Militarization in Guatemala and Its Ramifications For

(RE)MILITARIZATION IN GUATEMALA AND ITS RAMIFICATIONS FOR

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

Rebecca L. MacDonald

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (Sociology)

Acadia University Fall Convocation 2018

This thesis by Rebecca L. MacDonald was defended successfully in an oral examination on August 30, 2018.

The examining committee for the thesis was:

______Dr. Sonia Thon, Chair

______Dr. Terry Gibbs, External Reader

______Dr. Anthony Thomson, Internal Reader

______Dr. James J. Brittain, Supervisor

______Dr. Zelda Abramson, Head/Director

This thesis is accepted in its present form by the Division of Research and Graduate Studies as satisfying the thesis requirements for the degree Master of Arts (Sociology).

......

I, Rebecca MacDonald, grant permission to the University Librarian at Acadia University to archive, preserve, reproduce, loan or distribute copies of my thesis in microform, paper, or electronic formats on a non-profit basis. I undertake to submit my thesis, through my University, to Library and Archives Canada and to allow them to archive, preserve, reproduce, convert into any format, and to make available in print or online to the public for non-profit purposes. I, however, retain the copyright in my thesis.

______Author

______Supervisor

______Date

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Table of Contents ABSTRACT ...... VI

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... VII

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY ...... 9

CHAPTER 3: HISTORICAL CONTEXT ...... 16

PRE-AND-POST-INDEPENDENCE AND THE CONQUEST OF LAND ...... 16

BANANA REPUBLICS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN IMPERIALISM ...... 21

THE GUATEMALAN SPRING AND THE REACTION(ARY) DEFENSIVE ...... 24

USURPING POWER: THE MILITARY, THE BOURGEOISIE AND THE UNNAMED ...... 32

DEMOCRATIC OPENINGS AND RESURGENT RESISTANCE ...... 38

DESCENT INTO CHAOS, OR THE WINDOW CLOSES ...... 41

CONCLUSIONS ...... 51

CHAPTER 4: THEORETICAL REVIEW ...... 56

CHAPTER 5: (RE)MILITARIZATION – ANTECEDENTS, EFFECTS, REPERCUSSIONS74

CURRENT AND PAST MILITARIZATION ...... 74

SOCIOECONOMIC ISSUES AND REPRESSION ...... 79

PERSONAL EFFECTS OF AND STRATEGIES TO DEAL WITH INCREASING MILITARIZATION ...... 93

CHAPTER 6: NEOLIBERALISM AND POWER ...... 105

NEOLIBERALISM AND ITS PROPONENTS ...... 106

THE PEACE PROCESS AND STATE LEGITIMIZATION ...... 110

THE MAINTENANCE OF MILITARY MIGHT DESPITE DEMILITARIZATION ...... 113

A NEW CLIMATE OF INSECURITY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS IN A DEPRESSED ECONOMY .... 121

PÉREZ MOLINA, REMILITARIZATION, AND THE WAR ON TRIAL ...... 127

CHAPTER 7: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS ...... 132

REFERENCES ...... 138

APPENDIX I – ACRONYMS ...... 146

APPENDIX II – CONSENT FORM ...... 149

APPENDIX III – RESEARCH QUESTIONS ...... 152

APPENDIX IV – ELECTORAL TIMELINE ...... 153

Abstract

Guatemalan society was increasingly permeated with militarization throughout a 36-year- long civil war that devastated the rural indigenous population. The regime of Otto Pérez

Molina (2012 – 2015) led to an increase in militarization of civil society. Although there is existing literature on remilitarization, a gap in the academic literature exists on this topic.

Through a series of six interviews with members of the Comité Campesino del Altiplano

(Highland Small Farmer’s Committee), this thesis aims to explore the topic of remilitarization through the life experiences of human rights defenders working in a sociopolitical context of remilitarization. Drawing on concepts such as accumulation by dispossession, separation, and neoliberalism, this work demonstrates the pressing need for further inquiry into remilitarization in Guatemala and the broader Central American region.

Acknowledgements

I would like to dedicate this work to Cristina Ardòn Simón, one of the strongest and smartest women I’ve ever met, and to my daughter, Juniper Ella Carew, who made me realize anything is possible.

This work would not have been possible without the incredible support of family, friends and faculty. I would like to thank my parents, Jim and Marilyn MacDonald, and my partner, Aaron Carew, for their unending support and encouragement. My sisters, Carrie and

Hannah MacDonald, were as always my support network, and Hannah’s editing proved incredibly helpful in the final draft. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. James

Brittain for sharing his incredible knowledge, and for his patience and kindness throughout the process. Thank you to Terry Gibbs and Garry Leech for always encouraging my academic pursuits.

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Chapter 1: Introduction

Guatemala is a country that witnessed some of the most intense violence during the

Cold War in Latin America (Grandin 2004). From 1944 to 1954, two successive governments pressed forward democratic reforms after years of colonial exploitation, such as increased freedom of association for workers, the repealing of colonial-era legislation such as

Vagrancy Laws (which ensured that any unemployed persons were to work, without pay, for large landowners), and the attempt to redistribute land (Handy 1994). The landed oligarchy in Guatemala, in large part foreign nationals, had significant swaths of land expropriated for redistribution to poor peasants (Handy 1984; Handy 1994; Jonas 1991; Jonas, McCaughan, and Martinez 1984; Schirmer 1998). Such activities would earmark the decisive entrance of imperialism into Guatemala (Grandin 2006).

The work of Karl Marx (1967) approaches the subject of primitive accumulation as a necessary step for the initiation and maintenance of capitalist development. Such a concept works well when placing into context what has taken place within Guatemala and the conflicts therein during the 20th Century. The violent expulsion of indigenous Mayans from their lands allowed a landed oligarchy to amass extensive tracts of land, mainly used to produce for export. Vagrancy Laws, mentioned previously, permitted the upper classes to take advantage of a newly ‘freed’ body of labourers. With the injustice(s) inherent in the continual expropriation of once communal land from Mayans beginning to be recognized and addressed by the State through the administration of Jose Arévalo (1945 – 1951) and Jacobo

Arbenz (1951 – 1954), the domestic capitalist class reacted in kind. In 1954, a Central

Intelligence Agency (CIA)1 sponsored coup d’état removed Arbenz from his seat as the elected president of the country, abruptly ending what is referred to as Guatemala’s “Ten

Years of Spring.” In his place, a military government was installed, which led to a thirty-six- year civil war that took the lives of more than 200,000 Guatemalans, mainly indigenous peasants (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982).

