Freedom in the World 1998 - Guatemala

1998 Scores

Status: Partly Free
Freedom Rating: 3.5
Civil Liberties: 4
Political Rights: 3

Overview

President Alvaro Arzu's government's largely successfully implementation of peace accords signed in late December 1996 risked being obscured by a continuing high rate of violent crime and the personal insecurity of Guatemalans, much of which was linked to organized crime and drug trafficking. Promises to establish a new civilian police force to replace the thuggish former militarized security corps have been subverted by the wholesale recycling of the veteran cops into the new institution, as well as by corruption and mismanagement at the police training academy. A report issued by the Church cataloguing the military's dominant role in civilian massacres committed during 36 years of internal conflict was followed two days later by the murder of a Catholic bishop which added to the general public's sense of unease.

The Republic of Guatemala was established in 1839, 18 years after gaining independence from Spain. The nation has endured a history of dictatorship, coups détat, and guerrilla insurgency, with only intermittent democratic rule. It has experienced elected civilian rule since 1985. Amended in 1994, the 1985 constitution provides for a four-year presidential term and prohibits re-election. An 80-member unicameral Congress is elected for four years.

Right-wing businessman Jorge Serrano became president in 1991 after winning a runoff election. In 1993, he attempted to dissolve the legislature. After initially supporting him, the military changed its mind as a result of mass protests and international pressure, and Serrano was sent into exile. The Congress chose Ramiro de Leon Carpio, the government's human rights ombudsman, as his replacement.

De Leon Carpio was practically powerless to halt human rights violations by the military or to curb the military's power as final arbiter in national affairs. After UN-mediated talks were launched between the government and the URNG left-wing guerrillas, the latter called an unilateral truce for the 1995 election and backed the left-wing New Guatemala Democratic Front (FDNG). The top presidential contenders were former Guatemala City mayor Arzu, of the National Advancement Party (PAN) and Alfonso Portillo Cabrera of the hard-right Guatemalan Republic Front (FRG). FRG founder and military dictator Efrain Rios Montt was constitutionally barred from running.

Arzu won with 36.6 percent of the vote, and Portillo Cabrera won 22 percent. In the January 7, 1996 runoff, Arzu defeated Portillo, 51.2 to 48.8 percent. The PAN won 43 seats in Congress, the FRG 21, the centrist National Alliance nine and the URNG-backed FDNG six.

Soon after taking office, Arzu reshuffled the military, forcing the early retirement of generals linked to drug-trafficking, car-theft rings, and human rights abuses. The purge had the backing of a small but influential group of reformist officers who dominate the military high command. After a brief suspension of peace talks in October 1996 because of a rebel kidnapping, subsequent agreement on the return of rebel forces to civilian life and a permanent cease fire led to the December 1996 peace accords.

In 1997, Arzu's government won plaudits for important advances in implementing the peace process. These included the successful demobilization of the URNG guerrillas and their political legalization, the retirement of more than 40 senior military officers on corruption and narcotics charges, and gains in the reduction of the army's strength by one third by the end of the year. In August 1997, a truth commission mandated by the peace accords began receiving tens of thousands of complaints of rights violations committed during the 36-year internal conflict.

In April 1998, Guatemala was shaken by the murder of Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi, a case that has become a test of the government's willingness to control the armed forces and to hold accountable those who abuse human rights. As head of the Church's human rights office, Mons. Gerardi played a pivotal role in preparing the report, Guatemala, Nunca Mas, in which the military were held responsible for 80 percent of some 55,000 documented human rights violations. Official attempts to place responsibility for the outrage initially on a crippled vagrant and then on a spat between the prelate and a priest were met with outrage and claims of defamation and orchestration by the military intelligence services. In June, the URNG presented candidates under its own banner for the first time, and the PAN won 22 of 30 contested municipal governments in a partial election, of which there are a 330 jurisdictions in all.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Citizens can change their governments through elections, but recent voter turnouts suggest that people are increasingly disillusioned with the process. The constitution guarantees religious freedom and the right to organize political parties, civic organizations, and labor unions. However, political and civic expression is severely restricted by a climate of violence, lawlessness, and military repression. Efforts by President Arzu to reduce the armed forces' ability to restrict constitutional powers granted to civilian administrations appeared to have taken hold. However, the rule of law is undermined by the systemic corruption that afflicts all public institutions, particularly the legislature and the courts.

Despite penal code reforms in 1994, the judicial system remains a black hole for most legal or human rights complaints. Drug trafficking is a serious problem, and Guatemala remains a warehousing and transit point for South American drugs entering the U.S. In general, the justice system suffers from chronic problems of corruption, intimidation, insufficient personnel, lack of training opportunities, and a lack of transparency and accountability. Native Americans are largely excluded from the national justice system. Although indigenous languages are now being used in courtrooms around the country, traditional justice systems receive only lip service from Guatemalan authorities. Similarly, cursory recruitment efforts have resulted in only handful of Native American recruits for the new civilian police.

Guatemala remains one of the most violent countries in Latin America, and ranks fourth in the number of kidnappings in the region. The closing of military barracks throughout the country, in a nation in which the armed forces were the only Guatemalan institution to enjoy a truly national presence, created a noticeable vacuum in which criminal interests are free to operate. One result was an upsurge of lynchings, as communities organized to take the law into their own hands. In Guatemala City, neighborhood patrols, some armed with automatic weapons, have arisen in a desperate attempt to arrest the spiraling crime wave. In a positive development, in 1998, the first convictions on war crimes charges were handed down in November when three pro-government paramilitary force members were sentenced to death for their role in a 1982 massacre of Indian peasants.

The press and most of the broadcast media are privately-owned, with several independent newspapers and dozens of radio stations, most of which are commercial. Five of six television stations are commercially-operated. However, journalists remain at great risk. In recent years, more than a dozen Guatemalan journalists have been forced into exile. The 1993 murder of newspaper publisher Jorge Carpio Nicolle, a former presidential candidate, remains unsolved.

The Runejel Junam Council of Ethnic Communities (CERJ) represents the interests of the country's Indians, a majority of the population who have faced severe repression and violence by the army and allied paramilitary organizations as well as being manipulated by the URNG guerrillas. In 1996, Indians showed signs of flexing some political muscle. Indian candidates won control of an estimated 40 urban areas, including Guatemala's second largest city, as well as 10 percent of congressional seats. Under a new law, Mayan descendants are allowed to seek office as independents and not as representatives of the national political parties that have ignored their needs.

Workers are frequently denied the right to organize and are subjected to mass firings and blacklisting, particularly in export-processing zones where a majority of workers are women. Existing unions are targets of systematic intimidation, physical attacks, and assassination, particularly in rural areas during land disputes. Guatemala is among the most dangerous countries in the world for trade unionists. Child labor is a growing problem in the agricultural industry, and use of Guatemala as a transit point for illegal aliens, particularly from Asia, frequently leads to abuses, including death.