WORLD AFFAIRS

A long and winding road

In Guatemala, which has come a long way from the days of a military dictatorship to a barely functioning democracy, the outcome of a nationwide referendum and the scuttling of peace accords slow down further progress towards peace and democracy.

SIDDHARTHA BAVISKAR

JULY 1999, Santa Anita estate, Colomba Costa Cuca, Quezaltenango, Guatemala: Looking at Aura Vicente as she cradles an infant inside a damp and dirty building, it is hard to imagine that she was once the first female captain in the Revolutionary Organisa tion of the People in Arms (ORPA). "When the army kidnapped and murdered my father, I had no choice but to flee to the mountains near San Marcos," she says softly. It was there that Vicente, then known only by her alias, "Juana", joined the Left-wing ins urgency that erupted in the mid-1960s. She spent the following 10 years on the run before escaping to Mexico. It was only in 1997, following the signing of the United Nations-sponsored peace accords, that she could return home. Camps scattered across the verdant landscape provide some 1,50,000 former Guatemalan refugees and demobilised Left-wing combatants a chance to lead normal lives once again.

In December 1996, the Government of Guatemala and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) signed the last of a series of peace accords, one that promised to bring a "firm and lasting peace" to a country that had been torn apart by a 36-year-lo ng civil war. Some 2,00,000 persons were killed or "disappeared" during the bloody conflict; hundreds of thousands sought refuge abroad or in other parts of the country.

The scope of the accords is impressive. It ranges from a Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights to an Agreement on the Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to another on the Strengthening of Civilian Power and on the Role of the Armed Forces in a Democratic Society. Indeed, there is scarcely an area of national life that they leave untouched. Such comprehensiveness would seem to augur well for the future of Guatemala. It would, for instance, imply that the harsh discrimination that marks this div ided society will soon be reduced if not eliminated, and that its armed forces will have greater respect for democratic norms.

WANG YUAN-MAO/AP
President Alvaro Arzz. Little progress with regard to the accords can be expected during his lame-duck government in an election year.

Unfortunately, recent events point to a less sanguine outlook. Although Guatemala figures among middle-income countries in terms of per capita income, there is a gross maldistribution of land and income. Such inequalities are exacerbated by the cleavage between ladinos (Spanish-speaking whites or mestizos) and (predominantly Mayan) indigenous peoples, and the rural-urban divide.

Three-fourths of Guatemala's 11 million citizens live below the poverty line; of the 58 per cent of the population that lives in extreme poverty, over four-fifths is Mayan. The top 10 per cent of the population receives 46.4 per cent of the national inco me while the two lowest quintiles combined get only 7.9 per cent. As little as 0.15 per cent of the rural population (a little more than 10,000 people), engaged in commercial agriculture, controls as much as 70 per cent of agricultural land.

A 1997 assessment by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) describes Guatemala as one of the most "archaically repressive, unjust and racist societies in the western hemisphere." Agricultural production has focussed on exports, leading to a critical level of food insecurity. Infant mortality rates, illiteracy and malnutrition continue to be unacceptably high.

Thus, poverty afflicts the peasant more than it does the city-dweller; it hurts the indigenous majority much more than it does the ladino minority. The state has done little to improve things. Its spending on education and health is one of the lowest in the region; its capacity to tax, redistribute wealth and provide basic services to the needy, frighteningly low.

The unequal distribution of resources which, in turn, has led to the concentration of power in the hands of a small private sector and military elite, was one of the main reasons for the rise of the Marxist-led, Cuban-supported insurgency (broadly repres ented by the URNG) in the country. The fact that toward the second half of the 1980s the insurgency was largely a spent force may be attributed largely to the brutal and widespread repression unleashed by the Army and right-wing paramilitary groups. Thei r justification? Defence of national sovereignty and, later, also of the constitutional order against an internationally-supported Communist insurgency.

In the Cold War context, these counter-insurgency efforts, which included grave human rights violations, were actively supported by the United States as part of its foreign policy - a fact noted by the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) establ ished in June 1994 as part of the peace agreements. Observers note that, unlike the peace process in neighboring El Salvador where guerillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) were firmly maintaining the offensive against the beleagu ered Salvadoran military when they came to the negotiating table, in Guatemala the URNG guerillas had become more of a nuisance than a threat to the state even before the talks began.

Having gained the upper hand over its opponents, why did the Guatemalan military agree to support the peace initiative formally? One plausible reason is the presence of a moderate faction within the military high command. According to Colonel Benito Ragg io, Military Adviser to the U.N. Mission for the Verification of Human Rights and of Compliance with the Commitments of the Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights in Guatemala (MINUGUA), "the Guatemalan military is a professional institution. There are moderate 'visionaries' in the military high command who realised that, although the insurgency had been defeated militarily, an ideological and political victory was not possible. Also, Guatemala's image in the international community had deteriorated an d, with the end of the Cold War, international pressure on the government had mounted."