Guatemala has been marked as the first victim in a long series of Cold War battles throughout Latin America where the United States sought to protect populations from the forces of communism (see Gill 2004, Grandin 2004). The majority of the military’s targets, however, proved to be persons and organizations that today would be framed as defenders of human rights2 and social justice. As the work of Greg Grandin (2004) clearly demonstrates, persons simply working to increase the standard of living for impoverished sectors were targeted; labeled ‘communist,’ regularly kidnapped, killed, or disappeared. As the conflict intensified in the late-1970s and early-1980s, a series of “Scorched Earth” campaigns3 indiscriminately eliminated not only human rights defenders, but those communities located in “red zones”, claimed to be hotbeds of insurgent activity. As Schirmer (1998:55) notes,

Chimaltenango, northern and southern Quiché, and northern Huehuetenango were the areas most affected by these campaigns, all of which are located in the northwestern region of the

1 For a full list of acronyms utilized in this work, see Appendix I. 2 The conceptualization of human rights utilized in this work draws significantly on the work of Teeple (2004), recognizing the eventual predominance of civil and political rights over social, economic and cultural rights in the course of the development of universalist human rights mandates. The predominance of some human rights over others is seen as a result of contemporary human rights mandates evolving within a particular mode of production and system of property relations; namely, capitalism. This theoretical approach to human rights permits a deeper analysis of property relations in Guatemala both historically and currently, which is one of the central foci of this investigation. 3 During the height of the civil war, what many call la violencia (the violence), Scorched Earth campaigns, referring to the absolute destruction of a community by the annihilation of all persons and the decimation of all community infrastructure, were conducted in numerous communities, particularly in the Northwestern Highlands, in regions of high insurgent activity (Jonas 1991:95; Jonas et. al. 1984:xii; Schirmer 1998:55). 2

country. The militarization of civil society was one of the tools successive military governments used in their efforts to eliminate guerrilla forces from the country. One of the most widespread were Civil Self-Defense Patrols (Patrullas de Autodefensa Civiles, PACs) whom employed methods to acquire intelligence on possible insurgents and subsequently eliminate said targets. In form, PACs were groups made up of men recruited by the military to conduct surveillance within their immediate communities. Although the military maintained PACs were a volunteer force, if community members refused to participate they were threatened or, in select cases, killed (Esparza 2005:384). As the groups would come to be the eyes and ears of the military government their power was often abused (Fumerton and

Remijnse 2004:70). The military, in tandem with the state, through these and other structures, sought to maintain power over Guatemalan society in order to preserve the existing class order.

After decades of conflict the war drew to a close with the negotiation of the Peace

Accords between the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (Unidad Revolucionaria

Nacional Guatemalteca, URNG) and the Guatemalan military, under the presidency of

Alvaro Arzú (1996 – 2000). On December 29th, 1996, the accords were agreed to and signed, which set out a framework for the implementation of a conventional electoral democracy for the country4. Upon reflection of the period since the signing of the Peace Accords, many of the goals outlined have not been met (Teeple 2004). A climate of precarity has come to compound issues of poverty for the majority with significant expressions realized within rural communities with basic needs failing to be met (PDH 2013). The population of

4 The Peace Accords set out a number of frameworks for the disassembly of state-based structures of repression; also included in the accords were agreements on human rights, constitutional reform, agrarian reform and the strengthening of civilian power in the country (UN 1998). 3

Guatemala in 2012 was over 15 million; 40 percent of the population was indigenous, and 51 percent of the population resided in rural areas (Narciso Cruz 2013:13). The informal economy is predominant in the country; in rural areas, with 80 percent of workers engaged in it country-wide (Narciso Cruz 2013:37). In 2011, almost 54 percent of the population was living in poverty; rural provinces, especially in the northwestern region, presented with significantly higher levels of poverty (Narciso Cruz 2013:24). The majority of indigenous peoples in Guatemala live in rural areas (PDH 2013:254), and given that the socioeconomic situation is more precarious in rural areas, indigenous peoples, being the predominant population, are more negatively impacted. The oligarchy in Guatemala, through maintaining a significant portion of the population in conditions of poverty (both historically and contemporarily), ensures an exploitable labour force and supports continued maintenance of a class-based system where wealth is concentrated in a very small percentage of the population. One means of better comprehending these and other socioeconomic issues present in the country is to look to the experience of those who work to improve the situation of the most exploited in Guatemala, those who we can term human rights defenders (HRDs)5.

The criminalization of social protest in Guatemala, a component of counterinsurgent tactics on the part of the military during the country’s civil war6, could be suggested to have continued since the declaration of peace time in Guatemala. The Unit for the Protection of

5 Human rights defender is a term defined by the United Nations as “used to describe people who, individually or with others, act to promote or protect human rights. Human rights defenders are identified above all by what they do and it is through a description of their actions and of some of the contexts in which they work that the term can best be explained” (Eguren Fernández and Patel 2015:897). 6 The state criminalized human rights defenders throughout the civil war as a part of a larger counterinsurgency project. To give one succinct example, “General Lucas García (1978 – 1982), owner of several large landed estates in the north of the country, began his presidential term of office with the removal of the leaders of all existing popular organizations; the mass murder of labor union leaders, peasants, students, and newspaper reporters; and the involuntary disappearance of thousands of people… The government of Lucas García considered Guatemalan youth to be subversive” (Jonas, Martinez and McCaughan 1984:76). 4

Guatemalan Human Rights Defenders (Unidad de Protección a Defensoras y Defensores de

Derechos Humanos Guatemala, UDEFEGUA), in their monitoring of threats to HRDs since the year 2000, has recorded 3,453 threats against HRDs, a number that has consistently risen since monitoring began (Samayoa 2014:14). Although there is significant literature outlining the militarization of civil society during the conflict (Grandin 2004, Jonas 1991, Schirmer

1999) and ongoing post-war terror (Martinez 2003, Manz 2008), there is a lack of current academic work around remilitarization today and its effects on Guatemalan HRDs.

