemala, chose a very different path.

A

by different classes or class The entrenched oligarchy openly from the very beginning, continually plotted against it, and

related issue concerns the stance taken

fractions in relation to the Revolution.

opposed it was glad to collaborate with the United States in overthrowing it. That they were able to do so reflected the degree to which their power as a class and the institutions they controlled had not been destroyed. Aside from the land reform, the property of the bourgeoisie was not touched. Even more to the point, old guard army officers were continually involved in plotting against the Revolutionary governments, often in

conjunction with U.S. officials (Arbenz in Cehelsky 1974, various works by Handy). These forces and the right-wing "Liberation" activists men like Mario Sandoval Alarcon and Lionel Sisniega Otero, who have continued to play a central role in Guatemalan politics through the Movimiento de Liberacion Nacional (MLN) were a minority whose motivations were

—

—

clear.

More problematic was

the position of those

who

did not actively

collaborate in overthrowing the Revolution but did not resist

it.

At the

moment, the "modern" bourgeoisie, based in cotton, banking, and industry, created by the diversification programs of the Revolution and initially oriented toward the Guatemalan market, made its peace with the older bourgeoisie and foreign interests. Even some who were directly associated with the Revolutionary governments (Cabinet ministers critical

and military

officers

in the "Liberation"

who

acquired property) participated or acquiesced

and were subsequently integrated

into the post-1954

ruling coalition. In short, they did not act as a national bourgeoisie, as

Arbenz and

his allies had hoped. Furthermore, a sizeable portion of the urban petty bourgeoisie professionals, teachers, state employees, administrators in the private sector,

small and

medium

property owners

Revolution, eventually went along with

its

—

initial

supporters of the

destruction. These groups

needed popular support to come to power in 1944, and thus allied with workers and other popular sectors. Nevertheless, many of them were primarily interested in their own advancement; they were ambivalent about giving workers and peasants an independent power base. For example, after the peasants began taking initiatives, they became skeptical of the agrarian reform. Popular unrest frightened the urban middle sectors in general and was particularly intolerable to the army officer corps.

The

overthrow of the Revolution was the expression of these With the exception of an important minority that had been radicalized, most of the petty bourgeoisie would not take the final

latent contradictions.

The Revolution

36

of

1944-1954

enormous risks that would have been required to defend the Revolution. Arbenz himself was part of that radicalized minority; but at the critical moment he was influenced by military colleagues who told him to resign. Most political party leaders did not offer strong support for resistance. Around the country, peasant beneficiaries of the agrarian reform clamored for arms to stop the invasion, and in several towns improvised peasant/worker militias resisted, armed only with machetes and sticks. If Arbenz had given the signal and the weapons, some Guatemalans argue, significant sectors of the population would have defended the Revolution with arms (interviews; Cardoza y Aragon 1955; Cardona Fratti 1968). But the military, already feeling its power threatened by popular mobilization, refused to permit the arming of the population. And Arbenz, unwilling to risk a

civil

war, an outright U.S. invasion, or further

destruction by U.S. airpower, and demoralized by the lack of support

from his military colleagues, resigned and turned over the government According to several sources (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1983, 194 ff), he also acted on the basis of false U.S. promises to allow the gains of the Revolution to be preserved by those colleagues if he resigned and the PGT were banned. His colleagues, in turn, were subsequently persuaded (also on the basis of U.S. Embassy deceptions) to permit the triumph of the Counterrevolution. The United States and the Guatemalan Right succeeded in large part because they were able to take advantage of these internal contradictions. To summarize: We can no longer describe the overthrow of Arbenz simply as a product of U.S. intervention; for their own reasons, Guatemalan actors, particularly the army officer corps, played an active role. Some analysts give emphasis to the army's refusal to defend Arbenz as the decisive factor in his downfall (Handy 1984, 133 and 1986b, 391). Although this is an important part of the story, the interaction with the United States was always key: Even the divisions within the army were deliberately encouraged by the United States as part of the "Liberation" strategy. Years later, Arbenz expressed the view (Cehelsky 1974) that the internal situation could have been kept under control. And indeed, it seems doubtful that the internal opposition forces were strong or cohesive enough to have moved against Arbenz on their own. In the to those colleagues.

was decisive. weakness of the Revolution was the uneven development of popular forces. The Revolution brought significant material gains to workers and peasants and the right to organize on behalf of their own interests. Under Arbenz the unified labor movement achieved a measure event, U.S. intervention

A

final

of influence, as did the peasant confederation in regard to the agrarian

reform.

The

level of

popular organization achieved

in just ten years,

The Revolution of 1944-1954

37

although uneven, was striking enough in some areas of the countryside

—

particularly after to arouse the fear of landowners and military officials Arbenz suggested the possibility of organizing popular militias in May 1954. But these peasants were never actually given a way of defending

themselves

A

when

the counterattack came.

related question

groups: Indians and

is

the impact of the Revolution for

women. Indians obtained

full

two

crucial

rights as citizens,

and many benefited greatly from social welfare legislation, new labor laws, and the agrarian reform. In some instances, they participated actively in local politics, and for the first time, they were permitted to organize. But the Revolution made little headway with the special problems of the indigenous population. Some have argued that the Revolution never gained the allegiance of the Indian population or

addressed the issues of Indian liberation on their terms, that the agrarian

and even had negative communities by reducing local autonomy (e.g., Beals cited in Handy 1990; Wasserstrom 1975; Smith 1990a, 263-264). These arguments have been contested by other experts (e.g., Handy), who make a convincing case that the agrarian reform and accompanying forms of peasant organization benefited and strengthened these comreform

left

social relations in the countryside intact

effects for Indian

munities overall. For women, especially indigenous women, the gains were also uneven. The new constitution provided for formal equality (equal pay for equal work) and social welfare, although it denied illiterate women the vote. By permitting the organization of workers and peasants in general, the Revolution provided the first opportunity for the organization of working class and peasant women. The Alianza Feminina mobilized women in support of the Revolution and made proposals to benefit peasant women,

but

it

women. Meanand the Catholic church women and used it politically

did not consistently reach disenfranchised Indian

while, right-wing anti-Communist organizations built a strong

base

among

other sectors of

against the government.

much easier to see from and should not be taken out of the historical context. The real error of the Revolution, as Guatemalan writer Luis Cardoza y Aragon once said, was "geographical: to be in the zone where North American imperialism exercises its greatest influence" (in Jonas and Tobis 1974, 56). Although important sectors of the population were not fully incorporated, the experience of the Revolution left a permanent mark on the Guatemalan consciousness. The climate of reform from 1944 to 1954 permitted a mass mobilization whose legacy has become clear in the country's political development since 1954. As guerrilla leader Cesar Montes put it in the 1960s, "Despite its limitations, But these weaknesses of the Revolution are

the perspective of hindsight

The Revolution of 1944-1954

38

the 1944-54 revolution

is

a great source of lessons for us.

kept the revolutionary flame burning in Guatemala

.

provides a real and living example of what a revolution

Galeano 1969,

.

.

is"

.

.

It

.

has

because

it

(quoted in

17).

Guatemala experience was important as part of the Che Guevara, one of the many Latin Americans who had come to Guatemala during the Revolution and was there during the overthrow of Arbenz, paid him Finally,

the

collective learning process of Latin America. In 1960,

this tribute:

We

should also

of the

first

like to

Latin

extend a special greeting to Jacobo Arbenz, president

American country which

fearlessly raised

colonialism; a country which, in a far-reaching

its

voice against

and courageous agrarian

reform, gave expression to the hopes of the peasant masses. also like to express our gratitude to him,

and

to the

We

democracy

should

that

gave

way, for the example they gave us and for the accurate estimate they

enabled us to to

make

of the weaknesses

overcome (quoted

in

Gott 1971,

which

that

government was unable

40).

Notes Although some have attempted

to implicate Arbenz (who was defense main rival) as the author of the assassination, no sound evidence has ever been found. According to Arbenz himself, he was on the scene to arrest Arana for plotting against the Arevalo government, and Arana was killed while resisting arrest. There had been persistent rumors of Arana's involvement in coup plots, and Congress had voted to impeach him for conspiracy (Cehelsky 1974; see also Handy 1984, 112; Gleijeses, forthcoming; Inman 1951, 11; Bush 1950, IV:11-12). 2. For research done in the early 1970s, see my studies (Jonas and Tobis 1974; Jonas 1981). Later studies, much more comprehensive and detailed, were written by Schlesinger and Kinzer (1983), Immerman (1982), Cook (1981), among 1.

minister and Arana's

others. 3.

See, for example, James 1954, Schneider 1958, La Charite 1964. Schneider's

reexamination thirteen years later (1971) was more balanced. In a recent

article

(1989) and in his forthcoming book, Gleijeses reconsiders the issue on the basis of

new

research and interviews, offering a

of the thesis that

Arbenz came

more on

to rely heavily

objective, less distorted version

the

PGT

as the

main supporters

of his reforms, as a "kitchen cabinet." 4.

Among

high Eisenhower administration

addition to the Dulles brothers) were

officials

connected to

UFCo

(in

Henry Cabot Lodge, John Moors Cabot,

The Revolution

of

1944-1954

39

and Thomas Dudley Cabot. For full details, see Jonas and Tobis 1974, 62-66; and Schlesinger and Kinzer 1983, 106-107. 5. See Jonas and Tobis 1974; Jonas 1981; and Schlesinger and Kinzer 1983 for interpretations that emphasize the UFCo connection; see Immerman 1982; McCamant 1984; Bowen 1983, for interpretations that emphasize noneconomic factors; Cook 1981 synthesizes the two views.

3 Counterrevolution and Imperialism

Safely installed in the presidency, thanks to the

maneuvering of the

Embassy, Castillo Armas proceeded with the liquidation of the Revolution. The government immediately suspended all constitutional guarantees and embarked upon a drastic witch hunt, headed by the former secret police chief under Ubico. Hundreds of political and labor leaders exiled themselves with diplomatic asylum, and many more without it. By conservative estimates, 9,000 were imprisoned and many tortured under the government's virtually unlimited powers of arrest. The official Committee of National Defense Against Communism was charged with ferreting out and summarily arresting "Communists" and their sympathizers. A thorough housecleaning in the government bureaucracy resulted in hundreds of firings. The Preventive Penal Law Against Communism legislated the death penalty for a broad range of "crimes." The "Communist" label was used against thousands of non-Communist supporters of the Revolution. But the special targets were UFCo union organizers and Indian village leaders. As many as 8,000 peasants were murdered in the first two months of the Castillo Armas regime, as the bourgeoisie took its revenge (Torres Rivas 1980b, 24). Aside from the persecution of individuals, virtually all popular organizations were destroyed. The political parties of the Revolution were dissolved, although the PGT remained alive underground. The October 1954 plebiscite was a yes/no proposition to legitimate Castillo Armas, with no alternative candidates or parties. The government canceled the registration of 533 unions and amended the Labor Code so as to limit unionization and the right to strike. UFCo and IRCA unions were disbanded, at the insistence of the companies. In the first year after the U.S.

41

42

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

"Liberation," the labor

movement was reduced from 100,000

Sloan 1968, 48). Other measures annulled nearly

to 27,000

(cited in

all

of the progressive

economic and

Of all the land expropriated under the Agrarian Reform Law 99.6 percent was returned to its former owners, including UFCo. Literacy programs, branded tools of Communist indoctrination, were suspended and hundreds of rural teachers fired. The social legislation of the Revolution.

government ordered the proscription of "subversive" books such as the novels of Guatemalan Miguel Angel Asturias, the writings of Arevalo, Dostoyevsky, and Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, and copies of these works were burned in huge street bonfires. The press was censored and penalties instituted for insulting the president.

economic

In place of the nationalistic

legislation of the Revolution,

the Counterrevolution granted new concessions and privileges to foreign capital. Revolutionary legislation taxing profits remitted abroad was

repealed.

Suits

pending against IRCA and EEG were canceled. The its land to UFCo and signed a new contract,

government returned

although the company subsequently turned over 100,000 acres to the government and agreed to pay 30 percent taxes on profits. The new

Petroleum Code of 1955 ceded subsoil rights to foreign oil companies and even permitted them to maintain their concessions as unused reserves; at least eight of the largest U.S. oil companies took advantage of this giveaway measure, initially drawn up in English. The United States played a direct role in the entire operation, including its most repressive aspects. Secretary of State Dulles personally undertook "a diplomatic crusade that had the persecutorial overtones of Torquemada" (Schlesinger 1978, 444); the U.S. Embassy provided the witch hunters with lists of "Communists" to be eliminated and instructed that they be treated harshly, even taking Castillo Armas to task for respecting the right of asylum. Not satisfied with having overthrown the Guatemalan Revolution, the United States felt it necessary to root out all traces of progressive politics.

Of

Guatemalan actors (particularly "Liband some factions in the army) held this

course,

eration" activists, landowners,

view in their own right. But the United States, still in the grip of McCarthyism, played an important role in giving Guatemalan politics a particularly Manichaean quality or stigma, which persists even today. Absurdly enough, these actions were cast as part of a U.S. strategy of making Guatemala a "showcase for democracy."

The Ruling Coalition

of the Counterrevolution

Within Guatemala, the Counterrevolution initiated changes in the composition of the ruling coalition. The "Liberation" signified, first, the

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

return to

most of

power

whom

43

of the traditional landed and mercantile bourgeoisie, had never been incorporated into the Revolutionary

Given the modernization of Guatemala's productive structure began during the Revolution and was continued after 1954, however, that agro-export oligarchy represented far too narrow a base traditional the power hold by itself. While retaining their hold over agricultural to finqueros had to venture into new productive activities and the exports, coalition.

to incorporate

new

social groups.

more "modern" itself. The efforts of production and expand

Allied with the traditional agro-export oligarchy

was

a

bourgeoisie, in part the product of the Revolution the Arevalo

and Arbenz governments

to diversify

exports had generated a new class of property owners, especially cotton growers and industrialists. Despite its initially progressive political stance, this Revolutionary bourgeoisie adopted the conservative, defensive values of the older bourgeoisie and behaved after 1954 as a "modernized descendant of the old coffee oligarchy" (Torres Rivas 1969, 151; Poitevin 1977). But the majority of the their

new

industrial-financial interests acquired

property after 1954.

In the context of the post-1954 economic diversification, some in the "new" bourgeoisie became associated with foreign (primarily U.S.) capital. Many Guatemalan industrialists, for example, sold their assets to foreign

investors, ners").

remaining associated as minority shareholders ("junior partin some respects "the social base required by

They became

foreign capital to operate effectively" (Torres Rivas 1971, 275; see also

Poitevin 1977). In this way, foreign capital

became

integral to the post-

1954 economy (especially in industry), and foreign investors began to operate as part of the ruling coalition.

Economic

diversification spurred

some intrabourgeois

conflicts

—

for

example, between traditional importers of manufactured goods (favoring

low tariffs) and newer producers of those goods (favoring protectionism). These potentially divisive conflicts were partially avoided or resolved through the integration of the two groups. It was quite common, for example, for former importers of manufactured goods to associate themselves with local or foreign interests setting up factories to produce these goods. Similarly, a significant number of the largest export growers expanded into industrial processing (e.g., cotton growers became producers of cottonseed oil and its by-products). Meanwhile, some industrialists began to acquire land, bringing their interests in line with those of the older finqueros.

Despite particular conflicts, then, the Guatemalan bourgeoisie has

been notable since 1954

for its unity as a class, as

symbolized

in the

umbrella private sector coordinating committee, Comite Coordinador de Asociaciones Agricolas, Comericales, Industrials y Financieras (CACIF).

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

44

The experience

of having suffered a challenge to

during the Revolution forged

its

its

class

united front against any future encroachment, no matter

This monolithic unity

is

domination

determination to maintain a belligerent

matched by

how

minimal.

a particularly exclusionary stance

vis-a-vis the popular classes, as will be seen throughout this book.

As

very narrow social and political base internallv, the Guatemalan bourgeoisie and its allies required U.S. financial, political,

a further

consequence of

its

and military support, particularly in the early years of the Counterrevolution and again in the 1960s. The other critical force in the Counterrevolution was the male urban ladino petty bourgeoisie, including some groups that had participated actively in making the Revolution. The "Liberation" profoundly split the ranks of the petty bourgeoisie.

A

small minority continued to defend

some eventually supporting movement. But most associated themselves with the upper classes, newly restored to political power. Why did the very class that had formed the backbone of the Revolution so quickly integrate itself into the Counterrevolution? As seen above, the nationalistic values of the Revolution, with

or participating in the revolutionary

the majority of the petty bourgeoisie, faced with the radicalization of the Revolution,

came

to fear the

independent organized power of workers

and peasants; they also took the path of

least resistance in regard to

the "Liberation," particularly since the price of any alternative response

would have been extremely high. Moreover, a primary motivation in making the Revolution had been to break out of economic depression and lack of opportunities under Ubico; the same motivation (economic advance) that gave them a progressive role in 1944 led them ten years acquiesce in the Counterrevolution. Agricultural diversification

later to

and industrialization produced a need for lawyers, accountants, engineers, and other university-trained professionals. In the post-1954 balance of power, the straightest road for their advance lay in taking advantage of the

new

opportunities to service private capital.

them used officers

this position to rise into the

who

bourgeoisie

acquired land and corporate lawyers

—

A

small

number

of

example, military acquired a material

for

who

interest in the enterprises of their clients.

Most of the state services

stances.

upward

state bureaucracy,

rooted

initially

in

the expansion of

during the Revolution, also adapted to the

Primary motivations

for

new

circum-

the technocrats were aspirations for

mobility, fear of losing their jobs, and hence strong tendencies toward conformism (Weaver 1970). These rather typical bureaucratic attitudes were reinforced in Guatemala by the trauma of 1954: Those who escaped the witch hunt and maintained their jobs (an estimated 70 percent) could be incorporated into the new order (see Poitevin 1977,

163

ff.).

A word

must be said about the

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

45

role of the officer corps of the

armed had

forces in the Counterrevolutionary coalition. In fact, the military

never really been displaced from power, because

it

had been

integral

Revolutionary governments. As an institution, it was quite divided at the time of the "Liberation," with important sectors resisting and/ or challenging Castillo Armas in June 1954 and subsequently. However, the United States stood firmly behind the Castillo Armas government to the

an uprising by cadets in August 1954) and oversaw a purge of the officer corps (Handy 1986b, 392), in order to ensure that it would never again have to deal with a nationalist army. As will be (especially after

Guatemalan army was to be pursued Washington's extensive military assistance and training programs in Guatemala during the 1960s.

seen, the goal of forging a pro-U.S. in

Economic Foundations: Export-led Growth In

some

respects the Liberacionistas

wished

to turn the clock back,

pre-1944 staus quo ante. But such a reversion was not because of definitive changes in Guatemala's economic and

to revive the feasible,

social structure

of the

and

in the

postwar international context. In

fact,

very contradictions that had generated the Revolution

particularly the crisis in the

mono-export model, required

of the capitalist modernization process after

some itself,

a continuation

1954, although on very

different terms.

Post-1954 Guatemalan development was a product of various pressures,

among

these: pressures for economic diversification in both agriculture and industry; the need of the Guatemalan ruling classes to reestablish themselves firmly in power; the U.S. determination to make the Counterrevolution "work"; and the needs of foreign private capital, which was assumed to be essential for development. But as will be seen, these pressures "from the top" were counterbalanced by strong pressures "from the bottom" of society; the combination made Guatemalan development chronically contradictory and explosive after 1954. As part of the postwar expansion of the international capitalist system, Guatemala entered into a thirty-year period of export-led economic growth, based primarily on diversification of agriculture. On the one hand, this was necessary in order to overcome the fetters of the monoexport economy, which had fed the Revolution; even after the "Liberation," going back to mono-export was not a viable alternative. Particularly after the mid-1950s, coffee prices began a long-range decline and the coffee-importing nations introduced quotas; hence in 1965, Guatemala's export earnings from coffee were no greater than in 1956, although exports were 50 percent higher (Galeano 1967, 141). Banana exports

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

46

were controlled by two U.S. companies and almost totally dependent on the U.S. market, which proved very unstable (Bulmer-Thomas 1987, 150

ff.).

On

the other hand, there were new opportunities, new technologies, and an appreciable amount of unused land. The first major new export was cotton, stimulated by both the Arbenz government and those of the Counterrevolution. This was followed by sugar, for which there was an incentive after the United States cut off Cuba's quota in the early 1960s, and cattle in the 1970s. Even under the Counterrevolution, the state played a major role in promoting diversification and modernization of agriculture by national capitalists; this expansion led to growth rates of 4-6 percent virtually every year between 1954 and the late 1970s (Dunkerley 1988, 172; see also Bulmer-Thomas 1987; Williams 1986). Despite diversification, Guatemala remained dependent on a few agricultural exports, hence as vulnerable as ever to the fluctuations in world market prices. By 1965, coffee alone still accounted for 47.4 percent of exports, while coffee and cotton amounted to 67.5 percent. Over the short range, this caused a balance of payments crisis (Bulmer-Thomas 1987, 165); longer range,

Part

it

contributed to the crises of the 1980s (see

2).

Who

were the beneficiaries of the great expansion of the agricultural

export economy? After annulling the Arbenz agrarian reform law, the

governments of Castillo Armas and his successors made a show of a necessary show, initiating their own land redistribution programs

—

particularly during the years of the Alliance for Progress (AFP). Primarily they distributed uncultivated state-owned lands in frontier areas, while

leaving the latifundia intact on the best lands. In the late 1960s the

government sought

to relieve pressure

on

fertile Pacific

Coast land by

resettling peasants in the Peten, but these programs foundered because

of poor land quality, inaccessibility, (Fletcher et

al.

1970,

139).

Despite

and lack

of marketing

the establishment of

facilities

new

credit

institutions, by 1967, 90 percent of all bank credit was monopolized by big export growers (Griffin 1970, 13; Guzman and Herbert 1970, 85). The amount of land actually distributed was minimal. Even according to official figures, by 1967, only 22,000 families had received land (less than .5 million acres total), as compared with 100,000 peasants who had received three times as much land in less than two years under Arbenz (Gordon 1971, 150). Thus, according to the 1964 census, the land tenure situation had barely changed from that of 1950, before

Arbenz's reform.

1

consequence of the way in which priorities were determined in agriculture, Guatemala was an importer of basic staples (wheat and corn); as late as 1967, only 38 percent of the value of

As

a further

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

47

production was for internal consumption

(Guzman and and Bulmer-Thomas 1987, 160). Finally, as will be seen, agricultural growth had explosive social consequences, because of the expectations it aroused and the dislocations it caused; these were compounded when peasants relocated to colonization lands were dispossessed again in the 1970s (see Williams 1986; Paige agricultural

Herbert 1970, 77; see also

Adams

1970, 152;

1983).

Industrialization and Foreign Investment

by agricultural growth was used to added from manufacturing more than tripled, and its contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) rose from 10 percent in 1950 to nearly 14 percent in 1970 (Rosenthal 1971, 23b). Internally, import substitution was a strategy for capitalist modernization of the Central American economies, but without challenging vested landed interests, and without involving immediate social upheaval. This coincided with an external factor: During the 1950s and 1960s industrial corporations based in the advanced capitalist nations inIn part the surplus generated

finance industrialization. In the years from 1950 to 1969, value

—

creasingly monopolistic, increasingly concentrated, increasingly integrated

both horizontally and

and operating increasingly on an inseeking opportunities to expand and make new investments. For conservative Central American governments, in turn, "development" meant industrialization by foreign investors. From both perspectives, industrialization would not be viable in the small Central American countries without a much larger market; and if this larger market was not to be based on making profound changes domestically to redistribute income and increase mass purchasing power (e.g., land reform, as under Arbenz), an alternative would be to combine the markets in a Central American Common Market (CACM). In a vertically,

ternational or global scale

— were

sense, regional integration relieved the pressure for basic social trans-

The consumer base could be enlarged by combining Guamiddle- and upper-class consumer base with those of its

formation: temala's

neighbors (see "The Central American

Common

Market" below). from that begun by Arbenz in another significant way: whereas under the Revolution it had been fundamentally a policy of economic nationalism, designed to make Guatemala less dependent upon the advanced capitalist nations, after 1954 it became a channel for denationalization of Guatemalan resources, primarily because it came to be dominated by foreign capital. Unlike the Southern Cone experience of the 1930s, Guatemalan industrialization occurred during a period of major expansion abroad by U.S. Industrialization in the post-1954 era also differed

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

48

One 1968 study estimated that over 62 percent of all major manufacturing establishments in Guatemala were controlled by foreigners capital.

(Bechtol 1968, 25-26).

From

the very beginning, post-1954

Guatemalan governments refused

to restrict the operations of foreign investors (e.g., profit remittances)

or to regulate the composition of capital in key sectors.

The

Industrial

Promotion Law of 1959, replacing a far more restrictive law of 1947, offered generous fiscal incentives in the form of exemptions from income taxes and from import duties on machinery and raw materials. The indiscriminate application of the measure led to a sharp loss of revenue to the state (nearly $60 million by 1968) and rewarded the utilization of imported rather than local raw materials. Furthermore, almost all bank credit went to large firms. This kind of industrialization failed to alleviate Guatemala's serious

unemployment problem. Even as industry rose to 14 percent of GDP by 1969, industrial employment remained at about 11.5 percent of total employment from 1950 to 1964 (Fletcher et al. 1970, 11-14). The problem was particularly serious, given the high rate of migration to the cities: From 1950 to 1962, industrial employment rose an average of 1.5 percent a year, while the urban population grew at an annual rate of 5.1 percent. Industrial technology was capital- rather than labor-intensive, partly because foreign corporations had no interest in developing an appropriate technology. Also because so many of them were foreign owned, a high percent of "Guatemalan" industries involved little more than assembling or mixing imported components (Jonas and Tobis 1974, 132 ff.; BulmerThomas 1987, 194). These problems were clearly exemplified in the string drug and chemical companies along the capital's Roosevelt Highway, and Eli Lilly: They employed fewer than fifty people each (half in nonproduction jobs) and imported everything but the water and air used in mixing. As a result, what was billed as "import substitution" actually aggravated Guatemala's balance of payments deficit. More broadly, foreign investment took many new forms in Guatemala during the 1960s: In addition to majority or total ownership of subsidiaries, U.S.-based corporations maintained control through minority participation in joint ventures, "technical assistance" contracts, manufacturing licenses, and a host of sophisticated financial and managerial operations. The net effect was a greater rather than lesser penetration of the economy by foreign capital. Whereas U.S. investment at the end of World War II had been concentrated in three monopolistic enclaves in agriculture and public utilities, the investors of the 1960s dominated a wide range of of

subsidiaries of Upjohn, Abbott,

productive activities, particularly industry. 2 In quantitative terms, foreign

investment doubled, from $137.6 million in 1959 to $286.25 million in

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

1969.

By 1970, 86 percent

their subsidiaries in

of this investment

Panama and

came from

U.S. firms

49

and

the Bahamas. 3 Ninety of the Fortune

500 had operations in Guatemala. Despite their very prominent role in the Guatemalan economy, according to a 1969 study, foreign corporations employed a mere 2 percent of the Guatemalan work force (Calderon 1969, 52; on the above, see also Rosenthal 1971; Castillo Rivas 1980; Poitevin 1977; Barry, Wood, and Preusch 1983; Torres Rivas 1984b; Tobis in Jonas and Tobis 1974, 132 ff.). Given the emphasis on attracting foreign investment, Guatemala's domestic policies were oriented toward creating a "favorable climate" for such investment. Such a climate implied orthodox fiscal policies, low tax and wage rates, incentives and tax exemptions, nonregulation of profit

remittances, restrictive labor legislation,

and

political

stability.

United States took a direct role in moulding the Guatemalan state apparatus as a facilitator of foreign investment, formulating Guatemala's development strategy and administering it through U.S. foreign aid agencies (see Chapter 4). Immediately

after the "Liberation" for a time, the

The Central American

Common

Market

During the late 1950s discussions began among the Central American governments and some sectors of the business community, under the auspices of the UN. Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL) that is, one that would to define a "rational" industrialization policy develop industry for the regional market within the framework of "balanced growth." Politically CEPAL made a strategic decision not to require heavy sacrifices from private sector elites, that is, not to touch their land holdings. The other keys to CEPAL's approach were careful planning, coordination, and policies designed to overcome the historical inequalities between countries in the region and to convince all five countries to participate. This took the form of a proposal to allocate "integration industries" (major foreign investments producing for the

—

regional market) to the five countries sequentially, to distribute the gains

among them. The United States was initially on the sidelines, but became interested American integration within the framework of the Alliance for Progress. The basic premise of the Alliance was to avoid "more Cubas" by pouring billions of U.S. aid dollars into Latin America and, in theory, promoting basic reforms (even tax and land reforms) that would lessen the appeal of revolutionary movements. Central America was a major target area for the AFP because it was viewed as highly unstable, with a serious potential for revolutionary movements, particularly in Guatemala and El Salvador. Less prominently stated, but more in Central

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

50

AFP

in the end, U.S. aid programs could be used investment in the region. In Central America, the AFP development formula meant industrialization by foreign investors, who required a market of scale. Thus,

fundamental

to the

to stimulate U.S. private

although skeptical about Central American integration at the outset, viewing CEPAL as dangerously "statist," even "socialistic" in its orientation, Washington became fully involved by the end of the 1950s.

Without going into the details here (see Jonas and Tobis 1974, 86 ff.), the U.S. approach to Central American integration differed significantlty from that of CEPAL over the issue of planning and balanced development. Above all, the United States staunchly opposed the "integration industry" scheme, viewing it as an encroachment on the prerogative of private (mainly U.S.) corporations to choose freely where to invest. Washington also opposed the economic nationalism and protectionism of CEPAL's formula for import substitution, on the grounds that it infringed upon the principles of free trade.

The US./CEPAL rivalry was ultimately resolved in favor of the United Washington was able to offer the Central Americans large amounts of money, and U.S. aid came on U.S. terms. These terms added up to unrestricted operation of the "free market," and absoute free trade and freedom for foreign capital investing in Central America. Specifically, States because

the United States used principal

and

CACM

its

leverage to control the operations of the

institutions, to intervene strategically in

to sabotage the "integration industry"

scheme

key decisions,

for regulating large-

United States worked closely with most privileged and recalcitrant sectors of the local bourgeoisies, abandoning the initial U.S. verbal commitments to redistributive land and tax reforms. As a consequence of the above, "balanced regional growth" became scale investments. In addition, the

the

impossible. Foreign investors flocked to the relatively

more developed

areas (Guatemala and El Salvador), leaving other countries, particularly

Honduras, with a very low proportion of the region's industry. This

made Guatemalan capitalists By 1969, Guatemala enjoyed 32 percent of the region's foreign investment, as compared with 12 percent in Nicaragua (Rosenthal 1971, 87b), and by 1970 it was the only nation whose trade aggravated preexisting imbalances that had

major

CACM

beneficiaries:

balance was positive with

all

of the others.

Long-simmering resentments about this imbalance exploded after the so-called "soccer war" of 1969 between Honduras and El Salvador. The war was less over soccer than over Honduras's refusal to permit the Salvadoran government to continue solving its unemployment problems (in reality a consequence of outrageously skewed land distribution) through massive migration of unemployed landless Salvadorans to Hon-

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

51

Honduras took the opportunity to insist on a the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala, indirectly supported by the United States, refused to make any concession. At the end of 1970, Honduras pulled out of the CACM, charging that Hondurans were in effect subsidizing the growth of the Guatemalan and Salvadoran private sectors. The Honduran action led to the collapse of the CACM, and subsequent efforts to revive it were duras. After the war,

restructuring of the

CACM;

only partially successful; the relative decline of intraregional trade during the

1970s was followed by an absolute decline during the economic

crisis of the

1980s.

In the end,

The United

even U.S. objectives

for the

CACM

were not achieved.

States could not stabilize the region because that

contradiction with the protection of international capital. States

had been

less

If

was

in

the United

dogmatically committed to preserving the freedom

could have accepted a degree of planning that would have permitted a greater balance and a more stable CACM. But the of U.S. investors,

insistence

it

on nonregulation ended by making the

entire

scheme un-

workable.

And

to the extent that there

crisis in

had been any thought

of avoiding social

Central America by making reforms and expanding domestic

CACM failed completely. Somehow the Central American and the United States hoped to stabilize the socioeconomic system, but without really making the necessary reforms. The function of the state and of regional integration institutions became one of creating favorable conditions for private enterprise. Meanwhile, for the lower classes that were to have been incorporated into the market, socioeconomic conditions worsened during the 1960s. While the population grew at a rate of 3.2 percent a year and higher in cities, unemployment rose and industrial employment declined as a percentage of total employment. The gaps in income distribution widened. While industrialists and foreign investors benefited from integration, the costs (e.g., regressive sales taxes, to compensate for the governments' increasing fiscal problems) were borne by the poor. The above interpretation is strongly shared by some economists (e.g., Vaitsos 1978), while being challenged by others in regard to the role of external interests. Some have argued that the CACM was one of the "most ambitious" of U.S. plans for a form of development (however distorted), and that Central America was one of the few places where the Alliance for Progress had an "appreciable impact" (Dunkerley 1988, markets, the elites

203).

Others argue that foreign private investment made a positive

contribution, although a very limited one

out that the role

(e.g.,

Bulmer-Thomas 1988a;

Guerra Borges 1989). It has also been pointed of the United States one way or the other should not

for a contrasting view, see

52

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

be exaggerated; the responsibility for the fate of the CACM lies with the local elites and their governments as much as or more than the United States (Bulmer-Thomas 1987, 179; on these questions, see also Rosenthal 1971; Poitevin 1977; Torres Rivas 1984b). Finally, it should be noted that even as a strategy of growth without radical redistribution, the

AFP/CACM

strategy

was reformist

in theory,

by comparison with subsequent stategies. The CACM was designed to increase and rationalize industrial production for the Central American domestic market, which presupposed an improvement in the living standard of the majority of the population and fuller incorporation of the working class into the economy. What followed after the collapse of the CACM in the 1970s and 1980s was an openly antireformist strategy of "export promotion" based on Central America's "comparative advantage" in cheap labor. Rather than becoming a consumer market whose living standard needed to be raised, the Central American working class would be kept at a bare subsistence level, producing for the world market. As will be seen in Part 2, this cheap-labor strategy required no expansion of the domestic market, hence no redistributive reforms. at least

The Nickel Mirage In February 1971, after ten years of negotiations, the Guatemalan government signed a contract with Empresa Exploraciones y Explotaciones Mineras de Izabal (EXMIBAL) (Carter and Goff in Jonas and Tobis 1974). Under the contract, EXMIBAL, a subsidiary of International Nickel Co. (INCO, based in Canada but controlled by U.S. capital), with 20 percent ownership by the U.S. company Hanna Mining Co., was granted the right to mine Guatemala's sizeable nickel resources in Izabal province and to export 60 million pounds of nickel annually for the next forty years. The project promised a major shift in Guatemala's economy. Negotiations began in the 1960s after Hanna completed initial exploration from 1957 to 1960 in the Lake Izabal area. The joint INCOHanna subsidiary was formed in 1960 and received a forty-year mining concession in 1965. A new mining code, very favorable to foreign investors (drawn up by a Peruvian mining technician employed by INCO), had already been adopted in Guatemala. The final contract was not signed until February 1971. During that time, the projected investment quadrupled from $60 to $250 million the largest single project in the

—

country, doubling

all

previous U.S. investment.

One

reason for the long,

was INCO's desire to be assured of favorable market conditions. But even more important was strong opposition to the project from significant sectors of the Guatemalan population, which

secret negotiation process

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

forced the government to bargain for better terms than the

53

company

attempted to impose. 4 If the contract had gone through on INCO's terms, it would have made EXMIBAL a privileged enclave, as UFCo had once been. That gains were made for Guatemala during the ten years of negotiation resulted primarily from the vigorous campaign waged by critics at the

had

initially

National University and other progressives.

A number

of these critics

were assassinated or suffered other reprisals (see Chapter 4). The final contract was signed while Guatemala was under strict state of siege, banning all political activity and free speech a symbolic expression, perhaps, of the guaranteed "political stability" that INCO required. The political consequences were even more explosive because EXMIBAL's zone of operation was the scene of the guerrilla insurgency and the first ferocious counterinsurgency campaign in the 1960s. But even after the contract was signed, INCO did not proceed with

—

the investment, claiming

it

lacked financing. In

fact,

INCO's

stalling

were designed to get an investment guarantee from the Guatemalan government and, even more important, to await favorable world market conditions. The great nickel shortage and sky-high prices of the 1960s that had sparked interest in the project finally ended, and during 1971, as part of a general recession in the industrial nations, sales and prices fell sharply. INCO responded by cutting back production and employment overall, and in effect designating Guatemala as a reserve. When world market conditions improved in 1973, INCO began the project, but on a vastly reduced scale. The plant finally opened in 1977 and shipped out its first load of nickel in 1978. But faced with rising oil prices and tactics

declining nickel prices,

and

EXMIBAL

never became a profitable enterprise, was suspended. Thus ended the dreams would "save" the Guatemalan economy.

in 1981 the entire project

that the nickel project

Notes 1.

While 87.4 percent of landowners (minifundistas) possessed 19 percent of

the land, 2.1 percent of landowners (latifundistas) controlled 62 percent (Fletcher et al. 1970, 59).

was

One

often-cited justification for the

that large land holdings are

more

efficient;

skewed structure of ownership in fact, studies showed that

Guatemala produced only one-fourth the yield per acre compared with small farms (Torres Rivas 1971, 225); while the minifundistas used all their cultivable land, latifundistas were leaving 60.7 percent of their arable land unused (Amaro 1970, 313). 2. The movement of foreign investment into new areas occurred in two ways: first, through new investment by companies that previously had no investment in Guatemala (e.g., Coca Cola, Monsanto, Texaco, International Nickel, Eli Lilly); large land holdings in

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

54

and second, through latter

diversification

by the older

investors.

An example of the down the Arbenz

trend was United Fruit, which, shortly after helping bring

government, began to

sell its

lands and to pull out of banana growing; while

retaining control over the less risky

moved

into

new

and

visible

marketing of bananas,

agricultural export products (e.g., African

palm

oil)

UFCo

and food

processing operations (details in Jonas and Tobis 1974, Sec. IV). 3.

The net

effect for

Guatemala was a

capital outflow rather than inflow.

Of

the total foreign direct investment over the period 1962-1969, only around half

new

represented local

bank

coming from reinvested

capital inflows, the other half

loans, etc.

Some

profits,

corporations, such as W. R. Grace, had a deliberate

bank capital rather than ploughing in U.S. dollars. Moreover, 40-45 percent of profits was remitted to parent corporations (Rosenthal

policy of mobilizing local

1971, 88a). Furthermore foreign corporations did not play the "innovative" role

up new fields where cautious local capitalists would not venture; many moved into traditional fields, frequently displacing and ruining smaller locally owned industries. For example, a Guatemalan who had once of opening rather,

employed in

a

thirty

people in a flourishing Quezaltenango shoe factory ended up

small storefront with one assistant, repairing shoes, while a Goodyear

subsidiary dominated the market for shoes (Bechtol 1969, 96). To cite another

example,

least

at

seven U.S. corporate giants bought out Guatemalan food

industries. In addition to their natural advantages,

by virture of sheer

size

and more

sophisticated technology, U.S. corporations were granted special privileges not available to local investors. Chief

among

these

was the investment guarantee

program of the U.S. government Agency for International Development (AID). Under this program, U.S. firms were insured against loses from inconvertibility (inability to convert local

currency into dollars for remittance), expropriation,

war, revolution, and insurrection, thus providing a hedge against risk in politically

unstable areas like Guatemala. In the event of expropriation,

pensate the

company and then

settle

AID would com-

accounts with the Guatemalan government,

thus elevating a dispute between a U.S. firm and the Guatemalan government to

an international dispute between the two governments. The program was so

heavily criticized in Guatemala that the Guatemalan government actually applied it

sporadically, despite

privileges,

dozens of inquires from

when market

U.S. firms unilaterally closed

provision for the workers 4.

won

Among

the

main

U.S. firms. Finally, despite these

conditions took a turn for the worse in 1970, several

down

their

Guatemalan

installations,

without any

left jobless.

issues

were the following: The government eventually

30 percent participation in the authorized capital; even this participation

as a minority stockholder resistance,

INCO

had

initially

been opposed by INCO. Despite

initial

eventually agreed to refine the nickel in Guatemala rather than

Europe. Vague clauses committed INCO to "gradually substitute" imports of raw materials, fuel, and services and to rehabilitate mined areas; the company maintained its exemption from a law requiring that 90 percent of its employees be Guatemalans. Meanwhile, the government agreed to pay for major infrastructure improvements (to be financed in part by loans from the U.S. Exportin

Counterrevolution and Imperialism

55

won generous tax and import duty exemptions. Most controversial were INCO's attempts to gain privileged treatment for foreign exchange generated by nickel exports, by maintaining its dollar earnings abroad and not even registering these with the Bank of Guatemala; this violated even the minimal laws regulating foreign exchange. The final contract permitted INCO to accumulate dollars abroad, stipulating only that the operation must produce a net balance of payments benefit to Guatemala (see Goff in Jonas and Tobis Import Bank); and the company

1974, 151

ff.).

4 Rebels and Death Squads

I:

The 1960s

As a reflection of the power structure described in Chapter 3, the Guatemalan state was restructured after the "Liberation" and evolved in response to the changing emphases of the Counterrevolution. Initially (1954-1957) the United States played a very direct role in the restructuring process; subsequently a new modus operandi emerged in the Guatemalan ruling coalition, with the bourgeoisie exercising indirect control, and the

armed

forces (once

purged of

their nationalist elements)

becoming

central

to the functioning of the state.

As

a

primary force behind the overthrow of the Guatemalan Revolution,

making Counterrevolutionary Guatemala a "showcase for democracy." Particularly because the political and economic situation under Castillo Armas was extremely precarious, the United States had to participate directly in administering the government for several years; and this required pouring in large amounts of U.S. economic aid. The principal obstacle was that in the mid-1950s, foreign aid was not yet common, and generally the Eisenhower administration preferred to leave economic development to private investors and the World Bank. Given this overall situation, substantial aid funds could not have been mobilized for Castillo Armas if there had not the United States took responsibility for

existed a coaliton of forces with a particular interest in getting aid to

Guatemala after the "Liberation"; these forces gradually coalesced into new Guatemala lobby in Washington (see Jonas and Tobis 1974, 82

a

Jonas 1981, Ch. 3). While taking initiatives through the International Cooperation Administration (ICA the predecessor to AID), the U.S. government also worked through the World Bank and the private consulting firm Klein ff.;

—

57

Rebels and Death Squads

58

and Saks (K&S), which

I

billed itself as providing a "private enterprise

and promoted orthodox InMonetary Fund-type policies. ICA paid K&S for its consulting services to the Guatemalan government which in practice meant operating out of the Guatemalan Presidential Palace as a kind of shadow government; meanwhile, ICA agencies were set up to parallel Guatemalan government ministries (Jonas and Tobis 1974, 78). Guatemala's Five-Year Plan for 1955-1960 was written by World Bank advisers. Although exact figures are difficult to obtain, most reliable sources agree that the bill for the U.S. salvage operation for the first few years after the "Liberation" (not counting military aid) was US$80-90 million almost all of it in donations (detailed sources in Jonas and Tobis 1974, 256, note 21 for "Showcase"). The figure is especially striking because at the time, the entire U.S. economic aid program for Latin America was little more than $60 million a year. By the end of the Castillo Armas regime, the United States no longer directly ran the Guatemalan government, but the basic model was in place. Implicit within the strategy of the Counterrevolution was a view that the state should serve but not regulate private interests. This was evident in the proliferation of private sector interest and pressure groups, prescription for sick national economies" ternational

—

representing not only the traditionally strong coffee oligarchy, but after

1954 the newly emerging business sectors. Thus, the Asociacion General de Agricultores (AGA) and the Camara de Comercio were joined by the the Camara de Industria and a host of other such associations. Foreign investors operated within these associations, and became very influential in some of them, as well as establishing their own American Chamber of Commerce (Bryant 1967a, 1967b; Adams 1970, Ch. 6). An umbrella coordinating committee, CACIF, represented the entire private sector on matters of

common

becoming in effect the "political party of and other aspects of the postrevolutionary see Richard Adams's pioneering 1970 study, Crucifixion interest,

the bourgeoisie." (For this

power

structure,

by Power.

Although the bourgeoisie did not

directly

expected the government to consult on

many

respects exercised veto

all

power over

run the government,

it

important matters, and in

official

policy

— as

indicated

by its ability, for example, to force a reduction in coffee export taxes and import taxes, leaving the state itself impoverished. The clearest example of the way in which the state contributed to its own impoverishment was taxation. According to figures from the U.S. AID and the IMF, as of the late 1960s, total central government revenue was only 7.9 percent of gross national product (GNP) and tax revenue was 7.1 percent the lowest in Central America; direct taxes were 10.8 percent of total revenue, also the lowest in Central America. IMF studies ranked

—

Rebels and Death Squads

I

59

seventy-first out of seventy-two countries in "tax efforts."

Guatemala

GNP from 1955 to 1966 (Jonas and Tobis 1974, 258, notes 5-6 to "New Hard Line"). As of 1966, direct taxes on enterprises provided .8 percent of national income (Best 1969, Taxes actually decreased as a percent of

68, 117-118).

The one government attempt to reform the tax structure failed misSoon after coming to power, the Mendez Montenegro government (1966-1970) tried to push through a tax reform that would have dealt with the serious financial crisis by moderately increasing property taxes. erably.

When

this failed,

Congress passed a progressive sales tax that penalized

luxury consumption, but this too was repealed after a few weeks. The opposition from the Guatemalan bourgeoisie and the U.S. business

community

in

Guatemala was so intense that, in addition to not getting Mendez government was forced to dismiss

the measures adopted, the

reformist Finance Minister Alberto Fuentes

Mohr

in

March

1968; the

government also faced talk of a coup, and never again dared to take any developmental initiatives or to tamper with the privileges of the bourgeoisie (details in Jonas and Tobis 1974, 105-107). Subsequent governments all promised "no new taxes" or acquiesced in the defeat of

new measures,

in Latin

Politics of

No

leaving Guatemala's tax structure virtually the worst

America.

less

Counterrevolution and Terror than the Revolution, the Counterrevolution entailed a reThe two political imperatives were the maintainence

definition of politics.

and the elimination and prevention of such mobilization in the

of a "favorable" (stable) climate for private investment of popular organization

future. During the initial stages of the Counterrevolution, Castillo Armas dispensed with the trappings of "normal" politics. Soon thereafter, an attempt was made to return to and maintain the forms of democratic politics (elections, political parties, constitutional guarantees, etc.). Beleft by the experiences of Revolution and Counterrevolution, however, "normal" political activities were con-

cause of the extreme polarization siderably distorted.

When they took place at all, elections were anything but democratic. October 1954, Castillo Armas was "elected" in an Ubico-style plebiscite, in which he received over 99 percent of the vote. The 1957 presidential election, following his assassination by one of his own guards, was so In

overtly fraudulent that

it

was annulled. A new

election in 1958 gave

the presidency to Gen. Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes, a corrupt Ubiquista

with close ties to Dominican dictator Trujillo. His even more conservative opponent was bribed by the CIA ($200,000) to concede to Ydigoras

60

Rebels and Death Squads

I

(Cehelsky 1967, 123-125). This and subsequent elections in 1959 were characterized by numerous irregularities (Sloan 1970). The presidential

was preempted by a U.S.-supported military coup led by Col. Enrique Peralta Azurdia, to prevent the candidacy and anticipated victory of former President Arevalo. 2 In the words of one election scheduled for 1963

expert (Sloan 1970, 81), electoral laws are "violated, evaded, or just

... is a normal common in rural areas.

ignored. Electoral fraud

abnormalities are

occurrence .

.

.

structure manipulates the electoral laws in such a

which threatens the capitalists

is

interests

.

.

.

,

electoral

Moreover, the power

of the military, the

way that no party landowners or the

allowed to participate."

The 1966 election, following three years of de facto military rule, was generally regarded as honest. The victor was opposition candidate and civilian reformer, Julio Cesar Mendez Montenegro of the Partido Revolucionario (PR), who promised the "Third Government of the Revolution." The real fraud came later: Although his election was a clear mandate for structural reform, Mendez was permitted to take office only after literally signing a pact with the army. This pact, brokered by the U.S. Embassy, guaranteed the army a free hand in counterinsurgency operations (and the accompanying repression) and autonomy in such matters as budgets, selection of the defense minister and chief of staff; Mendez also promised to exclude "radicals" from the government, but not to retire too many generals. It was under this civilian government, ironically, that the "relative autonomy" of the army in Guatemalan politics was established (Poitevin 1977, 191-192). These events, and particularly Mendez's capitulation to U.S. and Guatemalan right-wing military pressures, set the stage for subsequent elections, in which almost all candidates were military officers. The 1970 election of rightist Col. Carlos Arana Osorio (known as the "Butcher of Zacapa" for his role in the 1966-1968 antiguerrilla campaign discussed below) was superficially free of fraud, but was held under conditions of extreme terror. As will be seen in Part 2, the three subsequent elections (1974, 1978, 1982) were all openly fraudulent. Even the elections that were relatively clean could not be characterized as "free." First, physical intimidation, bribery, and so on, were institutionalized techniques for securing votes, especially in the countryside.

Second, there was no choice among serious alternatives, because even moderate reformer such as Arevalo was not tolerated. All leftist political

a

were excluded from participation in elections. The PGT (Communist Party) remained illegal by definition. Several small reformist parties (e.g., Unidad Revolucionaria Democratica, URD) were prevented from being registered by "not fulfilling" requirements for having 50,000 parties

members. The Partido Revolucionario became more

centrist

after

its

Rebels and Death Squads

leadership purged the entire

left

wing

61

I

of the party in the late 1950s.

The Christian Democratic Party, initially a rightist party, came under the control of more moderate leadership in the late 1960s and was finally although by that time, able to run candidates in the 1970 election radicalized sectors were leaving the party. Among mainstream parties, the rhetoric and campaign appeal varied considerably, from the reformist, social democratic image of the PR, to the moderate Christian Democrats, to the official army party (Partido Institucional Democratico, PID), to the openly fascist Movimiento Liberation National (MLN), the party of the "Liberation," subsequently known as the "party of organized violence." In practice, however, even though some of these parties had limited support among the lower classes, they all basically represented the interests of one or another tendency within the bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, and army. The existence of competing political parties and the occurrence of elections, therefore, should not obscure the fact that "politics" in Counterrevolutionary Guatemala offered no real choices to the indigenous population or to the popular classes generally. The extent of popular disillusion with electoral politics was indicated by the high rate of voter abstention: Of those registered, only 50 percent voted in 1966, less than 50 percent in 1970; and of those eligible to vote, only 25-26 percent actually voted

—

(Amaro 1970, 212; Handy 1984, 167). "Normal" democratic institutions were further distorted by the mil-

in those years

itarization of politics after 1954, not only during periods of overt military

an integral feature of "civilian" governments. Nearly all of Guatemala's constitutionally elected presidents after 1954 came from a military background and had firm military support or got such support, as did Mendez by signing a pact with the army. During long periods of supposedly civilian rule (e.g. under Mendez) rule (1963-1966) but also as

—

power remained in the hands of the military. To take another The increase of defense expenditures per member of the armed forces between 1955 and 1965 was greater in Guatemala than in any other Latin American country. Official defense and internal security expenditures reached 17 percent of annual government spending by 1965 (Adams 1970, 147), as compared with 2 percent for the university. effective

indicator:

Including unofficial extra expenditures for defense, the military budget nearly doubled for 1970.

At the local level, particularly during the frequent states of siege, were generally run by the commander of the Military Zone. Peralta reorganized and greatly strengthened the network of "military commissioners," representatives of the army reserve in each town; mostly former army personnel, they now assumed a new status as paramilitary forces to protect the interests of rural property owners. Beyond their politics

Rebels and Death Squads

62

I

normal functions (recruitment, etc.), they engaged in extensive spying on the local population and other policing and vigilante operations, as well as Civic Action "development" programs. Under military rule, even the courts were militarized. Thus, in a very real sense, the military became a leading force in Guatemalan politics. At a deeper level, however, the political power of the

armed

forces

was an expression

of the class alliance underlying the

Counterrevolution. The militarization of politics permitted the Guate-

malan bourgeoisie and foreign investors to rule indirectly, with CACIF as their main political representative. It also reflected the incorporation of the dependent petty bourgeoisie into the ruling coalition: The topdown, authoritarian mentality and style of the military gave them a kind of security by systematically excluding popular participation. For the officer corps, meanwhile, this role guaranteed upward mobility, hence reducing the likelihood of their involvement in a nationalist/populist alliance.

A

was the regular Guatemala spent nearly half of the nine years from 1963 through 1971 under states oi all of which to one or another degree siege, prevention, or alarm abrogated constitutional guarantees and liberties. More ominously, this chain of states of siege provided a backdrop for widespread right-wing/ official terror, under the guise of maintaining public order and combatting further aspect of Counterrevolutionary politics

replacement of democratic legality by outright

terror.

—

Beginning with the witch hunt of 1954, governments of the Counterrevolution condoned and frequently carried out the physical elimination of moderate and leftist opposition forces. Virtually an entire generation of moderate leaders was removed from Guatemalan political life during the 1960s and 1970s: The more fortunate survived in exile; thousands of others were assassinated or a leftist guerrilla insurgency.

the

"disappeared." After 1966, the terror was engineered by a series of right-wing death Blanca ("White Hand") and Ojo por Ojo squads such as the ("An Eye for an Eye") a by-product of the dirty counterinsurgency war (see "Counterinsurgency Laboratory for Latin America" below). Organized by the MLN (Sandoval Alarcon becoming internationally known as the "Godfather of the death squads") and financed by the bourgeoisie, they were allegedly clandestine and beyond official control. In fact, these groups operated with total impunity and were based in the army and police forces (generally being composed of off-duty or former members of these security forces); they complemented government counterinsurgency operations by carrying out the activities that violated even Guatemalan laws. Their tactics ranged from publication of death lists to kidnappings, torture, and assassinations. Under the Arana regime

MANO

—

Rebels and Death Squads

63

I

Cabinet ministers were said to be directly involved in drawing up the death lists. Typical of the integration between official forces and the terrorist Right was the experience of thousands of victims (1970-1974),

(40,000 by the 1980s)

up by

who

army

police or

relatives searched for

simply "disappeared," often

vehicles, or

them

by unmarked

in the jails for

generally be found, tortured

after

being picked

cars; after friends

and

weeks, their corpses would

and mutilated,

in a ditch or ravine or a

"clandestine cemetery."

One

target of the death

bourgeoisie

—

maintained

its

squads was that small sector of the petty

professionals, university students, identification

and professors

— that

with the Revolution of 1944-1954 and

alliance with the popular classes.

Some

its

faculties of the national University

San Carlos, which was regarded by the bourgeoisie as a Communist breeding ground, were virtually gutted by the terror. In March 1966 (just days before the election), twenty-eight intellectuals, union leaders, and PGT leaders being held as "guerrillas" were executed by government firing squad and their bodies sewn into burlap bags and dropped into the ocean from army transport planes. In January 1968, the body of Rogelia Cruz Martinez, previously Miss Guatemala, who was known to have leftist sympathies, was found; she had been stabbed, beaten, raped, poisoned, brutally tortured, and left naked for the vultures. Several critics of the EXMIBAL contract were assassinated in broad daylight. In January 1971, moderate leftist congressman (one of four opposition representatives) and prominent law professor Adolfo Mijangos paralyzed from the waist down was shot to death in his wheelchair. (A few days before, he had assured me he was immune from such attack because of

—

—

of his handicap.)

But the brunt of the terror was borne by workers and peasants, particularly in

the zones of guerrilla activity.

unnamed peasants brought

the death

toll

Countless numbers of

of the rightist terror to

estimated 8,000 from 1966 to 1970. The labor

an

movement was decimated:

ranks declined, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor

Statistics, from by 1962 (Gordon 1971, 150), leaving 1.2 percent of workers unionized. During states of siege, even normal union activities were greatly restricted or prohibited, with property owners using these times to get rid of troublesome organizers. On numerous occasions Guatemalan or foreign landowners (including UFCo) received army assistance in evicting peasants from land that they had occupied, often for years (see Melville and Melville 1971). In the late 1960s, a law was passed giving finqueros the right to consider themselves authorities of the law and to shoot "guerrilla suspects" (i.e., Its

over 100,000

members under Arbenz

peasant organizers).

to 16,000

64

Rebels and Death Squads

I

Along with the thousands of deaths, the protracted violence took a psychological toll on the living. The population was maintained in a permanent state of fear and uncertainty. The apparently indiscriminate nature of the violence, the steady stream of political assassinations in

broad daylight, the distinction

between

tales of torture official

by the

MANO,

the blurring of the

repression and death squad terror, the

nipresence of police bearing machine guns in the streets

weapons

of psychological warfare.

collective

mind

—

all

om-

these were

The goal was to wipe out from the Guatemalan people the memory of the Revolution and to assure the permanent demobilization of the popular classes. To summarize: The particularly brutal character of the Counterrevolutionary state in Guatemala was a legacy of the Revolution and the violent rejection of it by the dominant classes. These experiences gave a striking internal cohesion to the Guatemalan ruling coalition much greater, according to one comparative study (Gordon 1990) than its of the

—

counterpart in El Salvador. This reflected a determination never again to

permit a land reform or a mobilization of the popular classes or the

Indian population. Yet this very strength of the ruling classes in imposing their will upon the popular classes was also a weakness, in that it prevented them from formulating a project with any broad legitimacy

in

Guatemalan

society.