In Raggio's view, the Army's strength and resistance to civilian control stemmed from the fact that the Guatemalan state was weak and had abdicated its basic responsibilities to the military. "It was the Army that largely dealt with the crisis that Hurri cane Mitch (November 1998) left in the wake. Only it could deal with the soaring crime in the country." This opinion, however, ignores the important contribution of local non-governmental organisations and international agencies to relief operations, and towards strengthening and improving key political institutions such as the judiciary and the police.

A second factor, besides the Army's pragmatism, is that the military has not found the terms of the peace agreements to be punitive. While the armed forces seem to be fulfilling some of the commitments demanded by the peace agreements (some of these even preceded the accords as, for instance, reducing manpower by a third) it is far from clear whether their basic autonomy with respect to the state has been eroded thus far. During the conflict, the military acted with impunity against any perceived opposi tion. It kidnapped, tortured and killed scores of guerillas as well as innocent civilians.

The reports of both the CEH and the Catholic Church-sponsored Project on Recovery of Historical Memory (REMHI) provide chilling testimony to its flagrant violations of human rights. The CEH report, "Guatemala: Memory of Silence", concludes that the state -perpetrated genocide (including over 600 massacres) against the Mayan community between 1981 and 1983 and that, together with paramilitary groups, it was responsible for over 90 per cent of the human rights violations committed. The report calls for bri nging the perpetrators to justice and compensating the victims. Unfortunately, its recommendations are not legally binding.

Another clear sign of military independence is that those responsible for the brutal assassination of Bishop Juan Gerardi - the Army is widely suspected to be behind it - in April 1996 are still at large. The military has been unwilling to cooperate with the investigation, which has dragged on fruitlessly. Bishop Gerardi, a staunch defender of human rights and the leader of the REMHI project, was killed barely two days after he presented the project report titled "Guatemala. Never Again".

Military resistance to control by the state is perhaps understandable given that it has governed the nation for much of this century, including an uninterrupted three-decade rule after the U.S.- led overthrow of the democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz G overnment in 1954. It had also influenced the framing of the last Constitution (in 1986) which does not permit a civilian to hold the position of Minister of Defence.

Raggio attributes military autonomy to deeper problems. He says: "If the military can act with impunity, it is ultimately due to a political, structural problem; one that is related to the poverty, corruption and illiteracy in this country." The causes o f military supremacy may be many, but one thing remains clear: the military vehemently opposes any effort to make it answer for its crimes.

Recent startling revelations, however, may force it to be more cooperative in this regard. A military logbook that records in frightening detail the fate of 183 Guatemalans at the hands of the security forces during the mid-1980s - and U.S. complicity i n the anti-insurgency campaign - surfaced last May in the U.S. What makes the document unique is that it was smuggled out of the Guatemalan Army's own archives. Although the military has denied the report, its publication may well build up sufficient pre ssure on a reluctant Alvaro Arzz Government to take the military to task.

OBSERVERS note that two serious inherent weaknesses undermine the accords. First, to what extent do the signatories to the agreements represent the aspirations of Guatemalan society as a whole? The URNG is an umbrella organisation formed in 1982 by vario us politico-military organisations such as the Guerilla Army of the Poor (EGP); the Organisation of the People in Arms (ORPA); and the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR). It claims to speak for a broad spectrum of disaffected Guatemalan citizens, in partic ular the Mayan majority.

However, while the revolutionaries were involved in promoting social movements in support of the indigenous cause from the mid-1970s, the relationship between the Mayans and those who claimed to fight on their behalf has often been marked by suspicion, h ostility or outright rejection.

Finally, although diverse civic organisations were consulted during the negotiations, clear support to the agreements, and to the broader process that they represent, has not been forthcoming from important right-wing groups, in particular the Guatemalan Revolutionary Front (FRG). The FRG is one of the two right-wing parties - the other being the ruling National Advancement Party (PAN) that dominate national politics. As Edelberto Torres-Rivas, a Guatemalan sociologist and adviser to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), puts it, "for the FRG, the URNG is just a gang of criminals; therefore it views the promises made at the negotiating table by the PAN government not as moral commitments of the Guatemalan state but only obligations undertake n by the current Government."

The second drawback of the accords has to do with implementation. The agreements are full of ambitious objectives and stirring phrases. Yet their wording is so ambiguous and they involve so many agencies that verifying them and holding someone responsibl e for their implementation will be a slippery task.

The Government has already fallen short of its scheduled commitments on most issues. It has dragged its feet on vital components of the reform process, for instance, those affecting the tax system. Guatemala's effective rate of taxation is dismayingly lo w: only 8 per cent, a little over half the average rate for Latin America and way below the 30 per cent average in western Europe. This has prompted even the fiscally conservative International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to ask for a signific ant increase in tax rates. It should not be surprising, then, that the state is financially strapped.