The thesis statement for the following work will examine what, if any, are the impacts of recent (re)militarization on domestic HRDs in Guatemala. (Re)militarization refers to two parallel processes at the time this research was conducted; first, the increasing influence of military actors within the Guatemalan state, demonstrated in the occupation of high-ranking political positions by civil-war era military actors. Secondly, the re-engagement of military actors within civil society is a central aspect of (re)militarization, identified throughout this work in the military’s engagement in civil affairs such as protests and land conflicts, and its insertion into quotidian life through acts such as identification checks on public modes of transport. As will be discussed later, a tension exists when viewing this increase in military influence and presence in contemporary Guatemala; this leads to a questioning of whether militarization is occurring anew in the post-Peace Accord era, or whether this militarization is a resurgence of already-existing structures and power, maintained in the wake of the signing of the Peace Accords.

This research will focus on one organization in particular, the Highland Small

Farmer’s Committee (Comité Campesino del Altiplano, CCDA). The CCDA is an organization that has worked for thirty years in the struggle for the improvement of living

standards for rural indigenous and peasant communities. Through my work with Breaking the Silence Maritimes-Guatemala Solidarity Network (BTS)7, I lived and worked with members of the CCDA made possible by a Canadian International Development Agency youth internship program. This work enabled me to develop associations with members of the CCDA, which were utilized during the research component of the thesis. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of the CCDA working in San

Pedro Sacatepequez, a small community in the highlands of Guatemala. Further to this, a snowball method assisted me coming into contact with and interviewing other peripheral

CCDA members whom I had not previously associated with whom lived in various locations throughout the country. The HRDs interviewed for this thesis are part of a larger social body in Guatemala struggling for fundamental social change, as is evidenced in the collaborative work referenced by interviewees and in references to colleagues in other organizations enduring state-based repression.

Considering events that occurred in Guatemala around the time these interviews were conducted, research on the topic of remilitarization is timely, and necessary. Santa Cruz

Barillas, a municipality in the western province of Huehuetenango, saw significant social unrest, focusing on the construction of a hydroelectric dam within the municipality. On May

1st, 2012, following years of protest in response to a lack of prior consultation of local communities, community leader Andrés Francisco Miguel was killed (Wirtz 2012).

According to the 2013 report on the activities of the office of the United Nations High

Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), the ensuing protest in which community

7 Breaking the Silence Maritimes-Guatemala Solidarity Network is a “voluntary network of people in the Maritimes who began to organize in 1988 to support the efforts of Guatemalans struggling for political, social, and economic justice”. BTS has worked in solidarity with the CCDA since 2000 through development of a coffee-export relationship between the CCDA and JustUs!, and continues to work with the organization today (Breaking the Silence Blog 2018). 6

members damaged buildings in the community, and allegedly entered the local military base by force, led to the government of Otto Perez Molina’s declaration of a state of siege in the municipality, which was viewed by the UNHCHR’s office as lacking sufficient justification

(United Nations 2013:8). The state dispatched 260 military and police forces, and 17 community members were arrested for public disturbance during the state of siege (Wirtz

2012a). In October 2012, a peaceful protest in response to both the price of electricity and constitutional reforms blocked off the Pan-American Highway, the route that connects

Guatemala from east to west. The protest was organized by communities in the municipality of Totonicapán, the capital of the department of the same name. Both police and military forces responded to the protest, and the peaceful assembly ended in a massacre at the hands of the military, which opened fire on the protest. Six people died on the highway, and more than 30 were injured (Sieder 2017). Both events demonstrate the increased involvement of the military in civilian affairs. Nery Rodenas, Director of the Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado de Guatemala (Office of Human Rights of the Archbishop of Guatemala—

ODHAG), stated that the actions of the military in Totonicapán violated the 1996 Peace

Accords, concluding that “there is a very important peace agreement that has to do with the role of the military in a democratic society and the strengthening of civil society. The army should not interfere in matters of internal security” (Wirtz 2012b).

These incidents must be examined within a politico-historical context. Considering the history of violence against, in particular, HRDs, but more broadly, glaring acts of violence against entire communities, these acts have significant meaning for Guatemalans.

The recent historical memory of the people of Guatemala includes a cognizance of the military’s actions against often completely innocent communities. Much of the citizenry can

tell you of one or more of their family members who were directly impacted by the destruction during the civil war. In contemporary Guatemala, HRDs are already under attack, as demonstrated by the consistently increasing threats against them (UDEFEGUA 2014).

This work is interested in the existing and potential consequences of increased militarization on HRDs. As noted in the thesis statement, this work interrogates how the State relation to coercion may impact the well-being of said group. Chapter 2 demonstrates the methodology put into practice throughout the process of collecting and analyzing data for this work. Chapter 3 provides a nuanced historical analysis of militarization in Guatemala. A particular focus was the evolving relationship between the economic elite and military, and the coercive relations of power between these groups and the larger indigenous and peasant populations. Chapter 4 presents a review of literature related to the topic of remilitarization, with an analysis of relevant social, political, and economic components. Chapter 5 gives voice to the experiences of respondents, focusing on the central themes present in the interviews conducted. Chapter 6 offers a deeper understanding of a contemporary socioeconomic climate and demonstrates the complexity of class relations as they relate to contemporaneous expressions of repression against HRDs, and Chapter 7 presents a summary of findings and conclusions. It is intended that by documenting the lived experience of HRDs, and their reactions to the steep increase in militarization in a country that has seen unimaginable violence, a broader understanding of both the current situation in Guatemala will be made available, as well as a stronger idea of what impacts this remilitarization has on

HRDs.