Sources of Resistance: The Beginning of Guatemala's Thirty Years'

War

Although the new order was successful in keeping the lid on politics through top-down repression, it could not stop the extreme polarization nor turn the clock back on the structural changes that were taking place in Guatemalan society. Some of these changes stemmed from economic development of a very skewed nature; some flowed from the combined experiences of the Revolution and the Counterrevolution. The accumulation of poverty at the grassroots that accompanied the accumulation of capital

and export-led growth

at

in Part 2,

but must be mentioned

at least briefly

contributed to Guatemala's

of extreme

these conditions

memory

Revolution,

of the

growth of

guerrilla

war

polarization, far

here as one factor that

in the

mid-1960s. Under

furthermore, the historical

from being stamped out, fueled the

movement in the 1960s. Finally, the extreme guerrilla movement by cutting off all legal avenues

a revolutionary

repression fed the in

first

the top will be explored in detail

Guatemalan

even physically eliminating moderate centrist were closed off in the even more so once the guerrilla movement came into

politics,

leaders. In a very real sense, all "safety valves"

post-1954 period

—

Rebels and Death Squads

existence.

65

I

We see here the origins of Guatemala's thirty-years' insurgency/

counterinsurgency war.

The dynamics of economic growth and diversification, begun under model of the Revolution, continued into the post-1954 period but without the ameliorating attempts to plan growth with equity. Income was redistributed negatively after the reversal of the agrarian the reformist

reform in 1954, with 92 percent of the population (primarily rural laborers and subsistence farmers) seeing its share of GNP and its per

income significantly reduced from 1950 to the early 1960s (Adams Gordon 1971; Whetten 1961). During the mid-1960s, according to Guatemalan National Planning Council, 90 percent of all rural

capita

1970;

the

families

were either landless or owned plots of land too small

subsistence

(cf.

Handy

1984,

209).

The halfhearted

efforts

at

for

land

colonization were virtually ineffective in improving distribution. Aside

from land invasions (countered by forcible evictions), the principal outlets for the rural landless were increasing migration (some of it seasonal) to the southern coast and migration to the cities. The expansion of coffee, cotton, and sugarcane production in the 1960s and 1970s, mainly on the Pacific Coast, increased the demand for seasonal migrant workers from the Indian highlands, who were at the same time being dispossessed from their lands. One study estimated 1 million such laborers (Schmid 1967; Dunkerley 1988, 196 cites lower numbers); many of them were forced into this situation through a variety of coercive measures. The value of wages paid on a piece-work basis, combined with maintenance "benefits," averaged between $1.05 and $1.15 a day (Schmid, cited in Handy 1984, 207), and wages were not raised until the massive strike of 1980 (see Part 2). Despite bare survival wages and inhumane working conditions, "land dispossessions so eroded the highland land-base that in most villages almost the entire economically active population made the yearly journey" to the southern coast plantations (Handy 1984, 208). As will be seen, this sector of the population was to become a central actor in the uprisings of the late 1970s.

But for the 1960s, the effects of these changes were not

directly at the political

the focus of guerrilla activity

level;

eastern region (Sierra de las

Minas

in Izabal-Zacapa),

felt

was the

where peasants

(primarily ladino rather than Indian) were being pressured by cattle

ranchers and foreign investors.

Meanwhile, migration to Guatemala City was beginning to swell the shantytowns in the capital's mud-paved ravines (only a few minutes' bus ride from and in full view of the modern downtown), where the majority of inhabitants were unemployed or marginally employed. Between 1950 and 1964, unemployment and underemployment rose from 56 percent to 70 percent of the total urban population (Cohen barrancas, the

Rebels and Death Squads

66

I

Between 1950 and 1962 the employable urban population number of urban employed (Adams 1970, 425), largely a consequence of the kind of industrialization promoted during the 1960s, as seen above. Worsening conditions were also reflected in a growing housing deficit and increasing illiteracy; as one economist concluded, "By most indications, Guatemala has embarked on a process of steady underdevelopment" (Griffin 1970, 16). The combination of rapid change and the accumulation of misery particularly among a population that had had ten years of rising economic and political expectations proved destabilizing to the Counterrevolu1969, 11, 14).

increased seven times faster than the

—

tionary governments.

had worn

off,

Once

the shock of the McCarthyite-style repression

various sectors of the popular classes began seeking

opportunities to protest and to reestablish their organizations. Popular discontent emerged during the late 1950s in the form of student and labor demonstrations, and, despite repression, spread under the impetus

economic downturn and widespread corruption of the Ydigoras regime (1958-1963). The Cuban Revolution of 1959 sparked popular demonstrations in support of Cuba; and the U.S. use of Guatemalan territory to train Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs invasion (without of the

army high command) ignited further nationalist unrest. On November 13, 1960, nationalist military officers staged an uprising to overthrow the Ydigoras government (involving over a third of the army). The rebellion was put down after several days, but some of its consulting the

leaders decided to continue the struggle against Ydigoras rather than

reurning to the army.

Two

of them, Luis Turcios

Yon Sosa (both graduates

of

U.S.

Lima and Marco Antonio

counterinsurgency training), were

decisively influenced by their contact with the peasants

among whom

they took refuge after the failure of the coup attempt; they

came

to

Guatemala was armed struggle. They found receptivity in the PGT, which had gone through its own process of adopting a strategy of armed struggle. Some claim that efforts to form a guerrilla movement predated the November 13 uprising and even the Cuban Revolution. In any case, by 1962 the radicalized former army officers had founded an armed guerrilla movement, Movimiento Revolucionario 13 de Noviembre (MR-13), in the Izabal zone in eastern Guatemala; they evolved from a nationalist/reformist perspective to embrace an explicitly socialist program demanding, above all, land for believe that the only avenue to change in

the peasants. In

the spring of

1962,

following allegations of fraud in the 1961

congressional elections, students, workers, and opposition parties took

—

two months of demonstrations and strikes the first mass struggles since the fall of Arbenz. A general strike was

to the streets for

significant

declared in the capital. Several thousand

women

in the Frente

de Mujeres

—

Rebels and Death Squads

I

67

Guatemaltecas marched through the streets in April 1962 to protest the shooting of law students by the government. These actions were backed

by the incipient guerrilla movement MR-13. Later in 1962 the PGT formed its own guerrilla front, conceived more as an effort to overthrow the Ydigoras government than to engage in prolonged guerrilla war. In December 1962, the organizations consolidated to form the Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (FAR). Throughout the mid-1960s the movement grew, primarily in the ladino peasant area of Izabal and Zacapa, with support in Guatemala City. The eastern zone had been chosen as much for its logistical characteristics as for its support of the 1960 uprising and its receptivity to the demand for land reform. Although their ranks included students and PGT members, the guerrillas' base was primarily peasant: A study of one guerrilla column in 1963 showed that its composition was 59 percent peasants and 2 percent students (Aguilera Peralta 1970, 123); another source suggests higher peasant membership, stating "guerrillas provided the protective umbrella under which peasant resistance could take shape" (Wickham-Crowley 1989, 145-146). There were also urban operations, but the movement was rural in its character and emphasis. 3 The FAR's foco strategy relied heavily on the experience of Cuba (and Vietnam), later formalized in the writings of Che Guevara and Regis Debray. Foquismo was a strategy of irregular warfare leading to popular insurrection, with the "subjective conditions" being created by the exemplary actions of a revolutionary vanguard; the guerrilla center of operations

was designed

to

politicize the

local

population, to create

and eventually build enough support to lay the basis for taking power. FAR's activities included armed selfdefense (liberation of an area or village and its defense from attack); and "armed propaganda" (occupying peasant villages temporarily to explain their programs and organize resistance within the villages Galeano 1969, 31). Operating in one of the areas that had been heavily affected by agrarian reform and its subsequent reversal, FAR built a sizeable base of support. Its military actions included assaults on army and police stations (to obtain weapons), bank robberies, and kidnappings of leading capitalists and diplomats (including two U.S. military advisers, a U.S. labor attache, U.S. Ambassador Mein, and German Ambassador von Spretti); in several instances, these operations, designed to obtain funds or concessions from the government, ended in the death of their "liberated zones" in the countryside,

hostages.

Although the guerrilla fronts operated with considerable autonomy, to function in some respects as the military branch of the PGT, with the latter providing political leadership. However, the PGT's

FAR came

vascillations concerning

armed struggle

left

space for significant influence

Rebels and Death Squads

68

I

by Latin American Trotskyists upon MR-13. FAR remained united from December 1962 to June 1964, at which point it split over ideological/ partisan differences. The various forces (MR-13; PGT; and Frente Guerrillero Edgar Ibarra, FGEI) reunited in 1967, and remained in alliance until early 1968. By that time, the movement had been effectively defeated for the time being, and splintered into several parts. FAR made a decisive break from the PGT (leading to a major division within the PGT itself), stating, "The PGT (its ruling clique) supplied the ideas and the FAR the dead" (Gott 1971, 109). In fact, the turning point in the fortunes of the movement had come in 1966: The two decisive factors were the election of Mendez Montenegro and the greatly intensified counterinsurgency campaign, the latter with direct U.S. participation and guidance (see "Counterinsurgency Laboratory" below). Despite initial resistance to the PGT's line of supporting Mendez in the 1966 election, the guerrillas acquiesced and began a partial demobilization; eventually they were destroyed by "the electoral trap" (Debray and Ramirez 1978, 294). It was in this context that top FAR leader Turcios Lima was killed in an automobile accident near Guatemala City on October 2, 1966; his biographers subsequently attributed his very presence and vulnerability in that situation to the mistaken strategy (Fernandez 1970). Immediately following Turcios's death, the army initiated a major new military offensive, which had been in the making for some time and had been greatly invigorated by the Mendez government's immediate acceptance of direct U.S. participation (in contrast to previous resistance to U.S. involvement and halfhearted army efforts). Within a few months, Col. Arana's deadly counterinsurgency campaign in the east virtually destroyed the Edgar Ibarra Front and subsequently the Alejandro Leon Front of MR-13. Because the campaign was aimed primarily against the civilian population (to "drain the sea" in which the guerrilla "fish" swam), up to 8,000 peasants fell victim in the combat zone. Following the death of Turcios, other top leaders were captured and killed, including Yon Sosa in 1970. In March 1967, Otto Rene Castillo, Guatemala's famous poet/ guerrillero, was captured, tortured for four days, and burned although, as will alive. The guerrilla movement of the 1960s was over be seen, its survivors regrouped and the movement reemerged in the

—

1970s.

movement have made extensive self-criticisms made them and their supporters vulnerable to the

Survivors of the errors that

repression of 1966-1968. 4

many

The flawed conception

of the brutal

of the foco infected

aspects of their operations, from their choice of the ladino Oriente

emphasis on "exemplary action." Their peasant base was shallow, although extensive, rather than the Indian highlands to their voluntarist

Rebels and Death Squads

I

69

"unresolved problem of organization of were unable to protect the local population or to prepare them in any way for the counterinsurgency onslaught. The area chosen as the focus of operations had great potential because of the land issue; however, the fact that the guerrillas lost support so rapidly and that the area later (after being "pacified") became an MLN stronghold was symptomatic of the serious

and

in this sense reflected the

the masses" (Lopez 1971, 120); as a result, they

political failings.

Above

all, it

reflected the guerrillas' inattention to the

Indian majority, with the exception of one attempt by Turcios Lima to

organize a guerrilla front in Huehuetenango. There was almost no indigenous leadership, nor any significant incorporation of women, either in leadership or in the

rank and

file.

The

guerrillas' overly militaristic

conception of the struggle was also reflected in their political subordination to the PGT. Finally, they were plagued by serious internal

which were more

than the lack of experience (Gott 1971, Chapter 9.) 5 Given these serious weaknesses, what is most remarkable about the first Guatemalan guerrilla experience is not its eventual defeat but the importance it achieved. In the opinion of several analysts, viewing the experience from different perspectives, the Guatemalan movement of the 1960s came closer than almost any other after the Cuban Revolution to succeeding. No other armed movement in Latin America, with the possible exception of the one in Colombia, built so extensive a support base, although the guerrillas never solved the problem of how to organize that base (Debray and Ramirez 1978, 307). According to WickhamCrowley (forthcoming, cited by permission, Ch. 8, 32) in 1965-1966, divisions,

fatal

60). (For further discussion, see

"the Guatemalan guerrilla

movement came

closest to

mounting

a severe

challenge to an incumbent government in the entire 20-year period from

Castro to the Sandinistas." Certainly this was the perception of U.S.

policymakers in regard to the threat, leading them to insist on being directly involved in the pacification effort. In Guatemala more than any other case during the 1960s, U.S. direction of the counterinsurgency

campaign was necessary and decisive, and only as a consequence of such "assistance" was the insurgency finally defeated (Wickham-Crowley forthcoming, 86; Wickham-Crowley 1989, 160; McClintock 1985, 61; for a very different view, see works by Sereseres in bibliography).

Counterinsurgency Laboratory for Latin America

Formal U.S. counterinsurgency assistance began as early as 1960, soon November 13 uprising within the army, and U.S. Special Forces set up a secret military training base in 1962. But the program became after the

70

Rebels and Death Squads

massive in 1966,

when

I

the guerrilla

movement had become

and the Guatemalan army proved incapable

of containing

it.

a real threat

Additionally,

had actively Green Berets came only after Mendez signed the pact with the army and took office in July 1966. Mendez was said to have given the army and the United States a free hand, in exchange for increased U.S. aid (Sharckman 1974; Jonas 1983a, 288 and note 17). U.S. training, bomber planes, napalm, radar detection devices, and other sophisticated technology (much of it transferred from Vietnam) were decisive in smashing the insurgency. Although it was categorically denied by official U.S. sources, the presence of U.S. Green Berets (estimates ranged from several hundred to 1,000) was documented by careful observers and even acknowledged by a high Guatemalan police official (Munson 1967a, 1967b; Geyer 1966). (The question of direct combat involvement by U.S. advisers was subsequently investigated in the U.S. the right-wing nationalist military regime of Gen. Peralta

resisted direct U.S. participation; the green light for the

—

Congress McClintock 1985, 103-106.) Observers noted a striking resemblance between "counterterror" techniques used by Guatemalan security forces and those used by Green Berets in Vietnam (above sources and Sharckman 1974). U.S. aerial operations (napalm raids) were carried out from U.S. bases in Panama (Gott 1971, 104, based on Guatemalan press reports). Training in the use of US.-provided hardware was also extensive:

The

ratio of U.S. military advisers to local

army

forces

was

higher for Guatemala than for any other Latin American country. The

Guatemalan police received extensive "public safety" assistance in the 1960s and early 1970s, including some training by the CIA. U.S. assistance was also essential to modernizing the intelligence operations of the Guatemalan security forces (McClintock 1985, 70 ff.). Although the United States claimed that its training would "professionalize" the Guatemalan security forces, there is substantial evidence late

of the direct role of U.S. military advisers in the formation of death

Embassy personnel were allegedly involved in writing an August 1966 memorandum outlining the creation of paramilitary groups, and the U.S. military attache during this period publicly claimed credit squads: U.S.

for

instigating

their

formation as part of "counterterror" operations

(Johnson 1972; interview with Col. John

Sharckman 1974, 202). Complementing the "stick" of civic action

Webber

in

of U.S. security assistance

Time,

1/26/68;

was the "carrot"

programs, designed to "win the hearts and minds" of

the population in the guerrilla zones. In

fact,

the

first

U.S. civic action

Guatemala in November 1960 Ronning Rabe and 1966, 1988, (Barber 83; 147), and the program was expanded in 1961. After 1966, working through the Ministries of Health, team in Latin America had been sent to

Rebels and Death Squads

I

71

Education, and Public Works as well as the army, the United States

funded and built schools, bridges, and roads, provided irrigation, health and other services in the guerrilla zone. In this sense, the Alliance for Progress became a convenient cover for the "soft war" (Barry and Preusch 1988) a forerunner of today's "low-intensity conflict." The key was not the amount of U.S. security aid to Guatemala, but its focus. The U.S. "national security doctrine" was an ideological pillar shaping the worldview of the Guatemalan army (McClintock 1985, 269; McSherry 1990). The United States was crucial in training and directly care,

—

organizing the previously inefficient army, participating directly in

its

modern counterinsurgency force. After the 1960 uprising, the United States continually pressured for a purge of progressive elements in the army, to insure that there would never be a repeat of the November 13 uprising and to break the contacts between army officers and former army guerrilla leaders. Guatemala has been called the "laboratory" for counterinsurgency in Latin America. It was here that the phenomena of death squads and "disappearances" were first noted, subsequently to become part of the standard operating procedures of counterinsurgency wars throughout the hemisphere. More than the guerrillas themselves, the civilian popoperations

order to transform

in

it

into a

became the target of these practices. The legacy for Guatemala was the consolidation of the counterinsurgency army at a level seldom seen elsewhere, laying the groundwork for the institutionalization of the ulation

counterinsurgency state after 1970.

Notes 1.

Adams's

Crucifixion by

twenty years ago, and its

significance,

it

test of time. In

addition to noting

my own

very misconceived

take this opportunity to correct

I

review of Adams's book

at the

the inappropriate tone of the contribution

Power was the most comprehensive, in-depth study

has withstood the

my

time (Jonas Bodenheimer 1971-1972). Aside from was one-sided and obscured

review, the substance

made by Adams and

his colleagues.

knowledge and approval of the 1963 coup: After an extended top-level internal debate, the Kennedy administration concluded that an Arevalo victory was unacceptable and gave the green light for the preventive coup (Jonas 1981, 294-295, based on interviews as well as written sources; other confirmation based on interviews in Schlesinger and Kinzer 1983, 2432.

With regard

to U.S.

244, 291). 3.

The following discussion draws from primary accounts and

accounts based on interviews with participants; see,

journalistic

Fernandez Galeano 1969; Gilly 1965; Debray and Ramirez 1978; Frank Jonas and Tobis 1974; Lopez 1970.

1970; Gott 1971; in

among

4.

See sources

in note 3.

others,

72

Rebels and Death Squads

I

5. Some analysts place less emphasis on the more on objective conditions. According to Jeffrey

errors of the guerrillas Paige, "There

is

and

considerable

would not have supported no matter how effective or well-informed about local conditions they had been" and that the necessary transformations occurred only in the 1970s (Paige 1983, 721-722, drawing also on Brintnall 1979, 33). evidence that

.

.

.

the Central [Indian] Highlands

the guerrillas [in the 1960s]

See Chapter 9

for fuller discussion.

PART 2 Crisis, 1970-1990

5 Economic Growth and Crises of the 1970s and 1980s

For a

number

reasons,

of

the

early

1970s proved an important

watershed, or turning point, for Guatemala. Since 1954, the country has

undergone continual internal upheavals, with the very process of domtwo decades,

ination unleashing further turmoil. But during the past international as well as domestic factors cultural

— have turned upheavals into

and requiring major

tural transformations

For our purposes, at

— economic,

it

is

and

political redefinitions.

between developments whole and at the level of

useful to distinguish

the level of the national

specific social classes.

political, social,

full-fledged crises, bringing struc-

From

economy

as a

the former point of view, the last twenty

years can be divided into the period of growth (1970s, continuing the export-led

From

boom

and 1960s) and the period of crisis (1980s). been continuous during the fundamentals, intensifying and accelerating

of the 1950s

the latter point of view, the process has

the 1970s

and 1980s

in

tendencies that began in 1954.

Modernization of the Capitalist Economy At the level of the national economy, Guatemalan development during and 1980s must be seen in the context of the postwar expansion and "modernization." This process was begun by the Revolutionary governments, which consciously aimed to modernize Guatemalan capitalism, and benefited from favorable conditions for exports in the world market a situation that lasted, with cyclical ups and downs, from 1950 the 1970s

1

—

to the late 1970s.

75

76

Economic Growth and Crises

Within

this context, despite the industrialization associated

with the

Common

Market, expansion and diversification of agricultural exports remained the axis of Guatemalan development. By Central American

economy could no longer be characterized as mono-export; major agricultural exports accounted for 84 percent of all exports (in addition to the traditional coffee and bananas, cotton, sugar, cardamom, and meat). Prices for these exports remained stable and high enough until 1978 to spare Guatemala from the worst effects of the first international oil crisis in 1973. The period was characterized by positive growth rates of 5-6 percent a year. In addition, there was a "modern1980, the

six

and "cap"deepening" of its capitalist aspect (Porras 1978, 369). However, expansion occurred only in export agriculture; the obverse side of capitalist modernization in that sector was aggravation of the crisis in "domestic use agriculture" (food production) and accelerated ization" of agricultural exports, a process of "technihcation" italization" or

expropriation of peasant land (see "Rural Subsistence Crisis" below).

The industrial sector, meanwhile, never fully recovered from the first major crisis of the Central American Commom Market at the end of the 1960s (see Chapter 3). Subsequently, the CACM entered into an "irreversible" because the private sector would "irreversible" decline never accept the level of planning and regulation that would have been necessary to reconstitute it (Bulmer-Thomas 1987, 207-208). Industri-

—

alization

was "grafted onto"

the traditional agro-export structure, creating

an unviable "hybrid model" (Bulmer-Thomas 1987, 195; Solorzano Martinez 1983, 32). Even though Guatemala suffered relatively less than the other countries and maintained a positive trade balance with them, the CACM had never changed the fundamental dependence on agroexports, nor had industry significantly increased its relative contribution (around 16 percent) to gross domestic product. Although the CACM had brought some development in light industry, '

and in infrastructure projects built to service (especially foreign) investors, Guatemalan industry never became oriented toward the internal market, nor did it ever move beyond the first ("easy") stage, to develop more basic industries. Furthermore, the whole process never generated "selfsustaining" industrialization, because it remained heavily based on foreign investment. Dependence on industrial inputs imported from abroad actually increased (Torres Rivas

1988b,

145).

Thus, with the

first

oil

shock of 1973 and the accompanying rise in the prices of industrial inputs, Guatemala's industrial sector entered into a profit squeeze in the 1970s (Bulmer-Thomas 1987, 209). This was aggravated after the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979 and subsequent regional hostilities, which ruptured the CACM as a trading bloc even more under the weight of the economic crisis of the 1980s (see "External Shocks and Generalized

—

Economic Growth and Crises

77

Economic Crisis in the 1980s" below). Rather than industrial growth, Guatemala experienced "industrial collapse/' or ^industrialization and disinvestment during the 1980s (Reyes 1988). In the absence of integration or agrarian reform (which would have expanded the regional or national market), import-substituting industrialization could not work. However, there was another model that came to be adopted in the early 1970s and remained as of 1990 the principal strategy for economic growth and modernization: nontraditional exports, both agricultural and industrial, oriented toward the world market. The principal idea of this strategy in Central America, as

elsewhere in the Third World, was advantage in cheap labor to attract

to

new

utilize

the

region's

comparative

world-market-oriented foreign

investment and to achieve a competitive reinsertion into the world market

through

new

exports.

was producing "miracles" in the East Asian was supposed to provide new export earnings, while solving the chronic balance of payments and unemployment Billed as a strategy that

"Four Tiger" countries, this

problems, through a series of activities ranging from nontraditional agricultural exports to tourism to maquiladora (final-touch assembly)

Such industries were frequently grouped together in "free enclaves in which the local government provided special installations, privileges, and subsidies, principally tariff and tax exemptions and unlimited profit remittances. In Guatemala a project of "drawback industries" encouraged foreign investors to import raw materials duty-free, "transform" them there in labor-intensive assembly operations, and then reexport them for sale on the world market. By the end of the 1980s, however, maquiladora industry remained of minor importance to the Guatemalan economy. The principal application of the nontraditional export strategy in Guatemala was in agriculture (winter vegetables, flowers, etc.). The first efforts were made in the 1970s, with U.S. AID heavily involved in promoting and funding experimental projects (although some of these "success stories" turned into get-rich-quick scandals involving the misuse of public funds see Jonas and Tobis 1974, 110 ff.). In the 1980s this approach was formalized in the provisions of the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), which gave preferential treatment (duty-free access to the U.S. market) to imports from countries of the Caribbean and Central America and of course to U.S. investors in those countries. In nontraditional exports, as had been the case with the CACM, the principal industries.

trade zones"

—

—

—

beneficiaries of the

new arrangements

often turned out to be U.S.-based

which subcontracted local farmers to do the growing but retained control over marketing. The Latin American Agribusiness Development Corp. (LAAD), a consortium of fifteen U.S. transnational corporations,

Economic Growth and Crises

78

agribusiness companies organized by the Bank of America, developed arrangements with over sixty businesses in Guatemala, operating largely

on AID loans (Barry and Preusch 1986, 155

ff.;

Jonas and Tobis 1974,

114).

After a

number

of years, these strategies

expanded exports somewhat,

but never constituted the basis for a "miracle," Four-Tigers style: In the words of two knowledgeable Guatemalan economists, these new activities

"have been juxtaposed upon the traditional productive structures, which and constitute themselves into formidable obstacles or limits to modernization" (Cohen and Rosenthal 1983, 18). Certainly, as will be seen, they could not save Guatemala from suffering the effects of the crisis of the 1980s; while making Guatemala more dependent upon an

persist

unreliable U.S. market (Torres Rivas 1989c, 41), nontraditional exports

declined substantially during most of the 1980s (Inforpress 1988a, IV: 13).

For a brief

moment in the early 1970s, Guatemala's new world-market new ventures in extractive mining (nickel) and oil.

orientation included

one point, the massive U.S. nickel investment was being see Chapter 3.) These proved touted as the key to Guatemala's future companies dropped their plans when the U.S. to be false expectations world-market conditions and instability of there because for major projects for less than oil accounted mining and mid-1980s, in Guatemala. By the 3 percent of Guatemala's GDR As other areas of the economy remained in crisis, the end of the (In fact, at

—

1980s saw experimentation in another "nontraditional" export: drugs. Guatemala became a significant opium producer and transshipment point

with senior military officers said to be deeply involved in the profitable activities. As a temporary boom for those involved, drug production and trafficking were likely to produce pockets of "growth," but could never become the basis for an overall solution to the country's for cocaine,

economic problems. Because the export promotion strategy relied on keeping wages low, because it was not combined with any redistributive government social policy, and because it was oriented toward the world market rather than the growth of a domestic or regional consumer market, it was openly nonreformist even antireformist. Rather than encouraging the incorporation of the lower classes into the market as consumers, which would have required raising their standard of living through redistributive reforms and which at least in theory was the premise of importthis approach to substituting industrialization, hence of the CACM development assumed that no such reforms would be made. 2 Some analysts (such as John Weeks and George Irvin) have referred to the export promotion strategy of the 1970s and 1980s as the "rightist" alternative for capitalist modernization. As will be seen below, the social

—

—

—

Economic Growth and Crises

79

consequences of this strategy became even clearer in the 1980s, under the impact of neoliberal structural adjustment policies.

Rural Subsistence Crisis: The Other Side of Capitalist Gf owth

As always

in

Guatemala, a focal point of structural transformation

has been reorganization of land tenure

—

in this case, a

new wave

of

land concentration. This proved to be the obverse side of capitalist

modernization in export agriculture. It represented "failure to develop" subsistence peasant agriculture; process, taking place at

Expulsion of

1.

many

two

far it

more than a was an active

levels:

minifundistas altogether, leaving them landless.

some

regions, mozos colonos were kicked off the parcels of land they support themselves on the latifundia, with the latter absorbing their holdings. In other regions, as will be seen, this process of violent expropriation was carried out not only by latifundistas but also by the army and the state as part of the counterinsurgency wars of the late 1970s and 1980s. These processes were especially notable on cattle ranches (Figueroa Ibarra 1980, 275-276, 282; Williams 1986, 158 ff.). In

used

to

Subdivision of minifundia into smaller and smaller units, to the

2.

point

where they no longer produced

sufficient

food to guarantee survival

of the producers, or their reproduction as part of the labor force. In the

highlands, the average size of farm units decreased from 1.3 hectares

per person in 1950 to less than .85 hectare per person in 1975 (cited

Davis 1988, 15). These processes also coincided with a dramatic population increase of 3 percent a year, far outstripping food production. By the end of the 1970s, AID studies established that 90 percent of the highlands population lacked sufficient land to meet basic needs, while the number of landless laborers had risen to over 400,000 (cited in Dunkerley 1988, 473). In reality, these expropriation processes had begun in the 1940s and 1950s, but they were greatly intensified and their catastrophic social effects became much clearer in the 1970s and 1980s. 3 To take one indicator, in 1976, 50 percent of peasant income came from land cultivation; by 1988, this had fallen to 25 percent (Envio 1989, 25). At a broader level, the gradual destruction of the minifundia was a very destabilizing phenomenon: The minifundia had been the pillar of in

the

entire

system,

necessary counterpart to the export-oriented allowed for the economic survival and reproduction

the

latifundia, in that they

As another analyst put it, the economy conreserve labor force and removed previously

of the labor force (Figueroa Ibarra 1980).

arrinconamiento (abandonment or neglect) of the peasant verted the peasantry into a

Economic Growth and Crises

80

existing escape valves for the

system as

a

whole (Gonzalez Davison

1987a, 107-108).

To be

sure, there

were sporadic and halfhearted attempts

to distribute

land to small holders during the 1970s (cooperatives, colonization, selling

land— see Guerra Borges

1984, 54 ff; Solorzano Martinez 1983, 18

ff.).

But none of these schemes sought to deal with the structural problems:

They

all

left

the latifundia intact, without slowing

down

the overall

expropriation process. Guatemala remained the only country in Central

America with a totally unreformed land tenure system. What made land reform "an explosive (and potentially revolutionary) issue" (Bulmer-

Thomas

1987, 292)

was not simply the

injustice of this situation, but

the structural reality indicated above: the deterioration of the productive

base of the peasant economy (Hintermeister 1985, 36). Certainly, it was the key to the stagnation of the internal market in Guatemala (Cardona 1978, 43). 4 This constituted the hidden but growing internal economic crisis, the other face of "modernization," even before the external crisis of the 1980s.

External Shocks and Generalized Economic Crisis in the 1980s All

of the pressures that

exploded into

full-scale crisis

had been building up during the 1970s

when combined with

the external "shocks"

and 1980s. There is virtual agreement among economic analysts that the economic crisis of the 1980s called into question Guatemala's ability to develop. Viewed in per capita terms, this crisis put Guatemala back at least fifteen years in terms of real GDP per capita, indicating a crisis comparable with that of the 1930s (interviews; Bulmer-Thomas 1987, 269; Comision Economica para America Latina y el Caribe [CEPAL] 1987a, 87). The structure of the economy made it more vulnerable to adverse conditions in the international economy. The key external factors differentiating the 1970s from the 1980s in terms of the impact on the Guatemalan economy were the magnitude of the external shocks, the drop in world prices for coffee and other agricultural exports, and the combination of economic with political crisis. The world capitalist crisis, which some have characterized as a generalized crisis of capitalist accumulation, marked the end of a long wave of capitalist expansion from 1945 to 1970 and initiated an era of contraction or "austerity capitalism." In the Third World, this meant an end to growth, as well as intensified exploitation and accelerated impoverishment. The world capitalist crisis made its impact on Central America through a sharp decline in world-market prices and demand of the late 1970s

for principal exports, a

sharper rise in

oil

prices in 1979, soaring world

Economic Growth and Crises

81

and generalized "stagflation" (recession combined with which Central America "imported." Most damaging for an economy like Guatemala's, still governed by

interest rates, inflation)

the world-market prices for a handful of agricultural commodities, this crisis affected

the prices of

all

of the traditional exports simultaneously,

leaving no cushion. In addition, Guatemalan producers were hard-hit

by a drastic decline in intraregional (Central American) trade (50 percent from 1980 to 1985— Bulmer-Thomas 1987, 291-292). Nor could the nontraditional export strategy "save" Guatemala; the U.S. market proved unreliable, demand for the products contracted, and these exports also shrunk significantly between 1981 and 1986 (Inforpress 1988a, IV: 1214). Overall, Guatemalan exports declined by 36.6 percent from 1980 to 1987 (Envio 1989, 25). Between 1977 and 1984, Guatemala's terms of trade fell by 50 percent (Gonzalez Davison 1987b, 187). In the analysis of one economist, Guatemala's capacity to import, always insufficient to cover actual imports,

fell

to

a

point that seriously jeopardized the

The balance of payments crisis was worse rising international interest rates. by made considerably growing During the 1980s, the trade deficit was financed (81 percent) by foreign debt (Calderon 1987b). As a result, 41.7 percent of export earnings went to service the external debt in 1987, as compared with 5.7 percent as recently as 1980 (Perez Jerez 1988, 107). Debt service rose from $26 million in 1970 to $535 million in 1987, with the debt itself reaching $3 billion (Perez Jerez 1988, 99). Having enjoyed a positive balance in its international monetary reserves over sixty years, Guatemala was suddenly a debtor nation. At the same time, Guatemala faced a growing fiscal deficit, compounded by the most skewed tax structure in Latin America less than 20 percent being direct taxes, with the private sector's share of taxes actually declining between 1980 and 1986. As a consequence, government tax revenues fell so sharply as to call into question the government's ability to fulfill its functions, in the view of knowledgeable economists. According to its agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Guatemala was supposed to deal with the deficit through recessionary spending cuts that fell on workers (wage controls but no price controls, and public service sector cutbacks) and increased taxes. The United States also tried to get the Guatemalan government to raise revenues through mild tax measures, but backed down (as always in the past) in the face of ferocious opposition from Guatemala's private sector. In a highly unusual move, both the United States and the World Bank, doubtless under U.S. influence, continued aid during the mid- to late 1980s, in the absence of IMFrecommended "reforms," and even in the absence of firm agreements with the IMF because of overriding security concerns about the country. country's development after 1977.

—

—

82

Economic Growth and Crises

To the purely economic aspects of Guatemala's crisis must be added of others which are political, but which have taken on structural dimensions since 1979. Primary among these was the regional political crisis sparked by the Nicaraguan Revolution and the outbreak of civil war in El Salvador and in Guatemala itself. By the mid-1980s, the U.S. war against Nicaragua became a serious regional problem, posing the threat of a war between Nicaragua and Honduras. Regional political crisis, coinciding with international economic crisis, caused major social and economic dislocations among these, the second (and decisive) crisis of the CACM, with serious effects for Guatemala, which had been its a

number

—

leading beneficiary.

was the cumulative effect and counterinsurgency war in Guatemala itself, culminating in the devastating war of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Among the effects of the war were massive displacement of the rural population (over 1 million people), major food shortages, largely the result of army crop burnings (in 1983, the food harvest was 60 Smith 1988, 207), sharply increased rural percent lower than normal unemployment, and generally depressed market conditions. In short, the war caused a major socioeconomic upheaval (see Chapter 6). Even more important as

a structural factor

of three decades of insurgency

—

This combination of instabilities sparked a massive flight of foreign

and national private investment

some

1987, 238);

capital

from Guatemala (Bulmer-Thomas

high as $1.5 billion during the early By 1986, private investment had sunk to pre-

cite figures as

1980s (Mersky 1988,

3).

1973 levels, causing additionally a drastic decline in employment (Calderon, 1987a, 2). In 1984-1985, 3,300 businesses closed (Frundt 1987, 398). As laid out very clearly in interviews (see also Mersky 1988), the Guatemalan private sector saw in Central America, and certainly in the Guatemalan insurgency, a real threat to its economic interests. Private foreign investment declined, with investors considering Guatemala "too for their operations (Latin American Weekly Report [LAWR] 11/6/81; Business Latin America [BLA] 4/14/82). According to Department of Commerce figures, U.S. investment (which in the 1970s was 86 percent of the total) dropped from $229 million in 1980 to $198 million in 1983

dangerous"

(Barry and Preusch 1986, 14; by 1989, a that "there

is little

statistical

The Guatemalan wars

US. Embassy bulletin stated amount of U.S. investment).

data" on the exact

also affected tourism. Despite the country's

striking natural beauty, tourism never

became the

stable industry that

should have been: The wars not only kept tourists away but also physically destroyed parts of the country (the western highlands, Peten rain forest see Chapter 10). Finally, as will be seen below, the economic crisis was compounded during the years 1977-1982 by another artifact it

—

of the war:

The human

rights attrocities

committed by the

official security

Economic Growth and Crises

83

forces were so serious that Guatemala became an international pariah, and international financial aid was virtually ended. Such aid was restored after the 1982 "recomposition" and greatly increased after the 1985 election, but only partially cushioned the effects of the economic crisis. These factors, combined with speculation, worldwide inflation, and a sharp rise in prices of imported goods, resulted in an inflationary spiral within Guatemala so serious as to affect not only the working all this in a country that had had classes but also the middle strata very little inflation previously. For the working class, the situation became disastrous. Even when there were macroeconomic indicators of a slight "recovery" in 1987-1988, largely on the basis of foreign loans (which tripled in 1988 Envio 1989, 26), inflation brought per capita consumption (living standards) down to the level of fifteen years earlier. By 1989, well-informed economists acknowledged that claims of recovery were false; private sector spokesmen agreed, stating (in interviews) that they had not regained confidence in the economy, and continuing to send

—

—

their

money

abroad.

The Neoliberal Response and the Paquetazos

of 1989

During the 1980s, the above situation was made more acute by the turn toward neoliberal structural adjustment policies advocated by the

United States and the IMF. Such measures included: successive devaluations,

which raised prices

"control inflation";

moves

to

for basic

imposition of real

goods and services

wage

ceilings

in order to

or "discipline";

"open up" the economy by dismantling protectionist

structures;

privatization of various state-run enterprises; removal of state subsidies

spending; and a general reduction of Whereas the state had been seen as crucial in promoting, even subsidizing, "development" and export diversification during the 1960s and 1970s (with massive financial support from AID, the World Bank, etc.), neoliberalism and IMF-style "adjustment" for social services; cuts in public

the state's role in the economy.

implied the dismantling of those state structures, as part of "opening"

economy to the world market. By 1989, the IMF had become the lender of first resort, as a consequence of the debt crisis, and was able to force Guatemala to take neoliberal measures just as the World Bank conditioned an $80 million loan for private enterprise on legislation giving new incentives for foreign maquiladora investors. Despite these measures, the IMF and other multilateral agencies judged the Guatemalan government to be still spending too much (and not making its debt payments), and temporarily suspended the

—

credit in 1989, after the

while continuing to pressure

for stricter policies. In 1990,

World Bank stopped disbursements on loans

to

Guatemala, the

Economic Growth and Crises

84

United States continued supporting the government with large

bilateral

balance of payments credits.

The

meaning

full

of the neoliberal adjustment policies

became

clear

economic shock measures, of 1989. In November measures and under pressure from the IMF, less drastic following 1989, quetzal exchange rate to "float," leading to allowed the government the price of basic fuels rose immediately by devaluation. The percent a 30 Water and transportation subsidies double. leading bus fares to 20 percent, food prices shot up; the staterates and electricity were eliminated; began on doing so with INDE, discussions was sold, and owned airline (generating strong resistance from the company the electrical power shock measures had negative 1989 economic union, STINDE). The Guatemalan society, the exception all sectors of repercussions for virtually industrialists, financiers. Guatemalan speculators and being a tiny group of "open challenge to up" to for example, were unprepared to meet the (Financial for restructuring world markets, in the absence of subsidies Times [FT] 7/5/89). As of late 1990, the paquetazos of 1989 had been followed by new measures, but were generally judged not to have solved in fact, to have worsened it in some respects. Business Latin the crisis America (4/12/90) projected more uncertainty and turmoil. In sum, by the end of the 1980s, the Guatemalan economy was in crisis at virtually all levels, with little prospect for short-run improvement. The class base of official government policy was narrower than ever, and this had become an obstacle to economic growth. Equally striking as an aspect of the crisis was the disaggregation of the economy. As summarized by one study, "It is difficult to analyze the behavior of the Guatemalan economy with any degree of certainty because there is no longer only one economy or even two complementary ones, i.e., the 'national' economy based on agro-exports and the 'peasant' one based on consumption of what is produced. The 'informal' or underground This means that the macroeconomic economy has grown enormously. indicators found in official statistics (Bank of Guatemala, CEPAL, etc.) can no longer be relied upon to give a picture of the economy as a whole" (Envio 1988, 12-13). in the paquetazos, or

—

.

.

.

Notes 1.

Irvin

(1988) takes exception

to

this

explanation for the

arguing that the key was not necessarily the failure to

make

CACM

crisis,

structural, redis-

tributive reforms, nor the emphasis on export agriculture, but the fact that the second oil shock was not balanced by a rise in commodity prices. 2. There are other perspectives regarding the social implications of the export promotion strategy. Bulmer-Thomas (1987, 270, 278-279 and 1989, 76) and

Economic Growth and Crises

85

could have been successfully Guerra Borges (1989) argue that export promotion development through bringing combined with import-substituting industrialization, that it is a mistake argues Irvin policy. state linkages, if stimulated by an active industrialization on brought have would reforms structural to think that major determined by the rate of basis, because "modernization" is mainly

sound the Central American growth and diversification of the external sector; moreover, development capitalist of failure the of than crisis is more a result of the success

a

Weeks 1986b). disagreement as to the extent and severity of these processes. some 3 There is million peasants had no According to Cambranes (1985a, 37), in 1984 half a 300,000 had 1.23 another work; land at all and 80 percent had no regular of all rural percent and 80 subsistence); for hectares (far below what is needed

(Irvin 1988; also

to Guerra Borges (1984, 49), the families lived in absolute poverty. According that 88 percent of the fincas fact the in seen be could subdivision process of living. According a size insufficient to provide a subsistence farms sub-subsistence of number the to Hintermeister (1985, 43), even though

in

Guatemala were of

not "decomposition" but increased during the years 1964-1979, this represented economy. peasant the "stagnation" of of the long-standing subsistence 4 There is also debate about the development writer (Porras 1978) argues specifically during the 1970s. One Guatemalan crisis,

was 1960s and

that there

the

market throughout a general expansion of Guatemala's internal an improvement showed studies village that argue Others 1970s.

723-724), but this highlands Indian agriculture during the 1970s (Paige 1983, landless. In any the not improvement benefited only those who owned land,

in

case, all

"improvements" came

to a halt in the 1980s.

6 Social Polarization, Social Crisis

main effect of both the economic growth and the economic greater polarization. The major social crisis of the 1970s and 1980s was society: at the top, formations were at the two extremes of Guatemalan came to control a that bourgeoisie a monopolistic but very diversified at the bottom, and resources; greater and greater share of the country's by 1987) living percent growing proportion of the population (87 Socially, the

a

below the poverty

line.

Evolution of the Bourgeoisie

The principal tendencies recent decades correspond

in the evolution of the dominant class in expansion and diversification of the

to the

The overall result has productive structure and other structural factors. unified bourgeoisie. balance) (on and powerful been consolidation of a limited by the severely are generalizations It should be emphasized that by Snee 1970s early the in done that empirical studies since scarcity of (1974).

It

is

also useful to clarify at the outset

an analytical distinction

defined to include those used here between the bourgeoisie— broadly who are paid out of and production who own or control the means of the ruling coalition, the alliance the armed forces officer or partnership between the bourgeoisie and and the Role of the Coalition corps as an institution (see "The Ruling

profits or surplus (Portes

Army"

1985)— and

below).

the period Guatemalan analysts view 1970 through the early 1980s as Guatemalan the of sector monopolistic of "hegemonic consolidation" of a capital and international ruling class, tightly linked to transnational 87

88

Social Polarization

financial capital. This it

monopoly bourgeoisie

is

not one group or sector-

represents the totality of the dominant fractions, the most important

being "relatively undifferentiated in regard to the means of production

with investments distributed throughout agriculture, industry, trade and strategic minerals, it has a certain level of integration with transnational capital. The policies of the Guatemalan state since the 1970s have been directed by the interests of this fraction" (Aguilera Peralta 1981a, 33-34; see also Sarti 1987, 57). (i.e.,

and

finance); as a minority partner in oil

Torres Rivas (1983a, 23) describes the process in terms of "capitalist

concentration and centralization, in the industrial as well as in the agrarian and commercial sectors, resulting in monopolistic peaks joined

One is dealing with a small but powerful and multifunctional bourgeoisie," knit together even more tightly by together by financial capital.

family

One

ties.

most striking characteristics of the Guatemalan bourgeoisie, been the center of much theoretical discussion, is the degree to which it has retained its oligarchical character in recent decades. In essence, this discussion is a way of explaining why the Guatemalan bourgeoisie is more intransigent, less pliable, less reformist than even of the

and one

that has

the other bourgeoisies of Central America.

An

important basis for the

particular rigidity of Guatemala's class structure lies in having the

most

highly concentrated, totally unreformed land tenure system in Latin

No

America.

less

important as a key to the particularly violent and

exclusionary behavior of the Guatemalan bourgeoisie

is

its

centuries-

long racism toward the majority Indian population, which has been essential for maintaining a coercive relation to the

the

heavy imprint of

work

force. Finally,

Cold War Guatemalan bourgeoisie (and the army)

U.S. influence during the height of the

reinforced these tendencies of the

any liberalizing influence: U.S. interests, as well as Guatemalan ruling class, had been traumatized by the challenge of the Revolution and therefore frozen into a reflexive anti-Communist response. These particularities of the Guatemalan experience seem more germane than theories of "reactionary despotism," which have been developed with regard to El Salvador (e.g., Baloyra-Herp 1983) and sometimes applied to Guatemala. rather than exerting

the

"Oligarchical," as Torres Rivas (1989a) defines

it,

is

a particular

way

which subordinates capital accumulation to other interests. During the years from 1945 to 1970, the productive base of the agrarian ruling class became less oligarchic, more capitalist in some respects, that is, more based upon modern capitalist technology (Solorzano Martinez 1983, 30). Nevertheless, after 1954, its rule on the basis of excluding the majority of the population did not change, and its relation to the rural labor remained largely coercive. To put it another way, of being bourgeois, 1

Social Polarization

agricultural diversification

and the

technification of export agriculture

modernized the agrarian bourgeoisie but in no

One

89

way

reformed

its

outlook.

interpretation concludes from the above that the transformation

into a bourgeoisie

was incomplete: "the oligarchy adopted

geois traits without abandoning

monopoly over

its

certain bour-

long tradition of land accumulation"

investment opportunities (Torres Rivas 1989a, was intensified, not diluted (Snee 1974). This was dramatically illustrated in the key sectors of coffee, cotton, and sugar; three coffee enterprises processed 40 percent of Guatemala's export production (Torres Rivas 1989a, 43; Dunkerley

and

its

34). Further, the

all

concentration of economic power

1988, 463-465).

CACM-stimulated "industrialization" was undertaken primarily by same ruling families (see Snee 1974), and hence never challenged the power of the traditional agro-export interests. Additionally, many of the "new industrialists" became junior partners of foreign capital. Hence, Guatemala never developed a sizeable "national bourgeoisie" in the classical sense, that is, an industrial bourgeoisie tied to import-substitution, hence interested in development of an internal market. In fact, the Revolution of 1944-1954 was the only opportunity in Guatemala's history for the development of a genuine national bourgeoisie. In any case, after the collapse of the CACM, industry remained a minor part of the economy, further limited by the economic crisis of the 1980s the

(Inforpress 1988a,

The

11:3).

influx of foreign capital (primarily U.S. -based multinational cor-

porate investment in industry) also reinforced the intransigence of the

Guatemalan bourgeoisie. While introducing new technologies, and in sense "modernizing" Guatemalan capitalism, foreign interests shared the absolute opposition to any redistributive reforms and the generally

this

fact,

foreign capital has functioned

sector of the

Guatemalan bourgeoisie, and

right-wing political perspective. In as part of the

monopoly

became a key actor within In

some

respects,

the

Guatemalan bourgeoisie Rivas 1983a, 24). In any

it

(Jonas 1983a, 303), as will be seen below.

"joint

ventures" of the

1960s converted the

into a "subsidiary" or "junior partner" (Torres

case, those sectors of the bourgeoisie associated with foreign capital tended to predominate over the medium-sized "national" entrepreneurs (see Poitevin 1977); and "the fact that a broad section of the local bourgeoisie was strongly and directly tied to U.S.

impeded the development

of [an] industrially based mod(Dunkerley 1988, 464). Although no industrial national bourgeoisie of any substantial size could sustain itself, economic diversification and the evolution of Guatemalan politics during the 1970s and 1980s did stimulate the emergence of other new groups or fractions within the bourgeoisie. First, as in capital

.

.

.

ernizing 'national bourgeoisie'

.

.

."

Social Polarization

90

past eras (Poitevin 1977, 155, 163), sectors of the petty bourgeoisie used their access to the state to

tunities offered

by

become propertied,

new opporexpanses of land, This process, which

seizing the

diversification, appropriating large

and incorporating themselves

into the ruling class.

led to a "plundering" of the state (Torres Rivas

1983a, 24),

particularly important in the case of top officials of the

armed

became forces.

(The role of those officers as part of the bourgeoisie is to be distinguished from the role of the army as an institution, which became the partner of the bourgeoisie in the ruling coalition, to be examined below.) Especially during the years of direct military rule, top army officials acquired land and other properties through their control of the state apparatus, often in alliance with foreign investors. During the presidency of General Carlos Arana Osorio (1970-1974), his son built up a network of business relationships with foreign interests (including wealthy Cuban exiles, who in turn were partners of the Somozas in Nicaragua, Howard Hughes in Nicaragua, Robert Vesco in Costa Rica, and other interests from "Sunbelt" states in the United States Jonas and Tobis 1974; Black 1983, 24, 155). These new entrepreneurs and their associates acquired

—

land in strategic areas and became stockholders in firms (often dealing owners and/or administrators of

in nontraditional exports), as well as

public enterprises which were also businesses

—

e.g.,

Central America's

munitions factory, the Bank of the Army, the national airline AVIATECA, the public telecommunications system GUATEL, and the first

country's major ports (Painter 1987, 49; Aguilera Peralta 1982).

This process of accumulation by the army and

became so

integeral to Guatemala's

economy

that

its

civilian associates

some

analysts posited

which enriched itself under the protection of state power (e.g., Cambranes 1985a). Despite its grip on the state apparatus, however, this group of "arrivistes" never became hegemonic within the bourgeoisie: "their accumulation of capital the weight of established U.S. and oligarchic was prevented by interests from bestowing upon them a stable and enduring hegemony the development of a "bureaucratic bourgeoisie,"

.

.

.

within the capitalist class" (Dunkerley 1988, 468). Other new sectors of the bourgeoisie emerged out of the economic

and 1980s:

diversification processes of the 1970s

managers, and high-level technicians of the enterprises of the They are Guatemala's new rich, who accumulated capital during the 1980s crisis, through control of the main currents of capital transfers, both to and from countries abroad. ... In the last five years, they have assumed leadership of the employers' associations and given This neoliberal group proposes the business sector a new dynamic. the reinsertion of the Guatemalan economy into the international market directors,

old oligarchy.

.

.

.

Social Polarization

91

with nontraditional exports, including assembly-plant products in the style Taiwan and Korea, and the maquila industry in Mexico along the U.S.

of

border (Envio 1989, 23-24).

This 1988)

post-CACM

became

"class force in the process of being developed" (Sarti

the alternative to a national bourgeoisie;

its

vision of

development, strongly supported and funded by the U.S. AID, focused on eliminating state interventionism in the economy and raising worker productivity.

It

had

a

"modernizing" vision, in the sense of adapting

new economic and political realities; however, "modernizing" did not mean progressive or reformist. As seen above, the nontraditional export to

strategy

has been a "rightist" strategy for capitalist modernization,

requiring no structural or redistributive reforms. Especially in Guatemala,

one study noted, neoliberalism "is not characterized, as in other by an official reformism [and is more akin to] the vision of the neo-conservatives in the U.S. and France" (Envio 1989, 23). The behavior of the "new" sectors of the bourgeoisie has not been characterized by more pluralistic or tolerant political behavior or any commitment to broader social participation (although for a different interpretation, see Mersky 1988, 1). In fact, these sectors have retained as

countries,

exceptionally strong ties to the old bourgeoisie (in

same

and

many

cases, involving

views have not differed on the (opposition to tax and structural reform and to changes in basic issues "New Right" and "Reagonomic" than "dethe social system). More velopmentalist," despite their modernizing discourse, they have never made a break from the world view of Guatemala's traditional ruling class (see Sarti 1988; Dunkerley 1988, 466; Pensamiento Propio [PP] 1/ 89 and 9/90). Their main significance may well emerge in the political arena since one of their candidates captured the presidency in the 19901991 election (see Chapter 15). In sum, given the considerable expansion and diversification of the Guatemalan bourgeoisie, there have been conflicting interests on specific issues: for example, on protectionist policies and the entire CACM strategy, which some sectors of the agrarian bourgeoisie opposed and the industrialists favored (Poitevin 1977, 195). In the 1980s, there were differences in the degree of opposition to state intervention in the economy and taxes, with industrialists often being less fanatical than traditional agrarian and commercial sectors (Mersky 1988, 12-13). In addition, there have always been specific conflicts between competing old families),

interests, at

their political

times erupting into intrabourgeois violence.

Nevertheless, the striking thing

unity within the bourgeoisie and

is

not the conflict but the overall

among

its

different fractions, in the

face of perceived threats to their class interests (even

minimal reforms).

92

Social Polarization

Unlike other Central American countries, diversification and the emergence of new interests never resulted in "fragmentation" (Inforpress 1988a, IV:5-7). Within the bourgeoisie, the tendency is always to arrive

compromise or equilibrium, no matter how precarious (Poitevin some authors (e.g., Gordon 1990, 19-20) even refer to this as a kind of internal "flexibility," a mechanism for strengthening the defense of ruling coalition interests against popular pressures. As seen above, this is partly a legacy of the "trauma" of the 1944-1954 Revolution, which did call into question their domination as a class, and to the thirty years of insurgency and counterinsurgency war since at

a

1977, 215-216);

1960.

Even where they are not united, their level of coordination is striking: the issue of taxation, in August-September 1987, as will be seen, all fractions of the bourgeoisie were willing to let the most recalcitrant agro-export interests speak and act on their behalf (see Opinion Politica [OP] No. 12; Inforpress 1988a, IV:5, 22). Although the economic crisis of the 1980s seriously harmed the Guatemalan bourgeoisie economically, in some ways it may have enhanced their internal cohesion. One analyst has noted the "inability of the [Guatemalan] government ... to match the organization, ideological conviction, and technical training of the private sector representatives" (Bulmer-Thomas 1987, 278). In other words, no government has ever achieved the extraordinary cohesion of CACIF.

On

The Ruling Coalition and the Role

of the

Army

There is a general question about how to characterize the sectors just "below" the bourgeoisie. This is particularly important in Guatemala: The bourgeoisie does not generally administer state power directly, in part because it has historically had no legitimacy beyond itself, no ability develop a cross-class national project (Sarti 1987; Torres Rivas 1983b, its power through a "ruling coalition," in which it shares power with groups that are not necessarily to

161-162). Hence, the bourgeoisie exerts

of bourgeois origin. Within this coalition, the

and contend on many issues, but unite threat to their system of domination.

dominant groups compete any perceived

in resistance to

Who are the "partners" of the bourgeoisie in this coalition? Most important has been the counterinsurgent army (its officer corps) as an institution, with a subsidiary role played by its civilian counterparts (bureaucrats, professionals,

and the

The old characdo not capture the

"political class").

terizations ("middle class" or "petty bourgeoisie")

essence of these sectors as well as Portes's elaboration (1985, 11) of the "bureaucratic/technical class" in contemporary Latin American class structure:

93

Social Polarization

The defining

characteristic of the second-ranking class

means

lacks effective control over the

of production,

is that,

its

although

members

it

exercise

direct control over the labor of others as subordinates in bureaucratic

structures.

...