Land reform is another issue on which critics charge the government with having done very little, and made largely cosmetic, changes. As a source from the international community, who wished to remain anonymous emphasises, any attempt at a genuine land r eform will confront stern resistance from the landed elite. The source said: "The mechanisms established by the government are so inadequate that it will take as many as a hundred years for the half a million peasants estimated to be potential beneficiar ies of the reform actually to receive such benefits. There is not going to be any redistribution of land here. There are two topics that are taboo in this country: land and the military. They have not changed; nor are they going to."

Looming elections (presidential, congressional and municipal scheduled for November 1999) have distracted the governing party from accord implementation and further debilitated an already flagging political will. Indeed, observers note that were it not f or the persistence of a raft of international agencies and occasional prodding from generous international donors who are pouring money into the country, even the progress shown thus far would not have been achieved. If the FRG wins the November election s, as is being speculated, the fate of the agreements will be even more uncertain.

UNDOUBTEDLY the most severe setback to the process of peace and democratisation in Guatemala was the mandate against the constitutional reform in a nationwide referendum held in May 1999. The reforms were designed to provide fundamental legal and constit utional authority for key elements in the peace agreements, particularly those relating to indigenous rights, the role of the armed forces, and the reform of the justice system. The nation's rejection of the reform package means, for example, that it ref uses to acknowledge the rights of its indigenous community by failing to grant official recognition to its 23 languages. It also implies that the role of the Army in Guatemalan society and its position with respect to civilian authority continues to be a mbiguous. Torres-Rivas points out that centuries of oppression and systematic exploitation, first at the hands of the Spanish conquistadors and the creole elite and later by the predominantly ladino elite, has meant that today the Mayan communities live in appalling conditions of poverty, ethnic discrimination and exploitation. "They are second-class citizens", he sums up.

However, what is perhaps more troubling is that less than a fifth of the registered voters bothered to go to the Consulta Popular (as the referendum was called) at all. Indeed, Guatemala has had one of the lowest rates of voter turn-out in Latin America. For many poor, illiterate Guatemalans, voting is a time-consuming and expensive ritual, the outcome of which offers little hope for change. Many others regard it with cynicism. Given these circumstances, their apparent indifference to a referendum that was promoted more by a host of international agencies than by their government itself is perhaps understandable.

Several explanations are offered as to why people turned down the proposed changes. Foremost among them are that Guatemalan society is deeply racist and conservative; that promoters of the reform were unduly complacent; and that the government lacked the will to "sell" the reform. According to Torres-Rivas, a lack of political will and the hostile attitude of the influential evangelical Church guaranteed a negative response.

The reforms had taken a long time to get through the Guatemalan Congress and had expanded from 12 to 50 items in their coverage. "Congress wilfully scuttled the reform initiative. It overburdened the reform package in order that its complexity would conf ound voters, ultimately leading most of them to reject it," Torres-Rivas said. The injunction of the powerful and conservative evangelical Church to its followers to vote against the reform if they did not understand the contents of the reform package ha d further stood against its success.

The rejection of the proposal means that a new government, whether formed by the FRG or the PAN, will be even less enthusiastic about reforms than the present one. What makes things worse is that the young Left-wing coalition party, the New Nation Allian ce (ANN), and other Left-wing groups have been unable to rally popular support for the accords.

THE return of peace and democracy to Latin America has been hailed widely. Elections are held; votes are cast. Guatemala, too, has shed its authoritarian legacy. Today the possibility of another military coup is remote because the military knows that in the present international context, it will prove costly if it strays beyond the boundaries of constitutional legality. However, if Guatemala has to be something more than a barely functioning democracy it needs to surmount daunting structural obstacles, among them, widespread poverty and severe inequality and discrimination. So far, the push for reform has come from without, mainly at the urging of the international community. But for any change to be successful in the long term, it has to come from wi thin.

This is happening, albeit at what seems an agonisingly slow pace. The result of the referendum was discouraging and little progress on the accords can be expected from a lame-duck Arzz Government in an election year. Yet at the same time, Mayan organisat ions, human rights groups and a host of other non-governmental organisations representing civil society are gradually coming to the fore. Only when Guatemalans themselves understand and are convinced of the need for change will far-reaching reforms be pr oposed, accepted and implemented.

Such a process will take time but so long as it is carried out through the ballot box and not through the barrel of a gun, there is hope yet. Dinorah Azpuru, a researcher at the Association for Research and Social Studies in Guatemala City, is optimistic about the possibilities of a more peaceful and democratic nation. "I think that we are advancing on both fronts; democracy continues to be strengthened, and though the peace process has met with obstacles, it has not stalled. If we consider the current situation in the context of Guatemala's political history, recent changes have been transcendental."

From seamstress to guerilla leader to vegetable seller and, now, to a community creche worker, Aura Vicente has come a long way. "Now I have to attend to problems faced by the community and to the education of my children. The peace was signed; but it is only a signature. It stopped the war and the massacres... that's good. But things haven't really changed. Poverty and ill-treatment still exist. Now we have to take up a political struggle."

Siddhartha Baviskar is a research scholar at the University of Pittsburgh in the U.S., working towards a doctorate in Latin American politics.