Chapter 2: Methodology

Although the purpose of this section is to elaborate on the methodology used in the research conducted, it also presents an opportunity to examine some of the difficulties present in doing research within a field in which the researcher has worked in a different capacity. The terms “activist” and “research” are seldom used in the same sentence in academic work; As Hale (2008:2) notes, “graduate students and junior faculty members are regularly warned against putting scholarship in the service of struggles for social justice, on the grounds that, however worthy, such a combination deprives the work of complexity, compromises its methodological rigor, and, for these reasons, puts career advancement at risk.” Recently, there have been challenges to the hegemony of the concept of objectivity in the social sciences, although there are still some significant assumptions that drive the maintenance of the predominant research paradigm in social science research. In a compelling analysis of observation as methodology, Angrosino and Rosenberg (2011) describe the history and current context and concerns surrounding observation-based research; they note that “[t]he combination of theory and action is sometimes referred to as praxis, and it is one way in which an engaged, committed, advocacy-oriented form of social science is carried out,” (475) in addition stating that “it is certainly possible to base sound reformist action on the foundation of the provisional truth that results in the negotiated contexts created by researchers and their collaborators in study communities” (478). Yet the authors reveal undertones of ethnocentricity in noting that the researcher could well help marginalized communities through their research (474), demonstrating a patriarchal attitude towards those with whom academics work to undertake research, which leads to a valid contention of their claim that “[a]lthough rarely acknowledged at the time, the classic

approach was based on a model of interaction in which power resided in the ethnographer

[...]; power is now clearly shared” (469).

Perhaps there is a movement towards a shared power in observational research, although until marginalized communities are doing research in communities of privilege, the idea that power in observational research is shared is questionable. Miller et al. (2011:396) note the impact of these types of assumptions, stating their concern “about the potential for participatory action research methods to be coopted by those using the language of collaboration and community control to encourage participation in processes that ultimately serve the interests of those in power in political, economic, as well as academic spheres.” The methodology couched within the following research does not pretend to be participatory action research (PAR), but does draw on some of the key concepts of the paradigm, such as that noted by Miller et al. (2011:387) when they assert that PAR “is built upon the notion that knowledge generation is a collaborative process in which each participant’s diverse experiences and skills are critical to the outcome of the work,” and that it “combines theory and practice in cycles of action and reflection that are aimed toward solving concrete community problems while deepening understanding of the broader social, economic, and political forces that shape these issues.” The following research is a part of a cycle of action and reflection that has culminated in years of solidarity work with the CCDA and other

Guatemalan organizations. It also draws on some of the basic tenets of critical theory, such as the assumptions outlined by Kincheloe, McLaren, and Steinberg (2011:164) in their analysis of critical pedagogy. They note that “[c]ritical research can be understood best in the context of the empowerment of individuals” as well as the affirmation that “[m]ainstream research practices are generally, although most often unwittingly, implicated in the reproduction of

systems of class, race, and gender oppression.” As demonstrated throughout chapter four, the theoretical underpinnings of this thesis are dominantly in a Marxist vein. These concepts, among others, become important considerations when endeavouring to do research with people, particularly in a different cultural context. Striving to be as non-oppressive as is possible, while as a researcher realizing how power and privilege affects your place in the process and identifying any potential biases that may affect the research conducted are all important considerations. Additionally, contributing in some way to a critical understanding of the sociopolitical and economic frameworks within the context of this research, and continuing work in solidarity with those working for social justice in Guatemala play a part in the work presented here. In short, the research presented here could be seen as a bricolage8, a melange of aspects of autoethnography, critical and grounded theory, as well as

PAR.

As an activist researcher, it is important to outline some of the crucial aspects of this type of research, in particular the necessity of discerning between criticism and critique in the production of knowledge, which links to the concept of objectivity in social science research;

Craig Calhoun (Hale 2008: xxiv) notes that “[c]rucially, activist social science may inform both activism and social science by pursuing critical knowledge. Critique is not the same thing as just objecting to the way things are; intellectual criticism is not mere complaint.

Rather, as a crucial part of social science, critique is an effort to understand how things could be different and why existing frameworks of knowledge do not recognize all the actual possibilities.” Having worked within the organization I engaged with to undertake interviews

8 Kincheloe et al. (2011:167-68) describe bricolage as “an emancipatory research construct,” grounded in ideology and representing “an evolving criticality in research.” It is a multidisciplinary research process, but further it “demands a new level of research self-consciousness and awareness of the numerous contexts in which any researcher is operating.” 11

for the following body of research, I have endeavoured to explore an issue that I’ve understood to affect those I worked with on a daily basis, an issue that, from various perspectives, is a growing problematic in the context of Guatemalan society; not simply to criticize the current sociopolitical and economic context, but to examine the historical background of said context, and to explore the frameworks in which this situation exists with an eye to gaining an understanding of the root issues contributing to the current situation, and to produce new knowledge about a concerning and growing issue in Guatemala and the region9. Moreover, this research has been conducted within a reflective process that questions

“the assumption that societies such as Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and the United States, along with some nations in the European Union and Asia, are unproblematically democratic and free” (Kincheloe et al. 2011:163), creating a methodological check in an effort to maintain a continuous critical viewpoint from which to work. This research is an attempt to maintain standards of objectivity while consistently recognizing the different contexts in which the researcher and respondents work, and what it means to be a researcher from a privileged position, in addition to considering what effects that may have on the work shown here.

The impetus for this research is to open up a line of inquiry into the impact of recent remilitarization on domestic HRDs in Guatemala. This research will focus on one organization in particular, the Highland Small Farmer’s Committee (Comite Campesino del

Altiplano, CCDA). The CCDA is an organization that has worked for thirty years in the

9 Honduras, which shares a border with Guatemala, has been significantly militarized in recent years, particularly after Manuel Zelaya was ousted in an illegal coup d’état in 2009 and further in the 2017 presidential elections. As Dawn Paley reported in Toward Freedom (2014), narcotrafficking is the singular argument given for increasing remilitarization in Honduras, yet as Berta Cáceres noted, “Drug trafficking has been a pretext to militarize, because in reality the amount of trafficking hasn’t fallen, but because of narco activity there are now military bases in La Mosquitia, for example, and there are more bases than ever. [It’s a] US occupation, and narco trafficking is the pretext.” Militarization in the region is an issue of increasing importance, and merits further academic analysis. 12

struggle for the improvement of living standards for rural indigenous and peasant communities. In my work with Breaking the Silence Maritimes-Guatemala Solidarity

Network, I lived and worked with members of the CCDA through a Canadian International

Development Agency youth internship program; through this work I developed associations with members of the CCDA, which became my initial contact point for the research component of this thesis. My research consisted of a series of six semi-structured interviews10 with members of the CCDA working in San Pedro Sacatepequez11, a small community in the highlands of Guatemala. Further to this, a snowball method assisted me in coming into contact with and interviewing extended members, who I had not previously associated with, living in other regions of the country. The respondents in this thesis were four women and two men of indigenous Mayan descent, most middle-aged with one respondent in their 30s. All were local leaders within the organization. Three had children and three did not.