It

is

composed primarily

of middle-level managerial

technical personnel in foreign, domestic private,

and

state

and

enterprises;

career functionaries of the state bureaucracies, including the armed forces; and independent professionals employed under contract by the state or private sectors. The essential role of this class is to create and maintain the infrastructure required for economic production and to guarantee the stability of the social order.

.

.

.

According to Portes (1985, 12) "The dominant class and the bureauand benefit from the existing social order." In the Guatemalan case, even the CIA has referred to the militaryoligarchic alliance as "the most extreme and unyielding in the hemisphere" (1964 report, cited in La Feber 1984, 171). It is this partnership that I cratic-technical class jointly control

refer to as

Guatemala's "ruling coalition"; this

is

the context for discussing

armed forces officer corps. Largely because Guatemala has been in a state of civil war for three decades, the counterinsurgency army formed in the 1960s has in some respects become the "spinal column" of the ruling coalition although this by no means makes it the dominant force, as some have concluded. Much has been made of the fact that the military is no longer the "tool" briefly the role of the

—

of the bourgeoisie in maintaining class rule but has achieved a certain "relative autonomy." The mixed class background of the officer corps (some being directly bourgeois, some being petty bourgeois) in no way precludes their operation as a single "social category" (Lowy and Sader 1985, 11) and as a partner of the bourgeoisie in the ruling coalition, operating with some autonomy. But despite the army's ability to operate independently in some of its functions, major issues of interpretation remain in regard to its "autonomy" (see Chapter 8). Although the armed forces are the most visible actors in the bureaucratic-technical class, their role is reinforced by civilian counterparts in the state apparatus. As indicated in Chapter 3, a significant majority of the petty bourgeoisie

was incorporated

into the

"new order"

after

1954, supporting or directly serving the Counterrevolutionary state. At

many of them moved back and forth between the and the government (e.g., corporate lawyers, professionals, politicians), so that they were easily integrated into the ruling coalition. However, in recent years, their ranks have been swelled by a group of the higher levels,

private sector

professionals

who

specifically entered the scene as "civilian counter-

insurgents," as the army's partners in the 1960s (discussed below).

its

pacification

programs since

Social Polarization

94

There

another sector just "below"

is

this,

which

the ruling coalition, nor of the popular classes:

It

is

neither part of

fills

the space once

occupied by the middle class but is not a middle class in the traditional sense. Torres Rivas (1983a, 21-22) characterizes it as being composed of urban "intermediate strata," beneficiaries of structural

upward mobility

on the basis of economic accumulation and of noneconomic superstructural .

.

.

He

factors.

employed

those linked to

for example, to "salaried intermediate strata nonproductive (non-value-generating) jobs, above all the hypertrophy of state apparatuses" (1983a, 21-22)

refers,

in

professionals and state bureaucrats. Although these

new

strata

do not

form a middle class, they give the illusion of social mobility in a society like

Guatemala. In

fact,

their position

is

much more

precarious than

they would like to admit, as revealed during the economic crisis of the late 1980s.

Perhaps their main importance

is

that socially

and

politically

they perform the traditional buffer functions of a middle class.

Within the context of overall agreement as to the need

to protect the

existing social order, there are, of course, conflicts within the ruling

most important during the past two decades being over should bear the cost of the counterinsurgency wars (and now, who should bear the brunt of economic adjustment measures). The bourgeoisie has steadfastly maintained its opposition to even the most minimal modifications of the tax structure (which remains among the most regressive in Latin America, with less than 20 percent of tax revenues coalition, the

who

coming from bureaucracy,

paid out of

direct taxes).

who

Members

of the military

and

civilian state

are less directly tied to profits (and are not themselves

profits),

claim to represent the broader interest in insisting

need cooperation from the bourgeoisie on taxation, in order to wage the war with a free hand. In addition, issues such as the army's expansion of the functions of the state for counterinsurgency purposes have generated controversy with business sectors that remain ideologically opposed to "state interventionism" (even on behalf of ruling class interests). We shall return below to these issues regarding the army's that they

role.

Social Crisis and

Changes

in the Proletariat

At the other pole of Guatemalan society, both growth and crisis, both modernization and stagnation, had profoundly destabilizing consequences: increased poverty, social polarization, and population displacements. In short, Guatemala has been experiencing a massive social crisis, virtually without interruption in recent decades, with no capitalist

periods of "recovery" or alleviating factors. Briefly, the following are the major structural causes of Guatemala's social

crisis:

Social Polarization

1.

Economically, as seen in Chapter

5,

95

the countryside experienced

land expropriation, destruction of the minifundio "pillar" of the latifundia system, and collapse of the peasant economy. The expansion of export agriculture (especially cattle) greatly accelerated this process.

CACM-

stimulated industrialization and export promotion schemes further in-

creased income concentration and inequality, without lessening unemployment while population growth continued at over 3 percent a year. Largely as a consequence of inflation, real wages fell significantly during the 1970s: In 1979, urban workers earned 74 percent of the real wage they had earned in 1970, while rural workers earned 54 percent compared with 1970. In both cases, real minimum wage rates had fallen as well (Bulmer-Thomas 1987, 219). These tendencies were greatly aggravated by the 1980s economic crisis and by neoliberal policies that put the burden of the crisis on the lower classes. 2. The massive earthquake of 1976 killed 25,000 people, injured 70,000, and left more than 1.25 million people homeless. Experts estimated that 90 percent of the destroyed homes in Guatemala City were in poor neighborhoods. In the months following the quake, 50,000 people migrated to the capital, swelling the ranks of several hundred thousand homeless already there (Jonas 1976). 3. The decades of counterinsurgency war, and particularly the scorchedearth war of the early 1980s in the Indian highlands (see details in Chapter 10) greatly compounded the social crisis. The destruction of 440 highlands villages and killing of over 100,000 civilians displaced 10-12 percent of Guatemala's population (at least 1 million people), with over 150,000 fleeing to Mexico. Among the internal refugees, hundreds of thousands remaining in the highlands were uprooted and reconcentrated into new villages controlled by the army. Sections of the highlands suffered severe environmental damage. The burning of crops created

—

severe food shortages (the 1983 food harvest being 60 percent lower

than normal

— Smith

1988), leaving

many

of those remaining in the

highlands dependent upon the army for food (hence compelled to into

model

move

villages to survive). Regional markets, as well as the subsistence

economy, were totally disrupted (Smith 1988). War-related physical destruction and capital flight caused additional unemployment in both the countryside and the cities in the 1980s. Finally, the massive cost of the war required diversion of government resources (over one-third of the national budget) into counterinsurgency and cutbacks in social services.

The

political

consequences of

Despite massive repression, generated

new

social

it

this social crisis have been explosive: nourished a revival of old social movements,

movements, and fueled

a

new

insurgency. These

Social Polarization

96

developments will be traced in Chapters 8-10; but first, it is important to examine the effects for rural and urban class formation. In Guatemala, as throughout Latin America, recent decades have seen political

the relative decline of the "formal proletariat" and, simultaneously, the

growth of the rural semiproletariat and the urban "informal These changes in the Guatemalan work force are reflected in the official statistic that only 35 percent (just above one-third) of the economically active population is fully employed year-round (Envio 1989, 25; Inforpress 1988c, 80 cites 38 percent). To take another measure, only one-third of the work force is covered by social security (Perez Jerez 1986, 21), which had been guaranteed since 1944. In the Countryside. As seen above, the major tendency in recent decades has been expropriation of minifundia, leaving an increasing proportion of the agricultural work force with no land or insufficient land to subsist. Depriving peasants of their land forced them to work rapid

proletariat."

for others (proletarianization);

but the process was "incomplete" in that

and

the agrarian bourgeoisie, particularly the growers of coffee, cotton,

demanded not a full-time permanent work force but a work was available seasonally, when needed; use of a part-time

sugar,

force

that

labor

employers from having to maintain full-time salaried workers. The result has been semi-proletarianization, that is, creation of force freed the

a

labor force that relies partially

on waged labor and

partially

on

subsistence activities.

According

to

one analyst, since the 1960s the

capitalist process

has

destroyed the noncapitalist economy but without generating an equivalent

growth

in fully salaried

work (Dierckxsens 1986,

24).

This explains the

apparent contradiction of the increase in salaried work, but not in permanent, stable full-time work; by the early 1980s, only one-third of

work force had full-time stable work. In coffee, for example, temporary workers increased from 67 percent of the total in 1965 tc 81 percent in 1979 (Dierckxsens 1986, 27). The creation of a permanent, the agrarian

"superexploited" semiproletariat (Figueroa Ibarra 1980, 423) put increasing pressure on the labor market and generated socioeconomic instability of such proportions as to constitute a crisis of reproduction of the labor force (Dierckxsens 1986).

This process was expressed in the dramatic increase in part-time, seasonal employment on the plantations of the Southern Coast. Although seasonal migration from the highlands to the Southern Coast had begun decades earlier (see Chapter 4), by 1975, it involved 43 percent of the highlands work force (much higher in some districts). Between the 1960s and 1970s, permanent migration diminished, while seasonal migration increased. By the early 1980s, this migratory labor force had swelled to 600,000, "the largest proportional stream of migratory labor to be found

Social Polarization

97

world" (Wickham-Crowley forthcoming, Ch.

10, 6). Through an modern capitalist agricultural sector transfered most of the seasonal unemployment back to the peasant sector in the highlands, where the lack of resources left very little margin for productive activity. This was the heart of the agricultural unem-

in the

annual cycle of attraction/expulsion, the

ployment

crisis

(Hintermeister 1985, 38).

Seasonal migrant workers,

who

earned half as

much

as

permanent

workers on the Southern Coast, saw a further deterioration in their real

wages (by nearly 50 percent) during the 1970s. 2 In 1980,' 70,000 Southern Coast workers, both permanent and seasonal, went on strike and won a significant increase in the minimum daily wage; nevertheless, the private sector found numerous ways to avoid raising labor costs: refusing to comply with the legal minimum wage, contracting labor on a piecework basis, dropping 40 percent of agricultural workers from Social Security coverage (Bulmer-Thomas 1987, 220, 236). Thus, the semiproletariat has remained in a situation of unalleviated poverty, and the 1980s have seen a further decline of living standards. As will be seen in Chapter 9, this semiproletarian, seasonal migrant labor force, overwhelmingly Indian, became a central actor in the war of the late 1970s and 1980s not only because of its "objective" function in the economy, but also because it was the protagonist of the revolutionary uprising a "class for itself" as well as an ethnic/national formation (see Figueroa Ibarra 1980, 420-423; Hintermeister 1985; Dierckxsens

—

—

1986; Paige 1983).

In the City.

The

structural changes described

above have also been Guatemala

reflected in the kind of urbanization that has taken place in

City and the spectacular growth of the city's informal proletariat. Ur-

banization has been "push-driven"

were expelled from

more than "pull-driven": people

by the inability of the agro-export sector to absorb the labor force and by conjunctural factors such as economic crisis, war, and natural disaster, rather than being attracted to the cities by increased work opportunities. Although Guatemala remains Central their land

America's least urbanized nation (only 38 percent of the total population in 1985 Lungo 1987a, 144), the population of Guatemala City doubled

—

and continued to grow at hemisphere (Envio 1987, As of 1986, 35-40 percent of the capital's inhabitants had been

between 1976 and 1987

(tripled since 1964),

a rate of 12 percent a year 15).

— the highest

in the

born outside the city. The majority of the several hundred thousand migrants to the capital have ended up living precariously, encamped in squatter settlements of cardboard-and-tin shacks on the outskirts of the city. These shantytown areas have multiplied rapidly. By 1987, one-third of the inhabitants of

98

Social Polarization

Guatemala City

lived in such settlements (Levenson 1989, 5). (See

Chapter

12 for detailed discussion of pobladores as a social force.)

The fact that urbanization has been more a consequence of expulsion from the countryside than of attraction by new employment opportunities is confirmed by significant tendencies in the work force, specifically the growth of the urban "informal proletariat." The formal proletariat is composed of those who are employed full time in the modern capitalist sectors of the economy, both rural and urban those whom, in Torres Rivas's words (1983a, 21) "the system rewards by exploiting." By contrast,

—

the

members

of the informal proletariat, in Portes's (1985) characterization,

do not receive regular money wages or the "indirect" wage of social security coverage; their relations with employers are not regulated by contract, nor by official minimum wage laws. Like the rural semiproletariat, the informal

proletariat

keeps

down wage

employers' indirect "social wage" In practice, the distinction in the

shantytowns

is

levels

overall,

as well as

(e.g., benefits).

between formal and informal

not absolute but relative:

A

proletariat

significant proportion

of households, especially in the shantytowns, mix formal with informal workers (Portes and Johns 1986, 383; Perez Sainz 1989b). The two forms of production are often combined within the same person, as she/he

forced to engage in multiple activities in order to survive (Perez

is

Sainz 1987, 43; for empirical data in the Guatemalan case, see Perez Sainz 1989b). These changes lead to important theoretical reformulations. 3

The formal economy absorbs only 20 percent

of youth entering the

labor market every year in Guatemala City (Envio 1989, 25); 45 percent

work

employed informally; 90 percent of informal workers Q200 ($80) a month and must work sixty hours a week, double the time they would have to work in the formal sector, just to survive (Envio 1988, 13 and 1989, 25). They are "employed" in street of the

force

is

earn less than

vending, small-scale

home production

of everything

from

tortillas

to

More than half of the informal proletariat lives in extreme poverty (FADES 1987b, 50). As will be seen in Chapter 7, it is disproportionately composed of women, older workers, and Indians (Perez furniture.

Sainz 1987b).

The employers

are the "informal petty bourgeoisie," described

Portes (1985) as small-scale entrepreneurs

who

hire

on

by

a noncontractual

between the modern sector and mass of unskilled and unprotected labor at the bottom of the class structure." According to one study, 44 percent of microempresas (petty or small-scale businesses that employ only a few workers) in Guatemala City arose between 1980 and 1986, and an additional 37 percent had basis; they function as "intermediaries

the

developed

in

the

1970s

(FADES

1987b, 27)

—a

clear sign

that,

even

— Social Polarization

99

during the period of expansion (as well as during economic made it impossible to get by on fixed incomes. 4

crisis),

inflation It is

is

we are not speaking here of a "marginal" one that articulates with the modern capitalist sector and

important to note that

sector but of

increasingly necessary to

it.

Members

of the informal

proletariat

and in the subsistence economy" (Portes 1985, 15); some workers even combine subsistence agriculture with informal wage labor in the cities, in this sense becoming a mobile labor force responding quickly to short-term employment "participate simultaneously in capitalist production

opportunities in either city or countryside (Portes 1985,

For

all

proletariat

16).

urban industrial formal

of the reasons discussed above, the

remains very small as a percentage of the

total

work

force

increasing from 10 percent in 1962 only to 11.5 percent in 1975 (35

percent of the

Most

208).

work

Guatemala City) (Dunkerley 1988, 207urban proletariat has come in the employ primarily women (see Chapter 7)

force of

growth

of the

maquiladora industries that

in the

low-wage operations. Despite being a numerical miboth old and new, remains dynamic and central to the labor movement, as will be seen below. The great mass described above makes up the 87 percent majority of the population living below the poverty line. Certainly, the existence of impoverished masses is not new in Guatemala, but there is novelty in: (a) the overwhelming size of that majority: by the 1980s far more Guatemalans were living in poverty and in absolute poverty than and are

explicitly

nority, the industrial proletariat,

previously; in just a few years during the 1980s, the figure had risen from less

than 80 percent to 87 percent;

and

(b) its centrality to

Guatemalan

impoverished majority came to include so much of the As will be seen, the response to this situation has been a labor force. continual regeneration of popular social movements. society, as this

Notes 1.

As Torres Rivas put

facilitated the

it,

"Oligarchical

and also ensures

.

.

.

the maintenance

violent extraction of the social surplus letarian,

.

.

.

refers to the kind of

power

that

concentration of agrarian wealth under monopolistic conditions

and reproduction of a society based on produced by campesino and semipro-

working-class labor. In addition 'oligarchical' domination implied a

by the dominant groups predominance that often lacked an economic base and was based on the ." (1989a, 48). And use of a varied repertoire of violence and arbitrariness elsewhere, "Oligarchical man represents a backward bourgeoisie personified by large property holdings, but with incomplete control over capital. His power is derived from the control over people's lives that land ownership provides. But particular brand of political behavior practiced a

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

,

Social Polarization

200

along with the development of the means of production, the social relations of production always involve force and permanent violence that goes beyond

economic power" (1989b, 193). 2. Within this overall tendency toward increasing insecurity and a lowering of wages, some analysts have suggested a countertendency in the late 1970s (just before the onset of the economic crisis): As a result of labor shortages on the Southern Coast following the 1976 earthquake, wages tended to rise (Porras 1978, 374; Pansini 1983; Smith 1984a and 1984c; see also Lovell 1985, 44 and note 122). This could well explain the increased ability of the workers to organize and demand higher wages, as expressed in the 1980 strike on the Southern Coast. Porras suggested the possibility of an expansion of the internal market at that time and explained these conjunctural phenomena in relation to structural factors such as the deepening of capitalist relations in the minifundia sector (increased use of fertilizers, incorporation of the minifundia into the market,

and a transformation of urban-rural relations, as even the minifundia became dependent on capitalized inputs and broke out of their traditional isolation). Other analysts (e.g., Kincaid 1987a, 195-197) have questioned the factual basis of the labor shortage hypothesis, as well as 3.

On

its political

the issue of formal/informal, which

is

only

implications.

now becoming

the object

and theorizing: Portes and Johns (1986, 380) define "informal" as "the sum total of income-earning activities excluding those which are contractual and legally regulated." Perez Sainz (1987, 46 and 1989a, 35 ff.) maintains that the formal/informal distinction is relative, on the basis of a composite measure of "work-related precariousness" (including length of employment as well as regulation by contract); this segmentation of the work force is better conceived as a spectrum than as two distinct categories. Moreover, if proletarianization is seen as an integral process, it should not be limited to the "logic of capital" (accumulation) but should include the needs of reproduction of the labor force (the "logic of subsistence," i.e., the needs of the work force). From the latter perspective, the main measures of precariousness correspond to differentiation by sex, age, and level of training. In another study, Perez Sainz of serious investigation

(1989b) further develops the notion of heterogeneity within the informal sector. All of the

above has important implications

for the overall class analysis: as

Perez Sainz suggests, "proletarianization" can no longer be understood simply as the creation

and expansion of the waged work

force

— which

makes

the

informal proletariat nothing but a negative reflex of the formal or "real" proletariat. it is a set of parallel processes, both of which are equally necessary to accumulation in the periphery, and one of which constitutes the "informal proletariat." The latter is the historical form that "noninstitutionalized" or "unregulated" proletarianization has taken in the urban context in modernizing

Rather,

capital

peripheral capitalist societies such as those of Latin America in the late twentieth century. In such contexts, informality arises as a response "from structural surplus of labor (see Perez Sainz

1989a).

below"

to the

"Informal" activities are

also essential to capital accumulation in the periphery, insofar as they include

unremunerated reproduction of the labor force and hence permit a lowering of wages as part of boosting profits (Perez Sainz 1989a; Portes and Johns 1986, 383).

Social Polarization

101

The applicability of this framework to Guatemala is obvious, given that Guatemalan industrialization since 1954 has led not to proletarianization in the traditional sense of creating a larger class formation described above. 4.

down

waged

labor force but to the variations in

.

Perez Sainz (1987, 44-45) argues that Portes's categories should be broken further, distinguishing between family enterprises and those producing a

surplus; moreover, "petty bourgeois" does not accurately describe these enterprises,

because most of them are subsisting rather than accumulating

capital.

—

7 Ethnic and Gender

Dimensions of Crisis

"New Ways

of Being Indian"

Intersecting the class antagonisms are equally profound ethnic-national divisions.

Of

the

Guatemalan population, 50-60 percent

is

Indian

although some estimates are as high as 70 percent (see Dunbar Ortiz

and some are as low as 44 percent (official census figures, 6); Dierckxsens (1986) and Smith (1990b) cite 50 percent. During the 1970s and 1980s, Guatemala's indigenous population became a decisive actor, as the country underwent not only a crisis of structural impoverishment but also an ethnic-national crisis of the indigenous population. Without discussing in detail the debates on the "national question," which are among the most profound and complex debates concerning Guatemala, I shall attempt to indicate the general parameters of the ethnic-national crisis, which are cultural and political 1985, 244),

cited in

Reyes 1986,

as well as structural.

a

The starting point is the understanding of an indigenous people as community that shares basic cultural values by which it differentiates

Guatemala, we are dealing with twenty-two language subgroups Maya. Since the Conquest, they have been engaged in struggles to defend their identity and their survival as a people against oppression as well as economic exploitation that is, against institutionalized discrimination and ethnocide (cultural extermination). Politically, theirs is a fundamental democratic struggle, not only for their civil and social rights (which have been systematically denied since the Conquest) but also for equality in a truly multicultural nation: "The issue is not identity itself.

In

of the

—

but justice" (Smith 1990b,

5;

see

Dunbar Ortiz

1984a, Part

II).

Full

democracy or majority rule includes discussion of the possible meanings 103

Ethnic and Gender Dimensions

104

autonomy and self-determination, the Guatemalan population.

of

In regard to identity,

main elements

since Indians are the majority of

Cabarrus (1982,

13)

and

Falla (1978) define the

as being race (not physical, but the

community members'

own

perception of themselves as being "different"), language, and history. Other constitutive elements of their ethnic identity include their religious

practices, clothing or traje,

forms of economic cooperation, and other

elements of their vision of the world and of humankind (Aguilera Peralta 1984, 38). Ethnicity is not incompatible with class, but it is certainly not reducible to class, and it involves "subjective" factors in its very definition.

1

Furthermore, ethnic identity is not static or reducible to a particular is continually being defined and redefined by the members of the community, individually or collectively (Cabarrus, summarized in Reyes 1986, 9; Brintnall 1979 and 1983). Along the same lines, Falla elaborates the ways in which Guatemala's indigenous populations have culture, but

redefined their identities, "expropriating" elements of ladino culture and "deriving power" from national or regional institutions and organizations:

These variations represent further development of

"new ways

their Indian identity,

of being Indian" (1978, 547).

and others counter various intellectual stereotypes Guatemala's indigenous population that were once accepted. Central to traditional anthropology had been an often oversimplified concept of "ladinization" (cultural assimilation), according to which the "backward" Indian would disappear as the result of contact with the "modern" or civilized ladino world; this concept was based partly on questionable census figures showing the Indian population dropping from 55.7 percent of the population in 1940 to 43.7 percent in 1973. Another traditional view was based on defining indigenous life in terms of "closed corporate (unchanging) communities" (see discussion In this way, Falla

and

in

reifications of

Smith 1990b, 18

ff.;

Handy 1990

valve that can open and close

is

suggests that the metaphor of a

more accurate than

that of

an absolute

barrier in regard to these communities).

Within Guatemala,

new

currents were expressed in the intellectual

debate that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. On one side was the traditional PGT view of the Indians as a product of the colonial experience with characteristics of the colonial

serf,

being incorporated with no

into the proletariat as a result of the abolition of forced labor

consciousness of their social

being,

that

is,

no

class

—

consciousness

(Martinez Pelaez 1970). At the other end of the spectrum, challenging this view as paternalistic was an idealization of Indians as the oppressed class,

with "ladino" being a purely

bonds were much stronger than

fictitious identity; in this view, ethnic

class

bonds (Guzman Bockler and

Ethnic and Gender Dimensions

105

Herbert 1970). The polarized positions expressed in this debate were subsequently refined in response to the changes sweeping the highlands Indian communities and the "awakening" there (see Chapter

Although identity

is

8).

central to understanding the situation of

Gua-

temala's indigenous peoples, there are also structural bases of the ethnic contradiction.

The

vast majority of

Guatemalan Indians are

the 87 percent of the population that lives in poverty.

also part of

Hence,

it

is

necessary to recast Guatemala's structural crises in their ethnic-national

dimensions.

First, in their class identification,

the principal struggle of

Guatemala's indigenous populations since colonial times has centered on recovering their land and resisting further expropriation of/eviction from their land. Second, the foundation of the Guatemalan economy has been coerced labor, specifically, forced Indian labor at the service of criollo and ladino landowners; hence, ethnic discrimination is a cornerstone of the Guatemalan economy. Even today,

when

forced labor

has been technically outlawed (since 1945), the major plantations obtain labor largely through the coercive conditions in rural areas (cf. various writings of Handy, Smith). In this regard, a crucial function of the state

and particularly of the army since the late nineteenth century has been to guarantee a permanent cheap labor supply, all the more so since the legal abolition of forced labor. This pits the Indian majority not only

against the agrarian bourgeoisie but also against the repressive ladino state, that is, a state

dominated by ladinos,

to

which the Indian population

has no access.

Does

mean

an ethnic division According to one empirical study (Dierckxsens 1986, 18), labor markets in Guatemalan cities are totally segregated ethnically, but in the countryside, the process of semiproletarianization has been "indiscriminate" or undifferentiated with respect to Indians and ladinos. Given the different situations in different this

that there exists across-the-board

of labor or segregation of labor markets?

parts of the country, there

is little

the "primacy" of class as

basis for absolute formulations regarding

opposed

to ethnic factors.

For the vast majority of Guatemala's indigenous population (poor peasants,

members

urban informal and ethnic oppression are intertwined.

of the rural semiproletariat, or the

proletariat), then, class exploitation

Their condition as exploited (and their response to exploitation)

is

part

of their condition as oppressed (and their response to oppression).

countertendency of increasing class the words of one analyst, "while modernization has preserved and even strengthened the indigenous identity, an implicit class division between rich and poor Indians is gaining increased concrete (even institutional) expression" (Brintnall Nevertheless,

differentiation

there

among

quoted by Reyes 1986,

is

also

Indians.

9).

a

In

In the 1960s

and 1970s there was

a "regional-

Ethnic and Gender Dimensions

106

national restructuring" that benefited the upper strata, while impoverishing the great majority;

was much

greater

by the

late

1970s, hence, the differentiation

than previously, and these tendencies continued

throughout the 1980s (Reyes 1986, 14-15, based in part on

AID

studies).

Roots of the Indian Uprising

As seen above, the structural transformations culminating in the 1960s-1980s changed the overall situation of the Indian populations in their class definition. These same factors also had profound effects upon their self-conceptions in the late 1970s Falla, Arias, crisis

broke

and

and became the basis

for the vast Indian uprising

As extensively documented

early 1980s.

(e.g.,

by

Smith, Carmack), economic growth followed by economic

down

the

objective barriers

relatively isolated in the highlands. This

that

was

had kept the Indians

greatly intensified by the

economic and political crises of the 1980s, when growing numbers of Indians were forced to migrate to the Southern Coast and to the cities. These changes and displacements brought them into more contact with the ladino, Spanish-speaking world, giving a new, stronger impetus to although in new forms. both growth and crisis brought expropriation of (eviction from) their land, which was overwhelmingly ladino expropriation of Indian land, whether by landowners or the army. This sharpened their perception of ladino "enemy" forces. Second, incorporation of the minifundia into the market economy made peasants dependent on capital for fertilizer and other materials (Porras 1978), further breaking down the traditional isolation of Indian communities. Third, "developmental" initiatives during the 1960s and 1970s, some of them taken by the government itself and funded by the United States "land colonization" programs, cooperative movements, highways, new transportation, and improvements in communications and the mass media had profoundly contradictory effects. their struggle to preserve their Indian identity, First,

—

—

They opened up new possibilities and raised expectations for the Indian population that the government was subsequently unable and unwilling to fulfill (Falla 1978; Arias 1988,

130-132), particularly after the onset

economic crisis. Finally, and also largely as a consequence of war and economic crisis, an increasing proportion of the indigenous population ended up in the shantytowns of the capital and other cities. (Their adaptations and redefinitions in the cities, mainly as part of the urban informal proletariat, are only beginning to be studied in depth see Chapter 12.) At the same time, partly as a result of these factors, the indigenous communities were being transformed internally. Falla (1978) traces the of major

Ethnic and Gender Dimensions

107

unemployment, and increased schooling, which of mobility and the creation of new strata gave rise to within the community (the commercial sector). Particularly the younger generation of these "modernizing sectors" were more educated (some receiving college degrees), more articulate, more inclined to challenge traditional community elders, and more inclined to engage the ladino world. This was not "ladinization" but a redefinition of what it meant cycles of mechanization,

new mechanisms

be "Indian."

to

and other close observers have emphasized the importance of by missionaries, especially Catholic Action, and the rise of the cooperative movement. At the same time, political parties such as Christian Democrats began extending their activities into these communities, drawing this same stratum (the "commercial sector") and younger generation into national politics for the first time (Arias 1988, 130 and 1990). All of these phenomena, and particularly the role of religious workers, will be seen in more detail in Chapter 8, as background to the formation of the Comite de Unidad Campesina (CUC), the first major national organization to carry forward Falla

concientizacion (consciousness-raising)

the struggle of highlands Indians (although

it

consciously united Indians

with poor ladinos). In interpreting the above,

Falla,

Adams, and others have warned

against the simplistic, racist assumption that the Indians have resisted

modernizing influences per se. But it would be equally wrong to see these increasing contacts with the ladino world as signs of "ladinization" in a simplistic sense. As Falla showed (1978, 559), even where communities adopted the Spanish language, their sense of identity was often enhanced. These profound changes represented a new stage in their response to national society, a higher degree of articulation with the ladino world objectively, but as part of a redefinition and recovery of

Smith (1988, 209) expressed a similar 'rebel' who assimilated just enough of Western ways to more effectively resist Western incorporation." The above factors combined form the background for understanding identity (Falla 1978; Lovell 1988).

idea, in

why

speaking of the "Indian

Guatemala's Indians became the powerful social force driving the

insurgency of the 1970s and 1980s. In response, ladino state violence against the indigenous population assumed genocidal proportions in the 1980s

— not

a

new phenomenon,

light of those experiences, to

but

its

be traced

most brutal expression. In the in detail below, there remain

important unresolved issues of what kind of "nation" can represent the aspirations of Guatemala's Indian majority. Answers to these questions are

still

being defined in Guatemala today (see Chapter

12).

Ethnic and Gender Dimensions

108

Gender, the Unexplored Dimension

A there

final

dimension of Guatemala's social crisis is gender. Unfortunately, research on women in Guatemala, much less an adequate

is little

conceptualization of the role of

women

in

Guatemalan

struggles. (Perhaps

change only after there has been an explosive "awakening" of; some kind in which women are seen to play a leading role, as happened with the indigenous population.) But even in the absence of extensive empirical research, broad outlines of the picture can be sketched. Theoretically, differentiation by gender has affected the whole conceptualization of class and class analysis. Even from the viewpoint of understanding "class" relations and the labor market, it is necessary to go beyond the sphere of production, to include the relations of reproduction; and here, the relevant unit is not the individual wage-earner this will

is particularly evident in the case of women, whose lives as workers "are embedded in the total domestic and community context" (Nash 1986, 14; Chinchilla 1978). Such a conceptual broadening also makes sense, given changes in the work force and the

but the household. This

rise of the

informal proletariat: Different forms of production are often

—

combined within the same family unit sometimes even within the same individual working at different jobs (see Perez Sainz 1987 and 1989b). Let us begin by summarizing very briefly existing research about women in the Guatemalan labor force. Traditional census data are unreliable, often contradicted by other surveys; an in-depth two-volume statistical study was published by FLACSO in 1989, including data up hereafter referred to as G&G). to 1987 (Garcia and Gomariz 1989 Existing data must also be relativized by differences for geographical, ethnic, and age groups; by differences between the "developmental" era (1950s-1970s) and the open crisis of the 1980s; and by systematic underreporting of (especially indigenous) women's participation in the work force. If we keep in mind these qualifications, overall, women have increased their incorporation into the work force but still remain no more than 25 percent of the total (G&G, 1:197-198). Despite greater incorporation, and partly because more women were seeking work than

—

previously, (especially younger)

women

the 1980s as a percentage of the openly

(G&G,

1:203-204).

Women

increased significantly during

unemployed and underemployed

have suffered systematic discrimination in

men, especially in the productive sectors (G&G, I: terms of the breakdown by activity, the following tendencies

salaries relative to

204). In

can be noted: 1.

In the

commercial agricultural export

sector,

women

have been

declining as a percentage of the agricultural proletariat; they have been

disproportionately denied access to permanent jobs on the Southern

Ethnic and Gender Dimensions

By

Coast.

contrast, they

have participated, perhaps

109

significantly, in the

semiproletarian migrant work force from the highlands to the Southern :

,

—

Coast a temporary, seasonal work force that often migrates in family groupings (Bossen 1984, 29-33; Chinchilla 1978, 50). (Amazingly, despite all the attention paid to these migrant workers in the last decade, there is not one systematic study of women's participation.) 2. As part of a generalized decline in salaried female employment in the productive sectors, industrialization (except during the' brief nationalist phase of the Revolution of 1944-1954) has greatly favored men over

women (Chinchilla 1977, 48). During women in industry declined both in relation percentage of female employment (G&G 1:200, 228).

women, with men even

replacing

the 1980s, the percentage of

men and

to

as a

Nevertheless, there are indications that, as in other countries, the

some

of

newer "cheap labor" assembly industries with unskilled jobs (ma-

quiladoras, e.g., in textiles) prefer

women

workers, since their labor

is

more "dispensable,"and so on (G&G, 1:200; Beneria and Roldan Nash 1986, 9). In the absence of official figures, union sources

cheaper, 1987;

estimated in 1989 that 95 percent of workers in textile maquiladoras

—

were women earning about 5 percent of what textile workers earn in the United States (Agencia Centroamericana de Noticias [ACEN-SIAG] No. 106, Pacific News Service [PNS] 5/25/90). 3. There has been an increase in the proportion of women in services, including the public sector (state workers). At the same time, women have been declining overall as a percentage of professionals, and 75 percent of female professionals are in one profession, teaching (Chinchilla 1977, 54).

Women

have been disproportionately found in secondary and tertiary sectors of the (Bossen 1984, 39; Perez Sainz 1990); according to one y Tecnologia para Guatemala [CITGUA] 1987, 47-49), 4.

ployment

women

in the

"informal" em-

urban economy source (Ciencia

over 70 percent

and commerce enterprises are "self-employed" by contract). More generally, the economic crisis saw an increase in the percentage of women who are "self-employed" or unremunerated (in family enof

in industry

(por cuenta propia) rather than salaried (hence, unprotected

with a significant "accumulation of (G&G 1:202, 205). Meanwhile, statistics on employment as domestics (maids) range from 20 percent (CITGUA 1987, 52) to 40 percent (Chinchilla 1977, 53) of women in the labor terprises) in the productive sectors,

women

in micro-enterprises"

force.

To summarize: There has been a decline in women's participation in modern and "most capitalist" sectors (export agriculture and industry) are those where women have had the least access to jobs. The occupational structure has become productive sectors of the economy; the most

130

Ethnic and Gender Dimensions

and the expansion of( Based on her study ofi women in four communities in Guatemala, Bossen concluded (1984, 320), "Both structurally and culturally, capitalism has brought about a redivision of labor which has relatively penalized women." From the sketchy evidence available, Guatemala appears to confirm the pattern found in other countries "for some tasks and clusters of activities to become feminized" (Beneria and Roldan 1987, 14). Further, since "selfemployment" has increased faster than waged employment (Chinchilla

more segregated

as a result of industrialization

export agriculture, followed by economic

1978, 54),

women

crisis.

are concentrated in the kinds of jobs that are least

secure, least covered

by contractual

"equality before the law"

is

obligations. Hence,

women's supposed

not protected in practice. Similarly, Perez

Sainz (1989a, 39) found a higher degree of "work-related precariousness"

among women

work

Chapter 6, Note 3). only one dimension of women's protagonism in Guatemala's social crisis. To understand the latter, of course, it is necessary to start from the broader reality that women are key to the production process through their role in reproduction of the in the

force (see

But participation in the work force

is

1

labor force. Theoretically the centrality of reproduction to production

is

expressed by Perez Sainz's proposal (1989a, Ch.3) to broaden the notion of proletarianization, including the reproduction of the labor force as

an integral part or "moment" of that process, not a "reflex" of it. Looking to the sphere of reproduction, we see that women, as the organizers of "survival strategies" (or, in the words of Perez Sainz, the "logics of subsistence") are responsible for many aspects of the life of the family or household. Indeed, research by Bossen and others shows that, aside from their role in physically reproducing and maintaining the labor force, Guatemalan women in both urban and rural contexts have engaged in a wide variety of economic activities (e.g., petty commodity production) to supplement household income. Since the 1970s, further, the role of women as heads of households has been notable in the shantytowns of Guatemala City (Roberts 1973, 39; Bossen 1984). This situation was greatly intensified by war and crisis during the 1980s, as seen in growing female migration to the cities, where an increasing proportion have become heads of household. Additionally, 38 percent of urban women

beyond the labor market

are

widows

(56 percent in the countryside)

(G&G

1:195-196).

There are other implications of Guatemala's cumulative social crisis for women. First, most social indicators are worse for women than for men and are among the most alarming in the hemisphere. To cite two examples: The morbidity rate (death from disease) is higher among Guatemalan women than any others in the hemisphere; illiteracy among rural Guatemalan women is 85 percent, one of the highest rates in the

1

nemisphere

(CITGUA

Ethnic and Gender Dimensions

111

studies, 1987-1989). Secondly, indigenous

women

nave been very particularly affected by the counterinsurgency war of :he 1980s: Forced recruitment of men into the army and the civilian 'self-defense" patrols has left the their

households

(as

in

the

women

Ubico

disproportionately high percentage of

economically responsible for

in general, women form a Guatemalan refugees and displaced era);

populations. All of these developments have greatly modified family

and gender relations, as well as the consciousness of the women e.g., Memorias del Taller 1987). Thus far, these changes have been minimally reflected in legislation protecting women from various forms of discrimination and violence. Finally, if the Guatemalan social crisis is viewed from the perspective structure

involved (see,

of

women,

it

is

necessary to address cultural/psychological (as well as

dimensions of repression. In Nash's words (1986, 15), "a focus that takes women into account must analyze the cultural sources of power and privilege as well as the relations in production that give expression to them and reproduce the power." Just as the ethnic divisions of Guatemala compelled us to deal with noneconomic dimensions of oppression (ethnocide, destruction of the culture), so too another noneconomic form of oppression let us call it the destruction of human relations is highlighted by addressing the forms of oppression and repression of women. In short, the consideration of women's situation raises noneconomic aspects of class definition that have been ignored until now in Guatemala and are just beginning to be raised there by women conscious of their oppression as women. 2 As will be seen in Chapter 12, developments during the mid- to late 1980s sparked new forms of political participation protagonized by women.

economic and

political)

—

—

The "Popular Bloc" As seen from the above discussions of the social majorities in Guatemala the seasonal semiproletariat and informal proletariat (twothirds of the work force), the indigenous populations (50-60 percent), and women (50.2 percent) changing realities require theoretical flexibility in making a class analysis of Guatemala. Specifically, the recognition of these majorities indicates the need to broaden our conception of class, class formation, and class struggle to include the particular struggles of Indians and women. Ethnic struggles have become a new form of class struggles in Guatemala. 3 Similarly, in Nash's words (1986, 11), "the dialectic of gender relations informs and shapes the larger dialectic of class formation" and the conceptualization of class. These considerations are useful in understanding the link between structural/social definition (class, ethnicity, gender) and political action. The recognition of these

—

—

Ethnic and Gender Dimensions

112

new

majorities leads

me

to

adopt the concept of the "popular bloc,"

by numerous Latin American analysts and has great relevance to Guatemalan social formations in the 1980s. The notion of a "popular bloc" indicates that the social subject of contemporary Guatemala is not one class in the traditional sense, but a "combination of social sectors ... an organized bloc of all exploited and dominated sectors" (Nunez Soto 1989, 16-17). As will be seen, its political expression is a coalition or "front" or "convergence" of popular and revolutionary movements, whose degree of cohesion has varied considerably over the last fifteen years. "Popular" refers to a cross-class grouping, but distinct from that which formed the basis for the populist politics of the 1930s and 1940s, which revolved around a "national bourgeoisie." Corresponding to the broader notion of "class" suggested above, "popular" incorporates conditions (hence struggles) related to reproduction as well as production. As summarized by one analyst of Guatemala, referring particularly to urban workers, "Popular does not imply a denial of the primacy of class in the characterization of urban workers as social agents. These social agents should be characterized not formed only in function of the in terms of popular classes necessities of Capital, but also based in their daily practices of resistance and adaptation to that control" (Perez Sainz 1987, 48). The following chapters will show how these concepts gained concrete meaning in the struggles of the 1970s and 1980s. The specific political expressions of the popular/revolutionary coalition have varied in their degrees and forms of explicit alliance during these two decades, but their common (if plural or diverse) interests have persisted.

which has been put

forth

.

.

.

.

.

.

Notes 1. Some analysts have even argued that class be defined in the case of the Guatemalan indigenous population in terms of culture and community: "Indian? conceptualize themselves as a class in struggle with the Guatemalan State .

.

.

;"

in

Guatemala, "class struggle has always taken the form of ethnic

struggle" (Smith 1987a, 206, 212-14). These notions

— that

their ethnic identity

and that the state has replaced the bourgeoisie as the main exploiter/oppressor seem problematic as general formulations about Guatemala, insofar as they do not address the situations of poor ladinos, wealthy Indians, or the agrarian bourgeoisie. They may, however, describe particular regions. In any case, it does seem clear that the noneconomic dimensions of Guatemala's 87 percent majority are crucial, and many of them are not fully comprehensible in terms of the logic of political economy. Smith (1987a, 204) also argues more broadly that Western concepts are inappropriate because, Guatemala is a non-Western and only partially capitalist society; would suggest the need to broaden and augment, rather than replace, a structural analysis. is

their class definition

—

I

Ethnic and Gender Dimensions

2.

I

have seen

this

repression doesn't

we reproduce that the only

it

lie

in

addressed in one Guatemalan publication as follows: "The only in the bloody brutality of the Guatemalan army, but

many

problem

113

in

corners of ourselves.

Guatemala

is

...

It

is

an error

to consider

the repressive despotism of the decades

and that everything that arises from civil be forgetting that we have lived for centuries with oppressive governments, and we have had to learn to modify our own behavior in order to survive. This has modified our potentialities. To coexist with the monstrosity we have had to change ourselves. We have internalized the power and we exert it against each other. ... If this repression did not exist within each of us and against others, governmental imposition would not last a single of military control of the government, society

day.

is

perfect.

We would

Therefore, the feminist

society

which continually

the pillars for building a

beginning of a 3.

See note

new 1.

movement and many

other expressions of

civil

arise are not only prerequisites for change, but also

new

Beyond their where society is

society.

political culture,

content, they express the free.

.

."

(CITGUA

1989).

8 Political Crises

of the 1970s

Since the middle of the 1960s, the political history of Guatemala has been, in essence, a duel between the

and the alternative popular

dominant bloc,

bloc,

expressed in

its

repressive apparatus,

expressed by the armed revolutionary movement,

which, nevertheless, has not fully established

its

hegemony within the popular

sectors.

— Carlos

Sarti,

"La democracia en Guatemala"

To all appearances, as seen in Chapter 4, after the mid-1960s, politics had become the institutionalization of terror and resistance; "normal" politics ceased, and the counterinsurgency army took over control of the state apparatus and militarized the entire political system. Beneath the surface, this political model entered into a long-range crisis in the 1970s and 1980s. The nub of this crisis lay in the coercive character of formal politics and the virtual absence of consensual structures.

Some maintain

that the restoration of civilian rule in 1985 (and the

up

fundamentally altered that situation; I this has proven to be only very marginally the case, and that even now, the ruling coalition has been unable to define a project that can mobilize or even find acceptance among other classes. As one Guatemalan has put it, the dominant classes have closed off the escape valves (Gonzalez Davison 1987a, 107). For restructuring leading shall

argue (Chapters 11

to

it)

that

ff.)

reasons to be explored, this has not meant a complete break-down or

overthrow of the system, but

it

helps explain the explosive character of

Guatemalan politics over the last thirty years. As suggested above, in the 1970s and 1980s, Guatemala has been run "from the top" by a ruling coalition, primarily between the bourgeoisie 125

116

Political Crises

(including foreign capital) and the army. This coalition has maintained

an iron grip on

state

power

since the 1960s

—

all

the

more so

after the

institutionalization of the army's direct rule, with Arana's accession to

power in 1970. Its rule is by no means unchallenged; the challenge comes not from the civilian politicians who have been ostensibly in power since 1985, but from the social movements "at the base" of Guatemalan society and the revolutionary Left. During the 1970s, for the first time a series of autonomous social movements emerged, the most significant representing the interests of the Indian population. These movements were crucial to the recomposition of the revolutionary Left. The history of Guatemalan politics in the 1970s and 1980s is best understood in terms of the confrontations between the ruling coalition and these social movements, articulated with the revolutionary insurgency. But before tracing the evolution of Guatemalan politics since the 1970s, it is relevant to clarify some theoretical issues.

State

and Counterinsurgency

State:

Theoretical Considerations

The point

of departure for this analysis

is

an understanding of the accumulation and

state as reflecting structurally both economic development and the relations between

the level of capital

forces. This

different social/class

concept of the state links particular political regimes and

regime changes to underlying social and economic structures. (The army, for example, is part of the state apparatus, whether or not it is part of the regime that exercises state power.) The state functions to maintain

and reproduce a mode of production in which a specific class is dominant (Hamilton 1982, 4-5). Even where it does not act directly as the instrument of the dominant classes, the state is always "in the last instance the guardian of the order established by these classes" (Lowy and Sader 1985, 11). While linking particular political regimes to underlying socioeconomic structures, this conception does not view the state as monolithic or unitary, nor as a "thing-in-itself."

Within

this

framework, a central concept in regard

the counterinsurgency state, as elaborated by

and other Latin American

scholars.

to

Guatemala

Ruy Mauro Marini

By "counterinsurgency

state"

is

is

(1980)

meant

a particular form of the counterrevolutionary state, a variant of the

bourgeois state in Latin America, that combines the traditional authoritarian-oligarchical state with the institutionalized apparatus created

imposed by the United States

in the 1960s to prevent

and

"another Cuba"

(Torres Rivas 1987a, 145-147). As such, it is a historically specific response to the challenge from revolutionary movements since the 1960s.

—

117

Political Crises

In the

Guatemalan

case, as will

be seen, the United States played a

formative and decisive role in establishing the counterinsurgency

state.

and distinct from traditional military dictatorships, according to Lowy and Sader (1985, 12-15), in corresponding to a new level of development and a new set of social relations that make populist mobilizations within a democratic framework increasingly unstable and "not the normal form of bourgeois domination." (These factors are more developed in the Southern Cone, but are mirrored to a considerable extent by the developments in Central America import substitution, followed by cheap labor strategies, etc.) Finally, Marini (1980), Lowy and Sader (1985, 25), and Thomas (1984, 86), in It

is

also historically specific

argue that form of the state was consolidated in part as a response to the generalized, worldwide crisis of capital accumulation beginning in the mid-1970s. In this situation, a function of the state is to govern through austerity. The rise and consolidation of the counterinsurgency state in response to these crises raises important questions regarding its "strength" and durability in Guatemala, which I shall address in Chapter 11. Although the counterinsurgency state has evolved with increasing sophistication since the 1970s, its essential structure and goals still fit the general description offered by Marini (1980, 4 ff.). First, it is a classbased corporate state of the monopoly bourgeoisie and the armed forces, designed to defend the interests of that bourgeoisie (including transnational capital) with the support of the armed forces, some of whose upper echelons have become part of the bourgeoisie. Second, its objective is not merely to defeat but to annihilate the enemy, that is, revolutionary movements that challenge the bourgeois order and their social support base among the population. It is characterized by a recourse to state terrorism. Based on a conception of "total war," the state applies a military focus to political and social struggles during the counterinsurgency war and subsequently, in the sense that these periods definitively his characterization of the authoritarian peripheral state, all this

—

alter the country's political life.

Third, because the counterinsurgency state's goal civilian

is

population and eliminate significant opposition,

to control it

makes

the

truly

It excludes genuinely competitive elections with candidates from the entire political spectrum and with uncertain

pluralistic politics impossible.

outcomes (Torres Rivas 1987a, 160). (Certainly this has been the case Guatemala since 1970, with all elections in one or another sense being "counterinsurgency elections" and in no case permitting the participation of the Left see Jonas 1989.) It exists for the purpose of maintaining control and rules primarily through domination as opposed in

—

to

hegemony

of exception"

or creation of social consensus. Hence, rather than a "state

from

a

democratic norm,

it

is

a

"predominantly coercive

118

Political Crises

(Lowy and Sader 1985, 9-10), which denies the exercise of individual and the autonomous functioning of mass organizations.

state"

rights

Finally,

ernment

the counterinsurgency state does not require military gov-

at all times; in fact,

it

explicitly

proposes the reestablishment

of formal democracy after the most intensive military phase of the counterinsurgency campaign. Under certain conditions, civilian regimes

can be more effective agents of pacification than military dictatorships. Within the counterinsurgent conception, "democratic" civilian regimes are restricted and controlled, preemptive of social protest movements, and unable to establish civilian hegemony over the armed forces (Petras 1990, 85). (See Chapter 11 for further elaboration of the characteristics

and the

applicability of that term Guatemala.) to the Cerezo government [1986-1990] in Other characterizations refer to the "national security state" and the "militarized state" (see Torres Rivas 1987a, 14; McSherry 1990). Particularly appropriate to Guatemala is Lowy and Sader 's "militarization of the state," which is "not simply the transition from the purely military of the civilian counterinsurgency state

armed forces], but the overwhelming whole by the armed forces in essence, the of the majority of state and state-related structures

to the political [in the role of the

—

of the state apparatus as a 'colonization'

by the

.

military,

and the partial or

total fusion of the repressive

.

.

apparatuses

with other apparatuses of the system of political domination" (1985, 9 [emphasis added]; see also Aguilera Peralta 1981a, 1985b).

While analyzing the nature of the

state,

this characterization

does

not assume the "autonomy" of the state vis-a-vis the dominant class. Theoretically, as Hamilton argues (1982, 23-25), there is a distinction between the state apparatus (including the bureaucrats who occupy it) and those who control it. The fact that the bourgeoisie typically does not directly occupy positions in the state bureaucracy does not make the state autonomous; such "autonomy" exists only when the state

bureaucracy acts contrary to the interests of the bourgeoisie (which happens usually only in periods of genuine crisis and revolutionary

— only

when

moments, the activities of the and productive forces or inhibit development, even against the historical interests of the dominant threat)

generate

new

"at

critical

social relationships

state

their

class

itself" (Zeitlin 1984, 6).

In the Guatemalan case specifically, as will be seen, the state has not acted adversely to the interests of the dominant class. There have been intense conflicts, especially in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but

these have not seriously threatened the class

power

of the bourgeoisie;

have been arguments about how best to preserve that power. Rather than "autonomy" in any absolute sense, what exists is a complex and often shifting balance among different forces within the ruling rather, there

119

Political Crises

and in relation to the state. Nor has the army been fully or "hegemonic" within the ruling coalition, if we understand

coalition

consistently that

term

to refer to the

force that exerts "leadership or overriding

and "in which other segments find their and commanders [that] represent the class interest in its vastest outlines [and] represents it as a whole" (Zeitlin 1984, 9, incorporating quotes from Marx). Ironically, it was during the civilian government of Mendez Montenegro (1966-1970) that the army became a central actor within the ruling influence" within the coalition natural mainstays

coalition,

because of

its

against the guerrilla

centrality in preserving the existing social order

threat.

This created the contradictory situation

whereby the army became the most cohesive at

force in that coalition,

times has given the appearance of acting autonomously. But

same

time, the state, of

which the army claims

to

at

and the

be the "spinal column,"

has never had the "organization, ideological conviction and technical training of the private sector representatives" 278); nor has

struggle

it

demonstrated any

ability

(Bulmer-Thomas 1987,

"to remain neutral in the

between labour and capital" (Bulmer-Thomas 1987,

293).

To

has not been able to impose a serious tax reform or a land reform of any kind on the bourgeoisie (in contrast with El Salvador in the 1980s). As one analyst has noted, further, "A more powerful and united Guatemalan bourgeoisie was able at least to contain the economic date

it

ambitions of the military largely because, although launched from an and possessing certain interventionist features, these

institutional base

were most firmly rooted in the opportunities for personal accumulation by senior officers. There was, as a result, an important separation between individual advancement through the state and corporate management of ." (Dunkerley 1988, 462). The "counterinsurgency state" the state. formulation in no way implies diminution of bourgeois power. The army itself, while certainly no longer a simple "tool of the oligarchy" and while at times appearing hegemonic within the ruling coalition, has not acted "autonomously" from other forces in society, as will be seen. To put it another way, the apparent hegemony and relative autonomy of the army during the last two decades is in large measure a function of the activity of other sectors of society, of which one expression has been a revolutionary challenge. I shall attempt to show that the Guatemalan counterinsurgency state, which gives the army its privileged position, emerged in response to several crises in Gua.

.

—

temalan society that is, in response to class conflict. Following the overthrow of the Revolution of 1944-1954, the insurgent challenge to the existing social order during the 1960s required such a response by the state. This was compounded in the 1970s by the international capitalist crisis and its effects upon Guatemala. The 1970s

Political Crises

120

saw the crescendo at

of a political crisis within the ruling coalition, while

the base, the massive incorporation of the highlands Indian population

into the revolutionary order.

The key

to the

movement

seriously threatened the established

Guatemalan counterinsurgency

state at its

most

elaborated (and most brutal) phase during the early 1980s was the army's struggle to maintain (or reestablish) its traditional relationship to (subjugation of) the rural Indian population, as a labor force, as a community,

and as the

social

base of the revolutionary movement (Handy 1986b,

406-408).

A

Guatemalan counterinsurgency state, which was one of the first in Latin America because of the insurgent challenge in the 1960s, was the decisive U.S. role in shaping it. As seen in Chapter 4, the United States transformed the Guatemalan army into a modern counterinsurgency army and maintained it directly from the 1960s to 1977 (less visibly so after 1977). The Guatemalan army is central characteristic of the

unquestionably a U.S. creation, given the centrality of U.S. national securitv doctrines and given the level of U.S. military assistance and training at every level, from the formation of death squads in the 1960s

programs. After the late 1970s, that army developed a measure of "relative autonomy" vis-a-vis the United States, within a broad framework of agreement on counterinsurgency goals. The extent and implications of these changes, as well as detailed information on U.S. counterinsurgency assistance during the 1970s and 1980s, will be discussed in detail in Chapter 13. to the extensive civic action

and the Guatemalan

state

Institutionalization of the

Counterinsurgency State

When

the army took direct control over the state apparatus after 1970, on and greatly intensified several preexisting tendencies. The army came out of the counterinsurgency campaign of the late 1960s greatly strengthened (thanks, in large measure, to extensive U.S. aid and training), and this contributed to the militarization of politics. Further, campaign, under the civilian Mendez Montenegro it was during this regime, that the army became a central political force within the ruling coalition. During this period, when there were real debates as to whether to fight the revolutionary threat through a combination of reform and repression, or through the latter alone, the army on numerous occasions tipped the balance against reformist solutions and sided with the bourgeoisie. (The clearest example was tax reform, which was consistently blocked by the military as well as the civilian Right.) A concrete expression of the unity between the military and the propertied classes was the network of death squads, financed by the civilian Right, staffed by the

it

built

Political Crises

which contributed substantially

military,

deaths from 1966 to 1968. over, the death political

Thus,

When

to the civilian toll of 8,000

campaign was

the counterinsurgency

squads remained as a permanent feature of Guatemalan

life. it

was almost

logical that the "hero" of that

campaign, Col. 1970

known as the "Butcher of Zacapa," should win the He owed his victory to the combination of abstentionism

Carlos Arana, election.

