BY FRANCISCO PICADO
NEW YORK - On December 29, in a ceremony attended by representatives of 40 countries and 10 heads of state, as well as thousands of Guatemalans, president Alvaro Arzú and commanders of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) signed the final agreement of the "Accord for a Firm and Lasting Peace," thus ending a process of negotiations that began in 1991.

In a country where capitalist rule has been enforced by one of the most brutal armies of Latin America, and after more than 100,000 killed, 40,000 "disappeared," and more than 200,000 orphaned, the agreement ends more than three decades of armed confrontation in Guatemala.

The settlement, made up of 11 accords, grants legal status to the URNG "in conditions of security and dignity," putting into effect the demobilization of thousands of URNG guerrillas.

The 45,000-strong Guatemalan army is now "redefined," with the option to have a civilian minister of defense as its head. The pact commits the government to reduce the size of the army by one-third by 1997. The military's budget is to be slashed by one-third by 1999. Leading up to the signing of the accord, Arzú dismissed 13 of the army's 23 generals, including some who were accused of human rights violations during the war.

The government is to create a 20,000-strong "National Civil Police" that is to assumed the "civil duties" currently assigned to the army by 1999. It also pledges to increase spending on health and education by 50 percent by the year 2000, along with a 50 percent tax increase.

Opposition to blanket amnesty
The accord grants amnesty to those accused of political crimes. The section of the accords that deals with pardons is so broad that it would grant impunity to government soldiers for common crimes- such as kidnapping and murder- that were committed during the war.

The agreement stipulates the formation of a three-person "truth commission" to investigate human rights violations committed during the civil war. This panel will lack any legal authority, however, and is forbidden to name those who committed the offenses.

Although most people in Guatemala support the end of the armed conflict, there is broad opposition to the amnesty.

In a document called "We reject the amnesty," the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared Detainees in Guatemala (FAMDEGUA) stated, "As a human rights organization made up of families who felt and feel in our own flesh the murder, kidnapping, and disappearance of one of our own, we cannot, under any circumstance, accept the enactment of a new amnesty for those responsible directly and intellectually for the crimes committed during more than three decades of dirty war. The Guatemalan state does not have the right to pardon itself.

"The necessity of reaching a peace accord," the document continues, "couldn't allow the government to forgive and forget, and much less so us."

"Respect for human rights has to be the foundation of everything, and I don't see that has been achieved," said Rolando Rodas, an accountant whose brother was killed by pro-government forces.

At a protest of 75 people December 17 in Guatemala City, Miguel Angel Albizures, spokesperson of the Alliance Against Impunity, insisted "that no legal formula promoting further impunity can be allowed in Guatemala."

"If there are members of the army that committed violations of human rights, they must be punished," said Indian rights activist and Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú at Hostos Community College in New York during a recent visit here.

But not everyone shares this opinion. "This accord is making peace viable," said Guatemala's Chamber of Commerce president, Jorge Briz.

The agreement also promises to outlaw discrimination against the Indian population of Guatemala, pursuing constitutional recognition and protection of their nationalities. "Recognition of the identity and rights of the indigenous peoples is essential for building a nation based on multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual national unity," the accords declare.

With some 60 percent of the Guatemalan population belonging to one of the 23 Mayan tribes in a country of 10.7 million, the Indian population is by far the most exploited and discriminated sector of society. Entire Indian villages were wiped out during the "scorched earth" operations of the Guatemalan army in the 1980s.

Life expectancy among Indian men is 47 years, compared to 64 for those of European and mixed ancestry. Illiteracy rates average 77 percent, running as high as 90 percent among Indian women, in comparison to a nationwide average of 50 percent. About one of every three Guatemalan children suffers malnutrition, but the average among Indians is three out of every four, according to a report by the Minority Rights Group International.

More political activity among Indians
But with the failure of the government to crush Guatemalan working people, there has been increased political activity among the Indian population in recent years. With questions like bilingual education, land rights, and constitutional recognition up for discussion, many Indians are taking advantage of the expanding political space.

Since the elections in November 1995, Indian candidates have won mayoral races in an estimated 40 urban areas, including Guatemala's second-largest city, along with 10 percent of congressional seats. Of the 40 newly elected Indian mayors, 21 were nominated through newly established local civil committees and ran without any ties to the national political parties. This was previously barred.

Pedro Iboy Chiroy, a 30-year-old school teacher and the new mayor of Solola, a small town about 70 miles west of Guatemala City, talked about experiences reminiscent of the experiences of Blacks under Jim Crow segregation in the southern United States. "They tell me, `be careful, don't go on the road at night.' I take precautions, but it is psychological war," he said in reference to the death threats, smear campaigns, and racial slurs that are painted on the walls.

There have been other struggles by workers and farmers in Guatemala as well. In the capital city a mid-December strike by transportation bosses, who were trying to increase basic fares, was met with outrage by workers, who burned some of the buses.

Last July 12 some 1,000 peasants occupied the Costa Rican embassy in the Guatemalan capital to press their demand for housing. They also demanded legal title to the land they had occupied on the cliffs overlooking the city. "We want the government to meet our demands because people are starving and freezing to death on the cliffs," said one of their spokesmen. "Where is the peace" that the government is talking about, he asked.

In April, the head of the Immediate Reaction Force of the Guatemalan National Police was killed in an ambush by peasants who were resisting government attempts to remove them from land they had taken.

In October the General Federation of Guatemalan Workers issued a statement protesting government moves to privatize social services and calling on Arzú to regulate prices on basic goods.

The roots of the war that the recent accord formally ended go back to the 1954 coup organized by Washington against President Jacobo Arbenz. The Arbenz government had instituted a series of labor and agrarian reforms that included the expropriation of United Fruit and other foreign plantation owners. Washington backed a series of military regimes over the next three decades.

In June 1996 a White House panel was forced to admit a few details of the CIA's involvement in the widespread atrocities committed by the Guatemalan regime in more recent years. The panel's report stated that since 1984 "several CIA assets were credibly alleged" to have been involved in serious human rights violations, including "assassination, extrajudicial execution, torture, or kidnapping." The word "asset" is CIA lingo for agent.

The ongoing struggle against the Guatemalan regime got a big impetus in the 1980s from the revolutionary developments taking place throughout Central America, especially the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. With the political retreat of the Sandinista leadership and decline of the Nicaraguan revolution in the late 1980s, struggles in Guatemala and El Salvador also drew to a stalemate. Negotiations between the government and the URNG began in 1991.

Reflecting the weakening of the military, a 1993 coup attempt was turned back when thousands of trade unionists and others poured into the streets. The regime had been forced the year before to sign an agreement that paved the way for the return of 45,000 refugees who had lived for years in Mexico. They received a hero's welcome from a crowd of their compatriots at the border when they began their return in January 1993.

Washington, which bankrolled the regimes that ruled Guatemala for decades, has not been overly eager to jump into funding the terms of the accord. To carry out measures stipulated in the agreement, the Arzú government has said it needs $2.3 billion in assistance over the next four years. In response the Clinton administration has pledged just $40 million, less than half of the amount of "aid" Washington provided in 1991.  
 
 
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