My ability to do this work was greatly facilitated by having a network of people with whom to engage. Throughout 2010-2011, my involvement with the organization led me to develop relationships with members of the local population that allowed me to speak with those linked to my research. Over a period of three weeks, the aforementioned interviews were completed with members of the CCDA in various regions of the Northwestern

Highlands of Guatemala. All respondents completed the interviews in Spanish, and none spoke in their respective regional Mayan dialect during the interviews. My fluency in

Spanish permitted me to conduct the interviews personally, therefore only the interviewee and I were present during each interview. Having a connection to the CCDA, as well as

10 See Appendix III for a list of questions used in the interviews conducted. 11 All names and some locations have been changed to protect the identities of respondents. 13

having developed and maintained these relationships allowed for a level of trust that may not have been attained had I not previously worked within the organization. As Calhoun notes, distrust and frustration can exist from the perspective of an activist being approached by an academic. Impatience with the slow-moving work of academia, and distrust of outside volunteers, in particular those who come as so-called experts in their field, both can contribute to difficulties approaching activists. “This distrust is not simply a result of experience with previous academic researchers whose commitments have been brief or who have given little back. It also reflects the more general disengagement of academic social science from practical social action,” he asserts (Hale 2008:xx). Although the work of analysis remains one that takes a significant amount of time, I will endeavour to produce a brief synopsis of the completed thesis for distribution to the CCDA and to the individual respondents to ensure they have an idea of the outcome of the work in which they participated.

The research and the overall approach for this work is from an inductive perspective, being more exploratory and seeking out more specific themes and potential theories towards the end of the process. The interviews conducted were coded first using an open coding method, in which the data was examined numerous times to identify particular concepts, events, and behaviours, among other codes. Axial coding was then completed to identify broader themes and categories within the hundreds of codes recorded. From the coding conducted, a number of themes emerged, including current and past militarization, socioeconomic issues and repression, personal effects of militarization, and strategies to deal with increasing militarization, all of which will be elaborated upon in the following analysis.

In addition, participant observation played a strong role in gaining a broader understanding of

the issues present in the interviews conducted; I have also drawn on experiences recorded in previous time spent within the country. All colleagues who participated in this research consented to the interviews conducted12, reflected in the consent form that was signed by each interviewee; the amount of Q200 (approximately CDN$25) was disbursed to each interviewee to compensate for the time spent participating in the interviews. I was granted ethics approval for the aforementioned research by the Acadia Research Ethics Board (with file number REB 12-73)13 in November of 2013.

The goal of this research is to deliver a preliminary analysis of the ramifications of recent remilitarization on HRDs in Guatemala, while consistently ensuring that the information presented is that which was presented to me by the respondents. The research was conducted with an eye to ensuring my biases as a researcher are clearly outlined and therefore considered while conducting all aspects of the following work, in addition to considering the overarching issues of objectivity and ways to conduct research while making an effort to work to identify power structures throughout the process.

12 See Appendix II for a copy of the consent form utilized. 13 The process of ethics approval focused on ensuring the safety and security of those interviewed for the following work. 15

Chapter 3: Historical Context

The conquest of land has underpinned the realities of Guatemalan society for the past half-millennium. Be it during the 1524 invasion by Spain14 through to the US state-supported invasion of 195415, a consolidated control over this natural resource has been at the centre of conflict throughout the country16. Such periods of land dispossession reflect primitive accumulation; before capitalist development can happen, a separation of people and land must occur (Marx 1967:714). After the Spanish invasion of Central America, Guatemala was viewed by its conquerors as a grand physical treasure to be exploited, which not only utilized the land and resources but also its original peoples. Upon his visit to Guatemala in the 1760s,

Archbishop Pedro Cortés y Larraz was horrified to see the maltreatment of indigenous peoples in the various parishes he visited, noting that forced labour and violent treatment

“suggests a territory occupied by foreigners rather than one settled by them for 250 years”

(Grandin et al. 2011:94). To understand the current context of militarization and repression as it relates to issues of land, it is important to keep Guatemala’s colonial history in mind and briefly discuss some key areas of Guatemala’s pre-and-post-independence.

Pre-and-Post-Independence and the Conquest of Land

Guatemala’s independence from Spain brought about new battles between Liberal and Conservative factions, with the guidance of Captain-General José de Bustamente

14 See The Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano (1973), Gift of the Devil by Jim Handy (1984), and/or Conquered Conquistadors by Florine Asselbergs (2008). 15 See Bitter Fruit by Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer (1984). 16 See Beyond Recognition: Alternative Rights-Realizing Strategies in the Northern Quiche Region of Guatemala by Caren Weisbart (2011) and The Political Economy of Natural Resource Extraction: A New Model or Extractive Imperialism? by Henry Veltmeyer. 16

navigating the process of gaining independence from Spain and then Mexico to form the

Central American congress (Handy 1984:38). This Liberal/Conservative battle was waged in the upper echelons of the oligarchy. As noted by Handy (1984:37),

On the threshold of the 19th century Central America remained, as it had been throughout much of the colonial period, a segregated, racist society. According to an estimate made in 1810, of the approximately one million souls in the Audiencia de Guatemala, only 40 thousand were white. Nonetheless, this minority dominated all wealth and position in society.17

The socioeconomic makeup of the decision-making political class in Guatemala was of

Spanish and criollo18descent, with original Mayan inhabitants seen as more or less a source of free labour on the haciendas of the landed oligarchy (Handy 1984:23). Although a governing body was under construction in Central America, it involved a small minority of the population.