121

over 50 percent and his acceptability to both the

Right (hence the

PID-MLN

alliance), in the

of Mendez-style "reformism."

wake

army and

well

the extreme

of the obvious failure

Arana became the principal

the counterinsurgency state, destroying forever the

myth

architect of

of a "neutral"

government "caught between the extremes of right and left." During the Arana regime, it became clear that the death squads were not "out of control" but were based in the army and had official government sanction for their activities. In fact, some of the death squad leaders, both civilian and military, came to hold top government posts (Gonzalez Davison 1987a, 106). In short, the apparatus of the counterinsurgency terror was incorporated into the state. Further, under cover of a state of siege, even the pretence of conducting "normal politics" was abandoned, and Arana ran the government much as he had run the pacification campaign; as a result, scores of "moderate centrist" politicians (social democrats, Christian Democrats) were assassinated.

army was the only force capable of bringing Guatemala became the basis for a top-down "modernization"

Arana's doctrine that the

change

to

of the state. In theory, this involved a limited response to pressures for

change, coming both from the poor and from the middle class and

"emerging industrialists" whose interests were linked (at least in theory) "modernization" amounted to making the structures of class domination more efficient, but without making any real structural changes. In this sense, "modernization" should not be confused with genuine "reformism." The best example of this approach, aside from modest food and clothing distribution and health care centers, was a land colonization program, under which peasants from overpopulated and politically sensitive areas were to be relocated on small parcels of land; this left intact the large latifundia, focusing instead on state-owned lands, often less accessible and less arable. The main effect was to raise expectations that ended up being frustrated, as top army and government officials grabbed the land for to a broader internal market. In practice,

themselves.

was used to institutionalize Aranismo as an economic and would outlast the Arana presidency to enrich his particular faction within the army and generally to build an economic base for top military officers by plundering the state. The most obvious The

state

political force that

—

122

Political Crises

example of these practices was the landgrab in the strip known as the Franja Transversal del Norte (FTN), running from Izabal in the east along the Mexican border to Huehuetenango in the west. Following on the heels of cattle ranchers who had been expanding their holdings since the 1960s and U.S. mining and oil companies that received huge concessions, senior military officers made major investments, causing this strip to become known as the "Zone of the Generals." Their investments, seeking overnight windfall profits in this

new

"frontier"

were often undertaken in partnership with more established landowners and/or U.S. agribusiness interests (see Black 1983 No. 1, 11 ff.). As a consequence of the above, within the ruling coalition, there was conflict and competition, as well as unity (vis-a-vis the threat from the Left and the lower classes). Conflicts pitting the army against older propertied interests were sometimes framed in terms of the latter's ideological opposition to "state inter ventionism," but there were also material issues of economic competition, sometimes expressed in the form of political rivalries, for example, among MLN, PID, and Arana's Central Autentico Nacionalista (CAN). These contradictions were temporarily resolved for the 1974 election by choosing the head of the MLN to be the official vice-presidential candidate. The election itself was openly fraudulent, with the official/ Arana forces in support of Gen. Kjell Laugerud literally stealing the election from the relatively more "reformist" Gen. Efrain Rios Montt. (By this time, all of the candidates were military.) Following the election, the power struggles within the ruling coalition reemerged and at times area,

erupted into intrabourgeois violence or gangsterism over material interests (the "spoils" of governing) and over the balance of power within the government. (Even Laugerud in building his own power base entered

squad There was also continuing struggle within the ruling coalition over economic policy, with some sectors of the bourgeoisie continuing to see even the most minimal measures (e.g., a sales tax or public enterprises administered by army officials to promote infrastructural development) as "state interventionism" (Guatemala and Central America Report [G&CAR] No. 6, 12/74; Dunkerley 1988, 467). These tendencies reached their logical conclusion in the third government of open military rule. Amidst massive discontent, the army presided over another blatantly fraudulent election in 1978. Over twothirds of registered voters abstained, and 20 percent ruined their ballots in protest, leaving 15 percent of the electorate voting. The "winner," Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcia (Laugerud's defense minister) was the candidate of the PID/Aranista political factions and their counterparts in the army. into competition with his one-time patron Arana, leading to death

battles

between these

factions

[Handy 1986b,

400].)

Political Crises

The degeneration of the military dictatorship was repression unprecedented even for Guatemala

up

123

reflected in a level of

with the Lucas government said to be responsible for 10,000 civilian deaths, including thousands of illegal executions (Handy 1984, 180-181) in a "government program of political murder." By the early 1980s, the Lucas regime was in a dual crisis. It was in a political crisis, lacking

compounded by

any legitimacy vis-a-vis

to that time,

civil society.

a deterioration of the ruling coalition,

as

This was divisions

multiplied between the bourgeoisie and the military and within the

Second, there was a crisis of counterinsurgency: Despite toward unarmed civilians, the Lucas government proved its brutality ineffective in combatting the "real enemy," the guerrilla movement. These crises will be examined in detail in Chapters 9 and 10.

armed

forces.

Popular Movements, the

Church

No

less

of the Poor,

and

CUC

important was the revival and development of autonomous

social/popular movements "at the base," beginning during the later

Arana years but developing much more fully under Laugerud. By 19731974, organized labor began to respond to the first economic crisis and the inflationary effects of the oil shock. Although this crisis was "overcome" at the level of the national economy, thanks to the export commodity boom of the 1970s, the popular sectors never experienced any real "recovery" and suffered from increasing inflation. Teachers staged a national strike of several months in 1973 to demand salary raises. The strike movement spread throughout the public sector in 1973-1974 and led to the formation of a popular unity front against the rising cost of

Government proposals to increase bus fares sparked widespread popular protests during the winter of 1973-1974. Meanwhile, the contradictions of the government's minimalist land colonization program living.

main incident being the armed conflict between 3,000 peasants and landowners in Sansirisay in May 1973. Under Laugerud, these incipient movements were spurred by worsening objective conditions (inflation and a devastating earthquake in February 1976) and a relative but extremely brief (two years) "political opening." The popular organizations that emerged in both urban and rural settings were qualitatively different from those of the past, in being grassroots movements, autonomous not only in relation to the state apparatus but also in relation to urban middle-class intellectuals. As characterized by led to sporadic land seizures, the

Torres Rivas (1990a, 56), they expressed "the

movement

of semi-pro-

and urban masses and large sectors of the impoverished middle classes, united by their common status as politically subordinated letarian rural

124

Political Crises

groups, undergoing the same experiences of arbitrariness and violence

dominated classes." Ideologically, they brought together currents Marxism, radical nationalism, and Liberation Theology. Some of the most important urban-based movements were the popular organizations emerging from the rubble of the massive earthquake of 1976 (7.5 on the Richter scale). I have called it a "class-quake" (Jonas 1976) because of the gross differential in its impact on different social classes. While the poor buried 25,000 dead and 1.25 million were left homeless 20 percent of Guatemala's population at the time the wealthy kept previous appointments to have their dogs groomed and returned to their bars and restaurants the very next week, ordering the new terremoto cocktail. In the months following the quake, 50,000 people migrated to Guatemala City, joining 300,000 homeless already there and settling on the outskirts of the city (sometimes, on privately owned as the of

—

—

land). In this explosive climate, violence escalated, but at the

new

same

time,

organizations sprang up, such as the Movimiento Nacional de

Pobladores, or shantytown dwellers (MONAP), and the Consumers' Defense Committee, focusing on cost of living demands. Meanwhile, both inflation and earthquake-related grievances, including unemployment, sparked a steady stream of labor protests. By far the most significant was the struggle, beginning in mid-1975, of workers at the Embotelladora Guatemalteca factory licensed to produce Coca Cola. The manager, right-wing American John Trotter, had used his connections with the Guatemalan military to lock out workers attempting to organize an independent union. During the years-long battle that ensued, paramilitary/governmental repression in response to worker militancy achieved international notoriety. From 1978 to 1981, virtually every official of the union, STEGAC, was either killed or forced to flee the country. In 1978—

1979 alone,

at least eight

union

in grotesque

ways (tongues

cut out, throats

officials

were openly murdered, some slit).

Domestically, the struggle

Coca Cola sparked solidarity from the entire union movement; internationally, it was supported by a boycott organized by the International Union of Food and Allied Workers and numerous other labor, human rights, and religious organizations (Frundt 1987). Equally significant was the emergence, for the first time since 1954, of a united labor front, the Comite Nacional de Unidad Sindical (CNUS). (As of 1976, only 1.6 percent of the economically active population was unionized.) Growing out of unified efforts in solidarity with the Coca Cola workers, CNUS was a coalition uniting PGT and Christian Democratic forces and including major independent unions. Throughout the at

its founding in 1976, CNUS organized and popular mobilizations unmatched since 1954.

years following

a series of strikes

Political Crises

In

November

1977,

125

eighty miners from Ixtahuacan (in the Franja

march of over 300 kilometers to protest mining company's attempts to destroy the union. This mobilization was notable because it was "a new form of struggle. ... As the miners passed through towns and villages, they unified peasants and factory workers" and involved both organized and unorganized workers, culminating in a demonstration of over 100,000 in Guatemala City (Albizurez Transversal) staged a historic the

1980, 153-154). In

February 1978, 85,000 public sector workers went on strike for

nine days; after the Lucas government raised prices of basic necessities

June and bus fares in October, CNUS called a general strike that halted more than half of Guatemala City's industrial and commercial in

These demonstrations were swelled by organizations of shantytown dwellers and consumers (housewives), and popular discontent activity.

exploded into rioting that even

CNUS

could not stop (Dunkerley 1988,

471-472).

But such extensive organizing also generated its negation. The Guatemalan bourgeoisie has always had the instinct to resort to violence against working-class movements; and what was particularly threatening

both the private sector and the government about the new labor of the 1970s was its unity and broad appeal, as well as the militancy at the base. Not long after the earthquake, when the potential of these organizations became clear, the repression began; by mid-1977, a new wave of assassinations was underway. CNUS lawyer Mario Lopez Larrave was assassinated in the spring of 1977; forty people were killed and 800 arrested, including many union leaders, after the demonstrations of 1978. The repression continued into 1979-1980, culminating in the abduction and assassination by government security forces of twentyseven Confederacion Nacional de Trabajadores (CNT) leaders in June 1980 and eighteen more in August virtually decapitating the union movement and driving it underground (Albizurez 1980, Frundt 1987). to

movement

—

The same wave of state-sponsored violence also affected student and 400 being killed in 1979-1980.

faculty leaders at the university, with

Continuing the policies of previous regimes of eliminating viable "centrpoliticians, the Lucas regime carried out the January and March 1979 assassinations of the two most prominent genuinely reformist politicians, Alberto Fuentes Mohr and Manuel Colom Argueta, who had been expected to run together in the 1982 elections. While talking about ist"

a "national dialogue," the

government waged

a

campaign of assassinations and parties

against centrist political parties, forcing leaders into exile

the Christian Democrats suffered 120 assassinations from mid-1980 to mid-1981. Following the assassination of Fuentes Mohr in 1979, more than seventy popular organizations (CNUS and other into dissolution;

226

Political Crises

MONAP,

and the social democratic political parties) came together Democratico Contra la Represion (FDCR) to protest one of the early efforts repression and fight for basic democratic rights to give organizational expression to the popular bloc. In the countryside, particularly the western highlands, meanwhile, an even more explosive dynamic was developing. As seen above, structural the crisis in subsistence agriculture, compounded by the contradictions earthquake and economic crisis were uprooting and displacing thousands of Indian peasants, causing them to redefine themselves in both class and cultural terms. As producers, they were being semiproletarianized as a seasonal migrant labor force. Culturally, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Indian communities were being transformed and redefined, as they "opened up" to contact with the ladino world. Even the more "developmentalist" (and potentially co-opting) influences were contradictory, in that they raised hopes and expectations in the 1960s, only to dash them in the 1970s. Cooperative movements, many organized by Catholic Action, were multiplying rapidly (from 27,000 members in 1967 to 132,000 in 1976) and were being transformed into autonomous peasant organizations. The logic of gaining autonomy, as well as protesting arbitrary landowner actions, brought them into conflict not only with the landowners but also with the army. Continuing its historical vocation of subjugating the Indian peasantry (Handy 1984, 237 ff.), the army considered even cooperatives to be "communist and unions,

in

the

Frente

—

—

—

subversive."

A similar contradictory initially a

way

process occurred in regard to land colonization,

of avoiding structural land reform. Catholic Action (and

even the government, with strong support from U.S. AID) had organized the relocation of thousands of peasant families in the Northern Transversal Strip, but foreign oil and mining companies subsequently invaded the area, displacing the settlers. In the 1970s, high-ranking officers of the

Guatemalan army and civilian bureaucrats took over the area. As a consequence, government "land distribution" programs benefited very few; the peasants who were being evicted had merely served as a labor force to clear the land, only to have it taken over by the Generals. These contradictory experiences of the 1970s must be seen in interaction with another decisive factor: the transformation of grassroots organizations of the Catholic church and the gradual emergence of a "Church of the Poor." (During the 1970s, this phenomenon occurred first at the community level; only later in the 1980s was the church hierarchy to associate see Chapter 12.) itself with the ideals of the Church of the Poor Traditionally the church as an institution has played an extremely conservative role: It was a pillar of the 1954 "Liberation," and of the 1966-1968 counterinsurgency campaign, as symbolized by a famous

—

Political Crises

127

photo of Archbishop Casariego blessing U.S. -supplied police cars. But saw the early effects of the Liberation Theology ideas sweeping Christian movements in Latin America, with several U.S. Maryknoll missionaries being expelled from Guatemala in 1967 for the 1960s also

activities

result

deemed sympathetic

of their

direct

to the guerrillas.

At the same time, as

and other community religious workers, especially in began to teach a new message, translating Liberation Theology into their daily work at the base. This current found several organizational expressions. Catholic Action workers were being politicized by their contact with the peasants during colonization, cooperative, and literacy programs; they, in turn, imbued these programs with the new consciousness. In the highlands and on the Southern Coast, Catholic Action and indigenous activists experimented with the organization of peasant leagues. Grassroots "Christian Base Communities" involved in concientizacion (education/consciousness raising) were organized by catechists and missionaries in the highlands. They developed a participatory style of organizing and began to form a network linking together different parts of the highlands. This process was accelerated after the 1976 earthquake, with the formation of selfhelp organizations and reconstruction brigades in the affected areas. Local priests became, in effect, part of the Indians' redefinition of community (Frank and Wheaton 1984, 44-45), of their development of a "counterideology," and construction of grassroots popular organizations (Opazo Bernales 1987, 10-11; Sierra Pop 1982). As a consequence, priests became prime targets of assassination, death threats, and other acts of repression, as did those few church authorities who sided with the Church of the Poor (e.g., Bishop Gerardi of Quiche was forced into exile). In short, the Church of the Poor became a major force in the battles of the 1970s. (For details, see sources cited above, and Chea 1988; Lernoux 1984; Arias 1990; among others.) All these strands were woven together in 1976-1978 in the emergence of the CUC (Comite de Unidad Campesina) as a national peasant organization, including both peasants and agricultural workers, both Indians and poor ladinos, but led primarily by Indians almost by definition a "subversive" organization, from the viewpoint of the ruling coalition. In addition, the army was aware by now that several guerrilla organizations were back in operation and were developing a strong base in the Indian highlands (see Chapter 9). Not surprisingly, repression against CUC was already in full swing by the time it first appeared in public at the 1978 Labor Day demonstration. What brought CUC center-stage was the May 1978 massacre at Panzos in Alta Verapaz. Seven hundred Kekchi Indians came together to protest repression, priests

the Indian highlands,

|

a

experiences with massive social injustice and

—

128

Political Crises

had been working, located in the "Zone of which was being grabbed up by army generals and developers. In response to peaceful protest by the Indian community, army troops (literally hand in hand with the landowner/evictors) opened fire on the unarmed crowd, killing over 100, wounding 300, and subsequently dumping their bodies into mass graves (which, according to observers, had already been dug, indicating a premeditated slaughter). Coming in the "Zone of the Generals" (where Gen. Lucas, the new eviction from the land they

the Generals/'

president,

owned 78,000

acres near Panzos), the massacre can be in-

terpreted in relation to the particular interests of the ruling clique. Gabriel

Aguilera Peralta, however, raises the question of

why

there

was

a

day (rather than the usual techniques of kidnapping, torture, and murder of a few leaders); he argues that the Panzos massacre must be understood in relation to the strategic value of the zone to the capitalist development of Guatemala as a whole, as well as to major U.S. transnational companies exploring there for oil and minerals and in relation to the more generalized threat to "social peace" that was developing in Guatemala during the late 1970s. From this perspective, the massacre was deliberately public in order to terrorize the entire population into abandoning its demands generalized massacre in the

full

light

of

—

for social justice (Aguilera Peralta 1979, 22).

The impact

of the massacre

was massive;

it

has been generally regarded

and committed Christians who had been working with them. Although the counterinsurgency war was already well under way, this massacre constituted an open declaration of war (Frank and Wheaton 1984; Arias 1985), a clear manifestation of the army's view of the Indian population as a "turning point" in the consciousness of the Indian population

of

as "subversive."

It

sparked the largest protest demonstration (80,000) and an anniversary demonstration of 100,000

in twenty-five years in 1978

a year later.

A

second "turning point" was the equally brutal slaughter of Indians Spanish Embassy. In January 1980, a delegation of peasants from Nebaj, some of them CUC activists, went to Guatemala City to protest

in the

military repression in their villages,

which the army was occupying; to Embassy

gain attention for their protest, they peacefully occupied the

Guatemalan riot police incinerated the building, burning the occupants (thirty-nine peasants) alive. The army subsequently invaded Nebaj, carrying out further attrocities against unarmed women. As will of Spain.

be seen,

this contributed to the

villages into the revolutionary

But the real "threat" from

subsequent incorporation of entire Indian

movement.

CUC

materialized in the massive strike Southern Coast sugar and cotton plantations in February 1980. Starting with 750 workers on one plantation, the strike

of workers on

the

— Political Crises

129

gained support from 75,000 workers (some cite figures of up to 110,000 Davis 1983, 20) and brought the harvest to a halt. Equally frightening to the ruling class, the CUC-organized strike united resident agricultural workers with migrant workers, poor ladinos with Indian peasants. The government was forced to increase the minimum wage; but the plantation owners found ways to strike back (firings, ignoring the new rates, piecework hiring), and the army retaliated against leaders and participants.

Nevertheless, for both landowners and the army, the strike

worst nightmare

come

true.

was

their

View

of

Guatemala

View

of

Lake Amatitldn (photo by author)

city (photo by author)

Summer 1988 demonstration

by Unidad de Action Sindical y Popular (UASP) (photo by author)

After years of being silenced, for the first time in a

UASP

members

of

Comite de Unidad Campesina (CUC) participate openly

demonstration

in

October 1988 (photo by author)

GUATEMALTECO QUE LUCHAS EN LA MONTANA, ENGANADO POR FALSAS PROMESAS DE LOS COMUNISTASI YA TE D!STE CUENTA HACIA DONDE VA EL PRODUC TO DE TUS ASALTOS Y ROBOS ? TUS JEFES LO DISFRUTAN EN EL EXTRANJERO, MIENTRAS A VOS EL PUEBLO TE RECHAZA Y VIVIRAS SIEMPRE HUYENDO DE LA JUSTICIA. \

LA AMNISTIA ESTA VICENTE/

LA CABE2A DE TUS JEFES TIENE PRECIO. LA ENTREGA DE TU ARMA SERA RECOMPENSADA.

- Q.lOOoo

Army

=

Q.200oo

=

Q.500oo

=

Q500.cc

flyer in the highlands.

Front: "Guatemalan, fighting the mountains, tricked by the false promises of the

now have you are enjoying fleeing

from

Amnesty

is

realized it

what happens

to the

money from your

attacks

and

Communists

abroad, while you are being reviled by your people and you will live forever

justice. in

—

robberies? Your leaders

effect!

The heads of your leaders have a

price.

Back: Rewards for turning in arms

You will be repaid for turning in your weapons."

4^

,

il-B'MiSnM.

/irmy sign near but don't

Mark

El

tell

Nefra;: "Guerrilla

combatant, turn yourself in and abandon your organization,

anyone, because they might assassinate you.

We

Storhaug).

Mexquital shantytown

in

Guatemala City (photo by author)

are waiting for you" (photo by

Mural on school

in

Nebaj (photo by Mark Storhaug)

In Finca San Carlos,

Sign reads:

on the southern coast, settled by the "pro-Tierra" movement in 1987.

"Do you know what

is

the sacrifice

loosen the yoke, free the oppressed,

I

want

to

and end every kind

make? To break the chains

of injustice,

of bondage" (photo by author).

9 The Revolutionary

Crisis

By the time CUC launched its strike on the Southern Coast, class and ethnic struggles in Guatemala were erupting into a bloody war centered in the highlands. In the attempt to understand this process, several issues emerge: How had the popular challenge become a revolutionary challenge? reconstituted after

its

What was

counterinsurgency state that

was

extent

it

the role of the revolutionary

defeats of the 1960s? left

What was

Left,

the crisis of the

space for these events and to what

overcome?

analyzing the rapid swings in the balance between popular/

In

revolutionary and counterinsurgent forces,

both objective determined the course of the war. First, objective conditions in the Guatemalan countryside decades of capitalist expansion and growth, the long-standing subsistence crisis, and after

and subjective

factors

I

shall consider

that

—

the late

1970s the general

combined

to

crisis

produce upheaval

affecting the agro-export sector

for the majority of rural

poor. Second, these contradictions

were

intensified

—

all

workers and

by government

policies

during the 1970s, making no serious reforms, while escalating the level of repression in the countryside.

movements radicalized and student movements),

Third, the very experiences of the popular

some

of their participants (e.g., the urban labor

while revolutionizing others (above

all,

the rural Indian peasantry in

the process of being semiproletarianized).

The transformation

of this

from the particular intersection of class exploitation with ethnic oppression and redefinition. Fourth, following their defeat in 1968, the guerrillas had engaged in a rebuilding process, so that by the mid-1970s, they provided a framework within which the popular movements took on a revolutionary character. Indian

population resulted

131

132

The Revolutionary Crisis

Transformation of the Highlands Popular Movements

We

have seen in previous chapters the steady growth and reemergence

have an era of intense repression. But there was a qualitative change in some of these popular movements. As a result, several hundred thousand highlands Indians participated as combatants or active collaborators in the revolutionary insurgency led by Guatemala's leftist guerrilla organizations. The army's ability to contain this challenge through unparalleled force and brutality by the mid-1980s should not obscure its magnitude and significance. of popular organizations during the

been nothing more than the

1970s.

In itself, this could

cyclical regeneration after

The rise of this movement is particularly striking, given that the Guatemalan government was intensifying repression against popular movements throughout the country during the late 1970s. In the city, as seen above, government repression virtually decapitated the labor

movement

(e.g.,

assassination of the entire

CNT

leadership), emasculated

main opposition and virtually destroyed the University of San Carlos. Although the repression was even worse in the countryside, it had precisely the opposite effect on the highlands Indian population. The Panzos massacre (only the first of many) and the burning of the Spanish Embassy are referred to as turning points because it was in their aftermath that thousands of Indians took up arms. CUC itself had been founded not as a revolutionary organization but as a peasant/worker organization, encompassing Indians and poor ladinos, men and women, old people and children. As a mass organization, it expressed the experiences with Catholic Action and the Christian Base Communities, with cooperatives and peasant leagues. But from the very beginning CUC was different from traditional unions in that it organized in secrecy and specifically did not seek legal union status. The Declaration the entire political "center" (through assassination of the

political leaders),

of Iximche in February 1980 expressed

its

goals:

For a society based on equality and respect; so that our Indian peoples

can develop our culture, fractured by the criminal invaders;

economy in which no one communally held, as it was

exploits in

others;

for a

so that the land

just

may be

the time of our ancestors; for a people

end all repression, torture, kidnapping, and massacres; ... so that we gain equal rights as workers; so that we don't continue to be used as objects of tourism; for a just distribution and use of our wealth, as in the times when the life and without discrimination;

in order to

assassination,

culture of our ancestors flourished (in Arias 1985, 102-103,

my

translation).

The Revolutionary

Crisis

133

Thousands of Indians made the transition from being members of

CUC, supporting

the guerrillas, to participating actively in the guerrilla

organizations, with entire communities at times

This process

was

becoming incorporated. Panzos (1978)

greatly accelerated after the massacre at

and the burning of the Spanish Embassy (1980). Numbers are difficult to establish with precision: A 1979 Guatemalan army document estimating that over 60 percent of the Ixil population were with the guerrillas (Gibb in San Francisco Chronicle, 8/2/89). Informed estimates of armed combatants range from 6,000 to 8,000 (Dunkerley 1988, 483; Aguilera Peralta 1985c, 10), with a quarter to half a million collaborators and

Adams

supporters (Aguilera Peralta 1985c;

1988, 286).

phenomenal uprising among the highlands Indian population no means the only protagonist of the war, but by Numerous the central one? explanations have been offered, from which

What accounts

I

shall

for this

—

attempt to

First,

distill

a multidimensional explanation.

the changes in the productive

and

social structure of the highlands

during the 1970s transformed the class position of the Indian population

ways that spurred its mobilization in support of the guerrillas. The key was the combination of two processes: (1) expulsion from the land (ongoing subsistence crisis, greatly aggravated by the bourgeoisie's land grabs of the 1970s); and (2) changes in the organization of agriculture, from traditional hacienda to modern agribusiness, making greater use in several

of seasonal migrant labor (Paige 1983, 721-722). conflict increasingly

As

a consequence, class

focused on the relationship between the migratory

rural semiproletariat that

still

lived in the highlands but

worked seasonally

on the Southern Coast and two exploiter/oppressor classes: the ladino bourgeoisie, which expropriated their lands in the altiplano; and the Southern Coast agrarian bourgeoisie, which had become their main employers through the capitalist expansion of the 1960s and 1970s. It was the combination of the experience of being evicted from their own land and the experience as a migrant semiproletariat that brought about a massive change of consciousness among highlands Indians. Eviction became a radicalizing factor in "zero-sum" struggles over land, where no compromise was possible. Added to this, migration to the Southern Coast as a semiproletariat in Dierckxsens's phrase (1986), descampesinizacion (being deprived of their livelihood as peasants) without full proletarianization (because the economy did not have the capacity to absorb them) created a labor force with nothing more to lose.

—

—

It

is

significant that the revolutionary

in the highlands,

which provided

not on the Southern Coast, all

home

this

movement occurred primarily migratory semiproletariat, and

of the rural proletariat living there

year long. This same conclusion was confirmed by an extremely

knowledgeable Guatemalan analyst

in

an interview, as follows: The main

The Revolutionary Crisis

134

movement was between the peasant economy and the

condition leading to the rise of a revolutionary peasant the rupture of the articulation

dominant capitalist economy; this created a population without land and with no real prospect of work in the cities, leading not to proletarianization but to pauperization and formation of a reserve army. Objectively it generalized discontent among the peasantry, which was only reinforced during the brief periods when their situation improved marginally. Given the peasants' desire not only for land but also for liberty, the crisis of articulation of the agro-export model focused discontent against the state, which was seen spontaneously as the source of the problem. In sum, revolutionary potential was highest among the poor or semiproletarian peasantry caught between two systems of production and suffering most severely the rupture of the articulation between them. Second, in addition to being among the most impoverished sectors of the rural population in their class definition, these highlands Indians

were also an oppressed ethnic group; in such situations, defense of ethnic-cultural identity can become a mobilizing factor (Arias 1985, 70). This "double condition" of the indigenous population was key. CUC was unique in that, while putting Indian oppression and Indian culture center-stage, and although primarily Indian, it did not project a divisive antiladino perspective. (There were, however, other, non- or even antirevolutionary

strains of Indigenismo

that

also received

considerable

support from sectors of the communities.)

up arms was not a "preference," but a last resort after means had been exhausted. The indigenous population had recourse: The ladino-dominated state and its army have always

Third, taking all

other

no legal viewed

this population,

especially

when

organized, as subversive by

was erased with by which time "the genocidal era was [already] under way" (Adams 1988, 280). Having no place to take grievances, particularly as repression became more massive, many in the highlands took up arms or supported armed struggle as a means of self-defense (Davis 1988, 23). As other close definition.

If

there

had been any doubt about

this,

it

the great increase in repression during the late 1970s,

observers have suggested for increasing contact

(e.g.,

with

leftist

Le Bot 1983, 33-34), a related reason organizations was to gain support from

other popular organizations.

Fourth, despite

some

contact with the Christian Democratic Party

(which frequently raised expectations that could not be filled), the indigenous population was by and large excluded from regular "party

Guatemala has not legalized parties representing the interests the poor and exploited since 1954. The exclusion of independent

politics," as

of

The Revolutionary social actors virtually

Crisis

135

guaranteed that the popular movement would have

to reconstitute itself outside the political party

spectrum

(Sarti 1987).

given these experiences of upheaval, increased confrontation

Fifth,

with ladino exploiters/oppressors, and exclusion from "normal" political expression, the highlands Indian semiproletariat also tended to be less

susceptible to antirevolutionary ideologies

and developed

a revolutionary

consciousness out of religious experiences that exposed them not only to liberating doctrines

pologists,

among them

but also to a liberating process. Various anthroFalla, Brintnall,

and Le

Bot, describe the religious

conversion process as intimately related to a political "conversion," that is,

joining a revolutionary organization.

To the above must be added two other elements, to be considered below: first, the resurgence of a revolutionary Left that was actively building a base

among

to rule

and second, the crisis of emerged only after its ability

the Indian population;

from which

the counterinsurgency state,

was challenged

it

in the early 1980s.

Recomposition of the Insurgent Movement

What made possible the growth of a revolutionary indigenous movement was an equally important change in the stance of the armed Left visa-vis the Indian population and its role in the Guatemalan revolution. This transformation occurred within the context of a

much broader

reevaluation of revolutionary strategy and organizational recomposition

1968 (see Chapter 4). This was the "subjective factor" the creation of Guatemala's revolutionary crisis.

after the defeat of

in

Even as the 1968 to 1972,

movement of the 1960s was in disarray from recomposition process had begun; in fact, recognition

guerrilla

this

of the failures of the foco strategy of the 1960s in that process.

marked

the

first

stage

This reevaluation, more or less generalized, although

with different emphases by different groups, encompassed several major

Harnecker 1985 [interviews with URNG leaders]; Debray and Ramirez 1978 [Ramirez becoming the main leader of the EGP]; documents from the guerrilla organizations; and interviews). Far more serious than its military failures were the political failures of foquismo: It was a fundamentally militaristic strategy, not having built a solid mass base and relying on "exemplary action" to "spark" revissues (sources include

olutionary consciousness

quences, this strategy had

among left

the population.

Among

other conse-

the population virtually defenseless against

army repression and made the guerrillas themselves unable to resist the counteroffensive of the Guatemalan army, definitively bolstered by massive U.S. counterinsurgency assistance. By early 1968, the insurgency

The Revolutionary Crisis

136

had been virtually smashed, largely because of this flawed relationship of the guerrillas to the people and the inadequate mass base. Most seriously, based in the eastern (poor ladino) section of the country, the guerrilla insurgency of the 1960s had virtually ignored the Indian population and its needs. The only exceptions had been the early (unsuccessful) attempt by Turcios Lima to establish an Indian front in Huehuetenango and the formation of a Cakchiquel contingent in the Verapaz provinces. In the reassessments and self-criticisms of the movements of the 1960s, this point became the basis for a new strategy (Organization del Pueblo en Armas [ORPA] 1976; Debray and Ramirez 1978, 307;

EG?

Politically,

sionmaking of the

PGT

n.d.).

had subordinated their decirespects the "armed wing" "other side" of FAR's militarism). This was the source

the guerrillas of the 1960s

to the

(the

PGT, becoming

in

Mendez Montenegro's

of such decisions as the support for

was

many

election in

one of the reasons for the decision not to operate in the Indian areas of Guatemala, since the PGT still viewed the Indian population as "culturally backward" and not revolutionary (Dunkerley 1988, 508). Finally, the guerrilla movement of the 1960s suffered from persistent sectarianism and rivalries among the different organizations. Revolutionary Salvadoran writer Roque Dalton observed in 1969 that the Guatemalan movement was seriously harmed by a sectarian "zonalization" a mentality, according to which " 'the resistance in the city should be autonomous and not a servant of the guerrilla'; 'this is the territory of the Edgar Ibarra front, this is the territory of Yon Sosa, and none of these territories should be invaded by people from others'; 'this combatant is with Nestor, that one is with Nayito' these phrases illustrate that zonalization. Someone said that what has existed in Guatemala until now has been 'a collection of revolutionary ." (cited in Cambranes 1982, 21movements acting simultaneously'. 1966.

It

also,

they

felt,

—

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

;

.

22).

In 1968 FAR formally broke from the PGT over the latter 's ambivalence and lack of commitment to armed struggle, and different fractions of FAR began to develop their own political strategies. The FAR proper survived into the 1970s, although at first as a mere skeleton. Throughout the 1970s much of its work was within the labor unions and the mass movements of Guatemala City (until their decapitation by government security forces in the late 1970s) and among plantation workers on the Southern Coast. The other major base of FAR operations was the Peten region. Learning from the errors of the 1960s, FAR developed a new conception of the war, based in mass work and in the radicalization of popular sectors through the process of fighting for their own interests;

The Revolutionary Crisis

137

without these mass struggles, according to FAR leaders, the armed struggle could not have developed in the 1980s (Monsanto, in Harnecker 1985, 193-195).

As

early as 1967, survivors of Turcios Lima's Frente Guerrillero

Edgar

PGT and

called

Ibarra (FGEI)

had

criticized the strategy of

FAR and

the

movement. After the break from the 1968 and from the old FAR, they deepened their critique

for a restructuring of the guerrilla

PGT

in early

of foquismo, of "militarist" errors,

and

of the class analysis that

had

ignored the Indian question; foquismo was superseded by a strategy of

prolonged popular war, heavily influenced by the Vietnam experience (Debray and Ramirez 1978, 307; interview with Rolando Moran in

Harnecker 1985, 363; of the Jungle,

the

established a base

EGP

n.d.).

As described

dissidents reentered

among

settlers

in Mario Payeras's Days Guatemala in early 1972 and

and cooperative members

in the Ixcan

region of El Quiche, spreading their influence throughout the highlands.

Their theoretical recognition of the centrality of the ethnic-national

question within the overall context of class struggle (in Guatemala there

can be "no revolution without the Indian") was confirmed by their experience after reentering the country. They learned, further, the centrality first

of the migration experience:

villages.

We had

at last

"Some days

later

we

entered the

arrived at the populated Indian areas, with

and innumerable roads. We were in a world completely governed by the laws of commerce, and we soon discovered that the principal consequence of these laws was annual migration. [On the coastal plantations] the Indians picked coffee and cotton, cut cane, and returned to the village for the feast day, speaking Spanish, dressed like ladinos, and just as poor as when they left" (Payeras 1983, their ethnic complexities

.

.

.

67).

came to be known as the Ejercito became the strongest of the guerrilla

For several years, this group, which Guerrillero de los Pobres (EGP) and

organizations until the early 1980s, built a social base in the highlands

without engaging in any military

activities. Its first action in 1975, the

killing of the notorious "Tiger of Ixcan," Luis

Arenas Barrera, unleashed

wave of repression in the area, the first of many. The mass strikes and demonstrations in Guatemala City following the 1976 earthquake, a

according to Payeras, created a context for bringing to national attention the genocidal actions of the

army

in the highlands. After 1976, the

EGP

focused on organizing in the countryside, viewing mass participation as the "decisive factor" in the popular revolutionary 250). This

was expressed most

clearly in

its

war (Handy 1984,

association with

CUC

after

CUC's emergence into public view following the Panzos and Spanish Embassy massacres and the Southern Coast strike.

The Revolutionary Crisis

238

Another split-off from the FAR of the 1960s, known at first as the FAR/Regional de Occidente, also criticized the earlier strategy as racist for having failed to address the Indian question and focused its efforts in the Indian highlands.

when

It

operated clandestinely for eight years until

made a carefully planned emergence Pueblo en Armas (ORPA), operating primarily

1979, del

it

as the Organization in the area

around

highlands and on the Southern Coast. While initially over 90 percent of its members were indigenous (Gaspar Horn interview in Harnecker 1985, 219; ORPA documents), ORPA subsequently

Lake Atitlan

in the Indian

organized within the urban labor movement and emphasized the need to make broad alliances with progressive middle-class intellectuals and professionals.

After the separation from FAR, the

PGT

remained aloof from the

armed struggle of the 1970s, although it maintained a Military Commission and undertook isolated armed actions. Only after suffering numerous schisms did the

PGT

petition to join with the other political/military

organizations in the early 1980s. During most of this time the

PGT

focused primarily on work within the labor unions and on recovering

from the ferocious repression directed against the party leadership (virtually the entire leadership was eliminated in 1972 and the general secretary in 1974). A split-off from the PGT, Nucleo de Direction, took up armed struggle in the late 1970s, concentrating its efforts on the Southern Coast and in the capital. Organizationally, as is clear from interviews with PGT leaders (Harnecker 1985), the transformation from Leninist party to political-military organization

justment for the

The

PGT

was

a far greater ad-

than for any of the younger organizations.

its height in the year and a Southern Coast strike. The guerrillas were said to have had up to 6-8,000 armed fighters and up to half a million active supporters and were operating in most departments of the country. Particularly in the context of the 1979 Sandinista triumph in Nicaragua and the emergence of the Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberation (FMLN) and outbreak of civil war in El Salvador, the wave of armed struggle in Guatemala was taken seriously by the ruling coalition, and most certainly by the army, as heralding a possible seizure of state power by

guerrilla military offensive reached

half following the

CUC

the insurgents.

January 1982, the EGP,

In

ORPA, FAR, and PGT Nucleo

together in the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca

platform for a revolutionary government (Fried et

joined

(URNG).

al. 1983, 287 ff.) broad political program including: an end to repression and a guarantee of basic rights for all citizens; an end to domination by the rich, as the first step toward meeting the needs of the majority of the population (including a land reform aimed at the largest properties);

Its

was

a

The Revolutionary Crisis

full

equality for Indians

and an end

representative government of

to

all patriotic,

their

139

cultural oppression;

a

democratic, and popular sectors;

basic democratic freedoms, including equality for

women;

a

new popular

revolutionary army, and recognition of the key role of Christianity; and a

nonaligned foreign policy.

how minimal

at the outset, was had taken years to achieve. (The examples of Nicaragua and El Salvador were crucial in and even as the this regard.) Even as unity was proclaimed, however revolutionary movement achieved its maximal expression during 1980 and 1981 a change in the balance of forces between the insurgents and the army began during the second half of 1981. By the spring of 1982, the revolutionary movement had taken very serious losses to its infrastructure in the capital, and the army holocaust against the Indian population had begun in the highlands; the URNG had lost the initiative, and some of its weaknesses were coming to the surface. These weaknesses combined with major changes within the army and the ruling coalition (see Chapter 10), enabling the army to gain the upper hand and to deal

This expression of unity, no matter

significant in the

Guatemalan

context, because

it

—

—

decisive blows against the insurgency. For the next several years, the

URNG

was on the

initiatives

defensive, before being able to take major

new

again in the late 1980s.

A Difficult Reassessment Although

it

fell

considerably short of a seizure of state power, the

uprising of the late 1970s and early 1980s represented a major advance

Guatemala's revolutionary movement. The movement was remarkable having transformed itself from a foco into a force with broad popular support nationally, incorporating the indigenous population in massive numbers as members and middle-level leadership. Although remaining for

in

it was able to incorporate radical Christian thinking develop a broad program. And like its predecessor in the 1960s, movement, receiving virtually no it was an authentically Guatemalan material support from Cuba or other outside forces as acknowledged even by U.S. government advisers (e.g., Sereseres 1985b, 35).

Marxist in orientation,

and

to

—

The

guerrillas' ultimate inability to resist the

army

counteroffensive,

however, was not simply a result of the crushing weight of that counteroffensive (see Chapter 10) but also of significant weaknesses of the

movement. These weaknesses have been analyzed by the revolutionary organizations themselves, as well as by participants who subsequently left them; what follows here is a summary of those self-criticisms and criticisms (based on interviews with URNG leadership [Harnecker 1985]; interviews with participants and documents from the member organi-

The Revolutionary Crisis

140

which ex-EGP members made the first and the most explicit analysis, some elements of which were subsequently confirmed by URNG organizations; Payeras 1987; Dunkerley zations; Opinion Politica [OP] Nos. 2-3, in

1988).

and above

First

all,

the insurgents were not prepared for (and had

not imagined) the extent or the brutality of the counteroffensive to be launched against them (see Chapter 10). The underestimation of the

army's ability to retaliate and the overestimation of their own military strength and popular support led to serious miscalculations. In practice, they overextended themselves to areas of the country where their social

base was inadequate and initiated an offensive, from September 1981 to May 1982, that they could not sustain (Dunkerley 1988, 491). The guerrillas themselves shortly thereafter identified this as a fatal error of

(EGP documents, n.d.); its rewithin the revolutionary movement for years to

triunfalismo (overconfidence of victory)

percussions were

felt

come. Second, there were serious deficiencies in the relation of the revoorganizations to their mass base. In principle, all of the organizations recognized the mistakes of the 1960s in not having built a mass base that could last; hence, they consciously, painstakingly built

lutionary

up such

a base throughout the 1970s in the zones identified as strategic

the Indian highlands and, to a lesser extent, the Southern Coast and the Peten). Nevertheless, at the moment of the decisive army counteroffensive, as will be seen, the several hundred thousand highlands Indians who supported and even participated in their efforts were left unprepared, unarmed, and unprotected, with disastrous consequences. Some have related this, in turn, to errors of organization: an over iden-

(above

all,

popular organizations with the revolutionary movement CUC and the EGP), insufficient autonomy for the popular organizations, and their subordination to the needs of the tification of the

(especially in the case of

weakness identified for the EGP development of the new memwere joining massively (EGP documents, OP No. 3). Ironically,

armed struggle. was insufficient bers

who

A

related organizational

ideological/political cadre

a strength (massive incorporation of the people into the organizations)

became a weakness (greater was insufficiently structured.

vulnerability to

army

repression)

when

it

Third, the guerrillas did not coordinate their efforts with the sizeable popular movements of the 1970s, primarily in the capital (unions, slumdwellers, etc.). The two were "out of phase," as the revolutionary forces were not yet able to give direction to the mass movements during

nor were they able to prevent the massive attack against those (See, for example, 1984 FAR statement in Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes [FAR] 1988.) The PGT remained most active within the union

their rise;

movements.

The Revolutionary Crisis

141

movement, but during this whole period it was estranged from the two, rather than insurgent movement; thus, there was a gap between the coordination. broadly, the guerrillas viewed the city more as a "strategic According to rearguard" than as a focus of revolutionary organizing. but led a founder EGP an been Payeras (1987, 37-44), who had

More

Mario split from the organization

in 1983, the success of the

army

offensive

was partly a against the revolutionary movement in Guatemala City to view the continued consequence of these deficiencies: The guerrillas urban movements as relatively "privileged" and susceptible to reformism, ORPA and hence did not really base themselves in the urban masses. in taken losses leader Gaspar Horn, by contrast, attributed the serious cadres urban the urban "trap" to a "false sense of security" among (Harnecker 1985, 115). Fourth, despite '

i

some

efforts in this direction, the guerrillas did

not

from develop an adequate strategy of alliances for gaining support face middle-class and moderate opposition groups. Particularly in the orgapolitical front of government repression, attempts to form broad (FDCR) nizations fell apart. The Frente Democratico Contra la Represion of could not be sustained, as a result of this problem and of the lack Aguilera Peralta "political space" for nonarmed organizations (interviews; de Enero was Popular 31 Frente radical more the Subsequently, 1982). but failed to masses, the of self-defense armed toward oriented directly

A final effort to construct a broad political de Unidad Popular (CGUP), also fell Guatemalteco Comite alliance, the in the international diplomatic reflected was also weakness short. A related be sure, there were factors To revolutionaries. Guatemalan work of the illegal; the leaderships were organizations leftist All control: beyond their by security forces decimated been had university the of the unions and were assascenter political the of leaders major and death squads; the

correct the basic weakness.

|

sinated during the 1970s,

and those remaining often took

a less risky

route than alliance with the revolutionaries. delayed the Finally, divisions and rivalries within the movement began URNG the time, that At 1982. early until formation of the URNG significantly in suba serious process of unification, which deepened countergovernment's the following time, sequent years. At the same Chapter (see organizations the of several left offensive, dissident factions 12).

unique But none of the above can be understood in isolation from the contradictions country's The history. dialectic of modern Guatemalan have regenerated revolutionary movements time and again, although

from they have also regenerated those forces that prevent the movement a prevent to enough strong forces, winning state power. The repressive

The Revolutionary Crisis

342

revolutionary victory, have been unable either to address the sources of that revolt or to

triumph definitively over the carriers of revolt. Hence, was reborn once again in the late 1980s.

as will be seen, the insurgency

Interpretations of Guatemala's Revolutionary Uprising

The experience of the revolutionary movement in the Guatemalan highlands during the late 1970s and early 1980s is the subject of considerable debate. If it can be analyzed as a "modern peasant war" (Davis 1983, 159), how does it fit various theories about such wars, and what are its lessons?

A

starting point

to Paige,

is

Jeffrey Paige's (1983) structural analysis; according

who was one

documents from the

of the

first

to

address the issue (relying on

guerrillas as well as his

own

research), the

Gua-

temalan uprising could not be explained primarily as a consequence of the peasant subsistence crisis (which had been going on for decades) the "moral economy" thesis, that is, that peasants mobilize to meet disruptions resulting from rapid change and endangering the subsistence minimum. Nor was it simply a result of the shift in guerrilla strategy, since earlier efforts to organize in the Indian highlands had failed. Rather, it was best explained by a class-conflict analysis: As a consequence of

major changes in Guatemala's

sector)

and

political

economy

(in the agro-export

class structure (semiproletarianization of the Indian peasantry),

was between military agribusinessmen and a migrant semiproletariat. Other analysts of Central America and of revolution in the Third World have taken up the discussion of the Guatemalan case, and of Paige's hypothesis, which was further developed by Dierckxsens (1986). Flora and Torres Rivas (1989) also present a structural analysis but attempt to broaden it, incorporating the analysis of state structures as well as export agriculture to explain the revolutionary uprising and its the locus of the conflict in the 1970s

Guatemala. Wickham-Crowley (forthcoming, Ch. 10, 12-16) emphasis on the Indian highlands population as a migratory labor force; however, he argues, Paige's own data do not failure in

also agrees with Paige's

disprove alternative theories (particularly the theory of the subsistence crisis underlying peasant revolt) and in fact, the two explanations may complement each other. The key factors are proletarianization, the attack on the subsistence economy, the decline of patron-client ties between the Indians and their exploiters, the rise of the guerrilla organizations, and the strength of the state in containing them. Certainly in the Guatemalan case, most scholars agree, the revolutionary movement cannot

be analyzed apart from

its

dialectical relation to the ruling coalition.

The Revolutionary Crisis

143

Kincaid (1987a, 187-198) also agrees with the centrality of a partially

more emphasis to growth of the cooperative movement, transformation of the Indian communities internally, and the reassertion of ethnic identity within these communities. After government repression intensified in response to organizing efforts (especially by CUC), these communities actively incorporated themselves into the guerrilla struggle, in large measure for self-defense. All of these factors, proletarianized peasantry, but gives a great deal organizational/political

according to Kincaid,

and

cultural factors: the

make "peasant community

solidarity," mobilized

by radical Catholic activists and focused on issues of ethnic identity and economic self-defense, much more central as an explanation of Guatemala's uprising than a structural class-conflict model. Elsewhere he argues (1987b, 493) for a theory that emphasizes "historical contingency" more than "structural imperatives." Smith (1987a, 214) goes one step farther in rejecting a traditional class analysis and in fact attributes the failure of the uprising largely to the adherence of the revolutionary organizations to such analysis. Rather than a classical class struggle (with the revolutionary "subject"

being a working class cutting across ethnic lines and uniting poor ladinos

with Indians), Guatemala exemplifies the struggle of the Indian population (cutting across class

divisions)

against the racist ladino state; "class

Guatemala has always taken the form of ethnic struggle." Elsewhere Smith (1984c) incorporates the controversial "labor shortage" hypothesis, explaining the counterinsurgency war as an effort to destroy the remaining bases of peasant economic autonomy and complete the process of proletarianization, rather than as a war against the guerrilla insurgents. But, as Kincaid shows (1987a, 195-197) the labor shortage thesis is questionable factually; and the real threat from the Indian labor force was less its unavailability than its growing assertiveness and struggle in

capacity for self-organization.

A number

of these

commentaries on the Paige

but they serve only to enhance

it,

not to "refute"

it.

thesis are pertinent,

That thesis captured

most significant aspects of Guatemalan reality, although not all aspects. To adopt a multidimensional analysis does not require us to abandon the worldview underlying a structural class analysis. In this regard, I agree with Booth and Walker (1989, 49) that a "complex theory of class conflict" is the most useful in understanding contemporary the

Central America.

There

is

also another question, concerning the characterization of the

Guatemalan revolution as simply a "peasant war." As Smith and Boyer (1987) and others have pointed out, the constituencies for the movement in the early 1980s, and even more so today, were far more complex

The Revolutionary Crisis

144

than that term suggests, as are the changing class structures in both the countryside and the city. Some of these debates have been well summarized by Guatemalan

Miguel Angel Reyes (1986):

analyst

Structural

analyses

(Paige,

Di-

erckxsens) emphasize the process of semiproletarianization as key, leaving aside subjective factors (consciousness, ideologies, organization); others (e.g.,

Frank and Wheaton 1984) emphasize the

objective conditions. Falla),

among

largely

in

A

others,

relation

to

synthesis of the

two

is

latter

focusing on the redefinition of Indian identity structural

changes,

as

well as

revolutionary organizations. The debate has continued organizations and writers. to

come

while downplaying

offered by Brintnall (and

Out

of

all

the

influence of

among Guatemalan

of this, Reyes concludes, has yet

a coherent theory of the role of the

—

indigenous population in

Guatemalan revolution which, by being prolonged, involves everchanging realities and theoretical formulations. Debate will continue, since the war is continuing. I shall return to these issues in Chapter 12 and the Conclusion, in regard to the late 1980s, when crisis conditions the

have again regenerated struggle, although in

new

forms.

10 Rebels and Death Squads

The pattern of the massacre, as separated the

men

off to

one

was as follows. The them that there was going

in other massacres,

side,

telling

II

soldiers to

be a

meeting, and locked them up in the courthouse of the village-farm. The soldiers

women from

then rounded up the

their various

homes and locked them up

at

another location along with their children, both those having the use of reason and those not yet having it (the survivors make this distinction very clearly).

At about 1:00

women

p.m., the soldiers began to fire at the

inside the small

church. The majority did not die there, but were separated from their children,

taken to their homes in groups, and killed, the majority apparently with machetes. It

to

seems that the purpose of this last parting of women from their children was prevent even the children from witnessing any confession that might reveal

the location of the guerrillas.

Then they returned

to kill the children,

by themselves, without their mothers.

whom

Our

they had

the courthouse, could see this through a hole in the

doors carelessly

left

Some

crying and screaming

who were locked up in window and through the

open by a guard. The soldiers cut open the children's stomachs

with knives or they grabbed the children's with heavy

left

informants,

little

sticks.

soldiers took a break to rest, eating a bull

legs

and smashed their heads

— the property of the peasants —

Then they continued with the men. They took them out, tied their hands, threw them on the ground, and shot them. The authorities of the area were killed inside the courthouse. It was then that the survivors were able to escape, protected by the smoke of the fire which had been set to the building. Seven men, three of whom survived, managed to escape. It was 5:30 p.m. The massacre continued, and when about six people were left, the soldiers threw grenades at them, killing all but two. Since it was already night, these two escaped through the window, covered with blood but uninjured. One of them was shot, the other lived. He is the surprise witness of this horrible deed. It is that

had been put on

to

roast.

said that he arrived in Chiapas, Mexico, at 11 a.m. the following day, but because

145

Rebels and Death Squads

146

II

he had such a darkness in his soul, he did not even notice that

— Ricardo

it

Falla (1984), account of the

was daytime. massacre

at

San Francisco, Nenton, Huehuetenango, July 17, 1982. An estimated 352 people were killed.

There

is

no more painful chapter

than the events of 1980-1983. At the slaughter and genocide by the

new

in the history of

human

level,

it is

modern Guatemala a tale of

wholesale

death squads, the counterinsurgent

security forces, this time carrying out illegal violence themselves, without

was almost unknown most Western countries, certainly in the United testament to the "great silence" about Guatemala an

the facade of legal constraints. That this holocaust

and unimagined States,

is

a

in

—

indifferent, at times complicitous silence,

perhaps because the victims

were overwhemingly Indians. major questions about the Many have considered triumph of counterinsurgency the to be so complete as to negate the possibility of continuing revolutionary struggle in Guatemala. Even those who have not rejected that possibility have had to reconsider what forms it can take; certainly a repeat of the early 1980s is not possible. The rise and temporary decline of the revolutionary movement of the 1970s and early 1980s cannot be explained simply in terms of its own strengths and weaknesses; its fate was joined to that of its historic enemies in the ruling coalition, the counterinsurgency state, and specifically the Guatemalan army. This point has been made more generally: "Whatever their class basis, social revolutions are highly unlikely to Politically,

this

experience

has raised

prospects for far-reaching change in Guatemala.

succeed where dominant class unity and the coercive apparatus of the

remain largely intact" (Kincaid 1987b, 490; see also Eckstein 1989). what happened in Guatemala in the 1980s, we must explain the crisis and recomposition of the counterinsurgency state and more broadly of the ruling coalition. As seen in Chapter 8, the ability of the military regimes to govern deteriorated seriously during the 1970s, for two main reasons: (1) state

Therefore, to understand fully

weakened

internal cohesion within the ruling coalition, as the military

clique tried to

keep

its

on power, alienating other

grip

fractions of the

bourgeoisie and engaging in what one Guatemalan journalist called a "struggle for control over the forms of plunder" (see

Handy

1984, 180);

While the with significant fractions of the bourgeoisie, under the Lucas regime (1978-1982), even this coalition lost (2)

the lack of any consensual basis or societal legitimacy.

army had previously ruled

in alliance

cohesion (Sarti 1987, 58-59).

Rebels and Death Squads

147

II

The Lucas government was ineffective militarily as well as politically: Although able to carry out repression against unarmed popular and political

opposition movements in the

(9,000

cities

were killed by the government in 1981 alone

unarmed

— Handy

civilians

1984, 180), the

counterinsurgents were unable to stop the growth of the insurgent movement. After 1979, moreover, the severe economic crisis and the unavailability of international aid to cushion its effects, a consequence

human

of Guatemala's international reputation as the worst

rights violator

hemisphere, compounded the lack of private sector confidence. The capitalists responded to crisis by sending their money abroad (up to $1.5 billion during the early 1980s); some even blamed the economic in the

crisis

on army mismanagement

of the government.

important not to exaggerate these divisions within the ruling especially in comparison with Nicaragua, where they were coalition serious enough to gain significant support for the FSLN from nonIt

is

—

Somocista fractions of the bourgeoisie. In Guatemala

this

was unthinkable,

both because military self-aggrandizement (through privileged access to the state apparatus) was more limited than in Somoza's Nicaragua and because the bourgeoisie never

lost

a

sense of

itself

as

a

class.

As

Dunkerley and others have pointed out, the Guatemalan ruling class has remained staunchly more oligarchic, less modernizing, less reformist than any other in Central America. The ruling coalition has also proven to be more united over the long run (see the comparison with El Salvador in Gordon 1990), as evidenced by its ability to survive the internal crisis of the early 1980s.

Nevertheless, by 1981, the conflicts were serious enough to feed growing discontent within the army itself, as a consequence of the Lucas government's inability to win the war against the guerrillas. One major problem was the shortage of equipment necessary to fight the war efficiently, in part because of the cut-off of U.S. military aid by Congress in

1977.

(Israel

subsequently

filled

in

the

gap.) Junior

officers

also

complained publicly of the corruption among the top army commanders, as well as other policies that were actually building support for the guerrillas. Some of their complaints were met when the president's brother, General Benedicto Lucas, launched a new counterinsurgency campaign beginning in June 1981. But the crisis continued, reaching its final limit with the electoral fraud of March 1982 (for yet a third time); a few days after the fraud, junior officers led by General Efrain Rios Montt, joined with other discontented forces to stage a coup. By this time, the U.S. government had also come to the conclusion that the Lucas regime was unable to effectively implement the "Program of Pacification and Eradication of Communism," drawn up by U.S. advisers, together with the Guatemalan army. In addition, the Reagan

148

Rebels and Death Squads

II

administration, facing a revolutionary government in Nicaragua and an

advanced insurgency in El Salvador as well, had redefined Central America as an area of "strategic concern"; the administration wanted desperately to restore military aid to Guatemala but could not do so with the thoroughly discredited Lucas regime. It was only after the 1982 coup that U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Enders was able to state, "In Guatemala, a coup has installed a new leader who has improved the human rights situation and has opened the way for a more effective counterinsurgency" (Latin American Weekly Report [LAWR], 8/27/82). Significantly, Rios Montt was part of the modernized, technified sector of the Guatemalan army, trained in special warfare; during the mid1970s he had served as head of the Department of Studies at the Interamerican Defense College in Washington, developing close ties with the U.S. counterinsurgency establishment.