The complete dispossession of the original inhabitants is the precursor to capitalist development, according to Marx (1967:737). The next essential element is the development of political power to ensure dominance over the proletariat by maintaining low wages to ensure surplus production. The Guatemalan bourgeoisie made use of various legal mechanisms to maintain a system of indigenous slavery, first through the tribute system, then through the system of repartimiento19. As Handy (1984:21) notes, “[w]hatever wealth the

New World offered, whether it be in the form of precious metals or agricultural exports, was of little worth if not accompanied by access to Indian labour.” The repartimiento allowed the

17 In any discussion of Guatemalan land relations, race/ethnicity/cultural background and racism plays an important part, however the main focus of this paper is the interrelationship between land relations and militarization. Because of this, race and racism are mentioned, as they were and remain important issues, but are not explored in depth because of the scope of the paper. For further reflection on the issue of race in Guatemala, see A Finger in the Wound by Diane Nelson (1999) and The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation by Greg Grandin (2000). 18 Criollo according to Handy (1984) are those who were born in Guatemala but descended from Spain. 19 Repartimiento was seen by the Spanish crown as a means to reduce exploitation of the indigenous population through ensuring that the time frame for forced labour was shortened; the law was still meant to exploit the population, but to a lesser extent. Even so, the regulations were rarely enforced (Handy 1984). 17

Spanish crown to maintain a system of forced labour for indigenous peoples for at least part of the year, ensuring huge surplus-value for the oligarchy.

The new state developed by the ruling oligarchies of the New World came with new policies, and although these policies were tinged with enlightenment ideology, it remains that the indigenous population was still seen by both Conservative and Liberal elements as either not entirely human, or to the latter as an obstacle to progress (Weaver 1991:139-140). A brief period of indigenous uprising was led by Rafael Carrera, a poor ladino20 from a barrio outside of Guatemala City who led a revolt from the Northwestern highlands and took

Guatemala in 1838, governing until his death in 1865 (Handy 1984:35). His allegiance to rural indigenous peoples allowed for a brief respite from the land dispossession that had been a continual feature of the previous governments; the liberal reforms of the previous decade had been difficult for the indigenous and ladino majority. Government was secularized, land belonging to the Catholic Church21 and indigenous communities was privatized, free trade

20 Ladino has a number of different meanings; Handy (1984) refers to it as those of mixed blood and western culture, but also as indigenous peoples who have westernized their culture. Weisbart (2011:2n6) defines ladino as “individuals of Spanish and indigenous descent”, but sees them as part of a broader social grouping campesino, which refers to those who either work for large landowners, have a small amount of communal land, or have little to no land. In Handy’s definition, ladinos were their own social group, doubly discriminated against, and unable to legally own land up until the mid-1800s. It is an interesting commentary on land ownership that ladinos seem to be lumped in with the non-landowning class, and shows how capitalism has been able to maintain the division of labour very efficiently throughout the history of Guatemala. For a discussion on the origins of the word, see Pelaez’ “The Ladino” in The Guatemala Reader (Grandin et al., 2011). 21 The Catholic Church in Guatemala had significant influence in the country, particularly in the colonial era (Galeano 1973:41). In the early twentieth century as the gradual separation of church and state occurred, the Catholic Church’s political influence was significantly reduced; as Grandin notes, “by the eve of the 1944 Revolution, there resided in Guatemala only 126 Catholic priests for over three million Guatemalans – forty of whom ministered to the capital’s 170,000 inhabitants” (2004:78). The Guatemalan archbishop, Mariano Rossell y Arellano, vocally opposed progressive government programs enacted during the Ten Years of Spring, taking an anti-communist stance (Grandin 2004:78, Grandin et al. 2011:226-29, Handy 1994:175, Jonas 1991:126). During this time, the church, in a bid to increase their influence in rural areas, invited Catholic nuns and priests and others of the faith, from within and outside of the country, to work in the countryside. Being exposed to the incredible social injustice existing in rural Guatemalan communities led to a transformation of the clergy and the development of liberation theology, which presented as an opposing view to the church leadership in the country (Grandin et al. 2011:282). The actions of these individuals led to significant consciousness-raising in rural communities, and the organization of peasant leagues (Jonas 1991:127). Ministers 18

was promoted and foreign investment was encouraged (Grandin et al. 2011:108). Carrera re- instituted protections on church and indigenous land, although he became quite comfortable living a wealthy lifestyle as president, and according to Weaver, was quite friendly with the

Conservative and Catholic Church elites (1991:141). Yet he was the first to advocate for the majority indigenous population in the country, and the first to recognize their rights as peoples of Guatemala (Handy 1984:53-4).

In the post-Carrera era, coffee was becoming the country’s biggest export, and the late 1800s became widely known as the liberal reform period (Handy 1984; Weisbart 2011).

Carrera’s Conservative replacement as head of state was handily overthrown by Justo Rufino

Barrios22, and the state refocused its energies on policies around the production and export of coffee. Although Schlesinger and Kinzer (1984:28) paint Barrios as one of Guatemala’s

“most formidable leaders” who developed public education, curbed the power of the church, and redistributed land, Handy’s fastidious detailing of this historical period enlightens this view. Although Barrios “did take small amounts of land from some of the largest haciendas shown to be not using their land profitably, this was a rare occurrence, more often linked to feuds than to a desire to increase production” (1984:68). Grandin notes that the rapid development of the coffee crop led to further stripping of land from indigenous communities in lower-lying areas of Guatemala, and also to a return of forced labour laws reminiscent of supported the organization of local cooperatives, and as Handy notes, “for some priests at least, a discussion of the social and economic problems that confronted peasants led to a more active opposition to the government (1984:238). Through this transformation, the church was able to provide “crucial moral support to popular organizations” towards the end of the civil war, promoting the unification of civil society across classes and in diverse regions of the country (Jonas 1991:239). It is important to touch on the role of the Catholic Church during this era, particularly given the historical context of the country despite the church not presenting as one of the main influences on militarization in the era of the civil war in the literature review. The respondents to this thesis did not speak of the church in relation to the civil war or the current sociopolitical context. As a result, the role of the Catholic Church is not explored in depth in this thesis; for a comprehensive exploration of this topic, see Guatemala's Catholic Revolution: A History of Religious and Social Reform, 1920-1968 (Hernández Sandoval 2018). 22 See Appendix IV for an electoral timeline. 19

the colonial days (Grandin et al. 2011:109). This stripping of land and imposition of new laws to further exploit the labour power of the indigenous majority demonstrates capital’s ability, once it has a foothold, to maintain the division of labour, and “reproduces it on a continually extending scale” (Marx 1967:714).