The "Guatemala Solution": Total War at the Grassroots What was the nature of the "recomposition" that began with the coup of 1982? What forces were behind it, and what did they hope to accomplish? The first goal was unquestionably military: The army had to make major changes in order to win the counterinsurgency war. The second, far more complex set of goals was political and would take years to implement. Although these two aspects of the recomposition can be separated for analytical purposes, they are integrally related. The global military-political vision of the counterinsurgents

is

best captured

image (1986, 15) of the Guatemalan state as half human, "oppressor of the lower classes, but

in Carlos Figueroa Ibarra's a centaur, half beast,

also director of society as a whole."

To those who have studied and primary documents, what

on the basis of interviews most striking is the unity and singleminded determination of all those involved in the campaign against la subversion. Inherent within this vision was the assumption that the planned genocide that left 100-150,000 civilian casualties was necessary to establish "social peace"; the human rights crimes were simply beside the point, because the Indian population was "subversive" by definition. The military counteroffensive was already well under way by the time of the coup, having been begun in mid-1981 by Gen. Benedicto Lucas. Part of the campaign was carried out in Guatemala City, with the Fall 1981 lightning swoop on the urban infrastructure of the guerrilla organizations (their "strategic rearguard"). This had been accomplished through advanced counterintelligence techniques, shared with Guatemala bv Israel and Argentina. By this time, the popular movements based in this in detail is

Rebels and Death Squads

— natural

U

149

—

had already been smashed; urban infrastructure was crucial in putting the revolutionary movement on the defensive. The major thrust of the counter insurgency campaign, however, was the scorched-earth war in the highlands from 1981 to 1983. The goal was literally to "drain the sea" in which the guerrilla movement operated and to eradicate its civilian support base. The principal techniques included depopulation of the area through "scorched-earth" burnings, massacres of whole village populations, and massive forced relocations. Entire sectors of the population (overwhelmingly Indians) became military targets, leading many scholars (as well as the U.N. and Catholic church the city

and the

insurgents

allies of the

strike against

its

authorities) to identify these policies as genocidal. Falla called

"in the strict sense," because the elderly

it

and children who did not

is

the concept that guilt

genocide

yet have the use of reason

therefore could not be considered guerrilla collaborators:

bridge

it

involved massacres of people such as

"The

and crime are transmitted

and

ideological

biologically.

racist" (1984, 116).

It is

Over 440 villages were entirely destroyed; were killed or "disappeared" (some estimates, including those of top church officials, range up to 150,000); there were The

statistics are staggering:

well over 100,000 civilians

1 million displaced persons (1 million internal refugees, up to 200,000 refugees in Mexico Inforpress 1988c, 107-110; Americas Watch and BPHRG 1987, 73 ff.; church and U.N. sources). Accompanying these

over

—

massive population displacements was the deliberate destruction of huge areas of the highlands (burning of forests, etc.) to deny cover to the guerrillas and to assure that the region could never again serve as a theater for revolutionary operations. The environmental devastation was irreversible, even modifying climate and rainfall patterns (see Perera 1989; various issues of

ACEN-SIAG).

According to participants in the war (on the revolutionary side), the goal of the genocide and scorched-earth policies went beyond elimination of the insurgents' support base and the material base of the local economy; the deeper objective was to "fracture the very bases of the

communal

and of ethnic unity, destroying the factors of reand affecting the values on which it rests "understanding that the possibilities of survival and reproduction

production .

.

.

,"

structure of

culture

of the indigenous culture are directly linked to the prospects for revolution .

.

."

(OP Nos.

2-3).

As one

indicator,

subsequently stopped wearing

traje,

many

Indians in the highlands

or traditional dress. In short, the

very identity of the indigenous population was the

war took on the character

of an assault

at stake; in this sense,

by the ladino

the Indian population. Further, the scorched-earth policy of "provoking such a degree of

communal impoverishment

state against

had the goal as to destroy

Rebels and Death Squads

250

U

form of peasant organization and place the producers at the mercy ." It was, in short, the most violent form economic laws. through proletarianization military means. of (1990b, 1984c, has suggested that a major goal (as well Smith 1988) military campaign of the early 1980s as a major consequence) of the forms of economic autonomy in the Indian communities was to destroy all market systems), in order to make the peasant (for example, regional wage work on the Southern population available for Coast. Whether or not it was primary, that goal meshed well with the counterinsurgency this

of capitalist

.

.

—

goal of annihilating the guerrilla organizations themselves.

was not

objective

fully achieved,

The

latter

nor did the army strategically defeat

the guerrillas, as will be seen. Nevertheless, the ability to destroy their social base constituted a

the

army

major "victory"

into Guatemala's

army, while converting

for the

modern death squad.

The Counterinsurgency Apparatus The next phase of the counterinsurgency campaign, from 1983 to was also violent and devastating for the Indian population. The most obvious goal was to consolidate military control over the population through a series of coercive institutions. Among these were: (a) mandatory 1985,

paramilitary "civilian self-defense patrols" (Patrullas de Auto-defensa Civil,

PACs), designed to force villagers to participate in the eradication

of the guerrilla

movement and

in opposition to the

much

or, 1

generally to eliminate political activity

government. Anyone

who

refused service was fined

worse, treated as a "subversive." At one point the

million peasants

— one-eighth

PACs involved

of the entire population, one-fourth of

resettlement camps known as "model "development poles" in essence, forced resettlement camps in which every aspect of people's lives was subject to direct military control; and (c) Inter-Institutional Coordinating Councils (Coordinadores Inter-Institucionales, CII), which centralized administration of development projects at every level of government (local, municipal, provincial, national) under military control; this created a military the

adult population;

(b)

rural

—

villages," concentrated in

structure parallel (superior) to that of the civilian administration striking

example of the militarized

legalized in the

1985"),

new

—

these institutions were

Constitution of 1985 (see "The Process of 1983-

which provided the

ment of the late The purposes

state. All of

juridical

framework

for the civilian

govern-

1980s.

of the PACs went far beyond having auxiliary military even a captive labor force to construct roads and other infrastructure needed by the army). The goal was "to construct new and massive forms of counterrevolutionary local power; ... to compromise forces

(or

Rebels and Death Squads

151

II

growing number of people in repressive activities, creating indestructible between them and the rest of the civilian population and irreversible levels of compromise of the patrulleros with the army" (OP Nos. 2-3, 10), even in carrying out massacres of fellow-villagers. Villages and ethnic groups were turned against each other, in an attempt to create "civil war" (Arias 1985, 117). One anthropologist who observed PAC operations closely was struck by a

—

barriers

the degree of guilt

and shame

that people

their participation in the civil patrol guilt

had internalized as

a result of

system. Apparently people had such

because the army entered the region

the Indians of being rebellious children

like

an angry

who were

father,

accusing

responsible for the

civil

damage and strife created by the guerrilla movement. In its early stages, the army presented the formation of the civil patrols to the Indians as a way of extricating themselves from any association with the guerrillas. During this period, when the civil patrols were being formed, the army forced Indians to go on rastreos (hunts for guerrillas)

and sometimes

to

who were suspected or accused who refused to participate in these

stone or machete to death fellow villagers of being "subversives." acts or

who

Many

tried to escape

of those

from

civil patrol

authorities or sent to the regional

duty were punished by local for punishment. (Davis

army base

.

.

1988, 28).

The development poles, the major institution for population reconwere intended, in the first instance, to deprive the revolu-

centration,

tionaries of their support base; but longer range, to centralize the

new

forms of counterinsurgent local power. These settlements, designed according to a military logic, brought the displaced populations under

war had destroyed local supplies and so on, the displaced became dependent upon the army for food, as well as for work, shelter, and other "benefits," in a program called "Beans and Guns" (later "Shelter, Work, and Tortillas"). This was a striking example of the systematic use of hunger total

army

control. Particularly since the

of food, firewood,

as a

weapon

of social control (Falla 1988).

— including the army's pacification programs — Architects of these programs

civilian

counterinsurgents,

those who, in the army's words, "had the vision to get involved" in insist that

overcome the apparatus and the population by as a military goal: to

(forcibly)

army's side, to create a real social base to

one army document

to

mirror

EGP

(cited in

they had a political as well

between the state "winning it over" to the

historic alienation

Manz

"among

the people." According

1988, 18), military officers sought

structures in order to mobilize the population against

the EGP. Military authorities even described the of "participation" (as

if

PACs

they involved voluntary activity)

as instruments

— by which they

Rebels and Death Squads

252

meant gaining first

counterinsurgency war. In

civilian collaboration in the

interviews and public forums, the

II

army

"The PACs were

leaders boasted,

contribution of the people to the struggle against terrorism.

Even the poorest, most humble peasant could contribute." One civilian who worked closely with the army after the

late

1970s

described the mentality of his military colleagues as follows:

The

field

began

officers

to

understand the

people's

of

realities

lives.

(which we did through the We even worked with people whom we knew use of social workers). were involved with the guerrillas, getting collaborators to turn themselves The key to the CII system was decentralization, to maximize in. We had to move people to flexibility and local control for the army. areas where we could control them (hence the model villages), and isolate The army became involved with the community, adopting the guerrillas. Army control and advocacy (on behalf of the orphans of the war. .

.

The key was

.

to gain people's confidence .

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

people) are two sides of the

same

coin.

.

.

.

The Army

capable of making structural change in Guatemala. battle,

with cadre on both

sides;

the question

battles? (interview; see also Sereseres 1985c

referring admiringly to the

This perspective

is

army campaign

useful in

is:

.

.

.

the only force

is

There

Who

will

is

a

major

win these

and Sheehan 1989, the latter and innovative").

as "bold

comprehending the sophistication and

the depth of military penetration into (integration with) the fabric of

"normal" daily life in rural Guatemala. It shows the army's conscious attempt to overcome the alienation between the state's repressive ap-

What it fails to mention is that all of this was most extreme coercion; none of it was voluntary. To one degree or another such coercion has been at the core of the

paratus and

civil society.

a product of the

relationship of the ladino

army

to

the

came

Indian population since the

Guatemala as its and reveled in its dominant position there. Any that position and organize peasants or rural workers

nineteenth century: "The military

to see rural

particular preserve,

attempt to alter independent associations" was, therefore, an intolerable challenge (Handy 1986b, 407). In this sense, the genocide of the 1970s and 1980s

into

was

a logical extension of preexisting Indian/ladino relations

(Adams

1988, 283-284). At the root of this system of institutionalized violence lay the fear of

an Indian uprising or "coming

down from

(Arias 1985, 115); the uprising of the early 1980s

other experience to realizing that great

came

the highlands" closer than

any

fear.

Recomposition of the Counterinsurgency State Although

it

came

to a

head under the Lucas regime of 1978-1982, 1980s had roots in the 1954

in reality the political crisis of the early

Rebels and Death Squads

was

153

11

fundamental weakness it was so totally based on coercion and so lacking in social consensus (see Sarti 1987, 56; Figueroa Ibarra 1983). Under Lucas the crisis extended to the fundamental Counterrevolution.

It

a crisis of legitimacy, a

in the quality of ruling class

domination, because

alliances within the ruling coalition,

army and the bourgeoisie. The Lucas

between the various factions of the was an attempt to strengthen

project

the authority of the state through sheer terrorism (Figueroa Ibarra 1982); it

"worked"

but in no

in

terms of repressing working class and popular demands,

way represented

a stable, lasting political project for bourgeois

rule.

Thus, in addition to insurgents), the Rios it

was

its

counterinsurgent project

Montt coup also had

a revolt against the clique in

(i.e.,

to defeat the

a political project. Minimally,

power, to redefine the balance

different fractions of the bourgeoisie.

More

broadly,

was means it

among

a recognition

bankruptcy of the military dictatorship as a of hegemonic domination over civil society and an attempt to reestablish bourgeois hegemony, to circumscribe the influence of the revolutionary movement. All of the principal actors came to understand the necessity for a political of the

process that

would regain the confidence

of the bourgeoisie

and the

passive consent of broader sectors of the population.

However, the Rios Montt project was itself limited and flawed in fundamental ways and hence was replaced through a second coup led by General Oscar Mejia Victores in August 1983. What were the main reasons? First, another coup or adjustment was necessary because the Rios Montt government carried out the bulk of the large-scale massacres (although, these had begun under Lucas and continued well into the Mejia Victoras regime see Figueroa Ibarra 1986, 22; Dunkerley 1988, 495-496 for statistics). Second, and largely as a consequence of the above, Guatemala was an international pariah, unable to obtain the international economic aid needed to cope with the economic crisis. Third, the "political class" (the traditional bourgeois parties) gradually took a stand against Rios Montt. They felt excluded from decisionmaking and disagreed with his handling of the economic crisis (especially the proposals for new taxes) and with certain "excesses" of the war, such as "special tribunals" and executions that "brought the logic and process of the death squad into the public domain" (Dunkerley 1988, 494). For the above reasons, the bourgeoisie saw a need to reassert itself and

—

restrict the excessive

"autonomy" on the part

of the dictatorship.

Additionally, Rios Montt's promotion of evangelical Protestant sects

(he himself being a

Word)

—

member

of the

California-based Church of the

an instrument of counterinsurgency used to combat a Catholicism influenced by Liberation Theology later became controversial and divisive, leading the Catholic church and other political actors initially

—

Rebels and Death Squads

254

him.

II

Some have

also suggested that the United States with Rios Montt, among other reasons, for his lack of cooperation in the Reagan policy of overthrowing the Sandinista government in Nicaragua (Figueroa Ibarra 1986). Finally, and very significantly, the 1982 coup had been partly a revolt by young officers against the Lucas clique, hence rupturing the army hierarchy; the coup of 1983 represented the "revenge of the high command," reestablishing to turn against

was becoming

dissatisfied

army institutionality and hierarchy. As key civilian participants in the governments of 1982 and 1983 made clear (Asociacion de Investigacion y Estudios Sociales [ASIES] 1988; interviews), the basic change was not in the project but in who would direct it. The 1983 coup was basically a cosmetic adjustment to shed the dysfunctional elements while continuing the same basic policies. Both governments were premised upon a recognition of the need to begin a controlled political process in Torres Rivas's words (1989b),

—

"an authoritarian transition to democracy." Guatemalan politics since 1982 must be understood in the army's terms, as a form of political warfare, a "continuation of war by other means." The principal goal was to annihilate the revolutionary Left, in part by marginalizing it politically, depriving it of influence and legitimacy. In this logic, which pitted Marxists against all "reasonable" forces, the goals of the Left were defined as being beyond the pale: Agrarian reform was unthinkable. The alternative model for the strategists of Guatemala's authoritarian transition was the "social peace" achieved in Venezuela (where the insurgents had become marginal and class struggle was replaced by social pact).

The Process

of 1983-1985:

Bringing the Politicians Back In

The Mejia Victores coup began

a

two-and-a-half-year process of

returning to civilian government, through the 1984 elections for Constituent

the

Assembly, the constitution-writing process of 1984-1985, and

presidential

and congressional elections of 1985.

"Politics"

revived, using the language of pluralism, "national reconciliation," concertacion,

but only

among

was and

those political forces acceptable to the

army. The biggest change was to bring in the bourgeois parties as "generators of consensus between the state and 1987, 62)

— hence,

civil

society" (Sarti

the "recomposition." This extended to the Christian

Democratic Party, which had for years attempted to develop an alliance with fractions of the army. Within the context of this "reactionary pluralism" (from center Right to extreme Right), the army even took a risk on the fledgling Partido Socialista Democratico (PSD), once the

Rebels and Death Squads

155

11

PSD had

agreed to accept the rules of the game, renouncing armed and foregoing any alliance with the insurgent Left. In any case, PSD was small enough to minimize the army's gamble.

struggle,

the

among the political class, the counterinnew basis for politics in Guatemala. was quite relative, as the new political arrange-

In finding a constituency

surgents did begin to construct a

However, their success ments were based on the exclusion of precisely those social classes from whom the "threat" has come. A good half of the electorate remained disenfranchised through the illegalization of left parties, leaving the initial problem unaddressed. That is one of the historical limits of the counterinsurgency

The

state, as will

be seen.

intellectual authors of this process, participants,

and sympathetic

observers argue that the coups of 1982 and 1983 actually began the process of "redemocratization" in Guatemala and attempt to portray

Guatemalan

1983 as normal "democratic politics" (ASIES

politics since

was based on the 100,000-plus deaths and 440 villages destroyed, and given the very restricted rules of the game, it was more a process of legitimation 1988; interviews). In fact, given that the return to politics

than of restoring true legitimacy. that the politicians

were

And

to play a

it

was

key

in this process of legitimation

role.

The first step was the June 1984 election for a Constituent Assembly, whose job would be to draft a new constitution as well as laws governing the 1985 presidential election. The major participants were the traditional bourgeois parties (MLN, CAN, PID, PR), the Christian Democrats, and the neoliberal "New Right" Union del Centro Nacional (UCN). Most significant are the statistics indicating political exclusion, abstention, and protest (based on Inforpress 1985, 26): Of a potential electorate of 3.7 million, only 43 percent cast valid ballots, the rest spoiling or leaving their ballots blank, not registering, or not voting.

The

gave the most votes to the Christian Democrats, was

election,

which

at least free of

open fraud and military intervention that had characterized elections However, it took place under conditions of ongoing army repression and coercion in the months preceding the election, and the whole process took for granted that the army's powers were to be left the

since 1970.

intact. If

had been any doubt, these understandings were confirmed adopted in mid-1985. While reestablishing standard rights on paper and technically returning Guatemala to the rule

there

in the constitution political

of law, the constitution legalized basic institutions of counterinsurgency (e.g.,

PACs)

that blatantly violated those rights. In

terms of social policy,

the constitution enshrined private property as an absolute right

and

conspicuously omitted any reference to the social functions of property:

156

Rebels and Death Squads

Indeed,

when

rejected as

II

a proposal for the latter

came up

in the

Assembly,

it

was

"Communist."

The Election

of 1985

won by civilian Christian Democrat was proclaimed by the U.S. Embassy as the "final step in the reestablishment of democracy in Guatemala" (International Human Rights Law Group and Washington Office on Latin America [IHRLG/ The 1985

presidential election,

Vinicio Cerezo,

WOLA]

1985, 65). Unlike other presidential elections since 1970,

But these factors

it

put

was not fraudulent and was procedurally correct. by themselves do not constitute a basis for the sweeping

a civilian into office;

it

claim that the election represented the culmination of a lasting transition to

democracy, as revealed by some statistics: Representation. As in 1984, there were multiple competing parties,

but a significant portion of the electorate remained unrepresented by

any of the candidates. Aside from the tiny social democratic PSD, no Even in the case of the PSD, some of its leadership remained in exile. Similarly, in regard to interest groups, participation was limited to those of the ruling class, with unions and popular organizations remaining major targets of repression. Even a left-of-center parties participated.

conservative Guatemalan newspaper commented, "In order for fraud to

you don't have to rob ballots or votes. It is sufficient to prohibit open participation in the elections, so that only a part of the public will can be expressed" (Grdfico, quoted in Handy 1986b, 407). The platforms of the participating parties, ranging from the PSD and the Christian Democrats to the extreme right MLN, differed very little from each other. None of the candidates proposed any serious economic reforms, any restrictions on the military, or any investigation (much less exist,

prosecution) of the crimes of the military during the previous period.

Although technically

civilians,

all

of the candidates

made themselves

acceptable to the military by agreeing that "the subversives must be

eliminated" (Inforpress 1985, 38). Several of them had long histories of collaboration with the military and were actively supported by parties or fractions of the army. In short,

no

real opposition candidate or position

was represented. Participation. According to statistics compiled by an observers' delegation, 55.8 percent of eligible voters did not participate, that

did not register, abstained from voting, or cast invalid ballots

WOLA

is,

either

(IHRLG/

1985, 76-77). This occurred, despite the fact that voting

compulsory not voting 1985, 53).

for citizens

— and

was

over eighteen, with penalties or reprisals for

overt threats during the last

week (IHRLG/ WOLA

Rebels and Death Squads

Context. The campaign

appearances

was marred by

(IHRLG/WOLA

1985, 46

ff.),

II

157

executions and dis-

illegal

continuing the coercive prac-

which had a direct effect on the consciousness of the At the local level, "The military campaign, with its model villages and civil patrols, totally destroyed the basis of municipal government in Guatemala. If we see these municipalities as the true the prospects building blocks of effective democracy in the country, of democratic decision-making were never bleaker" (Handy 1986, 408). Despite these limitations, many Guatemalans viewed the 1985 election with hope, as a possible turning point. Certainly, they saw it as an opportunity to express their rejection of military dictatorship and their desire for democracy and reform. Those who voted gave a 70 percent mandate in the runoff election to Cerezo, who was the most progressive of the major candidates. From this perspective, moreover, the election was an opportunity for some political parties (those acceptable to the army) to reorganize on a more normal basis and to revitalize political tices of the past,

electorate.

.

.

.

activity.

Some Guatemalan

analysts refer ironically to the contradictory ex-

perience of the election and rejection of military government as being

I

perhaps Guatemala's "best hope" to begin a democratic transition. Others have referred to it as a consulta publica, a controlled attempt at legitimation within the context of the ongoing counterinsurgency war. Or it is described as a "facade democracy," which combines formal legality with illegal violence and in which the army remains the fundamental source of power. (The above characterizations are taken from interviews and from Torres Rivas 1987a, 158 ff., 171 ff.; Aguilera Peralta 1985a, 1981a; Rosada 1986; Solorzano Martinez 1987b.) Whatever the shades of interpretation, there is agreement on one fundamental point: Even taking into account the democratic aspirations of a majority of Guatemalans, the election was part of the war and it did not involve a real transfer of the

l

•

army had completed

power from

military to civilians.

the genocidal phase of

its

Once

military campaign,

and once the institutions of the counterinsurgency state were legalized in the 1985 Constitution, elections and civilian government could proceed without requiring a fundamental change. And in practice, although the balance between civilians and military changed in some important respects after 1986, much of the power remained in the hands of the army. Cerezo himself acknowledged upon taking office that he held no more than 30 percent of the power. For these and other reasons, the 1985 elections did not initiate a fundamental break from the counterinsurgency state although a civilian counterinsurgency state has its own particularities (see Chapter 11). The Guatemalan army viewed the 1985 election as a third stage of its

—

Rebels and Death Squads

258

II

campaign, as reflected in the 1982 National Plan for Security and Development: "With only military and police operations, it is not possible to definitively annihilate subversive activity, because, independent of the aid they get from abroad, the causes of the subversion are based in the existing contradictions [of Guatemala], the product of historical processes that Communism can exploit to its advantage" (Castaneda 1986, note 20; Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Guatemalteca [CERG] 1985,

5).

In short, the

Guatemalan military and

its

U.S. advisers recognized

They preferred an one thing, after being many years, the Guatemalan government

the need to adjust their counterinsurgency strategy.

elected civilian

government

for several reasons. For

an international pariah for needed international legitimacy in order to obtain foreign aid to deal with the economic crisis. (This point was reinforced by the spectacular success of the Reagan administration in gaining approval for both economic and military aid to El Salvador from former critics in the U.S. Congress and Western Europe after the 1984 election of Duarte.) Even more important, however, were internal pressures for the election. One crucial internal factor was the need for a more "open" political environment in Guatemala, in order to regain private-sector confidence and reactivate the economy. Further, a civilian government was seen as the basis for reestablishing internal stability and limiting social protest that is, for addressing the political crisis. Even though the army had tactically defeated the guerrillas by 1985, it was discredited after years of fraudulent and corrupt rule; it sought to redefine its relations with the civilian population, in part by taking credit for returning the country to civilian rule. Although the redefinition of these relationships was not fundamental, it did bring a political opening of sorts and changes in 1

the operations of the counterinsurgency state.

The need for these changes was clear not only to sectors of the Guatemalan military but also to some in the U.S. government. Perhaps this

is

why

the United States played such an active role in the 1985

and indirectly (through Democracy, whose purpose is to channel U.S. funding to beleaguered anti-Communist movements and governments). The Reagan administration also acted as a virtual public relations firm for the Guatemalan government, celebrating its complete "democratization." In the regional context, the United States was interested in Guatemala as a "counterexample" to Nicaragua to "prove" the Jeane Kirkpatrick thesis (1979, 1982) that right-wing authoritarian regimes pose no threat to democracy because they "inevitably" evolve toward democracy or "liberalize." (The fact that Nicaragua had had an internationally recognized election in 1984 was denied in Washington.) election process, providing funds both directly

the National

Endowment

for

Rebels and Death Squads

II

159

sum, the Guatemalan election of 1985 represented a rupture from some respects, but not in others. It was not openly fraudulent but was severely restricted and nonrepresentational of large sectors of the population. That election, therefore, opened up a period of liberalization, rather than genuine democratization. More than anything else, it should be viewed as a necessary adjustment for dealing with Guatemala's economic and political crises. In

the past in

Notes 1.

Hence, in the Guatemalan case,

"demonstration election," that legitimation

is,

it

cannot be described simply as a

staged primarily for the purpose of international

(Herman and Brodhead

1984);

it

cannot be reduced to a simple is the concept

by-product of the U.S. government's agenda. More appropriate of "counterinsurgency elections,"

foreign influence.

which incorporates but does not revolve around

11 Contradictions of Guatemala's "Political

summer

Opening"

to Guatemala for the first time since From 1987 to 1989 I made four trips to the end Guatemala, two of them extended, at different "moments" of the Cerezo period. Chapters 11 and 12 are based largely on my interviews with Guatemalans at many levels of the state and society. From the vantage point

In the

of direct

of hindsight,

maintained

it

in

a

of 1987,

1

returned

military rule.

seems

fairly

clear

new form under

two years, however,

was not

this

that

the

counterinsurgency state was

the Cerezo government. clear,

and

I

During the

first

had many long discussions

how to interpret the political opening and move toward meaningful democracy and social

with Guatemalan friends about

how

it

could be used

justice. 1

to

was struck by the plurality

contradictions, the lights I

of perspectives, the complexities

and shadows,

of

Guatemala

was moved by widespread, profound aspirations

and

in its political opening.

for something better, after

and by the flashes of hope for the cautiously reemerging popular movements, as they took to the streets in the the long years of unmitigated brutality,

tens of thousands to demonstrate for their rights

Many

people were willing

to

and for structural reforms.

"give Vinicio a chance"; Cerezo actually could

have used his share of power far more than he did, because the military and the bourgeoisie needed a civilian government. In the end, particularly after the

beginning of the right-wing destabilization efforts in the spring of were dashed, but the voices of those who held those hopes

1988, the hopes still

ring in

my

ears.

161

Contradictions

162

The 1985 election paved the way for the civilian government of Vinicio Cerezo and the first "political opening" of any kind in Guatemala's recent history. That political opening was profoundly shaped by the scorched-earth war of 1981-1983 and remained limited by the counterinsurgency logic. Nevertheless, to represent the Cerezo period as nothing more than a continuation of the past would oversimplify a complex and

—

A space was opened up very limited, but sufficient modify the terms of the struggle. In this respect, the new conjuncture was a change from military rule and a transition (or at least an interlude)

contradictory reality. to

of

some

kind.

What kind of transition? What was the model toward which Guatemala was evolving, in the view of its architects? Could a political opening born of pacification and still controlled by the army really evolve into a democracy? At a deeper level lay Guatemala's perennial class questions: Could there be a meaningful democratic But the questions remained:

transition without the elimination of extreme socioeconomic injustices?

Pluralism and

On

Its

1

Limits

paper, civilian government restored Guatemala to the rule of law

form of political pluralism. The reduction in overt statesponsored violence, the operation of several political parties, and the possibility of exercising constitutionally guaranteed individual rights (or minimally, the expectation that such rights should be guaranteed) mitigated the purely repressive politics of the past and were greeted as improvements. The new "rules of the game" also permitted controlled expressions of popular desires for democratic rights and social justice, through strikes and protests as well as elections. Unions, "pro-land" movements, human rights organizations, and a host of others emerged to fight for their rights and "broaden the political space." Following years of the most brutal repression in the hemisphere, most Guatemalans appreciated any political opening or respiro (breathing space), no matter

and

a limited

how

limited

and contradictory.

Nevertheless,

all

of these advances relative to the past

were sharply

—

war and its continuation (although at army had not decisively defeated revolutionary movement. Even the more to the point, the counterinsurgency structures remained in place. Although formal prohibitions on politics were relaxed, even moderate and legalized opposition forces limited by the legacy of the counterinsurgency a lower

level), since the

continued to practice self-censorship, because they never (or

when) they would

oppositional forces that to the right of the

suffer felt

reprisals

for

secure in voicing their

government.

knew whether

voicing protest.

The only

concerns were those

Contradictions

human

International

163

rights organizations, including the Inter-American

Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, Amnesty International, and Americas Watch, as well as the International Verification Commission set up to monitor compliance with the Central American Peace Accords after 1987 (see below), and even a few public figures within Guatemala, documented the continuation of systematic

human after

rights violations, indeed a "serious deterioration" of the situation

1987.

There were more

political

assassinations in

1987 than in

1985, before Cerezo took office (Inforpress Centroamericana [IC] 1/21/ 88). The trend accelerated during 1988 and 1989, especially following

coup attempts, with a documented increase in death and crimes committed by official security forces (see squad 1988-1989 reports by Americas Watch and Amnesty International). The US.-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs named Guatemala once again as the worst human rights violator in Latin America for 1989 and a several right-wing activities

year later for

1990.

In the

fall

of

1989,

right-wing/official violence

escalated sharply, prompting fears of a "return to the early 1980s."

in

Much

of the violence took the

which

ultraright death squads

be sure which

it

form of a macabre "message system," and/or security forces (one could never

was) acted against specific individuals in order to

intimidate entire constituencies. Trade-union, peasant,

and student leaders

remained assassination targets. Top church officials associated with mild land reform proposals received death threats, as did officials advocating dialogue with the guerrillas, and Father Andres Giron, leader of a national movement for land redistribution. In June 1988, firebombs destroyed the office of the progressive weekly newspaper, La Epoca, one of the only experiments in independent journalism in thirty-five years; evidence pointed to security forces as the authors of this act, and it underscored the limits on press freedom. In this way, the ultraright and the counterinsurgents kept alive the specter of a return to the massive brutalities of the early 1980s.

Yet the government conducted no serious investigations of these actions, and no one was held responsible. Cerezo resolutely upheld the "amnesty" self-proclaimed by the army just before he took office. In stark contrast to Alfonsin in Argentina after that country's dirty war, he had campaigned on a promise not to prosecute army officers for past human rights crimes or death squad activities. This impunity with respect to the past implicitly created a shield of unaccountability in the present, and virtually none of the acts of political violence committed during the Cerezo era were

prosecuted.

He had made campaign promises elements from

official

security forces

to

and

"clean out" the death squad to establish civilian controls

over the police, but these were scuttled. Military Intelligence or G-2,

Contradictions

164

the heart of the "bureaucracy of death" (Nairn

and Simon

1986),

was

mid-1988, under the guise of fighting crime, the government announced formation of a super-police force, SIPROCI (Sistema de Proteccion Ciudadana, "Citizen Protection System"), which centralized

left intact. In

control over

all

military, paramilitary (PAC),

Ministry of Defense.

It

was

also a

way

and police

forces

under the

of improving the efficiency of

operations, such as the one to militarize and seal off the entire zone of the January 1989 12).

SIPROCI was

capital

CUC

strike

on the Southern Coast

also associated with the formation of

and "streamlining" security operations

(see

Chapter

PACs

in the

to eliminate procedural

guarantees in the 1985 Constitution (IC 10/27/88). Perhaps the clearest example of continuing repression was the massive

problem facing Guatemala's refugees (150-200,000 in Mexico, only onefourth to one-third of them in U.N. camps, and up to 1 million "internal refugees"). The conditions for return from Mexico were insecure, because the army, which remained in control of the program for refugee repatriation, regarded them as "subversives." (A public army exposition in August 1987 featured maps showing the Mexican refugee camps as part of the guerrilla infrastructure.) Upon their return, refugees were required to "take amnesty," an implicit admission of having been guilty of ties to the guerrillas. It

was widely recognized

fell far

that the

government repatriation program

short of international humanitarian standards. Despite a persistent

government campaign

come back

own

for their return,

most of the refugees refused

to

until given guarantees of their safety, of liberty to return to

camps run by the military), and of PACs; this pattern continued into 1988 and 1989, with only 13 percent having returned by the spring of 1990 (Inforpress 1988c, 110; IC 4/20/89 and 4/26/90; Washington Office on Latin America [WOLA] 1989a). Top officials of the Catholic church also refused to participate in the government program because of insufficient guarantees their

an end

villages (rather than to

to the

to returnees.

The chasm separating Guatemala from genuine pluralism and recbecame clear in the official response to the Central American Peace Accords of August 1987, which theoretically committed all five governments of Central America (not just Nicaragua) to make democratizing reforms and to negotiate an end to internal wars. The ink had not yet dried on the accords when Guatemala's top military officials declared that they "don't apply" to Guatemala. Although taking minimal steps to appear in compliance, the government basically followed the army line. "Amnesty" for political prisoners would have a "limited onciliation

effect" in

Guatemala, as the New York Times pointed out, quoting human and Guatemalan government officials, because "the

rights organizations

—

165

Contradictions

Guatemalan army has killed most people it captured in recent years" (New York Times [NYT] 11/6/87; IC 12/19/87). To "comply" technically with the accords, in October 1987, the government held one set of "conversations" with the URNG in Madrid the first such talks in twenty-five years (see Chapter 12). All political parties except the

MLN

declared support for continued discussions. But

Madrid could be the beginning of a genuine search for was dispelled when government and army officials settlement a negotiated subsequently declared that there would be no further dialogue. Meanwhile, the army refused to negotiate a cease-fire, as provided in the accords, and began a major counterinsurgency offensive in the fall of any hope

that

1987.

"Political

Warfare"

The continuing counterinsurgency war left its mark everywhere, producing major structural transformations of all aspects of Guatemalan life under civilian government. Even outside the active "zones of conflict" marked by guerrilla activity, large areas of the countryside were kept under tight control. The structures of counterinsurgency were legalized in the 1985 Constitution

and remained firmly

in place,

although in

new

forms.

Several years into the Cerezo government, the PACs, supposedly

new

made

had become a permanent feature of rural political life and still relied on coercive recruitment. There were still an estimated 800,000 members by late 1987, and the army announced plans to organize them in urban areas. Cerezo had campaigned on a promise to allow villages to vote on whether or not to maintain a PAC, but in the face of army opposition to the idea, he did not implement it. There were innumerable cases of reprisals against those resisting PAC duty from blacklisting them as "subversives" to kidnapping and assassination. The other major institutions of the counterinsurgency war also persisted in the era of the "democratic opening," although in forms more adequate to the new conditions. The six "development poles" (constellations of "model villages" in the areas of conflict) were advertised by the army as "modern communities for displaced peasants." In reality, they remained forced resettlement camps in which every aspect of people's lives was subject to direct military control. The "Inter-Institutional Coordinating Councils" (CIIs) of the early 1980s were reintroduced under the Cerezo government in the form of the consejos de desarrollo (development councils), to administer and maintain control over development projects in a technically "decentralized" structure. But, as with the PACs, even "participation" had largely military objectives. The consejos revealed the voluntary in the

constitution,

266

Contradictions

extent to

which development and counterinsurgency had become

in-

separably intertwined and the whole development model had been structured around the military need to rebuild local

power

structures

of the state in the countryside. 2

Meanwhile, through its Civil Affairs unit S-5, the army initiated civic programs to promote the "welfare" of the population. This was presented as an example of the army's attempt to "win hearts and minds," to correct its historic error of viewing the population as "the enemy." According to participants, the army sought to identify and work with "natural leaders" of local communities and to deliver small infraaction

making it the "benefactor of the people." This was complemented by extensive psychological operations (half "persuasion," structure projects,

half coercion). In short, the army's "integral" political-military approach

was designed to win the political war, a war of legitimacy, by asserting hegemony within and over civil society. The dominant fraction of the army was also attempting to establish its hegemony within the ruling coalition, to present itself as being able to "save" Guatemalan society in a way that the bourgeoisie had never managed to do. The army's campaign for political hegemony was expressed in a number of initiatives beginning in early 1987. Most important among these were the Army Forum and multimedia exposition, "27 Years of Struggle Against Subversion" in August 1987 (five days after the signing of the Central

American Peace Accords

establishment in October 1988 of a

in

Guatemala

new army

City),

and the

think-tank/brain-trust

(Center of Strategic Studies for National Stability, ESTNA). The latter

coincided with the church-sponsored "National Dialogue," which grew

out of the Central American Peace Process. For the short range, the

army hoped

to

upstage the church-sponsored dialogue, and longer range,

to bring politicians, professionals,

and

intellectuals into

an army-spon-

sored forum. Similarly, a June 1989 seminar on "Civil-Military Relations" incorporated a number of domestic and foreign academic institutions,

again on the army's

The

turf.

central ideas of the "political

war" emerging from these

initiatives

(confirmed in interviews with Defense Minister Gramajo and his colleagues and in army documents) included the following:

(1)

"National

imported from the United States; in theory, the Guatemalan army was transforming itself from an "army of occupation" (based on the "paternalistic" U.S. doctrine) into a "national army." (2) Civilian political institutions were bankrupt; the army, having "delivered" the country to democracy, was the only source of leadership for Guatemalan society. Further, under the doctrine of "army fundamentalism," the military should be seen as an integral part of civil society. (3) Verbally they recognized the need to stability" replaced the geopolitical "national security doctrine"

Contradictions

deal with the massive social

movement

— as expressed

167

problems that gave rise to the insurgent August 1987 Army Forum, the caldo de

in the

ground) of subversion was social injustice; hence, hardwould have to be combined with attention to social problems, and the private sector would have to pay its share of the cost of the war through taxes. cultivo (breeding

line antiterrorism

How successful was this campaign for the soul of civil society? The dominant fraction of the army, doubtless picking up some of the legitimacy that Cerezo and the politicians had lost, appeared to have convinced some political leaders, professionals, and intellectuals to participate (even if skeptically) in its initiatives; in this sense, it used the political opening to make inroads and structure new alliances around itself. However, the effort to co-opt all of the political space, to neutralize all independent .initiatives and organizations, seemed bound to fail "at the base," where it ultimately mattered. Despite developmental rhetoric, the army made no structural reforms in practice, and rural living conditions continued to deteriorate, even in army-run "model villages." Moreover, the war continued and the army still viewed large sectors of the population as the enemy. Coercion remained the dominant element overall. In Gramajo's words, "We will win the war and we will impose the peace." Even if the army had been united in these initiatives, which it was not, its success was also limited by the independent actions of other social actors (discussed below and in Chapter 12). Hence, its assertion of autonomy cannot be taken at face value, but must be evaluated within the context of broader struggles within the ruling coalition and of new pressures "from below." New

Cracks in the Ruling Coalition

Underneath the appearance of stability in Guatemala's "democratic were the continuing realities of instability. Far from being pacified or stable, Guatemala under the co-government of Cerezo and Gramajo faced constant challenges. The civilian and military ultraright attempted to overthrow the elected government at least three times during 1988-1989. The first wave of destabilization came to a head on May 11, 1988, when two rebellious army garrisons marched on the capital. While failing to overthrow the government, they forced Cerezo to cede much of the authority he once held, as the price of remaining in office. During the second week of August 1988, and again in May 1989, Guatemala shook with coup tremors and the fate of the civilian government hung in the balance. The army remained sharply divided, with up to one-third of top army officers said to be involved in these destabilizing efforts (Envio transition"

Contradictions

168

1988,

power

14).

in

The dominant 1983,

fraction

many having

was

the generation that

came

into

received counterinsurgency training not

only from the United States but also from the most aggressively antiCommunist U.S. allies, Israel and Taiwan. The dissidents were younger front-line officers (Oficiales de la ultraright,

engaged

Montana) who, together with the civilian However, the divisions remained interviews, insofar as all factions were

in golpista activity.

quite relative, as revealed in

committed to winning the war. Pro- and anticoup factions within the ruling coalition reached an uneasy compromise: destabilize the Cerezo government just short of overthrowing it. Through this process, the Right gained compliance with most of its demands: no attempt to limit the activities of right-wing terrorists in or out of the security forces, no talk of land reform, no new taxes, no dialogue with the guerrillas, no relations with socialist countries, no regional policies favorable to the Sandinistas. In short, these coup attempts, cumulatively a "coup in stages," became a form of struggle within the ruling coalition.

What were

the underlying sources of disunity within the ruling coali-

was no fundamental disagreement, as all tendencies believed that it was necessary "to wage war to prevent war" (Schirmer 1989). However, as will be seen, there remained serious divergences over who should pay the cost of the war, and who was responsible for the failure to win. The latter became particularly acrimonious after the 1987-1988 army campaign, promised as a tion? First, in regard to the counterinsurgency war, there

"final offensive," but in fact

—

unable to contain intensified guerrilla activ-

which the field officers held Gramajo responsible. Second, there was a serious difference in regard to the civilian government, with the Gramajo faction seeing it as necessary to the counterinsurgency project, in terms of getting foreign aid and achieving internal stability and economic recovery. Others in the ruling coalition viewed civilian rule as a chance for the class enemy (the popular sectors) ity

to

a failure for

regroup; because the

army could not control this process, they was an illusion. By 1988, there

concluded, Gramajo's "national stability"

was also generalized discontent with the Cerezo government: In interviews and unpublished documents during 1988, many of those who claimed credit for having put him in power argued that he had squandered the opportunity through indecision, incompetence, and corruption. Third, no one in the ruling coalition advocated serious structural reforms, but those allied with Cerezo saw the need for reformist rhetoric. There was a major disagreement over taxes not "tax reform," in the sense of revamping the tax structure, but closing loopholes and increasing government revenue. The bourgeoisie as a class has battled with every government since the 1960s over taxes. The dispute erupted into open

—

Contradictions

169

when the bourgeoisie staged a work stoppage government's tax package; in this case, the government persisted, but promised to make no further "reforms." Underlying the tax battle were divisions over the role of the state in running the economy and the role of the agro-export bourgeoisie in determining state policy (OP No. 12), which sparked anew the mutual suspicions between the bourgeoisie and the army. The army insisted warfare in September 1987, to protest the

was no longer

and exhorted the latter to de Guatemala 1987). Meanwhile, sectors of the bourgeoisie expressed doubts about the capacity of the army and its civilian allies to run the state or to overcome the economic crisis. They also feared that the army's call for more taxes foreshadowed greater state intervention in the economy. Fourth, while united in its opposition to taxes and suspicions of anything reformist, the bourgeoisie was also internally divided on some issues. The civilian ultraright viewed the Christian Democrats as "watermelons" (green on the outside, red on the inside), bearers of Marxism and Liberation Theology, and "sandino-comunistas" who would perpetuate themselves in power and lay the groundwork for "democratic socialism." Hence, they continually sought to overthrow the Cerezo government. Other factions of the bourgeoisie, both traditional and "New Right," were more interested in protecting their economic interests within the electoral system. Although generally non-golpista, these latter groups were not committed to civilian government in principle; indeed, their vacillations about the best way to protect their economic interests accounted for much of Guatemala's instability. Fifth, there were profound divergences over Guatemala's role in the Central American region, and the policy of "Active Neutrality" toward Nicaragua. The dispute cut across military/civilian lines, because this policy originated with the military governments of 1982-1985, and became particularly divisive within the army. As will be seen in Chapter 13, this reflected disagreement not only about coexistence with the Sandinistas but also about the internal implications of that regional policy. Proponents of Active Neutrality saw it as being in the "national interest," while their opponents saw this policy toward Nicaragua as inconsistent with antisubversive policies in Guatemala. that

it

a tool of the oligarchy

collaborate in financing the

war

(Ejercito

Civilian Politics as

"The Continuation

One

of

War by Other Means"

most memorable statements of the August 1987 Army pronouncement that in Guatemala, "we are reversing Clausewitz: Here, politics is the continuation of war by other means." of the

Forum was

the

170

Contradictions

In theory, the parties, or the "political class,"

as

some

call

it,

could

have played an important role in a period of "democratic transition" under Cerezo, and at a time of economic crisis (Torres Rivas 1985a). But in practice, the parties by and large subordinated themselves to the army, accepting their role in a "reactionary pluralism" that excluded the Left.

The Christian Democratic Party had been pursuing a strategy of cogovernment with the army since the 1970s, and this was certainly the basis for its 1985 campaign. In itself, however, this would not have required a surrender of the party's autonomy. Cerezo came into office with an impressive electoral mandate; and even within the limits set by his alliances with the bourgeoisie and the army, he could have found considerable room for maneuver if for no other reason, because the army had deliberately paved the way for him (or someone like him) to take office and needed him politically to achieve its own objectives. He could have done far more to build on a popular base that was mobilizing to fight for its own interests (see Chapter 12) as a counterweight to military and oligarchic pressures. This potential autonomy was greatly reduced by the various coup attempts of 1988-1989. The other political parties also functioned by accepting the army's terms. When the army initiated the "political opening" of the mid-1980s, these parties (even those that had been functioning from exile) accepted the deal offered to them by the army: participation within the limits dictated by the counterinsurgency war. For the 1985 election, this meant that none of the parties proposed any serious economic reforms or restrictions on the military; all accepted the army's premise that "the subversives must be eliminated."

—

was problematic for the traditional parties (MLN, PID, CAN, UCN, etc.) which represented primarily one or another faction

None

of this

For the center-left parties, mainly the PSD,

of the ruling coalition.

raised serious questions:

How

it

could they develop a social base in the

popular classes, while simultaneously accepting the army's

rule, prior-

and following the logic of co-government? They remained on the horns of the dilemma throughout the Cerezo period. Their effectiveness as fortifiers of the "democratic process" was further weakened by internal fragmentation (just as a similar process was taking place within the Christian Democratic Party). At a time when objective conditions should have favored their growth as the only visible and legal instruments of progressive politics, the parties of the "democratic Left" proved less effective than those of the Right, at least in the short run, in taking advantage of the space left by the discrediting of the Christian Democratic government. itizing participation in

the electoral game,

Contradictions

171

Theoretical Issues: State and

Counterinsurgency State Revisited Civilian Counterinsurgency State?

From

the mid-1960s until 1985,

Guatemala was recognized

archetypical counterinsurgency state.

Guatemalan (a)

as the

among many

controversial

and actors is the application of this concept Cerezo regime. Questions are raised on the following

political analysts

to the civilian

grounds:

More

it

is

the regime, rather than the state, that

was counter-

now

has been changed by elections); (b) the concept of a civilian counterinsurgency state forces the category and renders it meaningless by being used to explain both military and civilian governments; (c) it overdetermines one aspect of the Cerezo period (the insurgent (and

military-counterinsurgent), sacrificing other aspects, including the intro-

duction of formal democracy; (d) this focus becomes a substitute for class analysis; (e)

initional" as

counterinsurgency

is

"instrumental" rather than "def-

an aspect of the counterrevolutionary

Although these concerns are

state.

valid, the concept, flexibly

extremely useful in regard to the present period.

viewed, remains

First,

historically,

it

describes important elements of continuity between different regimes in the last

two decades; variations have been more

in the

form taken by

different regimes than in the essential character of the state.

One

of the

most important aspects is continuity in the class basis of state power, that is, domination by the monopolistic fractions of the bourgeoisie, which include transnational capital and top officials of the army, as well as sectors of the Guatemalan financial, industrial, and agricultural bourgeoisie (Aguilera Peralta 1981a, 33, 40). The counterinsurgency state is, in the end, a project not simply of the army but of the ruling coalition. Second, to refer to the Cerezo regime as a civilian continuation of the counterinsurgency state describes better than any other conception I have found the origins and the priority concerns of this regime, with all its contradictions and nuances. Third, the concept expresses the fact that the army's project has failed in its

attempt to become "legitimate"

even

after the election, the political

in the eyes of the people; hence,

system is still based primarily on coercion rather than consensus. Fourth, it is an alternative to the thesis underlying U.S. policy that the 1985 election constituted almost automatically and ipso facto a "transition to democracy," which the Cerezo regime fully "consolidated." Certainly, as seen above, the reintroduction of electoral democracy changed some aspects of Guatemalan politics, but not the fundamentals. Although the concept of "counterinsurgency state" remains useful for the above reasons, it should be viewed as a heuristic concept, and one

372

Contradictions

which describes the dominant aspect

of the counterrevolutionary state

Perhaps it would be more accurate to think of the term as shorthand for the counterinsurgent character of the counterrevolutionary state, which has been its dominant characteristic time rather than

at this

end

since the I

rule

its

totality.

of the 1960s.

have emphasized that the distinction between military and is

civilian

not absolute in a situation like Guatemala's, but quite relative.

Nevertheless, civilian counterinsurgency states such as Guatemala under

Cerezo are characterized by particular contradictions: They have a dual between popular demands for democracy and the requirements of counterinsurgency, between pressures for a genuine democratic opening and constraints upon that opening. Factors affecting this balance include serious economic crisis, which creates its own social dislocations; political changes resulting from the return to civilan government; and new contradictions created by the "opening" itself, insofar as the space opened up by the lessening of repression is inevitably filled by popular demands for change (see Chapter character, reflecting a dialectical balance

12).

"Permanent Counterinsurgency" or Permanent Crisis?

Among

the analysts of contemporary Guatemala,

some have taken

the notion of "counterinsurgency state" a step farther, positing a thesis of

"permanent counterinsurgency":

The Army's

—

is permanent counterinsurgency the evolution of a around the Army, and an Army consolidated around a

project

state consolidated

long-range strategy of counterinsurgency. strong

state. Its

.

.

.

The Army

is

building the

building blocks are counterinsurgency, on the one hand,

and the legitimacy of civilian government, on the other. The strong state aims to reduce the destabilizing effects of a sovereignty divided There is no reason why permanent between the Army and the oligarchy. counterinsurgency cannot be the way of life for whole generations. There is no reason why it cannot be achieved within a framework of law and legitimacy (Anderson and Simon 1987, 44-46). .

.

.

The authors

.

.

.

.

.

.

done a great service by countering the government as "democratic" and by not taking army propaganda at face value; their emphasis on the sophistication of army strategy, combined with their documentation of the army's conduct, is invaluable. For that very reason, and because this thesis is implicit within most of the English-language literature on human rights violations in Guatemala, it deserves to be examined critically.

many

of this thesis have

justifications of the civilian

Contradictions

173

plan as reality: "this wholly the result of military will" (p. 40). But explaining current realities simply in terms of the strategy of one (albeit dominant) player is overly deterministic. The fact that the army publicly projects itself as invincible (and as legitimate) does not make it so. The myth of Guatemala's "super-army" has been nourished by another myth, propagated actively by the army itself: that the Guatemalan armed forces defeated the guerrilla insurgency of the early 1980s "on its own" (i.e., without U.S. assistance). As will be seen in Chapter 13, this is a misleading Indirectly, the authors accept the military's

1.

[political]

opening

is

simplification of reality.

By overemphasizing the army's goal of consolidating itself as "the of state and society" and describing the state as "dominated from the inside by the army," the "permanence" theorists grant a kind of absolute autonomy to the army. In my view, the army is one player in a larger class struggle, whose outcome is far from determined (see Chapter 12 and Part 3). In order to explain the instabilities that have emerged in practice, the army's role must be understood in relation to other class forces within the ruling coalition and in relation to resurgent popular movements. (For a general critique of state-centered 2.

central institution

theories, see Torres Rivas 1989a, 11.) 3.

The proponents

gency

is

of this thesis argue that

permanent counter insur-

"the ultimate basis of the strong state" (defined previously as

"the ability of the state, directed by the military to carry out its security and economic agenda," p. 15). They argue, further, that the "strength" of this state comes from its repressive ability combined with the "legitimacy" conferred by the civilian government. But the state's "strength" is measured not only by its ability to repress but also by the breadth and depth of its base of support in society; and while the Guatemalan army may be expanding its "base" or alliances among politicians and professionals, this is certainly not the case with respect to Guatemala's 87 percent majority. In the words of Torres Rivas, a strong state is one "enjoying social support and consensus, where 'civil society' maintains and reproduces the 'internalized acceptance of institutions and laws.'

But a state that substitutes brute force for class

more than an armed

state

—

difficult to destroy,

hegemony is nothing but vulnerable, none-

theless" (1989a, 131; see also Figueroa Ibarra 1983, Sarti 1987).

In the spirit of avoiding a reified or fetishized notion of the "strong state"

based simply on

its

repressive capacity (see also Flora and Torres

"permanence" theorists Guatemalan army has made itself legitimate. Anderson and Simon maintain that legitimacy "combines moral factors with such Rivas 1989),

I

also question the assertion of the

that the

.

.

.

non-moral factors as simply ruling for a long time" (1987, 35), citing Eastern Europe as another example. Events in 1989-1990 have disproven

174

Contradictions

such notions about Eastern Europe, and

I

same

think the

be true

will

of Guatemala.

Rather than "permanent counterinsurgency," Guatemala's situation

can best be analyzed as "permanent crisis." This suggests the need to analyze the historical limits of the counterinsurgency state, that is, the

new

challenges that even the most repressive state apparatus has been

unable to meet. That state must be seen in historical perspective, born in response to crisis,

and

still

under challenge.

"Army Reformism?" In the discussion

about the period since 1982, there are many shades armed forces in Guatemala's

of interpretation about the role of the "transition." In regard to the

1982-1985 period, some analysts have

used the notion of "military reformism" or "counterinsurgent reformism" to describe the departure from the failed, purely terrorist approach that reached its natural exhaustion under Lucas Garcia (e.g., Figueroa Ibarra

More

1986).

precise

is

the related but

distinct

concept of "military

transformism," meaning the need to transform the army into an effective

apparatus for conducting the war and maintaining hegemony in the state.

In sectors of the bourgeoisie, "transformism" indicates the non-

New

reformist modernization undertaken by 151). In either case,

"transformism"

is

to preserve the status quo, to avoid

Right sectors (Sarti 1988,

the last resort of the ruling coalition

making reforms

(see also

Rosada

1989, 13). I

find this conceptualization preferable,

that the counterinsurgent project

structural reforms,

and

and more

because

avoids implying

flexible in

Secondly, this formulation

relations is

more

regard to the dynamics of class alliances

class conflicts involved in the counterinsurgency project.

A more

recent formulation, replicating these important nuances in

the interpretation of the counterinsurgency project, of the state" to

it

and hence avoids elevating the army's public

rhetoric into analytical categories.

precise

first,

had any serious intention of making

— referring

to the adaptation of the

is

the "modernization

counterinsurgency project

forms that are more adequate to the modalities of class domination

in the late 1980s

and

that incorporate the

mechanisms

of politics (political

under a civilian regime (CERG 1986a, 18-19; Figueroa Ibarra in La Otra Guatemala [OG] No. 4, 18). This formulation makes clear that modernization does not mean democratization. It also reminds us that the primary issue is not "military versus

maneuver)

that are so important

civilian" but counterinsurgency as a project of the ruling coalition overall, in

which

civilians

have played an important role from the

start.

—

Contradictions

175

Notes 1.

The return

to civilian rule in'

1980s has sparked

anew

many

countries in Latin America during the

the controversies over whether (or under

what conditions)

any progress is possible without basic structural reform. One focus of debate has been the thesis that a more viable and desirable strategy than social revolution is the nonrevolutionary route of institutionalizing limited political democracy even recognizing that this entails a "trade-off," i.e., giving up on the struggle for social/economic equality (see O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead 1986). Recognizing the significant differences between the Southern Cone and Central America, O'Donnell does not make the argument for a "nonrevolutionary transition" in Central America. However, other analysts have attempted to make an argument that implicitly shares the same basic assumption, i.e., that political (representative) democracy can be analyzed apart from a broader conception of democracy which includes social/economic equality and popular or mass participation in fighting for such equality. (For a variety of positions, see articles in Drake and Silva 1986; Malloy and Seligson 1987; Booth and Seligson 1989.) By contrast, I believe that, although the two conceptions can be definitionally separated, any empirical analysis of the Central American cases must examine political democracy in relation to social/economic issues and political participation by the majority classes. Based on historical and current experience in Central America, I have argued elsewhere (Jonas 1989) that in countries marked by such extreme social inequalities, even limited political democracy cannot be meaningfully attained solely through interelite consensus or pact, in the absence of redistributive structural reforms. 2.

The consejos represented

a classic

example of the "fusion of the repressive

apparatuses with other apparatuses" of the "militarized state" (Lowy and Sader 1985,

on

9).

their

Alternative views of the consejos in Guatemala placed less emphasis

counterinsurgency function: The government billed them as institutions

"community

participation" in development; opposition parties viewed them an invention of the Christian Democrats to build their partisan political machine at the grassroots; and the extreme Right even viewed them as an of

as

invitation to leftist organizers.

12 Popular Bloc and Popular/ Revolutionary Convergence

Even more powerful than the coup

activity of the ultraright as a

source of instability in Guatemala's reconstituted counterinsurgency state

was the

structural

economic

crisis of

the 1980s, aggravating the country's

already severe social contradictions. Cumulatively, as seen in Chapters crisis and war produced important modifications in and ultimately brought into existence a new social force: the 87 percent majority of the population living below the official poverty line. Simply put, during the late 1980s, the power of the economic

6

and

economic

7,

the class structure

crisis to

regenerate social ferment

among

that 87 percent majority

proved

greater than the ability of the counterinsurgency state to repress

Structural Impoverishment:

The

central

social

A

it.

Statistical Profile

characteristic

of

Guatemala remains increasing

concentration of wealth amid pervasive poverty. All of the countries in Central America share this characteristic, but Guatemalan poverty

is

on several counts. First, the inequality of resource and income distribution is greater and has increased very sharply during the 1980s. The percentage of the population living below the poverty line jumped from 79 percent in 1980 to 87 percent in 1987 (IC 11/9/ 89, using CEPAL figures); the Guatemalan Labor Minister in 1989 used particularly extreme,

the figure of 85 percent (Pensamiento Propio [PP] 4/89, 47). Additionally,

according to

CEPAL and

U.S.

poverty (unable to afford a

AID, the percentage living in extreme diet) increased from 52 percent

minimum 277

Popular Bloc

178

in

1980 to over two-thirds of the population in 1987, and up to 72

percent by 1990. (The generally cautious World Bank cited figures of

66 percent in the

Income

city,

74 percent in the countryside in 1987.)

distribution, always very unequal,

worsened

significantly

from

1970 to the mid-1980s: The wealthiest 20 percent of the population,

which had received 47 percent of national income in 1970, absorbed 57 percent of national income by 1984; and the wealthiest 10 percent increased its share from 41 percent in 1980 to 44 percent in 1987 (CEPAL in IC 11/9/89). Meanwhile, the poorest 50 percent fell from receiving 24 percent of national income in 1970 to 18 percent in 1984 (Inforpress 1985; similar figures given by the World Bank). In the countryside during the 1980s, the top 2 percent of the rural population was receiving 40 percent of income, while 83 percent of the rural population was receiving 35 percent (Ministry of

Economy

figures, cited in Painter 1987, 13).

Guatemala's land distribution is the most unequal in Latin America. The largest 2 percent of Guatemala's farms cover 67 percent of usable land, while 80 percent of farms account for 10 percent of the land (Central American Historical Institute [CAHI] Update 8/27/87). Other studies cite the official

Guatemalan government

figures

from 1979: The 54

largest 3 percent of farms cover 65 percent of arable land, while

percent of farms (less than 1.4 hectares,

i.e.,

below the minimum

for

being productive) use 4 percent of arable land. In another indicator of the worsening situation, in

1976 50 percent of peasant income came

had dropped to 25 percent (Envio American country that has 1989, 25). Yet Guatemala The 1985 Constitution made not adopted any land redistribution law. oligarchy eliminating the reference by a major concession to the landed from cultivation of land;

by 1988, is

in

this

the only Central

previous constitutions to the "social function of property."

Guatemala also has one of the world's most regressive tax systems, with less than 20 percent being direct taxes on income and wealth. Tax revenue actually fell between 1979 and 1984, from 9 percent to 5.3 percent of GDP; meanwhile, 83 percent of taxes are indirect (e.g., sales taxes) (IC 3/14/85; Dunkerley 1988, 499). The second particularity of Guatemalan poverty is the number of social indicators on which

it

ranks worst. According to a 1987

UNICEF

report,

"Guatemala has the worst illiteracy rate in Central America, the highest number of infants with low birth weight, and the lowest percentage of pupils enrolled in the education system" (Painter 1987, xvi). In the countryside, 85 percent of women are illiterate. Meanwhile, Guatemala has done the least to reduce illiteracy between 1950 and 1980. A 1982 UNICEF study combining infant mortality, life expectancy, and literacy rates

concluded that Guatemala had the lowest "physical quality of

index in Central America, third lowest in Latin America.

life"

Popular Bloc

179

Guatemala's infant mortality rate of 80 per 1000 is the highest in March 1989 figures from the government planning office, 73 percent of infants under the age of five are malCentral America. According to

nourished.

As

of 1981,

more than 70 percent

of deaths of children under

the age of five were from easily preventable diseases; figures

show

that other countries

and World Bank with similar per capita incomes and

fewer resources have a better record (Painter 1987, 4-5). Guatemala also

has the highest maternal mortality rate and by

far the

lowest ratio of

doctors per inhabitant (1:8600).

The

third particularity of

Guatemala

By

virtually

far

worse than the national average.

all

is

the ethnic

component

of poverty.

indicators, statistics for the indigenous population are Life expectancy for Indians

is

sixteen

worse among Indian children, and only 39 percent of the Indian population is literate, compared years lower than for ladinos, malnutrition

is

far

Guatemala's infant mortality rate of 80 per 1000 reaches 160 per 1000 in the highlands Indian areas, according to a 1982 AID study (Painter 1987, xvii, 4). Poverty is also being feminized,

to 61 percent for ladinos.

most social indicators are worse for women (as discussed in Chapter and below). Many of these staggering problems are the result of long-standing inequalities (e.g., land tenure, tax structure); but unemployment, runaway inflation, and a dramatic loss of purchasing power have been severely aggravated by the wars and the economic crises of the 1980s, the decade when half of the growth of the previous thirty years was lost. Open unemployment increased more than 600 percent during the 1980s. Just a few years ago, 50 percent of the economically active population was said to be unemployed or underemployed. But more recent studies indicate that only 35-38 percent of the economically active population is fully employed, with the formal economy able to absorb only one out of every five youths entering the labor market each year (Envio as

7

1989, 25; Inforpress 1988c, 80). In a country long characterized

by

financial stability, prices almost

quintupled since the mid-1970s, especially for items of basic necessity. Real wages and purchasing power, which had already fallen by 41 percent between 1970 and 1980 (Envio 1986, percent from mid-1983 through late 1986

6),

— more

steadily declined (46 than one-third of the

decline after Cerezo took office). The decline in real income for the popular classes continued even as the economy was supposedly "recovering" during 1987 and 1988 (CEPAL and government figures; IC

8/17/89; Inforpress 1988c, 79-80). As a consequence, real consumption between 1982 and 1987 Inforpress 1988a, IV: 12; similar figures from CEPAL). Purchasing power in 1989 was 22 percent of what it had been in 1972 (ACEN-S1AG No. Ill); the deteriorated significantly (20 percent

—

Popular Bloc

180

situation

worsened dramatically

after the neoliberal

economic paquetazos

of 1989 (see Chapter 5), with food prices (half of the family budget)

consumer

increasing 37 percent over the

price index (Envio 1990, 54;

ACEN-S1AG No. 142). Thus decade during which, according to numerous studies, the poverty levels of 1980 were doubled during the last five years (ACEN-SIAG No. see also Universidad de San Carlos 1989,

ended

a

140).

Austerity Protests and the Cerezo Response

Cerezo responded

extreme problems of the majority of the

to these

population with a mixture of demagoguery about concertacion, or conciliation of class interests (while in practice, engaging in serious negotiations

only with the bourgeoisie), inaction, intimidation, and repression. Overall, the Cerezo government's approach to ameliorating Guatemala's economic crisis reflected a clear orientation toward the needs of the private sector. By 1988-1989, inflation was being controlled by holding down wages but not prices. In early 1988, minimum wages were raised for the first time since 1980, but only a fraction of what would have been necessary to counteract the

sharp deterioration of purchasing power. The currency

was stabilized, construction

was stimulated, "nontraditional

expanded, as well as trade with

all

exports''

were

possible partners (including socialist

and the revival of the Central American Common Market was no global program for reducing unemployment, and social services were cut back. In short, economic recovery for the private sector was accompanied by austerity for the popular classes. But austerity programs proved inherently destabilizing. Already before Cerezo took office, while Guatemala was still under countries),

became

a priority. But there

the Mejia Victores military dictatorship, the in

August 1985. Guatemala was

in a precipitous rise in prices

export earnings, capital flight

in the

first

austerity protest exploded

midst of economic

and unemployment, of over $1 billion and

crisis,

evidenced

a serious decline in

a rapidly increasing

Under pressure from the IMF to reduce the budget deficit and public spending, the government raised urban bus fares by 50 percent, bread prices by 100 percent and milk prices by 38 percent. In response, students, shantytown dwellers, housewives, and market women took to the streets. The new independent trade union confederation UNSITRAGUA (Union Sindical de Trabajadores de Guatemala Trade Union Unity of Guatemalan Workers) announced a general strike for pay increases on a par with the skyrocketing cost of living. The movement was backed by government employees technically prohibited from striking, and even by CUS-G, the "official" union confederation, formed by foreign debt.

—

Popular Bloc

181

AFL-CIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development during Montt regime. Although the initial call was for peaceful demonstrations, the government's violent response provoked bus burnings and riots on a scale not seen since October 1978. The government ultimately regained control of the situation through repression (twelve deaths, fifty injuries, over 1,000 arrests, army occupation of the university, and over $1 million in destruction of university property). Nevertheless, the government was forced to freeze the prices of basic necessities, to rescind bus fare increases, and to raise the salaries of public employees. This marked the

the Rios

the beginning of the reconstruction of labor organization (IC 9/12/85).

The next serious upsurge occurred after Cerezo took office, when 150-200,000 government employees went on strike in April 1987, paralyzing the public sector. Their controls,

and

demands included wage

increases, price

legal recognition of their unions. Ultimately, the

government

refused to grant their economic demands, but the breadth of support for the strike

and the organizational advances were

significant. Protests

throughout 1987 in both the public and private sector, the latter including a workers' occupation of the facilities at the LUNAFIL thread factory for over a year. These advances were finally consolidated at the beginning of 1988, with the formation of the Unidad de Accion Sindical y Popular (UASP), a coalition of major union federations (except those in the CGTG confederation directly affiliated with the Christian Democratic machine),

and

strikes continued

the university student organization,

AEU, human

rights organizations,

and the revived peasant federation, CUC, still branded "subversive" by the government. Of the union organizations, the most important included:

UNSITRAGUA, composed

largely of unions representing private sector

production workers;

CUS-G, representing

and founded as an

"official"

agricultural

and urban workers

union in the Rios Montt

era, but joining with other unions in UASP after 1988; confederations of white-collar public sector workers and bank workers (FENASTEG and FESEBS, respectively); and several independent unions, one of the most important being the union of electrical workers, STINDE. All told, less than 5

work force was unionized. The January 1988 UASP mobilizations, the largest in ten years, demanded increases in minimum wages and opposed government attempts to raise electricity rates. By March, UASP had demonstrated sufficient strength to force the government to sign a series of agreements addressing worker demands (price controls, salaries, working conditions, human rights, legalization of CUC, etc.). In practice, the government never fulfilled even these minimal concessions, leading labor organizations to regard the March Accords as a manipulation. percent of the

Popular Bloc

182

By the summer

government was lifting controls on prices and transport, provoking a new series of UASP protests. During the summer and fall of 1988, even at a time of rightist pressures and increased repression, street demonstrations of 30-40,000 people occurred regularly, building up toward an attempted general strike in the public sector. Although far from strong enough to paralyze the economy, the strike was a surprising show of force and an important experience in building the movement. Coming on the heels of two rightwing coup attempts, the escalating popular mobilizations served as a counterpressure on the Cerezo government. In January 1989, 50-70,000 agricultural workers on the Southern of 1988, the

of basic necessities

Coast staged a strike at the height of the cane-cutting season. Like the February 1980 strike, it was led by CUC and incorporated both temporary and permanent workers. The major demand was for higher minimum wages, which had not been increased since 1980, despite a 400 percent increase in the cost of living. The strike was broken after a week, as

army and

the government stood squarely behind the growers, sealing with troops, and militarizing the sugar refineries. However, and CUC itself, just beginning to act publicly again, after the strike received broad support from years of having been driven underground the

off the area

—

—

other sectors of Guatemalan society. Despite government charges that

CUC

was "subversive" and

illegal,

top church officials took this op-

portunity to emphasize the legitimacy of

CUC

by including

it

in the

National Dialogue (see "Interpreting Guatemala's Popular Movements"). Finally, in the strike.

summer

As so often

in

of 1989, 50,000 teachers staged a

Guatemalan

two-month

history, the teachers' strike quickly

spread to other sectors, primarily state employees (postal, telephone and telegraph, and electrical workers). In the end, the government was able

manipulate the situation to its advantage, and the strikers won nothing. observer noted a "closing of the space for negotiation" that existed an impression at the beginning of the Cerezo government (IC 8/17/89) that was confirmed by a wave of right-wing violence and repression against strike participants in its aftermath. Underneath a veneer of militance, moreover, many of the weaknesses of the labor movement to

One

—

surfaced, as will be seen.

Crises of Uprooted Populations and

Guatemala's

new popular

bloc

is

War the product not only of austerity,

but of Guatemala's multiple crises. As seen above, war and economic crisis

Of

during the 1980s uprooted

the

1

to

1.2

a significant

percentage of the population.

million people displaced by the

emigrated abroad (mainly to Mexico

war

alone, 200,000

— of whom only around

13 percent

Popular Bloc

183

have returned by 1990), 100,000 to the Southern Coast, 150,000 to Guatemala City, and 750,000 were displaced within the highlands (mainly in army-controlled model villages, but tens of thousands in the mountains in "communities in resistance," considered subversive by the army) (Inforpress 1988c, 107-110; Manz 1988). These displacements did not

end

in the mid-1980s; 10,000 Indians in the Ixil area

were affected by

the army's 1987 offensive (Envio 1989, 28; Iglesia Guatemalteca en Exilio [IGE]

1989).

new waves

The ongoing

situations of

war and

crisis

also generated

Mexico but also to the United States (California, Florida, Texas). Although precise figures do not exist, there were 100-200,000 in the United States as of 1985 (Washington Office on Latin America [WOLA] 1989a, 50), and the numbers have been rising. Within Guatemala, the displaced populations swelled the ranks of the popular bloc in the city. As seen in Chapter 6, the large migration to the capital as a result of the war, coming on top of migrations from the 1976 earthquake and economic causes, led the city's population to double between 1976 and 1987, creating a broader axis of urban poverty. The human crush came to be felt everywhere in the capital in busses, parks, and stores jamming downtown streets with vendors of everything imaginable. On the outskirts of the city, shantytowns have expanded rapidly, with one-quarter to one-half million people precise statistics of migration abroad, not only to

—

—

are not available

— living

them through land

—

in precarious squatter settlements,

invasions, both organized

one-third of the inhabitants of Guatemala settlements (Levenson 1989,

5).

active population living in the

of

1987,

City lived in precarious

One study found huge

many

and spontaneous. By

economically shantytown, 51 percent

that, of the

El Mexquital

worked, of whom only 44 percent had stable, salaried jobs (the rest "self-employed" and employed in the informal sector) (Centro de Estudios

Urbanos y Regionales [CEUR] 1987a, 100). Increasingly, as in other Latin American countries (Portes and Johns 1986, 382), these communities began to include people from the working class and even the "middle class."

But the majority were poor. According to one survey, five-sixths of

Q300

month; 75 percent of the dwellers had deficient services or no services, with 83 percent needing health centers and 64 percent needing drainage; and there were multiple deaths from typhoid as a result of lack of safe water (Central America Report [CAR] 12/19/ 86). There has been a marked feminization of poverty, as half of the families in the huge El Mexquital shantytown, for example, are headed by women. Most homes in these shantytowns are in the mass of cardboardand-tin shacks, with virtually no basic services. Epitomizing their prefamilies earned less than

a

lived in poverty, 50 percent in extreme poverty, 82 percent

Popular Bloc

184

cariousness,

homes

in

these

settlements have been

sliding

into

the

during the long rainy season. Another artifact of growing poverty in the capital has been the sharp increase of homeless capital's steep ravines

children— between 5,000 and 10,000 by 1990— many of them the over 100,000 war orphans. Those who survive in the streets or the city dump are more fortunate than their companions who are victims of violence (including assassination) by the security forces. street

among

In these shantytowns, organizations of slumdwellers, or pobladores,

began making concrete demands related to housing and services. Running water was secured for one area, for example, after a resident deposited the corpse of a young girl who had died from typhoid on the steps of the National Palace. One study of eighty-eight asentamientos found that 67 percent of the population was organized into one or another community group. However, the potential for popular organization in these neighborhoods has been difficult to realize. Competing with popular organizations in the shantytowns have been a host of religious organizations (some of them fundamentalist and politically right-wing), international agencies, and official or quasi-official organizations. Even the army attempted to establish a "base," with a campaign to organize PACs in the shantytowns. In

the rural areas, the hundreds of thousands of those displaced

within the highlands or to the Southern Coast joined together with

numbers of landless already living there movement for land. Members of over 100 peasant equal

to

form a national

associations formed

national confederation in late 1987, led by Catholic priest Andres Giron and representing half a million landless peasant families nationally, to press the demand for land. Many of the participants had experienced the highlands war of the early 1980s and were now carrying on the struggle to correct Guatemala's great injustices in a new context. President Cerezo, seeking to avoid a confrontation with Guatemala's intractable landed bourgeoisie, had long promised not to undertake any land reform. He proposed instead making land available for peasants to rent or buy; but there were no resources for buying, and renting was on exploitative a

terms.

Cerezo's one experiment in

"land distribution" was revealing.

In

response to the demands of the pro-tierra movement, the government distributed six farms on the Southern Coast to 6,200 peasant families. But the beneficiaries were left without credit, tools, or technical assistance,

without health care, nurses, or vaccines to treat rampant diseases, without schools or teachers a monument to lack of governmental concern. Land

—

autonomous organizations were defined by the government as "illegal" and repressed. In short, by the late 1980s, the land issue remained unaddressed, the movement was spreading and invasions carried out by other

Popular Bloc

185

weakened by organizational and ideological problems, vulnerability to government manipulation, and so on (Cambranes 1988). Guatemala's reconstituted popular movement also included human rights groups organized around demands that were openly political and directly related to the ongoing counterinsurgency war. Their issues were some of the most explosive, because of the magnitude of the human rights crimes. The most prominent was the Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM), an organization of (largely indigenous) wives and mothers of the "disappeared" and other human rights victims, formed during the a potential source of pressure, although

latter part of the

Mejia Victores regime. Under the slogan "Alive you

we want them back," GAM represented the basic government investigate the fate of the thousands of "disappeared" civilians and set up governmental organs to deal with human rights violations; implicitly, their campaigns raised the issue of holding military officials responsible for their crimes. Such a demand would not be fulfilled, given that Cerezo was only allowed to take power by promising to respect the army's "self-amnesty" and not to address this issue in any way; but GAM's very existence and continual agitation on human rights issues was a constant reminder of great unredressed took them, alive

demand

that the

grievances. In the highlands as well, several organizations issues of the continuing counterinsurgency war.

Runujel Junam ("Everyone

is

Equal"), founded to

Indians to resist forced service in the the 1985 Constitution).

PAC

were formed

Among

By mid-1989,

to address

was CERJ

empower highlands

PACs (supposedly at least

these

voluntary, under

7,000 Indians were refusing

duty, despite reprisals including assassination, kidnapping, intim-

idation, charges of being "subversive,"

and so on. Another organization,

CONAVIGUA

(Coordinadora Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala), was formed to express the demands of thousands of highlands widows; their organizing, along with the presence of over 100,000 children left orphans

(some church sources cite over 250,000), served as a grim reminder of the changes in family structure wrought by the war. A Council of Displaced Guatemalans, CONDEG, represented 100,000 internal refugees, mostly living in the capital and on the Pacific Coast. Christian Base Communities and other grassroots religious organizations, both Catholic and Protestant, began to reappear (Noticias de Guatemala [NG] 10/89). Finally, at least 25,000 Indians have resisted the army's relocation/ control programs in the 1980s by fleeing to remote areas of the departments of El Quiche and Huehuetenango and forming permanent "communities in resistance" (CPR) (Gurriaran 1989; Manz 1988). After surviving for years in silence, these "communities of population in resistance" held

Popular Bloc

186

their first general

assembly and issued

their first public statements in

1990.

Interpreting Guatemala's Popular

Movements

As of late 1989, Guatemala's re-forming popular movements suffered from many serious weaknesses, as identified by participants and leaders in interviews and documents: despite major overall advances, continuing problems of unity and new divisions fomented by co-optive strategies such as solidarismo in the labor movement; as-yet weak links between the unions of the formal proletariat and the huge unorganized informal proletariat; vulnerability to government manipulations, as shown in the March 1988 "Accord" and again in the 1989 teachers' strike; insufficient experienced leadership or cadre, as a result of the years of repression;

and above

all,

continuing vulnerability to the endless stream of kid-

nappings, disappearances, death threats, and assassinations. This vul-

was underscored by the ebb in the movement following the campaign against popular leaders in the fall of 1989. Despite these problems, the popular movements engaged in a slow but steady organizational rebuilding process. They did mobilize people to take to the streets again, after years of terror. They managed to maintain a degree of unity, largely as a result of pressures from the base on the leadership. They also showed growing sophistication about issues that were major stumbling blocks in the past, such as the problem of alliances, for example, between production workers and public sector workers, considered to be (lower) middle class. And even though the backbone of the UASP coalition was the union movement, UASP went far beyond traditional workplace issues in mobilizing general protests nerability terror

against austerity.

main goals was

Insofar as one of their to

to

"keep the spaces open"

serve as a counterpressure against the counterinsurgents and the

who were determined

—

them grow these movements economic goals. Furthermore, the human rights issues of the counterinsurgency war, and above all the need for a negotiated end to the war, came to be reflected in their demands, despite widespread fear of reprisals. This also meant taking up the demands of the indigenous populations, the main victims of the ultraright,

were fighting

not to let

for political as well as

war. In short,

Guatemala

is

seeing the gradual emergence of a "popular

bloc" (bloc of "popular classes"). As seen in Chapter

7,

this

formulation

attempts to address changing realities with a flexible conception of class that incorporates ethnic

expression of this bloc

and gender dimensions. is

the

A

significant political

popular/revolutionary convergence or

Popular Bloc

"front," It

187

which is being formed outside the traditional political parties. wide variety of demands, some specific to one constituency,

articulates a

others national in scope. In practice in the late 1980s, as a result of the

lessons learned from 1978-1983 and ongoing repression,

it has become than an explicit "coalition" or alliance (as it was in the early 1980s). But, by contrast to popular movements in countries lacking a revolutionary movement, this convergence is seen

more

a convergence of interests

Guatemala (as in Nicaragua and El Salvador). The existence of popular movements is not new in Guatemala, but they have come to manifest several new features in the mid- to late 1980s. The first is the centrality of the Indians. Once having been awakened in the uprising of the late 1970s, the indigenous majority remains a permanent player in Guatemalan politics, despite the ebbs and flows in its organizations. Further, the double condition of exploitation (compounded by austerity) and ethnic oppression is leaving a decisive mark on these populations not only in the rural highlands but also in their urban settings although it is not yet clear how this will be expressed politically. (The first analytical studies to address the redefinition of Indian identity in Guatemala City are Bastos and Camus 1990 and Perez Sainz 1990.) The second novelty is the protagonism of women, who have been excluded from traditional politics in Guatemala from traditional parties, from elected office (74 out of 3,000 positions 2.5 percent are held by women), from political leadership of any kind, even from voting (70 percent of voters are men) (Ciencia y Tecnologia Para Guatemala [CITGUA] 1989, 4-7; ACEN-SIAG Nos. 113, 149). To overcome this legacy, women have attempted not only to increase their participation in electoral politics but also to organize in workplaces where they are overrepresented (maquiladora industries, schools) and in their communities, around issues of reproduction as well as production. In rural areas, meanwhile, many women have found organizations based on Indian traditions to be more open to them than Western-style political parties (CITGUA 1989, 5; Perez Sainz 1989a). Women have been most prominent in such human rights organizations as GAM, CONAVIGUA, and CONDEG. At all levels, however, women's participation is limited by the traditional problems of discrimination and illiteracy and by the ongoing need for clandestineness (Garcia and Gomariz 1989, II). Third, although urban popular movements appear in the first instance primarily reformist or economist (reivindicativo), there is potential for their radicalization. For one thing, austerity protests tend to become more explosive in authoritarian situations where the poor bear the brunt of crisis and adjustment (Walton 1989; Portes and Johns 1986, 385). as a challenge to the established order in 1

—

— —

—

Popular Bloc

188

and tend toward radicompromise (Wickham-Crowley 1989, 146-147);

Additionally, squatter struggles are land based calization rather than this

could turn out to be true in the city as well. Furthermore, as from the informal proletariat (which is defined by

analytically distinct its

insertion in the labor market, a fundamentally individual or atomizing

definition), pobladores are unified

by

their collective identity as "poor";

elements of collectivity are reinforced in the Guatemalan case by Indian

communal

ties or "solidarity,"

which could be reproduced

in the cities

(Kincaid 1987b, 493), and by the heavily female household- and com-

munity-based logic of "reciprocity" (Perez Sainz 1989a, 75; see also Perez Sainz 1990). A fourth new element is the growing role of the Catholic church within this convergence. As seen above, Catholic Action and the Christian Base Communities influenced by Liberation Theology played a crucial so much so that rightrole in the Indian "awakening" of the 1970s wing fundamentalist Protestant sects were used as part of the counterinsurgency response. Through the mid-1980s, the hierarchy of the Catholic church did not break from its traditionally conservative role, despite pressure from the Conference of Bishops to take a progressive stance. In the late 1980s, after the accession of a new archbishop, Prospero Penados del Barrio, and most notably after their declaration "Clamor por la Tierra" (spring 1988), the Catholic bishops became increasingly outspoken on issues of social justice as well as human rights, and increasingly critical of the government, especially the army. The church authorities adopted a "popular Christianity," previously indentifted with the Church of the Poor, now taking on the demands of the popular movements and contributing the legitimacy of the church (Opazo Bernales 1987). This new role became evident in 1988-1989, when the church became the principal organizer of the National Dialogue, designed to incorporate all sectors of society into discussion of the war and its causes in effect, to pressure the ruling coalition to negotiate with the URNG by articulating the broad consensus on this issue. More recently, the Conference of Evangelical Churches and other Protestant groupings have come to support the dialogue and other progressive campaigns, although some of the fundamentalist sects retain very right-wing po-

—

—

sitions.

Finally, as participants stressed in interviews, the

revolutionary convergence

is

ideologically pluralistic

emerging popular/ and broad enough

to allow the popular movements to follow their own organizational dynamics. CUC, for example, is not an organization "of" the EGP, as 1980s. There is also a new emphasis on it had become in the early decisionmaking from the bottom up, often going beyond a cautious

leadership within popular organizations.

Popular Bloc

Above

all,

like their predecessors, the

movements

189

of the late 1980s

by the state. Because they are forced consequence of repression (despite semi-underground a operate to as having juridical legality), their advances are often imperceptible more at the level of building organization than of winning their demands. Nevertheless, their continued existence and growth is in itself an act of are not corporatist or controllable

—

defiance of the counterinsurgency state.

Resurgence of a Revolutionary Project

By the the

late 1980s, the context for political action

resurgence

of

the

revolutionary movement.

was also shaped by Even while having

much

of that movement's social base in the highlands in the Guatemalan army had been unable to inflict a strategic defeat upon the insurgent forces or to "win" the war definitively, as it

destroyed

early 1980s, the

claimed. Hence, the organizations of the

and remained, even

at their

low

URNG

survived the holocaust

point, the nuclei of future insurgency.

Nevertheless, their inability to resist the army's counteroffensive of the early 1980s,

combined with the recomposition of the counterinsurgency

state in the

mid-1980s, implied a political defeat for the Left, requiring

once again a profound reorganization and redefinition of strategy.

The first challenges to organizational survival were internal. In the wake of the disasters of 1981-1983, several of the organizations underwent divisions over strategy, the most serious being within the PGT and the EGP. The PGT remained virtually paralyzed as a consequence of its successive leadership crises (due to government repression) and internal splits (1978, 1980, 1984), and took years to recover. The EGP had been most severely hit by the army's counteroffensives, leading to disarticulation of three of its guerrilla fronts and serious internal problems; and

in February 1984, a significant group of dissidents split from the EGP. In addition to their criticisms of EGP strategy and conduct of the war and the inadequacy of the EGP's self-criticisms, the dissidents claimed that it was impossible to carry out serious debate over these issues within the organization because of its hierarchical ("verticalist") and overcentralized structure (OP No. 3). The dissident group formed a new organization that emerged publicly in early 1989 as Octubre Revolucionario (in coalition with a faction of the PGT), with the goal of building a new Marxist party (OP No. 15). Despite this fracture, which carried particular weight in international circles, by the end of

1984,

the

EGP had

laid

the basis

for

addressing

participated actively in the recovery of the insurgent

problems and movement.

its

For the URNG as a whole, the mid-1980s were years of difficult, slow but steady advance toward unity of vision and coordination of actions.

290

Popular Bloc

URNG

Most important, the

took on

its

own

"personality" as a unitary

expression of the revolutionary movement, above and beyond the

member

organizations. There were significant modifications in the relationship

among

the different organizations, with

hegemonic

role

greater weight.

outside the

than previously and the

During the years of

URNG,

its

the

EGP

playing a far less

FAR and ORPA

carrying relatively

internal disarray, the

PGT remained

being reincorporated only in 1989.

In regard to the war army by 1982-1983, and

itself,

the initiative

had

clearly

for several years, the insurgent

passed to the

movement was

on the defensive. By 1985, there were signs of renewed ability to sustain a steady level of operations. By mid-1987, the recovery of the movement was evident. The army's pronouncements of having reduced the revolutionary Left to a mere "nuisance" were more propaganda than reality, as belied by the army's own actions. During the second half of 1987, the army underook a major new offensive, Operation Fin de Ano, involving up to 20,000 soldiers and purporting to liquidate the guerrillas by the end of 1987. They engaged in a continuing stream of such counteroffensives during 1988 and 1989, spending up to 49 percent of the national budget on counterinsurgency, according to URNG leaders (Moran, Horn in Centro Exterior de Reportes Informativos sobre Guatemala [CERIGUA] 10/88, 7, 11). (The actual figures are part of "confidential" budget expenditures, which have increased sharply in recent years from Q26.5 million in 1985 to Q127.4 million in 1988, according to Guatemalan newspapers in November 1989.) By late 1989, the URNG had escalated its challenge, inflicting a growing number of casualties on the army and operating in zones close to the capital. In fact, the various coup attempts of 1988-1989 were largely motivated by dissatisfaction within army ranks over the failure to win the war as claimed by the army leadership. At the same time, an essential task, in the URNG was redefining its political strategy view of the election and transition to civilian rule, that is, to a potentially "legitimate" government. The "democratic transition" challenged the insurgents politically, insofar as it gave the government a level of domestic and international credibility that it had not enjoyed for decades. But it also brought an opportunity, a political opening within which the revolutionary Left could take its own initiatives and become a significant

—

—

force in civil society.

At the moment of the 1985 election, the URNG condemned it as a stage of the counterinsurgency plan (URNG communique, 9/85). But very shortly after Cerezo took office, in February 1986, the URNG declared that it would not be an obstacle to a democratizing process if this was the intention of the Cerezo government. In May 1986, the URNG began to clarify its positions about the "minimum bases" for a

new

Popular Bloc

191

democratic solution in Guatemala: restructuring and cleansing of the security forces; elimination of paramilitary bands; trials for human rights

PACs and model villages; and full freedom of and movement in the rural areas (URNG Bulletin No. 1, 11/ These positions became the basis for the first URNG proposal for

criminals; dissolution of

association 86).

government, in October 1986. For the next several a series of such proposals, all based on more the same goals: purging and restructuring of the security forces;

a "dialogue" with the years, the

or less

URNG

made

demilitarization of

(URNG

Guatemalan

society; accountability for

human

rights

"humanization" of the war (observing the Geneva Accords)

atrocities;

1988).

In response, the

government combined escalating military offensives

with refusal to negotiate until the guerrillas "laid down their arms." The one exception came in the wake of the signing of the August 1987 Central American Peace Accords, which prescribed negotiations for all three countries involved in civil wars. Even while the army continued to

maintain that the war in Guatemala was over, obviating the need for talks, it did permit the government to meet with the URNG for

peace

Madrid

— the

such talks in the twenty-seven years of it immediately became evident that this was purely for the purpose of not being accused in international circles of violating the Peace Accords and did not represent a serious interest in negotiations on the government's part; shortly thereafter, both the army and Cerezo reiterated that there would be no further talks, and the army began its "final offensive." The government also kept Guatemala off the agenda at subsequent meetings of Central American presidents. Throughout the late 1980s, there was consistent pressure from most sectors of civil society, including all major political parties except the ultraright MLN, for continued discussions to end the war. Despite the army's intransigent rejection of negotiations, the URNG persisted, and greatly increased its presence in Guatemalan politics. The legitimacy of the URNG's claim to participation in an overall solution was recognized both internally (e.g., by church officials who led the campaign to promote negotiations) and internationally (e.g., Costa Rican President Arias's pressures on Cerezo to begin negotiations). For the URNG, the emphasis on negotiations was part of a broader talks

in

Guatemala's

civil

first

war. However,

modification of strategy. This involved, in the

weight to increasing

political its

first

military capacity. (Simply "laying

unthinkable for a movement that had sustained years; however, military action

began

more same time arms" was

place, giving far

aspects of the struggle, while at the

down

their

itself for

nearly thirty

be redefined in relation to a political settlement.) Secondly, the URNG put greater emphasis on the role of popular sectors and democratic and patriotic forces considered to

Popular Bloc

192

to be strategic allies for solving the country's monumental social problems and building genuine democracy. Furthermore, this multiclass alliance would not necessarily revolve around the URNG as the hegemonic force; the URNG was not demanding revolutionary power but "the participation

of the revolutionary forces" in forging "a

new kind

of power, conceived

together with the progressive, nationalist and truly democratic forces"

Comandantes Monsanto, Moran, Horn, in CERIGUA, 3-4/88 and 10-11/88; PP 10/88 and 3/89). URNG Comandante Pablo (interviews with

Monsanto, answering a question concerning the possibility of

a revo-

lutionary victory, stated in 1988:

The world has changed of revolution.

We

in favor of progress, of

believe that those forces

work

freedom, of democracy, in favor of

our process.

The objective conditions exist in the country for that process to triumph and the subjective conditions are beginning to come about through that dialogue, that process of political participation, of political space which (interview with movement is beginning to win. Comandante Monsanto in Barricada International 9/8/88).

the revolutionary

.

The formulations concerning

alliances reflected

.

new thinking about movement as the

the relationship of revolutionary forces to the popular

reemerged.

latter

On

the one hand,

all

lessons of the late 1970s and early 1980s,

parties

had learned the painful

when some popular organizations

were more exposed to repression because of their open identification with the guerrilla movement. On the other hand, it was also important to overcome the disarticulation that existed in the 1980s between the revolutionary Left and (nonclandestine) popular movements. The chal-

was

lenge

to define a

new

relationship, taking into account a necessary

degree of autonomy of the popular organizations 11-12).

One example

(e.g.,

of this incipient redefinition

was

see

ORPA

1989,

the attempt by

with Cerezo in March 1988, to incorporate the URNG demands for demilitarization and an end to the war not because the URNG "controlled" UASP, but because the popular interests coincided with those demands (La Epoca 3/16/88). Herein lay the hope for the constitution of a popular/revolutionary convergence, to carry the struggle

UASP,

in negotiating

—

into the 1990s.

Notes

am

drawing upon Orlando Nunez Soto's definition of social movements and the organization and mobilization of social subjects around the specific interests pertaining to 1.

I

(1989, 18) as involving "the acquisition of consciousness by

their class or sector." In

terms of their class characterization, "Increasingly, social

Popular Bloc

193

are lining up behind the strategic interests of one class or behind the banners of a political front without losing the particular motivations of their immediate context. In this sense, their political behavior acquires a class character, not so much because it is connected to the immediate interests of a

movements

.

.

.

particular class, but because in

one way or another

revolutionary agenda as a whole.

...

[In

mention of proletariat or class struggle ... socialism [and] present social

we wish

it

becomes part of the who] reject any deny revolution and

contrast to those in order to

movements divorced from any revolutionary

to recuperate the reference to the proletarian project

sig-

... in order to salvage the socialist tendency harbored in the class conception and " (Nunez Soto 1989, 18-20; see also Torres Rivas practice of revolutions. 1989a, 61 ff.; Camacho and Menjivar 1985). nificance,

.

.

13 Restructuring Relations with the United States

A

final

component

of

Guatemalan

reality in the era of crisis

—

in fact,

—

an integral part of the cycles of internal crisis and recomposition has been the restructuring of Guatemala's relationship to the United States. This restructuring is a result of changing realities in both countries. The post-1954 relationship of U.S. domination and Guatemalan dependence described in Part 1 underwent some modifications as early as the mid-1970s. In 1975, the United States sided with Britain in its dispute with Guatemala over Belize and withheld military equipment scheduled for delivery because of Guatemalan threats to invade Belize. This prompted Guatemala to seek alternative suppliers of military equipment, mainly U.S. allies. More seriously, in the mid-1970s, the U.S. Congress began the practice of linking U.S. foreign aid to

human

his predecessors, President Carter (1976-1980)

visions

of foreign

assistance laws.

rights conditions; unlike

implemented these pro-

Because these restrictions clearly

applied to Guatemala, the hemisphere's worst

human

rights violator, the

Laugerud government (1974-1978) unilaterally renounced U.S. military assistance agreements containing human rights conditions as "interventionist" and stepped up its arms purchases from other countries. Guatemalan army officers and ultraright civilians routinely referred to Carter as "Jimmy Castro." In fact, what was billed as a military aid "ban" or "cut-off" was only partial, as military contacts and arms transfers continued; in 1980, the United States was reported by sources within the Guatemalan government to have given assurances of "discreetly" resuming arms supplies to Guatemala if the situation in El Salvador became critical (for details, see McClintock 1985, 186-188; Jonas 1983a, 298-299; Schoultz 1983, 187). 195

Restructuring Relations

196

The context for the U.S.-Guatemala relationship was fundamentally by events in the Central American region as a whole beginning in 1979: the Nicaraguan Revolution and the outbreak of open civil war in El Salvador. These events, combined with the escalating civil war in Guatemala, constituted a serious challenge to U.S. hegemony in the Western hemisphere. The United States (in limited ways under Carter, more comprehensively after Reagan took office in 1981) responded by denning Central America as a zone of "strategic interest" to the United States, hence one of massive U.S. involvement. Specifically, this meant altered

determination to defeat the Salvadoran FMLN militarily, through massive aid to the Salvadoran armed forces and, after Reagan took office, a policy of "rollback" or attempting to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua (through the Contras). Despite the decidedly interventionist thrust of Reagan policy, the United States was constrained from overt military intervention by profound structural factors. The post-Vietnam era (coinciding with systema

wide

crisis in the international capitalist

economy) saw

a relative decline

United States as the single hegemonic center within the capitalist world. Both economically and politically, there was an alteration in the balance of power among the capitalist nations, with the United States no longer able to exert unquestioned hegemony over

in the position of the

its allies.

This relative decline of U.S. power was eventually reflected in

the Western hemisphere, particularly after the United States sided with Britain against Argentina in the 1982 Falklands War, provoking a crisis

within the OAS;

it

America

was subsequently expressed in regard to Central "The Roots of Guatemalan

in the Contadora initiatives (see 'Neutrality' " below).

Even more dramatic was the the growth of the "Vietnam Syndrome" within the U.S. (public opposition to interventionism in the Third World) after the defeat in Vietnam, shattering the "Cold War consensus" that

had existed since the

late 1940s. In

regard to Central America, this was

expressed in public opinion polls from 1979 throughout the 1980s, which

showed

consistently that over two-thirds of the

American people opposed

intervention in Nicaragua and El Salvador, fearing "another Vietnam" there.

This sentiment

among

the

U.S.

public

was the source

of the

congressional votes in the early 1980s, denying military aid to El Salvador

and Guatemala and, above all, opposing the Reagan administration's Contra war in Nicaragua. Despite the Reagan administration's desire to renew military aid to Guatemala, it was initially limited by congressional opposition in the early 1980s, at the height of Guatemala's dirty war. This contradiction

gave

rise

to a pattern

— the

"double game" or two-track policy

— that

characterized U.S. Guatemala policy throughout the 1980s (Jonas 1990a).

Restructuring Relations

(McClintock [1985, 215

began under Carter.) to

human

ff.]

197

maintains this system of "mixed signals"

had to pay lip service and pushed the Guatemalan government to

Publicly, U.S. policymakers

rights concerns

"democratize"; and they did eventually come to believe that a civilian government backed by a strong army would be preferable. But at the same time, privately, the Reagan administration consistently signaled approval to the Guatemalan army for winning the counterinsurgency war, dirty as it might be. Given the goals of overthrowing the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and achieving absolute military victory in El Salvador, Reagan policymakers could hardly have had a different view of Guatemala, which remained the most strategic country in Central America. Lt. General Wallace Nutting, head of the U.S. Southern Command,

expressed the consensus, in arguing for a restoration of U.S. military aid to

Guatemala: "The population

the geographical position

is

more

is

larger, the

economy

is

stronger,

critically located in a strategic sense.

Guatemala are a lot more (New York Times [NYT] 8/22/82). According to right-wing strategist Edward Walsh, "If we are going to defend our interests in the region, the way to do it is to buttress the strong links [i.e., Guatemala] in order to protect the weaker ones" (in Fried et al. 1983, 308). Guatemala was, in short, a staunch front-line ally of the United States that had to be strengthened to carry on the battle against communism. Less commonly acknowledged as a factor was the substantial economic stake: $226 million in U.S. private investments in industry, oil, and nickel, more than double the amount in El Salvador (Barry, Wood, and Preusch 1983, 40). As observers noted (e.g., Simons 1981), the U.S. policy of "drawing the line" in El Salvador was in no small The implications of

a Marxist takeover in

serious than in El Salvador"

measure directed at Guatemala. Although the United States technically assumed no responsibility for Guatemala's dirty war, since Congress had cut off military aid in the late 1970s on human rights grounds, in fact the Reagan administration tried to get around human rights concerns and urged renewal of lethal military aid precisely during the worst years of the holocaust. During the 1980 presidential campaign, members of Reagan's "transition team" visited Guatemala (and El Salvador) frequently and developed close ties with ultraright military and civilian forces most closely linked to the death squads. The message of the Reagan advisers was interpreted by these Guatemalans as a green light for increasingly aggressive death squad activities. The army, as well, got the message that a Reagan administration would not ban military aid on human rights grounds. These ties were developed to the point that top Guatemalan military officials stopped dealing with official Carter diplomats in mid-1980 and boasted of having made a "deal" with the Reagan team for restoration 1

Restructuring Relations

198

of U.S. military aid

and

training. Ultraright

MLN

forces

made symbolic

donations to the Reagan campaign and openly celebrated the Reagan

Sandoval Alarcon ("Godfather of the death squads") attended The Reagan advisers, in turn, referred to these groups as the "responsible right," worthy of full U.S. support (Jonas 1980, 26 and note 11). In 1981, Reagan adviser General Vernon Walters (who had worked for Basic Resources, an oil company investing in Guatemala Barry, Wood, and Preusch 1983, 128) visited Guatemala to let the army and the Lucas government know that it was seen as a "friend." Back in Washington, Walters said that the United States would help defend victory;

his inauguration.

"the constitutional institutions" of Guatemala (Gleijeses 1988,

June 1981, the

Commerce Department approved

of military vehicles (Schoultz 1983, 197-198).

Human

In

The

State Department's

Rights Report for 1981 fully exonerated the Guatemalan gov-

ernment, despite the officials

9).

a $3.1 million cash sale

knew

attrocities

all

fact

that

(as

they subsequently admitted) U.S.

along that the army was responsible for

(Nairn in Report on Guatemala 4-6/89,

concern, U.S. officials instead denounced

8).

human

human

rights

Far from showing

rights organizations

such as Amnesty International, with one U.S. Embassy report referring to their work as part of a "Communist-backed disinformation plan" (see Jonas 1983a, 311).

The United

States

worked

closely with the Lucas regime in devising

counterinsurgency strategy: According to testimony by Elias Barahona, who had served as press secretary for the Interior Ministry from 1976 its

to 1980 (subsequently

confirmed by other high Lucas

States developed the

"Program

munism"

of Pacification

officials),

the United

and Eradication of Com-

together with the Lucas regime (Barahona in Jonas,

McCaughan,

and Martinez 1984; Council on Hemispheric Affairs [COHA] 10/30/80). At one point, the administration even attempted to provide financial assistance for Guatemala's Regional Telecommunications Center, located in

the Presidential Palace,

was

whose

function, according to

Amnesty

In-

"disappearance" by the security forces; the administration was deterred only by congressional threats of legal action for violation of U.N. human rights laws (Amnesty International 1981; Bowen 1985, 99, 102; McClintock 1985, 170 ff.). Even as Reagan officials were attempting to renew military aid, however, they were aware of the problems this entailed. Aside from congressional opposition to the brutality of the Lucas regime, Washington had to recognize that it was politically unviable and militarily ineffective, unable even to implement the counterinsurgency plan developed jointly ternational,

to target individuals for

with the United States. According to news reports at the time, the United States certainly knew about and approved of the March 1982 coup. (Not insignificantly, Rios Montt had a long history of ties with the U.S.

Restructuring Relations

counterinsurgency establishment

— see

199

Jonas 1983a, 291.) By mid-1982

Montt had "improved and opened the way for a more effective counterinsurgency" (LAVVR 8/27/82); and by late 1982, President Reagan was telling Congress that Rios Montt had gotten a "bum rap." (For more examples, see Gleijeses 1988, 10.) In early 1983, the administration unilaterally lifted the arms embargo and renewed arms sales to Guatemala. The January 1984 Kissinger Commission Bipartisan Report on Central America praised Guatemalan security forces for making a "break" from the brutal practices of the Lucas regime and recommended full resumption of military and economic aid. The Reagan administration's argument that Guatemala's human rights situation had been improved since the Rios Montt coup flew directly in the face of generalized opinion in the international community, which had treated Guatemala as an international outcast after the burning of the Spanish Embassy in 1980. This view of Guatemala was not altered by the 1982 coup, as reflected in a December 1982 U.N. resolution condemning the Rios Montt regime for its massive human rights violations. The resolution was overwhelmingly approved, with opposition coming only from the United States and its close allies and/or other military Assistant Secretary of State Enders argued that Rios the

human

rights situation

dictatorships (Argentina, Chile, Israel, El Salvador, Philippines, Haiti).

The Roots

of

Guatemalan "Neutrality"

By 1982, the Guatemalan military government was beginning to take its own to regain its standing in the international community and a measure of internal legitimacy. This recomposition of the counterinsurency state, whose internal dimensions have been discussed above, also had repercussions for foreign policy. One effect of the years of international isolation was the growth of right-wing military nationalism and anti-Americanism within the Guatemalan armed forces based on scorn for the "fickleness" of a U.S. government beholden to congressional liberals. To the extent that it forced the Guatemalan armed forces to look elsewhere for assistance and hardware, it also gave them a certain margin of autonomy vis-avis the United States. They had little difficulty finding alternative sources of arms, training, and assistance from U.S. allies such as Taiwan, Argentina (until the Falklands War), and, above all, Israel. The ties with Israel had already been consolidated by the time of the U.S. military aid "cutoff." Israeli advice was also key in developing the pacification strategies of the 1980s. (See details in Hunter 1987; Rubenberg 1986; Jamail and action of

Gutierrez 1987; McClintock 1985.)

200

Restructuring Relations

The conjunctural

factor of a

temporary "cut-off" of

U.S. military aid

coincided with longer range considerations to produce a measure of

autonomy" vis-a-vis the United States. Throughout the 1980s, Guatemalan army developed a doctrine of "national stability," touted

"relative

the

as a substitute for the "national security doctrine imported from tne

United States" since the 1960s. The latter, as described by Guatemalan army officials, was more appropriate to a superpower in the era of Cold War confrontation with another superpower and to an "invading" or "occupying" army; by contrast, Guatemala needed a "national army," suitable for a counterinsurgency war. This logic brought

;

an inevitable

questioning of Guatemala's total dependence on the United States and its goals, such as the war against Nicaragua. be seen, this position was adopted by the dominant faction of the Guatemalan army, but not by the officer corps as a whole (interviews; Gramajo Morales 1989 and other army documents; AVANCSO/Gutierrez

the total subservience to

As

will

1989).

Following the March 1982 coup, the Rios Montt regime faced the political contradictions that had plagued its predecessors. On the

same

one hand, there was a recognition that the war could never be "won" without reestablishing some internal and external "legitimacy." On the other hand, the necessities of the counterinsurgency war precluded any lessening of human rights violations; in fact, the Rios Montt regime presided over the major massacres of the war. The Guatemalan army began to see that one possible vehicle for resolving these contradictions could be a "legitimate" foreign policy.

At a more structural

level, there

were internal imperatives

the concept of "national interest."

A

for redefining

quasi-independent foreign policy

was seen as internally stabilizing, as part of the "recomposition" process implicit in the 1982 counterinsurgency plan. It

of regional neutrality

gave the Guatemalan state legitimacy, as well as increased autonomy and room for maneuver internally. Foreign policy became central to the attempt to reestablish internal normalcy (AVANCSO/Gutierrez 1989) all

the

more

so, as

the destabilizing consequences of Reagan's regional

policy of overthrowing the Sandinista

government became

clearer

by

1982-1983. This

new

policy, initiated

under Rios Montt, was concretized under

Mejia Victores after the August 1983 coup; civilian Foreign Minister

Fernando Andrade Diaz-Duran played the key role in implementing it. The main components of the policy, as it evolved, were: (1) support for the Contadora proposal (the Latin American initiative for a negotiated settlement to the U.S. war against Nicaragua); (2) reluctance to function simply as a

member

of the U.S.-constructed "Tegucigalpa Bloc" (the four

Central American countries versus Nicaragua); and

(3)

gradual distancing

:

Restructuring Relations

201

from the U.S. proposal to revive the U.S. -dominated Central American Defense Council (CONDECA) and a subsequent refusal to participate in U.S.-organized joint military maneuvers. (When invited, Guatemalan military officers scornfully replied that they

would be happy

to participate,

but as instructors rather than trainees; they had nothing to learn from the

defeated

army

of the

United States in Vietnam.) None of

this

prevented Guatemalan army officers from collaborating under the table with operations to supply the Nicaraguan Contras, in exchange for increased U.S. aid to Guatemala, according to the 1987 Tower

Report

(NYT 2/28/87, Danaher, Berryman, and Benjamin

Commission 1987, 65).

These redefinitions came at a crucial time, during the fall of 1983, at the height of Contadora initiatives and just when the U.S. invasion of Grenada made U.S. direct intervention in Nicaragua seem most likely. There were several specific gains to Guatemala from a policy of "regional neutrality." Supporting Contadora was essential for normalizing and improving relations with Mexico; in return, Guatemala could pressure Mexico to repatriate the growing thousands of Guatemalan war refugees and reduce human rights criticisms. Further, by dissociating Guatemala from the illegitimate and destabilizing U.S. Contra war, this policy would facilitate Guatemala's reincorporation into the Latin American community of nations. It was also a way of neutralizing diplomatic support enjoyed by the URNG during the early 1980s. From the viewpoint of the Guatemalan army, getting involved in the U.S. war against Nicaragua would have been a diversion from winning the internal war. An important faction of the Guatemalan army believed that what happened in Nicaragua (in contrast to El Salvador) was not of great significance to Guatemala, because Nicaragua is "two borders away." By contrast, the prospect of a regional war, which U.S. policy

had made

a distinct possibility in 1983, was seen as a threat to the Guatemala (as well as of Latin American countries bordering Central America this was the reasoning behind Contadora). The longer range goal was reestablishing Guatemala as part of the international community, in order to gain access to international aid and to restabilize and reactivate the economy. Breaking the direct, visible dependence and establishing a margin of autonomy vis-a-vis the United States paved the way for diversifying sources of economic support. stability of

—

Ironically

enough,

this strategy also contributed to a reconstruction of

by getting the U.S. Congress to lift the proved an indirect route to winning over liberal Democrats in Congress who opposed Reagan's Contra policy. Meanwhile, Guatemalan army officers could rest assured that, no matter how annoyed the Reagan administration might be with them for not supporting its Nicaragua policy, it had no choice but to support this relations with the United States,

sanctions against Guatemala;

it

202

Restructuring Relations

most effective of counterinsurgency armies Guatemala.

Cerezo's "Active Neutrality" and Relative

Upon

taking office in 1986, Cerezo built

for

"holding the line" in

Autonomy upon

the policy of "regional

The new ingredient and develop a high profile as a "regional peacemaker." The regional peace process began in the spring of 1987 with the Arias Plan and was brought to fruition with the signing of the Central American Peace Accords (Esquipulas II) in August 1987. (The Arias Plan, initially the Reagan administration's counter to Contadora, was transformed into a continuation of Contadora, and its implementation at Esquipulas II gave the coup de grace to Reagan's Contra policy see Halebsky and Jonas 1988.) The accords committed the five Central American nations to the principles of peaceful coexistence within the region, an end to the Contra war against Nicaragua, and negotiated solutions to the civil wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. In addition, it prescribed "deneutrality" inherited from the military governments. in Cerezo's "Active Neutrality"

(AN)

policy

was

to take initiatives

—

mocratization" procedures in

on Nicaragua (and

later

all five

countries, although focusing mainly

applied only in Nicaragua). Beyond their specific

provisions, the Peace Accords represented for the

first time in decades wars the possibility of taking steps toward peace and democracy. They also represented an historic moment, insofar as the four U.S. allies in the region openly defied Washington by calling for an end to military

of civil

aid to the Contras.

Despite the publicity given to Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, Guatemala was crucial in altering the correlation of forces in the region and throughout 1987-1988 remained central to the peace process in regard to Nicaragua. As seen above, the Guatemalan government could afford to take this approach because, in the view of the dominant fraction of the army, there was no border with Nicaragua, and the Sandinista Revolution did not directly "threaten" Guatemalan stability. Further, this regional stance allowed the army to focus on its priority, which was the internal pacification of Guatemala. Economic considerations also became increasingly important: A regional settlement was a precondition for reestablishing the Central American Common Market, among whose main beneficiaries would be Guatemalan businessmen. Finally, at the diplomatic level, this stance gained the Guatemalan government the friendship of Contadora governments, particularly Mexico. With the additional advantage of a civilian government, Cerezo managed to greatly reduce international human rights monitoring by the U.N.

Restructuring Relations

203

and to gain additional aid to Guatemalan security forces from West Germany, Italy, Spain, Venezuela, and Mexico as well as the United States

—

all

of this despite generalized recognition that Guatemala's

human

remained unacceptable. It had a similar effect on the United States, both in and out of Congress. 2

liberal

rights situation

Democrats

in

Nevertheless, to present Active Neutrality simply as a functional policy

army and now the

civilian government would be an oversimbegan as part of the army's stabilization project, it had some contradictory consequences internally. For one thing, the ruling coalition was by no means unified about Active Neutrality. Ultraright politicians and army officials stated in interviews that "Guatemalan neutrality just plays into the hands of the Nicaraguan Marxists"; "Nicaragua will always remain a threat; the Marxists never give up"; and coexistence with Nicaragua "is inconsistent" with antisubversive policies within Guatemala. Further, they believed, this was just one more indicator that Cerezo was "paving the way for socialism," as Frei for the

plification.

Although

it

did for Allende in the 1970s.

As revealed

in interviews, Active Neutrality

and other foreign policy initiatives, such as opening up trade with socialist countries, were among the key issues being violently "negotiated" by the extreme Right with its coup attempts during 1988 and 1989. (Conversely, from the viewpoint of the popular movements, given the failure to press for any domestic reforms, Active Neutrality became Cerezo's last progressive policy or source of credibility.)

Second, in spite of the Guatemalan army's defiant claims (echoed by Cerezo) that the Central American Peace Accords "don't apply" to Guatemala, in fact, the reverberations of the process were significant. With their social democratic vision of pluralism and social justice for Central America's future, the accords created a standard by which the inequalities and lack of democracy within Guatemala became acutely obvious. For this reason, and because they raised the issue of negotiations

with the

URNG,

initiated in its

gressive actors

the Peace Accords and the process of National Dialogue

wake significantly expanded the in Guatemalan civil society and

political for the

space for pro-

URNG's

call for

negotiations. Recognition of these realities contributed to golpista activities

by those

who

never had any tolerance for a "democratic transition."