The new liberalism under Miguel García Granados and then Justo Rufino Barrios grew out of a positivist perspective, one that originated in debate at the University of San

Carlos. The liberal attempt to use foreign theories of society in Guatemala ended in a decision to continue the previous search for progress with stability meted out by the state as needed, remembering the chaos of the previous liberal government (Handy 1984:61). There was a return to labour law that emphasized forced labour practices, as Grandin (2011:109) notes:

Forced labor, which had been gradually declining through the early nineteenth century, was resurrected through a variety of mechanisms. The infamous 1877 mandamiento decree, for example, obligated communities to send work gangs to work on plantations during the harvest, as did assorted vagrancy and debt peonage laws.

This plantation model would become prevalent in other export crops. Coffee soon became a booming economic driver for Guatemala, and this necessitated better infrastructure to transport the quickly multiplying export. The next step of the process for the Liberal state was to encourage white North American and European settlement of Guatemala, as the regime viewed their biggest obstacle to economic development as the “apathy and stupidity of peasants, particularly Indian communities” (Handy 1984:65). This attitude is a continuation of thinking that facilitated Marx’s concept of primitive accumulation.

Over time, xenophobic attitudes arose amidst the accumulation of wealth (within a tiny fraction of Guatemala’s population), which contributed to the formation of a pseudo-

feudal class system. It could be suggested that such a system was constructed through the utilization and categorization(s) of race, as the majority indigenous Mayan population were formulated into a scorned and easily exploitable lower class or proletariat of the country. The socioeconomic conditions of life for rural Mayans during this period of increased exploitation led to what Handy (1994:17) describes as the closing of these communities, or the development of closed corporate communities. As he notes in Democratizing What?, “the particular type of capitalist development that occurred in many parts of Guatemala and dominated the state structure found no obvious and immediate imperative in destroying the cultural basis of highland communities and some advantage in maintaining them in a state of material deprivation” (2012:8). All of this would seem to remove the agency of indigenous

Mayan communities, but it is imperative to note the numerous indigenous uprisings during the rise of the coffee economy in the late 1800s into the early 1900s (Handy 1984:72). As the seasonal cycle of going from plantation work to work on the miniscule plot of land still possessed by those making the voyage from plantation to home, it is not surprising that indigenous Mayan communities began to develop a more inward-looking perspective, with little trust in the Liberal regime.

Banana Republics and the Development of American Imperialism

The interests of foreign capital, and particularly U.S. capital since the end of the 19th century, have not favoured the construction of a democratic political system. Rather, those interests have allied themselves with sectors of the oligarchy that defended the traditional order. – Edelberto Torres-Rivas, Guatemalan sociologist in address to the Permanent People’s Tribunal on Guatemala (Jonas et al. 1984:20)

As an increasingly global capitalism began developing alongside an American ideological and economic hegemony, the potential for huge profits began to be realized by many American entrepreneurs. As Handy (1984:77) notes, “[b]y the end of World War I,

through a variety of means, U.S. interests had pushed aside the British and Germans to predominate in the region.” In particular, the development of the United Fruit Company

(UFC), an American banana production and export company, led to a reach of power that was unparalleled in the country. Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer’s book Bitter Fruit clearly outlines the huge influence wielded by the corporation (1982:11):

United Fruit controlled directly or indirectly nearly 40,000 jobs in Guatemala. It functioned as a state within a state, owning Guatemala’s telephone and telegraph facilities, administering its only important Atlantic harbour and monopolizing its banana export. The company’s subsidiary, the International Railways of Central America (IRCA), owned 887 miles of railroad track in Guatemala, nearly every mile in the country.

The UFC was one of the largest landowners in Guatemala, benefiting directly from the exploitative system of labour developed through the liberal period. For example, in the

Polochic Valley, a region in the central northern province of Alta Verapaz, land was taken by outsiders, and the Ke’kchi communities became the workers on the banana plantations that were built by foreigners (Grandin 2004:141), divorcing producers from the means of production. As Handy (1984:83) notes, UFC workers received a decent wage in comparison with workers on coffee fincas, but working conditions were deplorable, with inflated food costs, inadequate housing, and continuously rising worker debt through company stores.

Government subsidies allowed for the huge amassing of wealth on the part of the UFC – the regime of Estrada Cabrera, the dictator who continued the liberal reform period that began with Granados in 1871, was benevolent to the point of philanthropy in government dealings with the company. As Handy (1984:80) notes, the beleaguered national railroad project continued in 1904 under supervision of the UFC, and all previously completed tracks were given to the company. Accompanying this was the gift of Puerto Barrios, significant tracts of land both along the railway and in other regions, free lumber and stone resources, an

exemption for 99 years from most taxes, and exemption from agricultural export taxes for 35 years. The returns obtained by the Guatemalan state from the exponentially increasing banana export industry were miniscule, and the efforts of Liberals to maintain low working wages combined with the huge economic benefits reaped by the company led to huge profits for UFC shareholders. As noted in Bitter Fruit (Schlesinger & Kinzer 1982:70), the monopoly over transportation as well as over Puerto Barrios, Guatemala’s Caribbean port, meant that “[...] it had nearly complete authority over the nation’s international commerce.”

The American perspective on indigenous Mayans as workers reflected and perpetuated that of Guatemalan liberal regimes, a stereotypical and xenophobic view of these communities, as outlined by Frederick U. Adams, the UFC’s historian (cited in Grandin et al.

2011:147):

Only a theorist would dream of employing Jamaican negroes and Central American Indians to work on banana or other plantations by day wages. [...] These toilers lack that altruism which impels some men to work when they are not watched, and you cannot watch negroes and Indians scattered in a wilderness of banana plants which extends for miles in all directions. Hence a contract system which is absolutely fair to all concerned and which operates to the complete satisfaction of the men, who make a good living from it.