In these respects, Active Neutrality later

began as

a factor of stability, but

accentuated the instabilities within Guatemala. As one Guatemalan

it (AVANCSO/Gutierrez 1989), the lack of a real social base army's stabilization project implies a built-in instability or "overheating"; this is seen most clearly every time an issue of social/

analyst put for

the

justice comes clearly to the fore, which happened with the regional peace process.

economic

is

precisely

what

Restructuring Relations

204

Washington's Double

Game

In addition to the internal contradictions

mentioned above, Active

Neutrality further complicated Guatemala's relations with the United

There are really two sides to the picture of U.S.-Guatemalan One side is the uncompromising U.S. support for Guatemala's counterinsurgency war, despite Guatemala's reluctance to get involved in Washington's war against Nicaragua. Since Guatemalan army claims to have won its war "alone" (without U.S. assistance), and U.S. claims to have had very little to do with it since the late 1970s, are so widespread, a few points should be emphasized. Some Guatemalan officials and U.S. analysts even argue that the Guatemalan army won States.

relations in the 1980s.

the

—

war

to the

of the early 1980s because it had no U.S. assistance in contrast Salvadoran army during the same period (e.g., Sereseres 1985c,

122 and 1985a, 179-180). While Sereseres linked this to the Guatemalan army's success in relying "on the people" to defeat the

URNG

(through

PACs, etc.), Guatemalan army officials (in interviews) were more direct in implying that the lack of direct U.S. aid freed the Guatemalan army to wage an all-out war, unimpeded by human rights restrictions the "Guatemala solution." The argument that the Guatemalan army "did it alone" cannot be dismissed out of hand and contains elements of truth; however, it is also extremely misleading in several respects. First, the involvement of "the people" was based entirely on coercion, rather than volition. Second, Guatemala did receive some military aid from the United States during the years of the dirty war: As seen above, the Reagan administration lobbied continuously to renew military aid, and there were increasing loopholes in the ban on such aid. Meanwhile, aid was available from U.S. allies. As seen in Table 13.1, there was economic aid from the United States to Guatemala and, as early as possible, Economic Support Funds (ESF), which is general budget support. ESF is generally recognized as a bailout to friendly but embarrassing governments; it postpones the need for tax reform; and it is disguised military aid insofar as it frees up local funds for counterinsurgency (Danaher, Berryman, and Benjamin 1987, 8-9, 62). ESF funds would have been renewed sooner, had it not been for the embarrassing involvement of Guatemalan security forces in the assassination of a U.S. AID employee in 1983 (Sanford 1986). (For more details on U.S. aid through the mid-1970s, see Jonas and Tobis 1974; Jonas 1981; for the 1980s, see Barry 1986 and Barry and Preusch 1988.)

—

Third, the "won-it-alone" thesis discounts the longer range reality

been building up the Guatemalan army since the late first Guatemalan counterinsurgency the 1960s, to be perhaps the clearest example in which U.S.

that the U.S. has

1950s.

war, in

Many

experts consider the

Restructuring Relations

TABLE

13.1

U.S. Aid to Guatemala* (in $ millions)

205

206

Restructuring Relations

Even

in the

1980s,

Guatemalan army officials repeatedly stated in army remained strategically aligned with

interviews that the Guatemalan

the United States in the East-West context. In all of these respects, then, Guatemala's "relative autonomy" (perhaps like that of Israel in the

Middle East) was not perceived as a "threat" in Washington, as was that of a truly independent country such as Nicaragua. Furthermore, after the return of civilian government in 1986, the United States used the legitimacy of that government to step up military aid: $7.5 million was approved for Fiscal Year (FY) 1988, in addition to over $50 million in Economic Support Funds (overall budget support, which could free up local funds for military-related projects), and $2 million for training the police force, headed by a top official of Army Intelligence. Security assistance was further increased in subsequent years until FY 1990 (details in Table 13.1). After 1987, direct U.S. military involvement increased steadily. In the spring of 1987, U.S. pilots and helicopters flew Guatemalan troops into a war zone. By 1989, U.S. military personnel were directly involved in counterinsurgency operations in open combat zones: Green Beret training of Guatemalan army paratroopers; joint exercises with Guatemalan army units, including Kaibil Special Forces, the self-named "messengers of death"; transport of supplies and personnel to conflict zones and repair of planes; road-building, medical service, and other "civic action" projects. In 1989-1990, U.S. forces became more directly involved in "drug war" operations, together with the CIA and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), many of these operations targeting guerrilla zones (based on press reports, among them Washington Post [WP] 8/18/89; Los Angeles Times [LAT] 5/7/90; Pacific News Service [PNS] 7/10/89; WOLA newsletter,

6/29/89).

Nevertheless, the above considerations are only one side of the picture of U.S.-Guatemalan

relations

in

the

1980s.

At another

level,

Active

Neutrality became a serious enough contradiction that, while officially supporting the Guatemalan government, the United States was at the same time

shoring up

its

"natural allies," extreme Right forces

who

did support the

overthrow of the Sandinistas. In the Guatemalan context, this meant strengthening the destabilizers and coup makers. To give one example, during the

summer

of 1988, Secretary of State Shultz

and

his subordinates

waged

an intensive diplomatic campaign to get U.S. allies to isolate Nicaragua, possibly even to prepare for direct confrontation with Nicaragua all of this as part of an overall attempt to reverse the regional peace process and reconstitute the Tegucigalpa Group. Within Guatemala, the United

—

States exerted strong pressures to gain compliance, alternating threats

economic reprisals with promises of $75 million The U.S. pressures had the effect of emboldening the of

in additional aid.

ultraright,

Wash-

Restructuring Relations

ington's "natural allies"

on the regional question, and

stirring

207

up

the

Nicaragua debate within the army. In the very week following the Shultz visit, Guatemala was shaken by strong coup tremors, which a number of politicians (in interviews) linked to the debate over Nicaragua. At least, as one Christian Democrat put it, the Shultz visit was a "detonator" giving the Right a new excuse for destabilizing the government. The above illustrates the two-track policy that Washington developed to deal with the contradictions in its relations with Guatemala. This began as early as the Rios Montt era, with the United States on the one hand agitating for a renewal of military aid to the "democratizing" Guatemalan government, while on the other hand pressuring Guatemala to abandon its independent regional policy (Davila 1988, 16-17). In the era of the civilian government that it ostensibly supported and on two occasions saved from right-wing coups, the United States was indirectly encouraging its destabilizers. From the viewpoint of "promoting democracy," this double message system was a dangerous game. Ultimately, these pressures, both internal and external, had a decisive effect in watering down Active Neutrality. In August 1988, Guatemala was pressured into hosting the Shultz meeting with the four governments without Nicaragua. While resisting U.S. pressures for a virtual declaration of war against Nicaragua on this occasion, Guatemala after mid-1988 took no new diplomatic initiatives of any significance and kept a very low profile in the Central American Peace Process. As Guatemalan Congressman Edmond Mulet put it in mid-1989, there was "a marked return to traditional positions which put us in the backyard [of the U.S.] and corresponded to U.S. interests" (ACEN-SIAG No. 117). In 1989 a noticeable shift to the Right occurred throughout Central America, with the March election of ARENA in El Salvador and the December U.S. invasion of Panama. Guatemala remained silent on the invasion and subsequently recognized the U.S.-installed Endara government in Panama. By the time of the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in February 1990, the era of Active Neutrality and "relative autonomy" appeared to have run its course, at least in the forms it had taken during the 1980s. Militarily, as well, after mid-1988, Guatemala moved perceptibly back into the U.S. fold, reorienting its military equipment from Israeli to American, with the purchase of 20,000 M-16 rifles in the winter of 1988-1989. Apparently the counterinsurgency war was going badly enough for the army to require a realignment with the United States.

How Much Autonomy Was "Relative Autonomy"? How much "relative autonomy" did Guatemala achieve,

and what difference did

it

make? Over

(or Central

America)

the long range, the

Restructuring Relations

208

Central American Peace Accords continued the process that began with the Nicaraguan Revolution, a redefinition of the region's relationship to the United States. "Relative autonomy" on the part of the pro-U.S. governments and military establishments in Central America involved a modification of the traditional relationships of domination and dependency. The rejection of Reagan's Contra policy represented a significant

challenge to U.S. authority, given the region's historic subordination. But

was not inconsistent with a less extreme anti-Nicaragua policy nor with counterinsurgency wars in Guatemala and El Salvador. Although

it

immediate interests developed between these governments and the Reagan administration, the longer range counterrevolutionary a divergence of

objectives converged.

On

autonomy" was very limited in a During the 1970s, there had been a quadrupling of foreign (mostly U.S.) investment in Guatemala. With the profound economic crisis of the 1980s and intensified civil war, Guatemala (and Central America generally) no longer provided a "stable" investment climate, and U.S. investment declined. At the same time, the economic crisis and the explosion of foreign debt created a need for more international aid. What changed was not so much the level of U.S. involvement in the economy, but the specific forms, making the relationship much less purely bilateral and giving a much more significant role to multilateral institutions in which the United States remained a dominant player (e.g., the IMF and World Bank) and/or to U.S. allies (Israel, Taiwan). Structurally, the IMF and Israel filled the same needs, and geopolitically, they represented the same interests, rather than any "diversification of dependency." Second, the geopolitical balance did not fundamentally change. Even though the relative decline of U.S. global power had repercussions in Central America, U.S. power declined far less in Central America than in other areas. Although the United States was unable to prevent a challenge to its authority (most clearly in Nicaragua and to some extent in El Salvador), it was able to ruin the challengers and "make the economy scream"; this was the "lesson of Nicaragua," and it bore fruit in the 1990 Nicaraguan election. Third, there was virtually no change in U.S. alliances with domestic forces in Guatemala, as U.S. interests continued to function as part of the ruling coalition and U.S. power remained a pillar of that coalition not as visibly as in El Salvador, but the one hand, then, "relative

number

of respects.

—

a pillar nonetheless.

was no basic change in U.S. goals or "strategic interests." aimed to keep the Guatemalan ruling coalition strong, the primarily same reasons as in the past: first, in order to defeat

Fourth, there

The United for

States

the guerrilla insurgency; second, to maintain the country (particularly the counterinsurgency army) as a rampart against revolutionary change

Restructuring Relations

209

in the region; third, to protect the still sizeable U.S. private investments

Hence, the United States greatly increased ESF allocations Guatemala as soon and as much as it could; and later in the 1980s, when Guatemala failed to meet IMF standards for stand-by credits, the United States continued to send aid rather than cutting it off (as with more independent governments) and helped neutralize the negative effects in the country. to

of austerity measures.

From

the

Guatemalan

side, as

one prominent analyst has pointed out

(Aguilera Peralta 1987), the "conflicts" with the United States were quite relative.

Active Neutrality began as and remained largely a function of

and it was compromised as soon and economic aid became necessary. In short,

the internal counterinsurgency war, as increased U.S. military

the foreign policy of Active Neutrality reached for internal reasons.

The escalation

of

human

its

historical limit primarily

rights violations eventually

reduced the effectiveness of diplomacy as a "stabilizing" element of the Guatemalan counterinsurgency state. Second, even though that strategy did gain the government

many

of

its

objectives for a

number

of years,

"autonomy" could not be achieved solely by a foreign policy Guatemalan attempt to become more autonomous foundered on the same shoal as in the past: the lack of an

real

adaptation. In the end, the

market that could serve as the basis for long-range, self-sustaining development. Yet, there was also another side. Central American events in the 1980s, beginning with the Nicaraguan Revolution, broke old patterns internal

both regionally and in Guatemala. The signing of American Peace Accords broke the cycle of the predictable and for a brief time opened up a new process in Central America. They suggested the possibility of peaceful coexistence between divergent political systems in the region. The accords also held out a hope of negotiated political solutions to long-standing civil wars and indicated standards of democratic reform to be met by each of the five governments. And this had an impact upon the Manichaean mentality of counterinsurgency politics, even in Guatemala, by legitimating demands for democracy with social justice. In short, it came to affect the terms of the political game within Guatemala. By 1990, this ray of light had flickered out, but the light had revealed the contours of a new path that could perhaps be rediscovered in the 1990s. in surprising ways,

the Central

Notes 1.

One

of the private sector groupings financing Guatemala's death squads,

Amigos del Pais, was paying more than $130,000 a year to a public relations firm headed by Reagan confidants and advisers Michael Deaver and Peter

Restructuring Relations

220

Hannaford for

(COHA

10/30/80; Asociacion de Amigos del Pais 1989). Legitimation came from a number of private U.S.

dealing with the terrorist Right also

investors in Guatemala, of the

who routinely

Guatemalan death squads

collaborated with and justified the activities

(see

examples

in Barry,

Wood, and Preusch

1983, 128; Jonas 1983a, 303).

A

few words are in order concerning the bizarre logic of Washington's Democrats who in the mid- to late 1980s took the lead in pushing for increased economic and military aid to the Guatemalan government. One study of U.S. human rights policy during the Reagan years concluded that "Congress must share responsibility with the Executive" for tolerating human rights abuses, by going along with administration certifications of human rights "progress," weakening human rights requirements, etc. (Broder and Lambek 1988). After Cerezo took office, congressional Democrats actually increased Reagan administration military aid requests for Guatemala, from $5 million to $9 million. Most of the time they justified this by limiting it to "nonlethal" military aid (although "nonlethal" helicopters require very little modification to be used for lethal operations); but they crossed even this line with the approval of the sale of 20,000 rifles to Guatemala in early 1989. A related example was the plan of liberal Democratic Atlanta mayor Andrew Young to have Atlanta police train the police force of Guatemala, on the grounds that this would "professionalize" them and teach them "respect for human rights." He was deterred only by a broad grassroots campaign from around the United States. Aside from a desire to reward Cerezo's role in promoting the Central American Peace Process, the Democrats have been using arguments such as the following: (1) the United States should support and reward those army officers who have committed the military to back democracy; in the words of former Representative Robert Garcia (1986), Gramajo is "sincere" and Cerezo is "a legitimate democrat who deserves the U.S.' patience and support" (Gramajo was particulary successful in lobbying efforts); (2) the best way to keep the army happy (especially the golpistas) is to placate them with additional military aid. As one Guatemalan aptly commented, "The only difference [with the Cerezo government] is a fresh coat of paint. Guatemala looks prettier now. Democrats like Senator Christopher ." (quoted in Gleijeses 1988; see also Nairn Dodd can sleep peacefully now 2.

liberal

.

in Report on

Guatemala 3-4/89).

.

PART

3

Conclusion: An Unlighted Path Toward the Future

14 Central America in the Balance: Prospects for the 1990s

At the beginning of the last decade of the twentieth century, rapid changes are taking place in many parts of the world and many "old orders" are breaking up. Certainly, at first glance this is not obvious in Guatemala. But perhaps we must look beyond Guatemala in order to see the country with new eyes. Guatemala is part of a Latin American continent in crisis and a Central American region that has not yet emerged from war; it is also part of a world that is struggling to pass beyond the Cold War. Therefore, this Conclusion begins with a broader assessment of the balance of forces affecting Central America and Guatemala. In order to comprehend the rapid and massive changes in the "postCold War" international environment and their impact on Central America, we must begin by stretching our minds and shedding old habits or patterns in our thinking. In the United States, such habits have often hampered the outlook of opponents of our government's policy in Central America (as well as of the policymakers). This is not surprising, given the realities of growing U.S. inter ventionism in the Third World; the Manichaean, geopolitical worldview of U.S. policymakers, which is heavily reflected in the U.S. media the ideological "carpet-bombing of public consciousness," to borrow a phrase from Samir Amin; and the virtual lack of information from regions such as Central America. These factors tend to freeze our views, often leading to unidimensional assessments

—

Such a perspective reflects existing realities; by projecting the future only within the parameters of the past, it

of the prospects for change. but,

213

Central America in the Balance

214

can prevent us from seeing

and negative) and new

new

realities as

they emerge (both positive

possibilities.

hand, one antidote to the above comes directly from attempts by Central Americans to define genuinely new solutions to old problems. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua provided a clear example: Beginning in 1979, they sought to construct a revolutionary democracy unique in the Third World, integrating the Western conception of representative democracy with popular/participatory conceptions; they atIn the case at

tempted to avoid the dualistic choice between political pluralism and profound social change (see Jonas and Stein 1990). Central and Latin American revolutionaries were also among the first to merge their struggles with Christian struggles for social justice, to recognize that their vision of a renovated and flexible Marxism converges significantly with basic religious/humanitarian values. Hence, many North Americans have found in our discussions and interactions with people in Latin America some conceptual guideposts for seeing beyond U.S. -centered perspectives, for understanding how the rest of the world looks at things. This has helped us to temper the geopolitical, either/or, winner/loser, zero-sum logic with a more dialectical and a more global view, and to envisage new possibilities for the region.

Without ignoring the immediate conjuncture, spective on Central America must be long range. that

is

not predetermined, but

is

emerging

finally, a It

broader per-

looks toward a future

in the alternatives

now

being

constructed by popular forces, even within the confines of the old society. In order to

comprehend these, we will have to take some conceptual beyond what currently exists, incorporating new visions

risks, projecting

(but not illusions). In this spirit,

much

to

my

goal in this Conclusion

is

not so

predict as to suggest a broad range of possibilities for the

future of Central

America

in general

and Guatemala

in particular.

Nicaragua and El Salvador Particularly in the

wake

of the February 1990 electoral defeat of the

Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the future of Central America has appeared

overwhelmingly negative. Certainly, the cost of the 1980s upheavals has been painfully high in human lives over 200,000 have been killed in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala and this has led to questions about whether the gains were worth the cost. But from a longer range perspective, the balance is less one-sided than might at first appear. Following two decades of upheaval and resistance before the Sandinista triumph in 1979, the struggles of the 1980s have seen advances and

—

setbacks. But above

all,

these

—

revolutionary processes have permanently

Central America in the Balance

transformed the region and into the future, albeit in

its

people,

and they can be expected

new forms and on new

to

215

continue

terms.

In Nicaragua, the people carried out a revolution

and survived nine

years of unrelenting U.S. attack. Eventually, however, through

its

dev-

and economic war, the United States was able to raise the cost to an intolerable level, and thus to achieve its goal of ousting the Sandinistas from state power. The material achievements of the revolution were limited from the start, and some were completely reversed, by the U.S. determination to turn a positive example into a negative example (primarily through the Contra war); but other aspects of the revolution were institutionalized in the 1987 Constitution and cannot astating military

be rolled back without further violence. Further, the Sandinistas laid the bases for a profound democratization of Nicaraguan society its political culture as well as its institutions and undertook a unique experiment in revolutionary pluralism, based on a multiparty system and integrating representative with popular/participatory democracy. They carried forward Nicaragua's historical traditions and in many respects took the only road open to them, given international conditions

—

—

is not to minimize the many errors they made in where they did have choices errors which only began to be examined after February 1990.) The defeat of the Sandinistas in the 1990 election, held under siege, was not itself a catastrophic turnaround (as was the 1973 Chilean coup or the 1954 "Liberation" of Guatemala); it accentuated trends that were already in motion. Viewed in its totality, the Nicaraguan experience of the 1980s demonstrated that peace could only be achieved (the Contra war could only be ended) through concertacion, or political agreement. Particularly after the beginning of the Central American Peace Process in 1987, the Sandinistas had already made significant concessions to the civilian opposition; even if they had won the 1990 election, they would have had to reach further agreements, even to "share power" in some respects. Conversely, even in opposition, the Sandinistas and popular social movements remain the most powerful political force in the country, certainly strong enough to continue the democratization of Nicaraguan society and to compel de facto power-sharing by UNO if the United States does not prevent it. The only alternative to power-sharing will

in the 1980s. (This

—

areas

be a renewal of civil war. But Nicaragua must be understood as part of a region in upheaval. This book has shown for Guatemala the profound effects of successive

economic

crises,

both internal and external, and of cataclysmic

wars; these events have caused massive population dislocations

regenerated

social inequalities far

counterinsurgency

state. In El

civil

and

too profound to be resolved by the

Salvador, gross injustices exploded even

Central America in the Balance

216

more suddenly

into a revolutionary confrontation in the late 1970s,

and

popular/revolutionary forces proved surprisingly resilient throughout the 1980s. The FMLN showed a remarkable ability to learn from mistakes

and increasing flexibility in redefining its goals in accordance with new domestic and international realities specifically, in pressing for a ne-

—

gotiated settlement to the war.

From

nearly

all

sectors of Salvadoran society, in fact, there

was strong

pressure for a just settlement of the war, challenging the determination

and the oligarchy not to negotiate. The was designed, above all, to demonstrate the need for serious negotiations. One long-range consequence of the offensive may have been the emergence of a sector of the Salvadoran of the United States, the army,

November 1989

FMLN

offensive

bourgeoisie that prefers negotiations to further destruction of the (i.e.,

their property)

through more war. There

economy

may even be some army

who favor negotiations, but they will come forward only if the United States changes its long-standing opposition. These complex dynamics have become clear in the government-FMLN negotiations that ran the course of 1990 and continued into 1991. Despite periodic escalations of the war, the negotiation process was maintained; however, officers

it

remained deadlocked on the central issue of restructuring the armed on which both the Salvadoran government and the U.S. government

forces,

refused to

make

concessions.

1990 the head of the U.S. Southern Command acknowledged that the FMLN could not be militarily defeated; nevertheless, the United States did not depart radically from its prior policy of prolonging the war to defeat the FMLN, rather than ending it through negotiations. In the fall of 1990, the Bush administration was forced to comply with In early

congressional cuts in military aid to El Salvador; but

it

took the

first

available opportunity in January 1991 (under cover of the Persian Gulf

War) need

Subsequently, while verbally recognizing the with for negotiations the FMLN, the United States has maintained a hardline position, opposing U.N. proposals and refusing to accept real concessions on key issues. By the late 1980s, meanwhile, the FMLN had learned the "lessons of Nicaragua": watching the destruction of Nicaragua through military and economic war during the 1980s (even before the 1990 Nicaraguan election) contributed to a gradual change of FMLN strategy from "taking power" to gaining a share of power. Washington had made clear, even under Carter, that it would not permit "another Nicaragua" (another revolutionary victory); and Reagan policy demonstrated the U.S. ability to punish (destrov) Nicaragua. "Taking state power" outright became unfeasible, and revolutionaries in El Salvador learned to seek other routes for realizing popular demands negotiations, power-sharing, to restore the aid.

—

Central America in the Balance

grassroots mobilizations, even competing for integrity could

be guaranteed)

— while

power

in elections

217

(if

their

continuing military action.

The Central American Peace Process At the regional level, as seen in Chapter 13, the Central American Peace Process that began in mid-1987 initially appeared to open up an alternative to the decades of war; and for a brief moment, political

seemed possible. By negotiating with the Contras, Nicaragua provided an impressive example of what the political will for peace could accomplish. Together with the broad opposition within the United States to interventionism in Central America, the peace solutions to these wars

process finally forced the Reagan administration, against

Contra military

its will,

to

end

aid.

Nevertheless, within a year, the initially high hopes for peace were greatly reduced, as the United States reasserted

ability,

its

if

not to

America directly, at least to prevent demobilization of the Contras. Meanwhile, the four pro-US. governments control

the

future

of

Central

refused to apply the accords in their

own

countries. In 1988-1989, their

already-tenuous commitment to peaceful coexistence was undermined

beginning with the March 1989 victory of in El Salvador. By the time of the December 1989 Central American Presidents' Meeting, the process became an instrument for legitimating the ARENA government in El Salvador. The positive potential of the Peace Process was greatly limited, in the end, because Central America is considered by the United States to be within its direct sphere of influence and is probably the last region of the world where the United States will make concessions. As of 1990-

by a trend toward the

right,

the hardline anti-Nicaragua

ARENA

no longer represents a genuine peace process autonomy from the United States. Future progress toward regional "autonomy" will require changes within these countries. But for the moment, with the Sandinistas out of power in Nicaragua, the existing rightist governments have little reason to pressure 1991, regional diplomacy

or an exercise in

relative

each other for negotiations or democratization. If

there should be a negotiated settlement in El Salvador

of early 1991, appears

more possible than previously

—

it

— which, as

would constitute

such a solution in Guatemala. (Indeed, El Salvador an "easier" case than Guatemala insofar as the war has not been as long, and the army is less entrenched and less powerful relative to the insurgency.) However, if this does not happen soon, El Salvador could come to resemble Guatemala. This could even include a last-ditch effort by Salvadoran hardliners to implement the "Guatemala solution," a total war, with massive casualties within a few months. Further, El Salvador a serious pressure for

is

218

Central America in the Balance

—

as shown by murder in Guatemala of Salvadoran social democratic leader Hector Oqueli, which involved Guatemala's security forces and

continues to be affected by the situation in Guatemala the January 1990

death squads surgency

at least indirectly.

Sooner or

later,

proponents of peace and

in

the region will have to confront the

state.

Meanwhile, the continuation of war

democracy

Guatemalan counterinGuatemala affects the

in

region as a whole.

The other great negative factor within the region is the economic which has brought negative growth rates and has driven living standards down to the level of seventeen years ago. In some countries, over 85 percent of the population now lives in poverty; inflation and unemployment continue to skyrocket, leaving many with no option but to migrate north. The medicine for these ills has made the patients worse: Structural adjustment programs and harsh neoliberal policies have had disastrous effects for the popular classes. Less regressive crisis,

alternatives to neoliberalism, including the recomposition of the Central

American Common Market on the basis of reformist policies that would expand the domestic market as well as new exports, appear unviable for the moment. Such proposals lack sufficient financial resources from their supporters in the U.N. and Western Europe, and are opposed by the United States and the major lending agencies (IMF, World Bank). Yet these negative factors have regenerated popular protest and maintained Central America as a zone of upheaval and challenge to the United States. Indeed, many of the very contradictions that produced the Nicaraguan Revolution have deepened, since the 1980s brought greater inequalities and economic crisis, not growth. The continuation of protest does not by itself imply new victories; but the revolutionary processes are likely to continue into the foreseeable future, both in traditional forms

(if

necessary) and in

new

forms.

The Hemispheric Context Within the larger Latin American context, the balance is also mixed. the one hand, significant and unprecedented advances (near-victories in the late 1980s) for popular and leftist forces in Brazil and Mexico portend the possible spread of "democratic" models (electoral/mobilizational, both inside and outside the electoral system) for far-reaching

On

change on the continent. In Mexico, the challenge to one-party by the PRI, and in Brazil, the prospect of replacing twenty-five years of military dictatorship and counterinsurgency politics with broadbased popular politics, represented important steps forward. Although their advances remain slow and uneven, difficult to sustain, and thus social

rule

Central America in the Balance

219

programatically weak, broad popular/left blocs are likely to emerge

far

in a

number

On The

of countries.

the other hand, there are

first

is

two overwhelmingly negative

factors.

Latin America's structural impoverishment. By almost

all

and Inter-American Development Bank, Latin America is much lower today than ten

indicators, according to the U.N.

the standard of living in

is no indication that this tendency will be reversed. economic crisis of the 1980s ended the era of growth for nearly all Latin American economies. The debt crisis has left virtually all countries dependent on the IMF, but neoliberal IMF policies have seriously aggravated the social crises. Neoliberal dogma is running rampant; for example, although the June 1990 defeat of Vargas Llosa in Peru demonstrated popular rejection of such policies, winner Fujimori has implemented an even more extreme version. U.S. economic initiatives (the Bush "Enterprise for the Americas" and North American Common Market plans) dominate the economic agenda. Meanwhile, genuine economic alternatives for Latin America that combine growth with social equity and ecological considerations, that seek to define a more favorable relation to the world market and that must be regional in scope remain to be defined in concrete proposals. The second negative development is the resurgence of overt U.S.

years ago, and there Further, the

—

—

interventionism in the hemisphere, as seen in the invasion of

Panama

drug wars. Such interventionism has generated nationalist responses from broad sectors of Latin American society and from some governments, but the latter have been so weakened by economic collapse that their protestations are mainly verbal (e.g., after the invasion of Panama). These assertions of "relative autonomy" vis-a-vis the United States echo earlier expressions (e.g., the Contadora initiative and proposals to reincorporate Cuba into the the Inter-American system). Such expressions will likely continue clock cannot be turned back to 1965, when the OAS sent troops to

and stepped-up

U.S. military operations in the

—

—

support the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic but thus far their impact remains quite relative. The other main target of U.S. interventionism is Cuba. Almost uninterruptedly since 1959, U.S. policy has been governed by an obsession

with Cuba that has made "new thinking" almost impossible, especially toward Central America and the Caribbean. U.S. triumphalism over victories in Panama, Nicaragua, and the Persian Gulf could make the 1990s particularly dangerous for Cuba. The future of Cuba will depend primarily

upon

the ability of the

Cuban government and

society to

respond to internal pressures for political change and to resolve the economic crisis; but at the same time, there are ominous signs that the United States sees an opportunity to "go for broke," to reclaim the

Central America in the Balance

220

hemisphere again by destabilizing the Cuban government. If such efforts were to succeed, the impact for Latin America would be devastating. entire

Central America in the Internationally, the

New

International Disorder

end of the 1980s

initiated

an era of profound and

unexpectedly rapid restructuring, including the "end of the Cold

and perestroika

in the socialist world. In addition to

tensions, these changes initially held out to long-standing regional conflicts.

War" removed for rigid,

hopes

for negotiated solutions

In principle, the

the Communist/socialist

War"

reducing East-West

"end of the Cold

"enemy" and hence

Manichaean anti-Communist thinking

in

the basis

the United States,

laid the basis for a deescalation of conflicts in regions where the Union could actively advance peace. The realities of Soviet internal crisis and international weakness have subsequently vitiated the potential for a major Soviet role in the Third World. Combined with economic changes in the international capitalist economy that further impoverish most areas of the Third World, the new conjuncture leaves progressives in the Third World with fewer options than ever.

and

it

Soviet

For Central America,

at least in

maneuver

the short run, these changes reduce

autonomy" vis-a-vis the major and leave uncertain prospects for peace. In this case, peace would require an evolution in the thinking of U.S. policymakers as profound as that which initially occurred in the Soviet Union. Such "new thinking" in Washington would imply abandoning all the premises of the Cold War and redefining "U.S. interests"; it would have to include a recognition of the structural (not "Communist") roots of revolutionary movements in Central America, and the reality and legitimacy of popular struggles for social justice. Thus far, rather than any such evolution in the mentality of Washington policymakers, there has been a hardening of U.S. interventionism in Latin America. But the world is changing, at a pace and in ways previously unimagined. U.S. economic power worldwide is undergoing a relative decline even if that fact is virtually obscured by the stunning U.S. military victory in the Persian Gulf. And even though that U.S. military triumph portends a "Pax Americana" in the immediate future, the longrange social and political contradictions and destabilizing consequences of U.S. actions may frustrate U.S. objectives. In the words of Carlos Fuentes after the U.S. invasion of Panama, "We Latin Americans should always remember that the world no longer reacts to the provincial visions or illusions of the U.S. The mechanisms of change that have been set into motion are too profound, even if their results are as yet unforseeable." the margins of

or "relative

external power, the United States,

—

From

this perspective,

we should

not discard the possibility that the

Central America in the Balance

221

United States and its counterinsurgent allies could eventually, over the long run, be forced to negotiate an end to the wars in Central America and permit initiatives by popular forces in other Latin countries. Certainly, this is difficult to envision;

constraints on

its

ability

to

other international priorities,

but the United States does face objective control Latin America (budgetary limits, etc.).

More immediately, however, the U.S. has responded to international changes by reinforcing its "natural" sphere of influence in this hemisphere. To the extent that U.S.-Soviet agreements remove important restraints on U.S. intervention in the Third World, the new global order (or disorder) could be even more dangerous. Minimally, the Soviet Union's commitment to domestic priorities in the face of massive internal crisis implies pulling back much farther than previously from support of Third World struggles. At the same time, Western European governments which during the 1980s supported regional negotiations and human rights, and generally served as a counterweight to U.S. policies in Central America have greatly lowered their profile in the region; they are unlikely to contribute significant material resources to Central America, in view of growing economic relations with Eastern Europe. This leaves the future of Central America primarily in the hands of the United States and the IMF, which are thoroughly committed to counterinsurgent and neoliberal policies. Even before the Persian Gulf War, there were indicators of increasing U.S. inter ventionism in the Third World. As seen in key policy documents (e.g., "Discriminate Deterrence," a high-level bipartisan recommendation in 1988 for more security/counterinsurgency assistance with fewer re-

—

—

and subsequently, a Bush administration national security review [NYT 2/23/91]), U.S. policymakers envision more rather than less armed confrontation with Third World "enemies" (Marxist-Leninists, terrorists, drug-traffickers, etc.) and see a need to defeat such enemies strictions,

The Pentagon also reaffirmed its conviction remains undiminished in the Third World, and that the United States should continue to back "freedom fighters" and use military power in the Third World. This is compounded by an almost messianic mentality in U.S. policy circles and among policy intellectuals (Brzezinski, Huntington, et al.), heavily reflected in the mass media, in which the contradictions of socialism are taken to demonstrate while the absolute immiseration the absolute "triumph of capitalism" of the Third World, which is an integral part of world capitalism, is "decisively

and

rapidly."

that the "Soviet threat"

—

totally ignored.

At the same time, another great restraint upon U.S. intervention in World has been decisively weakened: opposition to such interventions from American public opinion (the Vietnam Syndrome). Throughout the 1980s, the United States was prevented from directly the Third

Central America in the Balance

222

invading Central America by lack of public support: Opinion polls from

1979 on showed consistently that over two-thirds of the American public opposed interventionist policies in Central America, even when conducted by a very popular president, and even when phrased in terms of "stopping communism." It was for this reason that the Reagan administration had to channel funds to the Contras illegally (hence the Contragate scandal).

The Bush administration, which

in

many

respects continued

Reagan

policy in Central America, understood the imperative of overcoming

weakness of Reagan's Contra policy, its lack of support from Congress and from the American public. (On other Central America issues, most Democrats had been compliant since 1984.) Bush and Secretary of State James Baker used the March 1989 "bipartisan accord" this great

with congressional Democrats to repair the Contra-gate damage and obtain a virtual green light for interventionism in Central America (continuation of "humanitarian" aid to the Contras, economic

war against

Nicaragua, and counterinsurgency assistance to Guatemala and El Sal-

With the invasion of Panama in December 1989, neither congresDemocrats nor the U.S. public objected even to direct involvement of U.S. troops, so long as such involvement was "successful" and not prolonged or costly in U.S. lives. If there was any doubt about this after Panama, it appears to have been erased by domestic responses to the Persian Gulf War. This very negative development is perhaps an expression of what vador). sional

Fred Halliday (1989) has identified as a "quasi-totalitarian" anti-interWorld political culture running rampant throughout

nationalist, anti-Third

the

advanced

capitalist

world.

In

the

United States,

this

trend can

conceivably be counterbalanced in the 1990s only by the revival of

mass-based popular movements, particularly for the rights of women and people of color and by the birth of a new political culture growing out of those movements, internationalist as well as egalitarian in its

—

outlook.

The problem of U.S. power in Central America is in large measure problem of how the dominant class maintains its grip over American public opinion. The anti-intervention movement in the United States the

played an important role in defeating military aid to the Contras, but

was never able to force an open debate about the devastating economic war that destroyed Nicaragua. It was ineffective in the face of jingoistic justifications of the assault on Panama. While church-based and other forces mobilized significant public pressure against military aid to El

Salvador, they have not yet effectively confronted the Bush administration's

very deliberate policy of "overcoming" the Vietnam Syndrome

Central America in the Balance

and reconstructing the "bipartisan consensus"

in

223

regard to Central

America.

By the early 1990s, a revival of broad-based movements in the United seems possible, especially among women and minority communities. In principle, the end of the Cold War has created space for demanding a "peace dividend" for communities ridden with poverty, problems of particular concern joblessness, homelessness, and drugs to people of color and women. It also created space for challenging a "bipartisan consensus" based on outmoded Cold War ideologies in areas States

—

like

Central America. But

all

of these potential openings within the

in the wake of the Persian United likelihood of further Gulf War and the increased U.S. military interventions in the Third World. To summarize: The "post-Cold War" order is not necessarily the opposite of the Cold War in the Third World (i.e., peace), but rather a

States are in

danger of being closed

highly volatile transition period

whose outcome

uncertain.

is

The most

negative factors are structural immiseration (aggravated by neoliberal policies)

and the decreasing international

restraints

upon

tionism, at least in the short run. For Central America, the factors are

still

those on the ground.

intervention and challenge

its

If

U.S. interven-

most positive

anything can stay the hand of

creation, the counterinsurgency state,

it

most likely to be some combination of popular and revolutionary forces, which accumulated strength and a great deal of political learning during the 1980s. These forces are not strong enough to triumph outright, but they are too strong to be defeated or discounted. The immediate is

future looks extremely difficult for the popular classes in Central America;

but longer range, the contradictions of structural

crisis

and

U.S. inter-

vention could favor popular/revolutionary forces in those countries where

they are well organized, broadly based, and able to develop strategies appropriate for

new

conditions. Perhaps

we can

dare to hope that the

prolongation of the Central American struggles into the next decade will

bring concrete gains and,

within a very

environment, expand the limits of the "possible."

difficult

international

15 The

As

Battle for

Guatemala

of early 1991, the battle for Guatemala, already raging for thirty-

with its outcome as uncertain as ever. At stake is not only the configuration of state power but also the soul of Guatemalan five years, continues,

whom

shall the Guatemalan nation belong? What is Guatemala that no longer excludes the majority of its population in which the bourgeoisie and the army must share power with the 87 percent majority, and in particular with the 50-60 percent that are Indian? If Guatemala's recent history is any guide, the battle will be prolonged. In fact, the outcome cannot be conceptualized as simply "either/or," victory for one side and defeat for the other. Within each of the two main camps, the ruling coalition and the popular/ revolutionary convergence, as well as between them, there are major debates over the shape of the future. Therefore, it is useful to understand the perspectives and logics of the major contenders. civil

society:

To

the prospect for a

—

The Two Guatemalas changed the face of Guatemala twenty years are continuing not unidimensionally, but with certain marked tendencies prevailing. Foremost among these are polarization and continued immiseration for the 87 percent majority of the population. Two-thirds of the population is only partially employed or unemployed. These figures may well grow higher, as formerly "middleclass" sectors are being pushed down by neoliberal austerity policies. And if world coffee prices continue to drop or remain low, according to one Guatemalan expert, there will likely be a new wave of dispossession of small- and medium-scale coffee growers in the eastern part of the

The

structural transformations that have

during the

last

country. 225

—

The Battle

226

for

Guatemala

Although these remain the dominant tendencies, there are counter-

some

tendencies. In

through

new

areas, crisis

partially or temporarily alleviated

is

(among

nontraditional exports

new

drugs). Hence, there will be

these,

cocaine and other

some

"poles of survival,"

of these in

indigenous communities. In the opinion of informed economists and sociologists, however, the new "miracle" exports are passing fads rather than firm bases for long-range economic recovery or development. Similarly, in the capital

croempresas

and other

may absorb some

not enough to stem the

new maquiladoras and

cities,

of the poverty In this sense,

tide.

mi-

and unemployment, but

we can

project degrees of

poverty within overall impoverishment.

Largely as a consequence oi these ongoing structural transformations,

may

not make sense to conceptualize the future of Guatemala in terms of one or another model for the country as a whole. It may be

it

—

emergence of "two Guatemalas" all the by extreme racial discrimination, a form of apartheid in all but name. Given the dominant tendencies toward polarization of Guatemalan society, there may be at least two projects for the future: one for the 13 percent of the population that does not live in poverty; the other for the remaining 87 percent.

more relevant more so in a

to postulate the

society rent asunder

Stabilization of the

Neoliberal/Counterinsurgency Model?

A

major projection from

contradictions, stabilized. In

the

this

Guatemalan

the first place,

it

has not

legitimacy, given the brutality that that the

army has won

the

book

is

that,

because

of

counterinsurgency project

is

won and cannot win

endemic

war against

to

it.

Second,

its

its

can

profound never

be

the battle for basic premise,

the guerrilla insurgency, has been

disproven in practice, causing discontent and destabilization within the ruling

economic policies are not only intensifying social growth of the national economy. These contradictions

coalition. Finally, neoliberal

conflicts but also limiting

suggest crises

the

bankruptcy of existing models for dealing with Guatemala's their "bankruptcy" does not mean their imminent collapse.

— although

As shown in Part 2, the made necessary the

crisis of the total

war model

of the early

opening" of the mid-1980s. But within a few years, the contradictions of the civilian counterinsurgency state emerged. Despite the widespread hopes aroused by the return to civilian rule, the Cerezo "opening" brought neither pluralism (as claimed) nor social justice. The maintenance of the counterinsurgency apparatus virtually assured the continuation of the old patterns of violence and human rights abuse. To the extent that the government restricted the space for popular forces, furthermore, it curtailed the exercise of formal 1980s

"political

The Battle for Guatemala

democracy and pluralism all

for the

227

country as a whole. Finally, by virtually

indicators, living conditions deteriorated significantly for

most Gua-

temalans from 1985 to 1990, and Cerezo government policies only exacerbated the situation. The Cerezo "transition" was a change from the past but not a democratic transition. These experiences strongly suggest that, given the extreme inequalities in Guatemala, even limited political

democracy cannot be meaningfully attained without structural

reforms.

Symbolic of the

failures of the

Cerezo regime was the massacre of

month in office. On the night of December 2, 1990, security forces opened fire on several thousand unarmed Indian villagers who were peacefully protesting abuses by army members. Army fire killed fourteen and wounded nineteen, many of them children. Within hours of the massacre, 15,000 outraged village residents had signed a petition demanding removal of the army garrison and punishment of all those responsible. But let us set aside the questions of democracy and justice and evaluate the civilian counterinsurgency model in terms of its own real goals, that is, stabilizing the country and staving off revolution. In this model, "social peace" means not only the defeat of the insurgency but also the control of popular movements. Certainly, the Cerezo government warded off revolution and kept social movements under partial control. But these movements slowly gathered strength despite continuing repression and Santiago, Atitlan, during Cerezo's last

a heavy legacy of fear, principally because of the worsening economic crisis.

Thus the stage was set for the crackdown against popular movement which began in September 1989 a preemptive strike against

—

leaders,

the protests expected after the

November

paquetazo.

Once

again, the

its immediate goals, but did nothing to address the which exploded once again a year later (see below). By late 1989, the bankruptcy of the Cerezo project was evident, with the ruling coalition literally fueling the crisis. The neoliberal austerity measures put the burden of the crisis on the poor and the middle class, virtually assuring the outbreak of new protest in coming months and years. Nearly everyone interviewed in late 1989 shared the view expressed by opposition politicians that Cerezo was sitting on a "dangerous powder keg." The main beneficiary of the IMF-imposed program was the banking or "speculative bourgeoisie"; the rest of the private sector responded by blaming the government for the crisis and sending its money abroad. By the end of 1990, it was evident that the measures had not accomplished their objectives, as inflation had reached 83 percent according to the Bank of Guatemala (IC 1/31/91) the highest in Guatemalan history. So much, as one government adviser put it, for "economic recovery."

terror

accomplished

crisis,

—

The Battle

228

for

Guatemala

Throughout 1990, amid deepening economic crisis and increasing political violence, Guatemalans prepared for the November election. Once again, there was not one serious center-left option among the candidates, nor any discussion of Guatemala's staggering problems; and the

tensions

the

of

process

electoral

itself

generated

new

violence

(including assassinations of candidates). According to a September 1990 poll,

60 percent of people asked were "uncommitted" (undecided or

favored none of the candidates), foreshadowing a very high rate of

The Christian Democrats appeared

be following in the end of the Duarte regime divided, corrupt, and scandal-ridden, with candidate Alfonso Cabrera additionally being linked to drug trafficking operations. The only novelty was their midstream shift toward a somewhat more populist stance, filling an obvious but previously unoccupied space on the electoral abstention.

to

footsteps of their Salvadoran counterparts at the

—

spectrum.

Although the Right never managed to unify around one candidate, it always seemed most likely that the victor would be a New Rightist the possibilities ranging from the UCN's (like Cristiani in El Salvador) more "moderate" Jorge Carpio, to more extreme but "modern" MLN candidates, to conservative Protestant fundamentalist maverick Jorge Serrano. Former dictator General Efrain Rios Montt, campaigning as a candidate of law and order, garnered considerable support from evangelicals, as well as from other sectors frightened by the increasing violence, before his candidacy was finally barred on constitutional

—

grounds.

None

and violence;

of these candidates addressed the issues of repression

all

were committed

to neoliberal

economic

policies

continued counterinsurgency, leaving the "political opening"

at a

and bare

sum, the electoral process was an expression of competition within the Guatemala of the 13 percent minority and had very little to do with the problems of the 87 percent majority. Unlike the 1985 election, this one did not arouse widespread hopes for greater democracy or

minimum.

In

social reform.

any event, the November election resulted in a draw between two neoliberal candidates, Jorge Carpio and Jorge Serrano, who differed very little from each other on matters of substance. The real winner was Abstention: The valid vote was split among barely 30 percent of the electorate (compared with 44 percent in 1985), as 70 percent of In

rightist,

eligible voters either did not register, did not vote, or cast invalid ballots.

In

the

some

rural indigenous areas, the statistics

words of one observer,

a

technically

were

far

"clean"

worse. election,

It

was, in yet

"so

meaningless to the country's real problems that it has been described as 'electoral apartheid'" (Jorge Castaneda in LAT, 11/18/90).

The Battle for Guatemala

The runoff

229

1991 gave a decisive "victory" to conservative even observers pointed out, the level of Serrano; but, as (even higher was so high than in November) as to tarnish abstentionism government, new making it "legal but not repthe legitimacy of the resentative" (quoted in IC, 1/10/91). Serrano's mixed background (head of the Council of State under the Rios Montt military dictatorship, more recently a prominent member of the church-sponsored National Reconciliation Commission) led to varying expectations about his government. Given the character of the 1990 electoral process, he came to power with a far weaker mandate, hence less maneuverability vis-a-vis the army and bourgeoisie, than Cerezo had initially enjoyed (and election in January

subsequently squandered). From his first months in office, it was not yet clear how Serrano intended to use what space he had. Behind the facade of

demagogy about

a

"social

pact,"

his

explicitly

neoliberal

adjustment program brought layoffs and yet more austerity for the 87 percent majority, and his responses to popular protects (strikes, land invasions) were overtly repressive. But unlike Cerezo, Serrano understood

need (and was under pressure from many quarters) to take initiatives on negotiations with the URNG (see below) a reality that will doubtless shape his years in office. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, the more farsighted among the ruling coalition and their advisers have been thinking beyond the election. Just as they planned how to control the transition to civilian rule during the the

last

—

years of the military dictatorship in the mid-1980s, their goal has

been

to

develop a program

power. Acknowledging the

for

whatever government might come into they have been attempting to define

crisis,

long-range strategies for managing a

number

of

them

said as

much

it

on behalf

of the 13 percent minority;

in interviews

and

in public forums.

minimum needs through local government development programs) in order to counter the reviving appeal of the revolutionary movement: "We can only end the insurgency when people feel that their basic needs are being met; this is how we broke the power of the URNG in 1982." But meeting the basic needs of 87 percent of the population They recognize the importance

of meeting

some

basic

of the population (e.g.,

requires a great deal

more resources than

since neoliberalism

is

reducing

still

the pittance allocated, especially

further the state's role in providing

and so on. Guatemala of the 13 percent minority seems virtually certain to continue moving in the neoliberal direction. From this perspective, the overall social crisis is reduced to the specific problem of training an adequate work force for nontraditional exports and cheap

social services, infrastructure, In short, the

labor industries. But the is

"new

export miracle" expected in

some quarters

unlikely to produce economic growth even at the top: studies of the

The Battle

230

for

Guatemala

East Asian "Four Tigers" emphasize that the preconditions for their

dynamic state policies and thorough land reforms (Evans both of which are precluded by the neoliberal model in Central

success included 1987),

America.

Meanwhile, extreme neoliberalism narrows even further the

social

new CACIF accuses the government

base of government economic policy and has become the object of struggles within the ruling coalition. While

of not dismantling social services or lifting state

economic controls

fast

enough, some industrialists see the need for a "decent state apparatus" (rather than total privatization) in order to protect their own interests. These divergences have not become serious enough to threaten the unity of the ruling coalition in the face of popular protest, but they attest to

the bankruptcy of the old economic models, even for the bourgeoisie.

They might even

create

more space

some

sectors of

for the

growing

consensus in support of reformist alternatives to neoliberalism; certainly this would be the logical conclusion from the ample evidence that Guatemala cannot enjoy economic growth without an expansion of the internal market;

and the

latter,

in turn, requires

some kind of agrarian more advantageous

reform. In short, a viable strategy for defining a

world market and ending the economic crisis will have from a political commitment to address the needs of Guatemala's

relation to the to start

87 percent majority as well as of the 13 percent minority.

At the same time, in the specifically counterinsurgent aspect, former Defense Minister Gramajo has articulated the army's promise of "national stability" and unification of the Guatemalan nation under the hegemony of the army and its civilian allies. Gramajo's Theses on National Stability (1989)

is

the most sophisticated effort to present a coherent project

on

behalf of "modern" counterinsurgent forces. In the end, however, despite their considerable local

power

in

many

areas of the country, they cannot

achieve their goal of legitimating this project. forces,

whose

It

comes from the armed Even

practices are universally recognized as repressive.

theoretically, the Theses identify

by the popular classes

(strikes,

any organized expression of grievances

demonstrations,

etc.)

as being in opposition

hence "subversive." The army is trying to dominate a civil society which it ultimately fears. In the view of church officials, the army has never addressed the root causes of the insurgency because it "does not really see does not recognize poverty." It lives in mortal terror of the world view that has inspired the church's preferential option for the poor. Hence, its goal is to disarticulate autonomous popular movements and deliberately not to permit the space in which a social consensus could develop. But this "social peace" remains illusory; meanwhile, the contradictions of the to the national interest,

—

—

*

The Battle for Guatemala

counterinsurgency model leave ideological space for initiatives by its opponents.

new

231

alliances

and

new

Finally, a

a

word must be

of

variety

tactical

said about the role of the United States. For

reasons

— budget

pressures,

new human

rights

pressures from religious organizations and Congress within the United States

and

internationally,

a

desire to get Central

America "off the

agenda," and to step up political pressure on Cuba by isolating Cuba U.S. policy in as the only "human rights violator" in the hemisphere the second year of the Bush administration (1990) reflected some shifts

—

was cut back and even temporarily suspended at the end of 1990. U.S. policy statements took on new emphases: verbal support for government "dialogue" with the URNG (see below); sharp criticism of the Cerezo government on issues of human rights (for the first time), drug traffic, and corruption; and a clear alignment against Christian Democratic candidate Cabrera for the 1990 election. At the same time, as reported by nearly all journalists and close observers, the United States greatly increased its reliance on the military, even on those units of the military (e.g., G-2) most closely linked to human rights violations and heavily involved in drugs. Behind a new diplomatic stance, the basic policy framework of neoliberalism and counterinsurgency did not change, nor did the ongoing, strategic, close relationship with the army. As one U.S. official put it, "No matter what happens, the army is still the most important institution and will have to be the conduit for Guatemala's development" (CSM 12/11/90). One interpretation of the shifts or nuances is to view them as a new and cynical version of Washington's double game: criticism of Cerezo regarding Guatemala. Military aid

for

human

rights violations in order to avoid criticizing or breaking ties

with the army, and in order to support a

"more

reliable" rightist candidate

in the 1990 election. Indeed, as of early 1991, such an interpretation appears to be borne out by the fact that the United States has not linked its

"human

rights concerns" to

any restructuring of the army, demili-

tarization of the country, or punishment of military

and that

it

human rights criminals

views dialogue or negotiations as a process for securing the

Nor has it demonstrated any interest Funds, which are the bulk of security Support in conditioning Economic rights improvements (despite growing human assistance to Guatemala, on Guatemala and the United States). both pressure for such a move within more pragmatic U.S. policymakers the Nevertheless, it is also possible that political defeat of the guerrillas.

and Congressmen will begin to recognize just how brittle the status quo in Guatemala really is, and just how strong are the pressures for change; reality may, in this sense, impose itself on Washington. In the short and medium run, the United States is almost certainly to continue in the direction of neoliberalism and more reliance on the military; but

The Battle

232

for

Guatemala

Guatemala and in the world could eventually more fundamental change in U.S. policy. The question of U.S. policy takes on added significance at a time

further developments in force a

when

other international players are responding to different priorities.

This has been reflected, for example, in the growing ironies of the United Nations' votes on the

human

rights situation in

Guatemala. In February

1991 (on the heels of the Santiago Atitlan massacre), by a vote of 21

with 5 abstentions, the Human Rights Commission declined to Rapporteur for Guatemala. Most Third World (especially Latin American) governments appear to have reached a tacit agreement not to criticize each other regarding the internal conduct of their security forces, maintaining that such criticism violates their sovereignty. (This has been Mexico's position for years.) The Soviet Union and Cuba were among those abstaining on Guatemala. As a consequence of the above, the degree of pressure from the United States and Western Europe, through such votes, and even more through conditions on economic aid, will become more important in determining the limits and margins to 16,

name

of

a Special

maneuver

of the

Guatemalan government and counterinsurgent

forces.

The Reformist Option The most immediate alternative to the neoliheral / counterinsurgency model would be a mixed economy of some kind, based in part on the structural reforms and state initiatives necessary to expand the internal market. Historically in some countries, such projects have been carried out by a progressive "national bourgeoisie"; but Guatemala has lacked such a bourgeoisie. (The modernizing sectors of the bourgeoisie are in no way reformist; they seek only to change the image of the business community.) Reformism is represented in Guatemala by the small center-left political parties (the "democratic Left"), the most established being the social democratic PSD although also including progressive factions of the Christian Democratic Party and individuals from other parties. Overall, their goal has been to build an electoral alliance, presumably to push for redistributive reforms and welfare state capitalism. Politically, they view electoral democracy as a genuine advance, however limited; they see a potential for modernizing sectors of the bourgeoisie to be part of

—

a progressive alliance;

and they believe

in the possibility of "civilizing"

or changing the mentality of nonterrorist sectors of the army.

Thus far, no reformist solution has been tried since 1954, and reformist remain extremely weak. Their base is small because of repression directed against them and because of their own fragmentation and forces

inability to take

Chapter

11).

advantage of the "political space" that does exist (see further weakened by people's general lack of faith

They are

— The Battle

for

Guatemala

233

and purely electoral parties. Finally, the "democratic Left" has been plagued by a fundamental issue of strategy, because it has generally sought alliances to its right rather than to its left. Recent Guatemalan history suggests that any genuinely reformist solution will in politicians

-

be based on an alliance of reformist forces with popular/

i

have

I

revolutionary forces, not with supposedly "reformed" forces within the

to

ruling coalition. Social democratic forces have received international support (e.g., I l

r

i

I

I

.

'

!

i

i

from

the Socialist International in Western Europe); this has been key in

reformism as an option in principle, but thus far it has not been matched by sufficient financial support to create a viable option nor is this expected to change in the immediate future, as Western European governments are giving priority to Eastern Europe. Within the region, reformist options have been indirectly strengthened by the Central American Peace Process and the attempt to revive the Central American Common Market. However, the peace process is dormant, and recent discussions about the CACM (e.g., at the June 1990 Presidents' meeting) indicate its incorporation into a neoliberal framework. For the 1990s, the precondition for any genuinely reformist solution in Guatemala (and even for economic recovery) will be a negotiated settlement to the war; ironically enough, in the light of everything discussed above, the conditions for such a settlement may be better today than at any time in the past decade. Within the context of negotiations, the "democratic Left" could play a significant role and expand its own base but only if it participates in an alliance of the center-left, rather than the center-right. articulating

—

New

Paths Toward Democratization: "Dialogue/'

Negotiations, and Redefinitions in Popular

and Revolutionary Strategies As

a result of the structural transformations that

have occurred during

the last twenty years, the instabilities of the counterinsurgency state,

and

the intolerance for reformist options, basic issues of social revolution remain

on the agenda

in

—

Guatemala although not The specific directions

the traditional forms.

necessarily,

or not simply, in

and revolutionary negotiations to end the

of popular

struggle will be greatly affected by the progress of

war.

What does

it

mean

to say that issues of social revolution

remain on

not in an insurrectionary situation or "ungovernable," but it is in a chronic social crisis. The counterinsurgency state has made reformism by itself unviable, by precluding partial solutions the agenda?

Guatemala

to the staggering

is

problems of poverty and ethnic discrimination. Grad-

The Battle for Guatemala

234

approaches to change simply have not been permitted. But faced with the deepening of these problems, large sectors of Guatemala's 87 percent majority have made continual efforts to organize in self-defense, rather than acquiescing in neoliberal/counterinsurgent solutions. For its ualist

part,

own

the insurgent

As

movement has once again been "reborn from

its

and subjective factors, the cry for social justice remains immediate and urgent, and basic issues of social revolution remain on the Guatemalan agenda. What, conversely, does it mean to suggest that the revolutionary project is being redefined? Guatemala is one of the few countries in Latin America where the armed insurgent movement has operated continuously since the 1960s. But armed struggle is not what people choose; after thirty years of counterinsurgency war, and particularly after the holocaust of the early 1980s, the URNG could not and cannot simply propose another decade of war. For these reasons, URNG strategy has been ashes."

a result of these objective

undergoing significant modifications. The clearest example of these dynamics is the war itself. The URNG has recognized for some time that it cannot "take state power" militarily, and that, in any case, the cost of pursuing such a strategy would be too high. Hence, the URNG has been pressing for negotiations since 1986. For years the government stubbornly insisted that the insurgents must "lay down their arms." But by the first half of 1990, the war was intensifying, and even army and government spokesmen (as well as the private sector, whose properties were increasingly affected) were finally forced to acknowledge the significant upsurge in guerrilla capabilities. This implicit admission that the war could not be "won" militarily created the conditions, for the first time beginning in the spring of 1990, for the negation of the war, that is, serious discussions about ending it.

many

was

laid

during 1989 by the church-sponsored National Dialogue. Although

still

After

rejected

false starts, the basis for a negotiation process

and boycotted

the private sector,

it

at that

time by the army, the government, and

expressed a clear national consensus

among

all

other sectors in favor of a political settlement to the war. The dialogue

process projected a series of

URNG

meetings,

first

with the National

Reconciliation Commission, second with the political parties, third with

and religious movements, and finally with the government and army. The first three stages, which also involved a personal representative of the UN Secretary General as observer, yielded results far beyond what had been expected or imagined. In the June 1990 meeting between the URNG and the political parties, agreement was reached, at least in principle, on the need for modifications in the constitution, while the guerrillas agreed not to disrupt the 1990 elections. Even MLN founder the "social sectors" (private enterprise, popular etc.),

The Battle

for

Guatemala

235

Sandoval Alarcon participated enthusiastically in that meeting. In September 1990, CACIF held initial discussions with the URNG an un-

—

thinkable event for the past thirty years. Beyond the formal meetings, the dialogue process

opened up spaces within a repressive context

discussion of issues that have been "undiscussable" for decades; into

motion a new dynamic that could take on a

life

of

its

it

for set

own and

generate elements of a future consensus. In this sense, the dialogue

process became an important avenue for democratizing Guatemala. But

most difficult discussions, between the URNG and the government and army, were not part of the dialogue, and the most difficult issues (dismantling of the terror apparatus within the security forces and the

punishing

human

rights

criminals,

demilitarization

of society,

basic

structural reforms) were not concretely addressed. As this book goes to press, the process has been undergoing important modifications. Under pressure from many sides, both domestic and international (including the Salvadoran government negotiations with the FMLN), the Serrano government presented its own initiatives for direct discussions with the URNG, and top army officials agreed for the first time to participate in meetings to set the agenda and procedures for peace talks. The occurrence of these preliminary meetings, dropping

the precondition that the guerrillas

first

lay

down

their arms, represented

is still no basis for war anytime soon. For one thing, ultraright sectors staunchly oppose the entire process, and can be expected to act on their discontent by destabilizing activities. Further, many of those who verbally support and participate in the process (and certainly the Guatemalan and U.S. governments) think of negotiations as a way to pressure the guerrillas politically into laying down their arms; and the Guatemalan army is still dominated by a mentality of political/military

a

significant

(albeit

expecting an end

small) step

forward. There

to the

victory over the guerrillas rather than negotiations involving mutual

concessions.

depend upon the emergence and condesigned not only to end the war but also to address its root causes and make the necessary constitutional changes. Viewed from the perspective of early 1991, the outcome commitments

Ultimately, the

solidation of

will

to a process

process carries very high risks as well as great hopes; it promises to be arduous and prolonged, with sudden ups and downs; it will be

accompanied by continuing violence and will likely include periodic escalations of the war. Even among the various sectors of civil society committed to negotiating an end to the war, the dynamics will be very complex, with each of the major players having its own agenda and responding to

its

own

pressures. Nevertheless, this process

is

the terrain

236

The Battle

on which the

for

Guatemala

battle for

Guatemala's future will be fought in coming

years.

The URNG's emphasis on bargaining position), reveals

same enhance its

a negotiation process, while at the

time demonstrating a greater military capacity (in order to

some important

redefinitions.

Among

these

between "reformist" and "revolutionary" proposals, is a new and social demands. In contrast to "reform versus democratic between revolution" formulations of the 1960s (when reformism was perceived as the enemy of revolution) or of the late 1980s (when reformism came to be perceived by some as the only remaining route, since revolution had "failed"), the conditions may now exist for a convergence, as basic demands for democracy and social justice take on a revolutionary significance and require many forms of struggle for their realization. A strategic goal of any revolutionary/reformist project in Guatemala relationship

—

remains the destruction of the fact, a precondition for all else counterinsurgency apparatus, which is an apparatus of terror. However, "destruction" does not simply translate into armed struggle; the dis-

in

mantling of that apparatus and the demilitarization of Guatemalan society must be achieved in various ways, combining armed strategies with mass organizing, negotiations, and even electoral/mobilizational politics (along the lines of Brazil's Worker's Party [PT] and Cardenismo in Mexico). Even the goals of the struggle are being redefined in some respects. Long before the current upheavals in the socialist world, "actually existing socialism" has not been a model for the Guatemalan revolution. In this regard, both the Guatemalan and Salvadoran movements of the 1980s had more in common with the Nicaraguan Revolution than with traditional state socialist models. They came to emphasize a mixed economy and political pluralism along with popular/participatory democracy. Also being reconceptualized in Central America has been the strategy of seizing state power in the traditional sense. The Sandinista experience in Nicaragua demonstrated that "taking state power" could be very relative and did not necessarily reduce the vulnerability to all-out attack by the United States. Recognizing that the United States would not permit "another Nicaragua," the URNG and the Salvadoran FMLN have gradually moved toward various strategies for gaining a share of power for the popular classes. In none of these cases is the issue of state power "superseded," but it has taken on new dimensions, giving greater significance to the democratization of civil society as well as of state institutions.

Despite these advances, the popular and revolutionary forces face formidable challenges.

they be able to adapt to fast-changing Are they capable of developing a long-range

Will

international conditions?

237

The Battle for Guatemala

vision that

more compelling

is

to a

broad spectrum of Guatemalans

ruling coalition-a vision that people than the long-range projects of the be able to articulate a long-range they can believe in and fight for? Will combined or mixed model (in economic alternative to neoliberalism-a of everything), one which privatization contrast to current schemes for economic goals in realistic as well as involves genuine social reforms be regiona necessarily must project Such a the new international context? part of but scope, in American Central just as well as long range-not popular can Guatemala, Within redefinition. a regional Latin American left by a discredited fill the political vacuum forces revolutionary and it is fighting for that indicated has civilian

government? The

URNG

party, but for the formulation of space not for itself as a political such solutions to the country's crises. But if alternative, popularly based deterioration, economic bring could alternatives do not emerge, the future than war, and increased violence-rather continued disintegration, social

any coherent project. redefinition in the relation between The late 1980s have also seen a situation in Guatemala. The contradictory the URNG and popular forces summarized well been has convergence within the popular/revolutionary

by close observers: has attracted sectors of support.well At the revolutionary pole, the URNG militants. They include the littlebeyond its committed combatants and

sizeable percentage of refugees "populations in resistance" ... and a for a revolutionary mode sympathy and displaced persons. There is also rights

known

with the URNG, among human though not explicit political alliances and youth, and the organized bureaucrats activists, urban middle-class

campesinos. ... The war has an ambivalent urban and rural proletariat and capacity to terror, the army's brutal echo in the city. Since the 1981 constantly thus They consciousness. massacre has permeated the people's revolutionary movement the for support their weigh the risks in determining movement s early 1980s, the popular After the frightening years of the have led would repression So much is moderately hopeful. situation traumas, historical by paralyzed being one o expect paralysis. Far from refugees, internally the of many and the "populations in resistance" populations have a rich experience displaced people and controlled trauma has to be heard. But though and a desire to express themselves, as was movement, mass the of resurgence not occurred, neither has a .

.

.

.

1990; seen in the late seventies (Envio

As seen

in

Chapter

12, the

my

.

emphasis).

not popular movements of the 1980s are with rebuilt being they are

movement; subordinate to the revolutionary with their accordance in significant autonomy and

;

own

needs. In addition,

The Battle for Guatemala

238

given the blurring of lines between proletariat, semiproletariat, informal proletariat, and peasantry, and given the prominence of displaced populations,

new

the

new

forms are needed. Unions will remain movement, but by themselves, they cannot organize

organizational

central to the popular

constituencies. In practice, the search for appropriate, flexible

— —

forms of organization has only begun the CPRs and the myriad of human rights organizations are examples and remains a real challenge for the future.

New

forms of popular organization and leadership are also needed major weakness of existing organizations: their vulnerability

to address the

to official repression, despite the "constitutional right" to function.

any reminder were needed, the September 1989 repression three out of sixteen leaders of the

AEU

left

If

only

(university students organization)

and above ground, and labor organizations were functionally decapitated in the same way. The fact that state repression is deliberately aimed at their leaders and activists remains the Achilles' heel of the alive

popular forces. Nevertheless, the end of 1990 and beginning of 1991 have seen a

resurgence of popular activity, both organized and spontaneous. In the aftermath of the Santiago Atitlan massacre, the entire community banded together to hold the

demand removal

of the

army army

directly

and publicly responsible, and

to

base; their success in "breaking the silence"

and openly challenging the army created the possibility, for the first time, of similar demands being raised by other communities. At the same time, the 25,000 indigenous people living in the CPRs succeeded in putting their demands on the national agenda and gaining broad legitimacy as participants in public political life. Meanwhile, other signs of social ferment emerged in strikes and large land invasions/occupations both in Guatemala City and on the southern coast, in the heart of Guatemalan capitalist agriculture; although the invasions involved stateowned lands, these actions were understood by all parties as a challenge to the sanctity of private property. The Serrano government's carrot/ stick response (sending in antiriot police with one hand, while attempting to draw workers into a broad "social pact" with the other) seemed unlikely to stem the wave of social protest. In short, despite their multiple and persistent problems, the popular movements gathered strength during 1990 and have been restructuring for more effective action in 1991, with a view toward expanding their "political space." More generally, widespread consensus in favor of negotiations to end the war and against neoliberal economic policies has created new opportunities for a very broad national popular/revolutionary alliance.

The dialogue spearheaded by the church, through the National RecCommission, presented a new opportunity to build such an

onciliation

— The Battle for Guatemala alliance. (In this regard,

it

is

239

important to emphasize again the role of

the church in unifying civil society both vertically [across classes]

horizontally [in

all

regions of the country]

— with

and

sufficient legitimacy

to challenge the army and to provide crucial moral support for the popular movements.) Furthermore, because the revolutionaries now operate within the broader political context influenced by the Church of

and by the great diversity of popular movements, as well as by other leftist and progressive forces, they are having to learn a new outlook and new forms of behavior, less vanguardist and sectarian, more the Poor

pluralistic.

As seen throughout this book, a crucial area of redefinition has been between class-based and ethnic-based struggles. It is now impossible to ignore ethnic demands, to make them secondary or reduce them to class issues. Guatemala's revolution will be both classbased and indigenous (not either/or). But there remains a real debate over how to link class and ethnic struggles in practice. This question the relationship

requires great flexibility, because a fundamental issue of democratic rights

indigenous population

for the

positions.

Separatist

is at

stake,

and there are many

different

sentiments will have to be heard, and serious

consideration given to the as-yet unanswered question of what, concretely, self-determination will

mean in a truly multicultural nation. This issue "new ways of being Indian" takes on added

—

a continuing discussion of

significance in

the context of the

1992 "500th Anniversary" of the

Spanish Conquest (called by others the "discovery" of America). In the words of CUC activist Rigoberta Menchu, 1992 could be the occasion for a genuine encounter among all of the cultures of Latin America (certainly of Guatemala), "a moment of self-discovery, in which we all listen to each other." In such an encounter, the indigenous peoples can make a significant contribution toward defining a new political vision that favors all of Latin America's poor. Finally,

"popular" struggle includes struggles over issues of the

relations of reproduction as well as production, suggesting the centrality

of

women's

has not yet been Guatemalan popular and revolutionary movethere will be serious limitations on the level of popular

issues; but this very necessary redefinition

seriously addressed in the

ments. Until

it is,

But it is not simply a question of the protagonism of class-based resistance. To bring about lasting change, the

mobilization.

women

in

have to be a cultural revolution: It will have to construct a profoundly new and democratic political culture,

Guatemalan Revolution

will also

among

other things, a feminist political culture, challenging personal as well as the multiple sources of repression and domination

which

will be,

—

political.

The Battle for Guatemala

240

As we enter the 1990s, Guatemala

is

still

embattled, rent asunder

bv the crises and legacies of the past decades. Reconciliation between the two Guatemalas will be virtually impossible without addressing

and of the Indian majority. At Thus far, Guatemala's oligarchs and generals and their U.S. backers have refused to entertain any such options. But pressures for such a solution will doubtless intensify. At the same time, Guatemala is likely to move to the center of the Central American stage in coming years. If the Guatemalan counterinsurgency apparatus is not dismantled, it will remain an obstacle to peace in the region. And if the war there continues, the Guatemala tinderbox could become an open threat to Central American peace. the interests of the 87 percent majority

some

I

level,

there will have to be a real sharing of power.

end these projections about the future of Guatemala with a

reflection

about the past. Stepping outside the geopolitical Cold War logic that has governed U.S. policy in Guatemala and Central America generally in recent decades, let us think

Guatemala

to oust nationalist

that intervention

back to the 1954 CIA intervention in

democratic President Jacobo Arbenz. After

— unquestionably a — Vice-President

immediate goals

U.S. foreign policy success in

Nixon

terms

Guatemala and declared, "This is the first instance in history where a Communist government has been replaced by a free one. The whole world is watching to see which does a better job." We know now that the legacy of that intervention has been Latin America's longest and dirtiest war. Even today, after thirty years and up to 200,000 civilian casualties, the United States and the Guatemalan army are no closer to "pacifying" the country on a lasting basis. Guatemalans live in much worse conditions than ever. But once having glimpsed the possibility of a better life, during the 1944-1954 Revolution, many people have refused to accept a "fate" of misery and repression and have continually sought redress for their grievances. This is why issues of social revolution remain on the agenda. But let us suppose that the Eisenhower administration had decided to leave the Arbenz government in place in 1954. What would have ensued? Not communism, but capitalist industrialization and modernization. Land reform had to be part of that process, but it would have served primarily to rationalize Guatemalan capitalism, to stabilize the country by bringing its dispossessed majority into the economy. Not only Guatemala but perhaps all of Central America might have undergone of

its

visited

The Battle

for

Guatemala

241

a nonviolent modernization process, if the Guatemalan example had been permitted to survive and even to spread. And today will Guatemala have to suffer yet another war? As Guatemalan writer Luis Cardoza y Aragon answers the question, "It depends on whether Washington can understand that Guatemala, with its Indian population, is no threat to the United States."

—

Acronyms

AEU

Asociacion de Estudiantes Universitarios (Association of University Students)

AFL-CIO

American Federation

of Labor-Congress of Industrial

Organizations

AFP

Alliance for Progress

AGA

Asociacion General de Agricultores (General Associ-

AID AIFLD CACIF

U.S.

CACM CAN

Central American

CBI

Caribbean Basin Initiative Comision Economica para America Latina (U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America) Comite Guatemalteco de Unidad Popular (Guatemalan Committee of Popular Unity)

ation of Growers)

Agency for International Development American Institute for Free Labor Development Comite Coordinador de Asociaciones Agricolas, Comerciales, Industrials y Financieras (Chamber of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Associations)

Common

Market

Central Autentico Nacionalista (Authentic Nationalist Central)

CEPAL

CGUP

Agency

CIA

U.S. Central Intelligence

CII

Coordinadores Inter-Institucionales (Inter-Institutional

CNT

CNUS

Coordinating Councils) Confederacion Nacional de Trabajadores (National Confederation of Workers) Comite Nacional de Unidad Sindical (National Committee for Trade Union Unity) 243

244

Acronyms

CPR

Comunidades de Poblacion en nities of

CONDECA

CONDEG CONAVIGUA

CUC

(Commu-

Resistencia

People in Resistance)

Consejo de Defensa Centroamericana (Central American Defense Council) Consejo de Desplazados Guatemaltecos (Council of Displaced Guatemalans) Coordinadora Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala (National Coordinating Committee of Guatemalan Widows) Comite de Unidad Campesina (Peasant Unity Committee)

CUSG

EGP

Confederacion de Unidad Sindical de Guatemala (Confederation of Guatemalan Trade Union Unity) Democracia Cristiana Guatemalteca (Christian Democratic Party of Guatemala) U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Empresa Electrica de Guatemala (Electrical Company of Guatemala) Ejercito Guerrillero de los Pobres (Guerrilla Army of

ESF

Economic Support Funds

EXMIBAL

Exploraciones y Explotaciones Mineras de Izabal (Izabal Exploration and Mining Company)

FAR

Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (Rebel

FDCR

Frente Democratico Contra

FDR

Frente Democratico Revolucionario (Democratic Rev-

FGEI

Frente Guerrillero Edgar Ibarra (Edgar Ibarra Front)

FMLN

Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberacion Nacional (Far-

FP-31

Frente Patriotico 31

DCG DEA EEG

the Poor)

la

Armed

Forces)

Represion (Democratic

Front Against Repression) olutionary Front) (El Salvador)

abundo Marti National Liberation

Front) (El Salvador)

de Enero (January 31

Popular

Front)

FSLN

Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (Sandinista

FTN

Franja

National Liberation Front) (Nicaragua) Transversal

del

Norte (Northern

Transverse

Strip)

GAM

Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (Mutual Support Group)

ICA IMF

U.S. International

INCO

International Nickel

INFOP

Instituto de

International

Cooperation Administration

Monetary Fund

Company

Fomento de

la

Promotion of Production)

Production (Institute

for

Acronyms International Railways of Central America

IRCA

MANO

245

Blanca

MLN

MONAP MR-13

OAS ORPA

Movimiento Anticomunista Nacional Organizado (NaMovement), also tional Organized Anticommunist known as White Hand LiberMovimiento de Liberation Nacional (National ation Movement) MoveMovimiento Nacional de Pobladores (National ment of Pobladores) (NovemMovimiento Revolucionario 13 de Noviembre ber 13 Revolutionary Movement) Organization of American States (Organization of Organization del Pueblo en Armas the People in Arms)

PAC

(Civilian Self-defense Patrullas de Auto-defensa Civil

PGT

(Guatemalan Labor Partido Guatemalteco de Trabajo

Patrols)

Party)

PID

(Communist

Partido Institucional

Party)

Democratico (Democratic

Insti-

tutional Party)

PR PSD

Party) Partido Revolucionario (Revolutionary

(Democratic Socialist Partido Socialista Democratico Party)

UCN

(Citizen Protection Sistema de Protection Ciudadana System) (Labor and PopUnidad de Action Sindical y Popular ular Action Unity) of the National Union del Centro Nacional (Union

UFCo

United Fruit

SIPROCI

UASP

Center)

UNSITRAGUA

URD

Company

Guatemala (Trade Union Sindical de Trabajadores de Union Unity of Guatemalan Workers) (Revolutionary Unidad Revolucionaria Democratica Democratic Unity)

URNG USAC

Guatemalteca (GuaUnidad Revolucionaria Nacional Unity) temalan National Revolutionary University of San (National Carlos San Universidad de Carlos)

Chronology

1524 1821 1871

1901 1931

1944

1945

1947 1949 1950

1952 1954

Spanish conquest; beginning of colonial era. Independence from Spain. "Liberal reform" begins under presidency of Gen. Justo Rufino Barrios; disestablishment of the Catholic church. United Fruit Company (UFCo) arrives in Guatemala. Jorge Ubico takes over the presidency. Ubico is overthrown in military coup; civilian-military uprising subsequently ousts military junta and begins Revolution of 1944-1954. Juan Jose Arevalo is elected president; new democratic constitution is promulgated. New labor code establishes basic workers' rights. Formation of Partido Guatemalteco de Trabajo (Communist Party), not legalized until 1951. Jacobo Arbenz Guzman is elected president. Agrarian Reform Law passed. Arbenz is overthrown in CIA-organized "Libera(June) tion" and Carlos Castillo Armas takes power.

1957 1958

Castillo

1959 1960

Cuban

Armas

assassinated.

Gen. Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes elected president. Revolution.

(November) suppressed,

Major military uprising against Ydigoras

some

is

participants take to the mountains.

1962

Massive student and labor demonstrations, formation of MR-13 and Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), and beginning

1963

Overthrow of Ydigoras

of guerrilla insurgency. in

Azurdia. 247

coup led by Col. Enrique Peralta

248

Chronology

1966

Julio

Cesar Mendez Montenegro (Revolutionary Party) elected

president.

1966-1968

United States sends Green Berets, finances and directs counterinsurgency campaign led by Col. Carlos Arana Blanca and other death Osorio; founding of squads; by 1970, 8,000 unarmed civilians killed by security

MANO

forces.

Arana elected president.

1970

Col.

1972

Entry of

1974

Gen.

EGP

guerrillas into Guatemala. Laugerud becomes president, through

Kjell

electoral

fraud.

1975

Guerrilla activities resume.

1976

(February)

1977

Massive earthquake. Formation of National Committee of Trade Union Unity (CNUS), increased popular organizing. Massive protest march by mineworkers from Ixtahuacan to

Guatemala 1978

1979

City.

(March) Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcia becomes president through electoral fraud. (April) Formation of Committee of Peasant Unity (CUC). (May) Massacre of Kekchi Indians at Panzos. United States bans arms sales to Guatemalan government. Sandinista victory in Nicaragua. (July) (September) ORPA guerrillas launch first military operation.

1980

Government massacre and burning of the SpanEmbassy; Spain breaks diplomatic relations; great

(January) ish

increase in guerrilla activity in Indian highlands. 1981

1982

Beginning of army counteroffensive, involving numerous massacres and destruction of over 400 Indian villages by 1983. (February) Formation of Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) by EGP, ORPA, FAR, and PGT Nucleus.

(March) Gen. Angel Anibal Guevara "wins" presidency through fraudulent election, but discontented army of-

by Efrain Rios Montt seize power in coup; Rios Montt becomes president; counterinsurgency campaign ficers led

escalates.

1983

(January)

United States resumes military sales to Gua-

temala.

(August)

Gen. Oscar Mejia Victores seizes power counterinsurgency war continues.

itary coup;

in mil-

Chronology

1984

Constituent Assembly draws up

1985

Official U.S.

1987

(August)

new

249

constitution.

economic and military aid resumed. Formation of Mutual Support Group (GAM). (December) Christian Democrat Vinicio Cerezo wins presidency in national election; takes office in January 1986. Espuipulas II, Central American Peace Accords, signed.

(September)

Army

begins "Year's End" counterinsurgency

offensive.

Abortive military coup attempt by rightist civilians

1988

(May)

1989

1990

(May) Another failed coup attempt. Beginning of "Dialogue" process of discussions between

1991

URNG and political and social sectors. (November) Presidential election, first round. (December) Massacre at Santiago Atitlan. (January) Jorge Serrano wins runoff election.

and military

officers.

(Major sources: Barry 1989, Fried et

al.

1983)

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Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). 1989a. Uncertain Return: Refugees and Reconciliation in Guatemala. Washington, DC: WOLA. 1989b. The Administration of Justice. Washington, D.C.: WOLA. 1982. "Guatemala:

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WOLA

Special Update.

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(Unpublished manuscript.)

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Wickham-Crowley, Timothy P. 1989. "Winners, Losers, and Also-Rans: Towards a Comparative Sociology of Latin American Guerrilla Movements," in Susan Eckstein (ed.), Power and Popular Protest. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Wise, David, and

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New

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Crises

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Periodicals

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Washington Post (WP).

Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), newsletters.

About the Book and Author

A

contemporary history of Guatemala's thirty-year

bloodiest in the hemisphere

—

this

book

civil

war

— the longest and

pulls aside the veil of secrecy that has

obscured the origins of the war. Using a structural analysis that takes

critical

events and changes in the nation's economic and social structures as a starting point for understanding

its

political crises, the

author unravels the contradictions

Guatemalan politics and illustrates why, in the face of unmatched military brutality and repeated U.S. interventions, popular and revolutionary movements have arisen time and again. The central protagonists in the turbulent battle for Guatemala rebels, death squads, and the United States are evaluated in a dynamic framework that highlights the role of indigenous peoples and women and underscores the articulation of ethnic and gender divisions with class divisions. This book's interdisciplinary approach differentiates it from others in English and makes it an invaluable case study on the internal dynamics of Third World revolution and counterrevolution as well as on issues of human rights and U.S. policy in Central America. of

—

—

Susanne Jonas teaches Latin American Studies

at the

University of California-

Santa Cruz. She has been studying and writing about Guatemala and Central

America since 1967.

277

Index

Abstention. See Voting behavior

Arbenz, Jacobo, 22, 38, 240 agrarian reform of, 27, 28 and Arana, 38(nl) economic policy of, 26 overthrow of, 32, 34, 36 resignation of, 30, 36 and Revolution of 1944-1954, 26 and U.S. intervention, 30, 31, 36 ARENA, 217 Arenas Barrera, Luis, 137 Arevalo, Juan Jose, 23, 38(nl), 60,

"Active Neutrality" (AN), 169, 202204, 206, 207, 209

AFP. See Alliance for Progress

Agency

for International

Development

(AID), 54(n3), 58, 77, 78, 91, 126, 177, 179

Agrarian reform, 28, 36, 37, 46, 154, 230

Agrarian Reform

Law

(1952), 27, 42

Agriculture, 45, 46, 47, 76, 77, 126,

71(n2)

133

anti-Communist stance of, 30 economic policy of, 24-25

Agro-export sector, 43, 76, 95, 96, 131, 134, 142, 169

reforms of, 25 and Revolution of 1944-1954, 23-25 Argentina, 196, 199 Arias Plan, 202

Aguilera Peralta, Gabriel, 128

AID. See Agency for International

Development Aid and assistance. See Economic

aid,

Army,

U.S.; Military aid, U.S.

Alliance for Progress (AFP), 46, 49, 71

American Institute for Free Labor Development, 181 Americas Watch, 163 Amigos del Pais, 209(nl)

counteroffensives goal

158, 168,

of,

of,

189, 190

230

vs. guerrillas,

Amnesty International, 163, 198 AN. See "Active Neutrality" Andrade Diaz-Duran, Fernando, 200 Anticommunism, 28-29, 30-31, 32, 37, 41,

90, 116, 118, 121, 126, 135, 137,

157-158, 162, 164, 165, 167-168, 170, 200, 201, 203, 231, 235 and bourgeoisie, 92-93, 153, 169, 225

Alianza Feminina, 37

139, 140, 148-150,

204-205, 226 as part of ruling coalition, 116, 119,

166

and "permanent counterinsurgency,"

220

172-173

Arana, Francisco, 22, 25, 38(nl)

U.S. assistance to, 45,

Arana Osorio, Carlos, 60, 62-63, 90,

See also Military aid, U.S.; Military

121

204-206

control; Military rule

279

Index

280

Castillo

reformism,'' 174

Army

Armas, Carlos,

26, 57, 58, 59

Assassinations, 132, 141, 163, 184, 204

invasion by, 29-30

Austerity protests, 180, 187

liquidation of Revolution by, 41

Autonomy,

relative,

207-209, 219, 220

U.S. support of, 45

Catholic Action, 126, 127, 188 Baker, James,

Catholic church, 15, 37, 126-127, 153-

222

CBI. See Caribbean Basin Initiative

Center of Strategic Studies

Bananas, 15, 19, 45-46 Banco de Guatemala, 25

Barahona,

Elias,

Stability

(CACM),

Bav of Pigs, 33, 66 Belize, 195

47,

Common 49-52,

180, 202, 218,

(CONDECA),

"Bipartisan consensus," 223 Birth weights, 178

Bourgeoisie, 43-44, 58, 62, 87-92, 112, 115, 118, 122, 125, 153,

Market

76, 78, 82, 95,

233

Central American Defense Council

Bipartisan accord," 222

Britain,

National

223, 237

Central American

Barrios, Justo Rufino, 17

Brazil,

for

(ESTNA), 166

Central America, 213, 220, 221, 222-

198

Barrancas. See Shantytowns

170, 225,

238-239

154, 164, 188,

Balanced regional growth," 49, 50 Balance of payments, 46, 48, 81

168, 169,

201

Central American Peace Accords, 164, 165, 191, 202, 203, 208, 209 Central American Peace Process,

8,

207, 210(n2), 215, 217-218

232

Central Autentico Nacionalista (CAN),

218 196

155, 170

Central Intelligence Agencv (CIA), 1-2,

Bureaucracy, 44, 94, 118

240 Economic Commission Latin America

"Bureaucracy of death," 6

29, 30, 59, 93,

CEPAL.

"Bureaucratic bourgeoisie," 90

Bush, George, 216, 222, 231

"Butcher of Zacapa." See Arana Osorio, Carlos

See

Cerezo, Vinicio,

8,

for

156, 157, 161, 162,

163, 165, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 180, 181, 182, 184, 185, 190, 191,

202, 210(n2), 227, 229, 231

Cabot, John Moors, 38(n4)

CERJ Runujel Junam ("Everyone

Thomas Dudley, 39(n4) Cabrera, Alfonso, 228,' 231 Cabot,

CGUP

Cacao, 15

CACIF. See Comite Coordinador de Asociaciones Agricolas, Industrials y Financieras

CACM.

See Central

American

Common

CAN.

Chile, 199

Christian Base Communities, 185, 188, Christian Democratic Party, 61, 107,

20

134, 154, 155, 156, 169, 170,

See Central Autentico

175(n2), 228, 232

Nacionalista

Capitalism and capitalist expansion, 9-10(n3), 14, 19, 21, 34, 80, 96, 131, 221, 240 Cardoza y Aragon, Luis, 37, 241 Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), 77 Carpio, Jorge, 228

Carrera, Rafael, 17 Carter, Jimmy, 195, 216 Castillo,

See Comite Guatemalteco de Unidad Popular "Cheap labor," 105, 109

239

Market Cafetaleros,

Is

Equal"), 185

Otto Rene, 68

5,

Church of the Poor, 126, 127, 188 CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency CII. See Inter-Institutional Coordinating Councils "Citizen Protection System." See

Sistema de Proteccion Ciudadana Civilian counterinsurgencv state, 171,

172 "Civilian counterinsurgents," 93-94

Index Civilian rule (government), 115, 162,

229 Patrullas de

165, 171, 172, 175(nl), 207,

Civil patrol, 151. See also

Auto-defensa Civil Class analysis, 9(n2), 111 Class conflict,

5, 6,

7-8, 119, 133, 143

Class differentiation, 105-106

CNT.

See Conferacion Nacional de-

Trabaj adores

CNUS.

Comite Nacional de Unidad

See

Sindical struggle, 124

Coca Cola labor Cocaine, 78, 226 Cochineal, 15, 17

Coerced

labor, 105

Coffee, 15, 17, 18, 21, 34, 45, 46, 65, 80, 89, 96,

Cold War,

225

Constitution (1985), 150, 155-156, 157, 164, 165

Consumers' Defense Committee, 124 Contadora, 196, 200, 201, 202 "Continuation of the war by other means," 169-170 Contras, 33, 208, 215, 217, 222 Coordinadora Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala (CONAVIGUA), 185, 187 Coordinadores Inter-Institucionales. See Inter-Institutional Coordinating Councils Cotton, 46, 65, 89, 96 Council of Displaced Guatemalans (CONDEG), 185, 187 Counterinsurgency campaign, 147, 149, 150

31, 32, 33, 88, 196, 213,

220, 223, 240

Colom Argueta, Manuel, 125 Colonialism, 14, 15

Comite Coordinador de Asociaciones Agricolas, Industrials y Financieras (CACIF), 43, 58, 62, 92, 230,

281

235

Comite de Unidad Campesina (CUC),

Counterinsurgency "laboratory," 69-71 Counterinsurgency state, 146, 157, 161, 177, 223, 226, 233 institutionalization of, 120-123 recomposition of, 152-154, 189, 200 theoretical considerations of, 116-120,

171-174, 232 Counterinsurgency war,

3, 6,

8,

65, 82,

94, 95, 111, 117, 128, 143, 157,

107, 127-128, 131, 132-133, 134,

162, 165, 168, 185, 186, 197, 200,

137, 140, 164, 182, 188

204-205, 207, 209

Comite Guatemalteco de Unidad Popular (CGUP), 141 Comite Nacional de Unidad Sindical (CNUS), 124, 125 Committee of National Defense Against

Counterrevolution, 36, 57, 58

Communism, 41 Communist Party (PGT),

Criollos, 14, 15, 17 31, 60,

67-68.

See also Partido Guatemalteco de

Trabajo

Communists and communism, 28-29, 30-31, 33-34, 158

CONAVIGUA.

See Coordinadora

politics of,

and

59-64

rise of bourgeoisie,

43-44

"Counterterror," 70

Coups, 154,

167, 168, 170, 198, 199

Cruz Martinez, Rogelia, 63 Cuba, 66, 219-220, 231, 232 CUC. See Comite de Unidad Campesina Currency devaluation, 84

CUS-G, 180-181

Nacional de Viudas de Guatemala

CONDECA.

See Central

American

Dalton, Roque, 136

Pefense Council CONDEG. See Council of Displaced Guatemalans Confederation Nacional de Trabajadores (CNT), 125, 132

Days of the jungle (Payeras), 137 Death squads, 6, 62-63, 71, 120-121, 122, 141, 146, 150, 163, 197, 209-

"Conquest tradition," 4 Consejos de desarrollo, 165-166, 175(n2)

Debt bondage, 18 Debt service, 81

Conservatives and conservatism, 17

Declaration of Iximche, 132

210(nl)

Deaver, Michael, 209(nl)

Index

EEC

See Empresa Guatemala

Defense spending, 61 Deindustrialization, 77

EGP

Demilitarization, 235, 236

Democracy and democratization, 23, 103-104, 156, 157, 162, 171, 175(nl), 190, 192, 197, 207,

1~4.

Electrica de

See Ejercito Guerrillero de los Pobres Eisenhower, Dwight, 30, 31-32, 33,

38(n3), 240

de

Pobres

209, 210(n2), 214, 215, 218, 227,

Ejercito Guerrillero

233, 235, 236. See also

(EGP), 137, 151, 188, 189 Elections, 59-60, 61, 121, 122, 155-159,

"Redemocratization" Democratic opening, 165, 172 Demonstrations, 66, 125, 128, 182. See

Bond and Share

Employment,

75, 91

also

See also Industrialization

Development councils. See Consejos de

Empresa

7,

Work

236

48, 82, 96, 98, 99. See

force

Electrica

de Guatemala (EEG),

25

desarrollo

"Development poles," "Disappearances,"

2,

150, 151, 165 9(nl), 62, 63, 71,

149, 157, 185, 198 Displacement, population, 149, 182—

238

"Double-game"

policy. See

Empresa Exploraciones v Explotaciones Mineras de Izabal (EXMIBAL), 5253 Enders, Thomas, 148, 199

Environmental devastation, 149 ESF. See Economic Support Funds

Dodd, Christopher, 210(n2) Two-track

policy

ESTNA.

See Center of Strategic Studies

for National Stability

Ethnicity, 3, 6, 7-8,

traffic,

(EBS), 19

214, 215-216, 217-218, 222,

and modernization,

Drug

229

El Salvador, 3, 82, 195, 196, 199, 208,

theory, 5, 9-10(n3)

Development, 45

183,

162, 170, 171, 190, 228,

Electoral fraud, 147 Electric

also Protests

Dependency

los

78

103-104

Eviction, 133

Dulles, Allen, 32

EXMIBAL.

Dulles, John Foster, 32, 42

See

Empresa Exploraciones y

Explotaciones Mineras de Izabal Exploitation, class, 105

Earthquake (1976), 95, 123, 124, 126, 127, 137, 183

EBS. See Electric

Economic

Bond and Share

aid, U.S.,

49-50, 58, 195,

Economic autonomy, destruction of, 150 Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL), 49, 177 Economic crisis, 7, 22, 80-84, 87, 95, 177,

179, 180, 182, 208, 228, 230. See also

Poverty

Economic diversification, 43, 89, 90 Economic growth, 7, 76, 78, 87, 106, 230. See also Development Economic shock measures. See Paquetazos

Economic Support Funds (ESF), 204, 206, 209, 231

Education system, 178

85(n2), 95

Exports, 34, 76, 81. See also Bananas;

205(table), 209, 210(n2)

106, 110, 123, 126, 153, 172,

Export agriculture, 76, 110. See also Agro-export sector Export promotion strategy, 78-79, 84-

Coffee; Cotton; "Miracle" exports;

Mono-exports; Sugar

FAR. See Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes Fascism, 22

FDCR. la

See Frente Democratico Contra

Represion

Feminism/feminist movement,

4,

113(n2)

Feudalism, 26, 34 FGEI. See Frente Guerrillero Edgar Ibarra

Figueroa Ibarra, Carlos, 148 Fincas, 18, 27, 85(n3)

Fincas nacionales, 25, 27

Index Finqueros, 18, 25, 27, 43, 63

foreign policy of, 199, 200

FMLN.

future of, 225, 240 and Israel, 199, 207, 208 and Nicaragua, 200, 201, 236

See Frente

Farabundo Marti de

Liberation Nacional Foco

and foquismo,

67, 68, 135, 137,

population

139 Foreign investment, 25, 47-49, 50, 53-

of, 1, 7, 97, 99,

103, 104,

225

and United

54(n2), 54(n3), 82, 208

Franja Transversal del Norte (FTN),

122 Frente Democratico Contra

111, 183,

la

Represion (FDCR), 126, 141 Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberation Nacional (FMLN), 196, 216, 236 Frente Guerrillero Edgar Ibarra (FGEI), 68, 137

Frente Popular 31 de Enero, 141

States, 3, 6, 8, 19-20, 21, 30-33, 34, 36, 42, 45, 48, 49, 50, 83, 117, 120, 147-148, 158, 195-201, 204-209, 241 Guatemalan uprising of 1970s to 1980s, 146, 152 29,

interpretations of, 142-144

and insurgent movement; Popular movements "Guatemala Solution," 148-150, 204, See also Insurgency

217

Frente Sandinista de Liberation

Guerrillas, 8, 63, 64-65, 66, 67-69, 70,

Nacional. See Sandinistas

FSLN. See Sandinistas FTN. See Franja Transversal del Norte Fuentes, Carlos, 220

72(n5), 123, 131, 133, 136, 138,

Fuentes Mohr, Alberto, 59, 125 Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes (FAR), 67, 136-137, 138, 190

insurgent

Galeano, Eduardo, 9 Galvez, Mariano, 16

GAM.

See

Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo

Garcia Granados, Jorge, 26 GDR See Gross domestic product

Geneva Accords,

283

191

Guevara, Che, 38

Hacienda system, 15 Haiti, 199 Hannaford, Peter, 209-210(nl) Hanna Mining Co., 52 Highlands popular movements, 132-135 Homeless street children, 184 Human rights, 82-83, 148, 162, 163,

and

U.S. military aid, 195-199, 204,

210(n2)

Gramajo, Hector Alejandro, 166, 167, 168, 230 Great Depression, 21 "Great silence," 146 Grenada, 201 Gross domestic product (GDP), 47, 48, 76, 80 Gross national product (GNP), 58, 59, 65

Guatemala and Argentina, 199 dependency of, 5, 14, 195, 200 and El Salvador, 217-218, 236

and

movement

226, 231, 232, 238

Golpista, 168, 169

187

192. See also Insurgency

185, 186, 187, 191, 200, 203, 209,

Genocide, 149. See also Massacres Giron, Andre, 163, 184 GNR See Gross national product

Growth rates, 76 Grupo de Apovo Mutuo (GAM),

139, 140, 141, 142, 151, 163, 191,

185,

ICA. See International Cooperation Administration Illiteracy, 178, 179, 187 Horn, Gaspar, 141 IMF. See International Monetary Fund Imports, 34, 46-47

Import substitution, 47, 48

INCO. See International Nickel Co. Income distribution, 65, 95, 178. See also Poverty Independence, 16

Indians centrality of, 187

dislocation of, 96, 133

ethnic identity

of,

103-106, 112(nl)

Index Klein

impact of revolution on, 37 polarized views on, 104-105 proportion of population, 1, 103, 104,

and Saks (K&S), 57-58

LAAD.

See Latin

American

Agribusiness Development Corp. radicalization of, in

work

131-135

Labor Code (1947), 24, 41 Labor movement, 36, 42, 63, 182. See

105

force, 97,

Indian uprising(s), 120, 126

also

roots of, 106-107

Comite de Unidad Campesina; Peasant economy

See also

Land colonization program,

17

Industrialization, 26, 27, 47-48, 66, 7677, 85(n2), 95,

101(n3), 109, 110,

Promotion Law (1959), 48

Inequality, economic, 177, 226, 227. See also

Income distribution

79, 80,

Latifundia-minifundia system, 15 Latin American Agribusiness

of,

Development Corp. (LAAD), 77-78 Laugerud, Kjell, 122, 195 Law of Forced Rentals (1949), 25

139-142

"Integration industry" scheme, 50

Liberals

Inter-Institutional Coordinating (CII),

150, 165

liberalism, 16

of,

21

power arrangements "reforms"

Internal market, 80, 100(n2)

and

International Cooperation

of,

17,

of,

20

18

U.S. interests,

19-20

"Liberation" movement, 29, 30, 33, 35,

Administration (ICA), 57-58

36, 42-43, 44, 126

Monetarv Fund (IMF),

58-59, 81, 83, 180, 208, 209, 218,

Liberation Theology, 153, 169, 188 Life expectancy, 179

227

International Nickel Co. (INCO),

Living standards, 97

52-

Lodge, Henry Cabot, 30, 38(n4) Lopez Larrave, Mario, 125

54-55(n4) International Railways of Central 53,

America (IRCA),

and

collapse

Intermediate strata," 94

219, 221,

Land grabs, 133 Land reform, 32, 138, 163, 240 Land tenure system, 14-15, 17,

Latin America, 218-219, 221, 237

See also Guerrillas

International

distribution, 46, 65, 79, 80,

Latifundia, 53(nl), 79, 95, 121

227

Insurgency and insurgent movement, 65, 82, 107, 135-139, 208, 229,

Councils

Land

Las Casas, Bartolome de, 14

Inflation, 83, 95, 99, 123, 124, 179,

234 weaknesses

121, 123,

126

88

Infant mortalitv rate, 178, 179

180, 218,

104,

16,

85(n3), 96, 178, 184

240 Industrial

force

La Epoca, 163

lndigenismo, 134 Indigo, 15,

Work

Ladinos and "Ladinization," 106, 107

19, 20, 22, 24,

25

Intervention(ism), U.S., 30, 31, 33, 34, 201, 213, 219, 221-222, 240

Investment, U.S., 28, 48-49, 82

IRCA. See International Railways of Central America Israel, 168, 199, 207

Lucas, Benedicto, 148, 152, 153, 154,

198

Lucas Garcia, Romeo, 122-123, 128, 146-147, 174

McCarthyism,

32, 33, 42

Malnutrition, 13, 179

MANO K&S. See Klein and Saks

March Accords,

Kirkpatrick, Jeane, 158

Kissinger

Commission

Report, 199

Blanca ("White Hand"), 62, 64 Maquiladora industries, 77, 99, 226

Bipartisan

181, 186

Massacres, 128, 145-146, 149, 151, 227, 232. See also Panzos massacre

Index Mejia Victores, Oscar, 153, 154, 180,

200

285

Nicaragua, 76, 82, 196, 201, 202, 206, 207, 208, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218,

Menchu, Rigoberta, 239

Mendez Montenegro,

Julio Cesar, 59,

60, 70, 119, 120, 136

"Message system," 163 Microempresas, 98, 226 Migrant labor, 96-97, 126, 133, 137 Migration to cities, 48, 65, 95, 97-98,

222, 236 Nickel, 78

Nixon, Richard, 240 North American Congress on Latin

America (NACLA), 1 Nucleo de Direccion, 138. See also Partido Guatemalteco de Trabajo Nutting, Wallace, 197

183

Mijangos, Adolfo, 63 Military aid, U.S., 195-198, 204, 205(table), 206, 209, 210(n2), 231

OAS.

See Organization of

American

States

Military Intelligence, 163-164

October Revolution, 13, 23 Octubre Revolucionario, 189

Military rule, 8, 60, 61-62, 90, 122,

Oil, 78, 123

Military control, 150

Ojo por Ojo, 62

146 Minifundia, 15, 53(nl), 79, 95, 100, 106

Oligarchy, 88-89, 99-100(nl)

Mining, 78

Opium, 78 Oppression, 105, 111 Oqueli, Hector, 218 Organizacion del Pueblo en Armas (ORPA), 138, 141, 190 Organization of American States (OAS), 29, 30, 196, 219 ORPA. See Organizacion del Pueblo en

"Miracle" exports, 226, 228

MLN.

See

Movimiento de Liberacion

Nacional

"Modernization," 75, 76, 78, 80, 85(n2), 105, 121, 174, 240, 241

MONAP.

See

Movimiento Nacional de

Pobladores

Mono-exports,

15, 16, 21, 34, 45, 76

Monopolization, 19

Armas Orphans, 185

Montes, Cesar, 37

Movimiento de Liberacion Nacional (MLN), 35, 61, 62, 69, 122, 155, 156, 165, 170, 191, 235 Movimiento Nacional de Pobladores

(MONAP), Mulet,

124

Edmond, 207

PACs. See Patrullas de Auto-defensa Civil

Panama, invasion

of, 219,

220, 222

Panama Canal, 22 Panzos massacre, 127-128, 132, 133, 137 Paquetazos, 84,

227

Paramilitary. See Patrullas de Auto-

NACLA.

See North American Congress on Latin America National Dialogue, 188, 234 National Endowment for Democracy,

158 Nationalism, 28 National Plan for Security and

Development, 158 National Reconciliation Commission, 234, 238

Neoliberalism, 83-84, 91, 95, 219, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229-230, 231, 237 Neutrality. See "Active Neutrality";

Regional neutrality

defensa Civil Partido Guatemalteco de Trabajo

(PGT), 31, 60, 67-68, 136, 138, 140-141, 189, 190 Partido Institutional Democratico (PID), 61, 122, 155, 170 Partido Revolucionario (PR), 60-61, 155 Partido Socialista Democratico (PSD), 154-155, 156, 170, 232 Parties, political, 170. See also

individual parties

Patrullas de Auto-defensa Civil (PACs),

150-152, 155, 164, 165, 185, 191 Patterson, Ambassador, 28

Index

286

Proletariat

Payeras, Mario, 137

Peace dividend," 223 Peace talks, 191, 235. See also Central American Peace Accords; Central

American Peace Process Peasant economy, 79, 80, 85(n3), 95 Peasant leagues, 127 "Peasant war," 143

Penados del Barrio, Prospero, 188 60

Peralta Azurdia, Enrique,

"Permanent counterinsurgency," 172174

Persian Gulf War, 216, 220, 221, 222,

223

Protest(s),

123, 124, 127-128, 181, 238.

See also Demonstrations; Strikes

PSD. See Partido Socialista Democratico Purchasing power, decline in, 179-180

Reagan, Ronald, 147-148, 154, 158, 196, 197-198, 199, 200, 201, 204, 208, 216, 222 "Rebels," 6 Redistributive reforms, 52, 78, 175(nl)

Petroleum Code (1955), 42

Reformism, 232-233, 236

Petty bourgeoisie, 17, 44, 62, 90, 93,

101(n4)

Reform(s), 25, 37, 49. See also Agrarian

Land reform; Redistributive

reform;

Peurifoy, John, 29, 30

reforms; Tax reform

PGT. See Partido Guatemalteco de

Refugees, 164

Trabajo

Regional neutrality, 200-201

Philippines, 199

Relocations, 149

"Physical quality of

life"

index, 178

PID. See Partido Institutional

Repression, 111, 125, 127, 132, 143, 147, 164, 181,

Democratico Pluralism, 162, 164, 203, 214, 215, 227,

236 opening," 162, 167, 170, 226

"Political

166-167

"Political war,"

Politics, militarization of,

120

Ponce, Federico, 22, 23

"Popular bloc," 112, 182, 183, 186-187 Popular movements, 131, 132-135, 148149, 185-189, 222, 227, 237, 239. See also individual movements

Popular/revolutionary convergence, 186-187, 225, 237, 238-239

Popular unity

front,

1,

2,

7,

feminization See also

64, 85(n3), 97, 98, 99,

of,

41-42. See also

and agrarian reform, 27, 28 impact of, 37, 240 and national capitalism, 26-28 onset

of,

22

opposition

to,

overthrow

of,

28-29, 31, 35

35-36

radicalization of, 32, 35-36, 44

supporters

and

of,

23, 28

U.S. intervention, 34

Ruling coalition, 92, 93, 94, 115-116, 122, 123, 146, 147, 153, 167, 168,

226

203, 208, 225, 229, 237

179, 183

Income distribution Sandinistas (FSLN),

PR. See Partido Revolucionario Preventive Penal

Law Against

Communism, "Program

of,

Counterrevolution

Rios Montt, Efrain, 122, 148, 153-154, 181, 198-199, 200, 207, 228

123

Population growth, 51, 79, 95 105, 177-178, 180, 218,

238

Reproduction, 110, 239 Revolution of 1944-1954 aftermath

Pobladores, 188

8,

154, 169, 197,

200, 202, 214, 215, 236

Sandoval Alarcon, Mario, 35, 198, 235

41

of Pacification

Eradication of

198

142, 150, 186, 188 Protestants, 188

"Redemocratization," 155

Peru, 219

Poverty,

96,

100-101(n3), 108, 111,

Racial intermixing, 16

Perestroika, 220

'98,

and proletarianization,

97, 98, 99,

Scorched-earth war (1981-1983), 95,

and

Communism,"

147,

149-150 Self-determination, 239

Index Semiproletarianization, 96, 131, 133, 142, 144

"Tiger of Ixcan," 137. See also Arenas Barrera, Luis

Serrano, Jorge, 228, 229, 235, 238

Toriello, Jorge,

Shantvtowns, 65, 97-98, 106, 110, 124, 125, 183-184 Shultz, George, 206, 207 SIPROCI. See Sistema de Protection

Torres Rivas, Edelberto,

Ciudadana Sisniega, Otero, Lionel, 35

Sistema de Protection Ciudadana (SIPROCI), 164 Soccer war, 50 Social crisis

causes

of,

94-95

96-99 and gender, 108. See also Women Socialism, 236 Social movements, 7, 192-193(nl), 227. effects

on

class formation of,

See also Popular

123

Trade deficit, 81 Trade Union Unity of Guatemalan Workers. See Union Sindical de Trabajadores de Guatemala Traje (traditional dress), 149 "Transformism," 174 Trotter, John, 124 Truman Doctrine, 33 Turcios Lima, Luis, 66, 68, 69, 136, 137 "Two Guatemalas," 226, 240

Two-track policy, 196-197, 207 Typhoid, 183

Unidad de Action Sindical y

17, 20, 23, 41, 44 economic policy of, 21-22 resignation of, 22 UCN. See Union del Centro National UFCo. See United Fruit Company Underdevelopment, 13-14, 16, 20, 24, 34, 66 Unemployment, 21, 48, 65-66, 95, 97, 179, 180, 218, 225, 226

Ubico, Jorge,

Soviet Union, 221, 232

Spanish conquest, 13-15 Spanish Embassy, burning

See

Popular

Social security, 96

of,

133, 137,

199 "Spiritual socialism," 23, 30

Squatter struggles, 188 "Stagflation," 81

concept of, 116, 117. See Counterinsurgency state

State,

also

84, 181

Strikes, 66, 123, 125, 128-129, 137,

180, 181, 182, 186

Structural adjustment policies, crisis,

4,

Tourism, 82

UASP

Social revolution, 233

Subsistence

23

movements

"Social peace," 128, 154

STINDE,

287

83-84

85(n4), 131, 142

Suffrage, 23

Sugar, 46, 65, 89, 96

UNICEF, 178 Unidad de Action (UASP),

Sindical y Popular

181, 186, 192

Unidad Revolucionaria National Guatemalteca (URNG), 138-139, 165, 189-192, 201, 203, 229, 231,

234, 235, 236, 237

Union

del

Centro Nacional (UCN), 228

155, 170,

Taiwan, 168, 199 Taxation, 58-59, 81, 92, 94, 168-169, 178, 179 Tax reform, 120, 204

"Tegucigalpa Bloc," 200

Terms of

trade, 81

Terror(ism), 62-64, 117, 121, 227, 236.

See also Death squads

Theses on National Stability (Gramajo),

230 Thirty-years' war, 65

Unions and unionization,

24, 41, 124,

125, 181, 238. See also Strikes

Union Sindical de Trabajadores de Guatemala (UNSITRAGUA), 180, 181

United Fruit

Company

(UFCo),

19, 20,

22, 24, 25, 26, 27-28, 32, 41,

54(n2)

United States

anti-Communist stance 220

of,

30-31, 32,

Index

188

and Central America, 213, 220, 221,

Wage

levels, 24, 65, 95, 97, 98, 100,

180, 182

counterinsurgency assistance from,

and

82-83, 95, 177, 179,

Widows, 110

236

and Guatemala, 3, 6, 8, 19-20, 21, 29, 30-33, 34, 36, 42, 45, 48, 49, 50, 83, 117, 120, 147-148, 158, 195-201, 204-209, 241

hegemony

of,

182, 183, 185

195, 196, 208, 216,

El Salvador,

:::

Walters, Vernon, 198

War, effects

69-70

of,

32, 196

3,

monopolization by, 19

and Nicaragua,

82, 196, 201, 206,

207, 208, 215, 216, 222, 236

and Panama, 219, 220, 222 and Soviet Union, 221 See also Economic Aid, U.S.; Military aid, U.S.; Investment, U.S.;

Intervention(ism), U.S.

University of San Carlos, 132

UNSITRAGUA.

Union Sindical de Trabajadores de Guatemala See

Women effect of

counterinsurgencv war on,

111

and

guerrillas,

illiteracy

69

among, 110-111

impact of Revolution on, 37 morbidity rate of, 110 political participation of, 187, 222,

223 poverty among, 179 protagonism of, 187, 239 subjugation of, 16 voting rights of, 23

wage level of, 24 work force, 98,

in

99,

108-110

Urbanization, 97, 98

World Bank, 57, 58, 178, 179, 218 World capitalist system. See Capitalism and capitalist expansion

URNG.

Work

See

Unidad Revolucionaria

force,

96-97, 98, 99, 108-110, 111

Nacional Guatemalteca U.S. policy,

231-232

"Vietnam Syndrome," 196, 221, 222

Ydigoras Fuentes, Miguel, 26, 29, 59, 66 Yon Sosa, Marco Antonio, 66 Young, Andrew, 210(n2)

Violence, state-sponsored, 125

Voting behavior, 61, 121, 156, 228, 229. See also Elections

"Zonalization," 136

"Zone of the Generals," 122, 128

"The Battle for Guatemala is both careful scholarship and compelling analysis. At this crossroads in U.S. policy toward Central America, it should be studied by every policymaker and serious scholar."

— Richard

J.

Barnet

"The long-awaited, critically needed major analysis of Guatemalan politics that perhaps only Susanne Jonas is capable of writing. Her lengthy experience and great knowledge of the country inform every page of this most important book. This well-written, lucid, and highly informed work provides both a valuable overview and trenchant analysis of Guatemalan society and politics."

— John A. Booth "What is a man on the road?' asks a sacred Maya book. And answers, 'Time.' Susanne Jonas writes about Guatemala on the road: the tormented present remembers a different possible future."

— Eduardo Galeano

"The Battle for Guatemala details the truth about the brutal and deliberate impoverishment of the people of Guatemala. It highlights the unbounded cruelties of a succession of repressive governments and the military since the U.S. government engineered the overthrow of the Arbenz government in 1954. If enough people are willing to read this carefully documented history and face up to the harsh reality it reveals about U.S. government intervention, maybe U.S. policy will change and the courageous determination of the Guatemalan people will finally achieve the justice and freedom for which they have struggled so long." Most Reverend Thomas J. Gumbleton

—

"Susanne Jonas's long acquaintance with Latin American social, economic, and problems is particularly well illustrated in this masterful study of Guatemala in crisis. Dr. Jonas places ethnic conflict in a wider context and offers an exacting analysis of the causes and effects of civil war that can be applied to other Central American countries." political

— June Nash

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