Adams touted the civilizing influence of the UFC in Guatemala, again exposing the paternalistic attitude of many Americans towards the ‘uncivilized Indians’ of the South.

Guatemalan sociologist Edelberto Torres-Rivas accurately describes racism in Guatemala as

“a deep contempt for the indigenous population, its values, social life, and culture. Not only are class divisions the source of social discrimination, but racial discrimination is used as well, based on colonial values that justify its practice” (Jonas et al. 1984:21). These attitudes still permeate the Guatemalan social landscape, as is evident in the interviews conducted for this study, which will be addressed later.

The Guatemalan Spring and the Reaction(ary) Defensive

Our economic policy must necessarily be based on strengthening private initiative and developing Guatemalan capital, in whose hands rests the fundamental economic activity of the country.... Foreign capital will always be welcome as long as it adjusts to local conditions, remains always subordinate to Guatemalan laws, cooperates with the economic development of the country, and strictly abstains from intervening in the nation’s social and political life.... –Inaugural presidential speech of Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, cited in Bitter Fruit (1984:52)

Capital outflows, archaic labour laws, and the growing perception that the United

States was providing generously for its own citizenry whilst robbing from Guatemala led to the beginnings of an uprising that would end the string of dictatorships at the service of the country’s oligarchy. 1944 marked a year of working-class city uprisings against the longstanding dictator General Jorge Ubico. It was in large part the citizens of Guatemala City that led the revolt, among them teachers and city workers (Schirmer 1998:10). Roosevelt’s New

Deal in the United States led to a widespread public desire for democracy in Guatemala, and thousands took to the streets to demand their right to organize (Schlesinger and Kinzer

1984:25). As Grandin (2004:184) notes, “It is only by acknowledging the power that post-

World War II democratic politics had in providing an alternative to the disruptive antinomies generated by capitalism and state formation that we can appreciate the intensity of the state terror that spread throughout Latin America starting in the late 1960s.”

Despite independence having been declared on September 15th, 1821, a string of dictators ruled the country until the 1944 uprisings; exploitation of the indigenous population was consistent with the colonial era, and the Spanish and foreign families who had usurped much of the arable land also became the dueños (bosses) of the communities they were displacing. As previously noted in this chapter, the UFC, in the Polochic Valley, not only

appropriated huge swaths of land for export production, but took over the communities as well, creating a patriarchal system of company stores and company housing. The conditions for the exploitation of indigenous populations were facilitated by post-independence governments, in particular that of General Jorge Ubico, the last leader “whose power was personalistic” (Schirmer, 1998:10). Grandin (2004:49) notes that his reign was known as a

“flawless dictatorship” for his iron-fisted control over the population via monitoring and terror tactics, such as public executions. Ubico’s close connections with foreign companies, who had unrestricted access to the dictator during his reign (Handy 1994:170), began to chafe the working class in the city, which set off a series of protests that saw Ubico resign, culminating in the October Revolution of 1944. The Guatemalan military split into factions, those supporting Ponce, Ubico’s replacement, and those supporting the movement for change in the country, including the future president, Jacobo Árbenz (Handy 1994:181).

The election of Juan José Arévalo in 1944, a decisive victory for the popular movement rising up in the city, would be a short-term disruption of imperial relations in

Guatemala; the social reforms that would be the prominent features of the two governments elected between 1944 and 1954 are known as the ‘Ten Years of Spring’ in Guatemala

(Schirmer 1998:10). At the moment of Arévalo’s election in 1944, the UFC had previously enjoyed free access to political decision-makers including the president; owned the railways and the ports; owned huge tracts of arable land, only a small amount of which was used for cultivation; and paid little to no taxes to the government (Grandin 2004; Handy 1994). The

Guatemalan Spring brought various reforms via a new system of governance that Arevalo called spiritual socialism. There were four foundations in his political platform: “agrarian reform, protection of labour, a better educational system and consolidation of political

democracy” (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982:37). The coming years radically altered the balance of power in the country, with the enactment of structural changes to state policy, and sweeping changes to the Labour Law piquing in particular the distaste of the US (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982:38). The changes brought in by the Arévalo and Árbenz administrations, including concepts such as gender equality and the first social security law, which became the Guatemalan Institute of Social Security (Instituto Guatemalteco de Seguridad Social, or

IGSS), were rejuvenating for Guatemalans, particularly after more than 100 years of mainly authoritarian rule (Barry and Preusch 1986:227).

In 1954, General Jacobo Árbenz, Guatemala’s second democratically elected president, resigned his presidential post as a result of increasing pressure on the part of the

Guatemalan military, Honduran soldiers and US military forces (Schlesinger and Kinzer

1984:201). Land was the final affront in a game of attempting reform politics while still trying to appease the country’s bourgeoisie (Handy 1994:110). Arévalo had shown some constraint in pushing forward with more provocative reforms, demonstrated in the 1947

Labour Code. Union organization became a reality excepting rural areas, catering to the necessity of getting harvests to market uninterrupted, and evidently to continue to cater to some of the more powerful economic elites in the country (Handy 1994:29). Yet, as

Schlesinger and Kinzer note, “the Labour Code changed everything for peasants who could previously have been jailed for not fulfilling his particular amount of forced labour to finqueros” (1984:39). Yet, it was the push for agrarian reform during the presidency of

Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán that would create the conditions for the end of the Ten Years of

Spring, the first and most significant wave of democratic and social reforms in Guatemala.

Árbenz’s first year in office would be devoted to the development and passage of Decree

900, which laid out the framework for the eventual expropriation of land from finqueros.

Land would be paid for in government bonds, and would be purchased at the declared tax value. This was a damaging policy for the UFC, as they had consistently undervalued their land to reduce their own tax burden (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1984:76).

The UFC was put on the defensive; having lost hundreds of thousands of acres of land to expropriation, the company had the US State Department deliver a complaint to the authorities in the Árbenz government23, claiming that under international law they were not paid a fair rate for the land expropriated, and that they needed the fallow land in the case of the failure of banana crops (Handy: 1994:172). The direct intervention of the US State

Department would be a harbinger of the propaganda campaign to come; the UFC employed multiple lobbyists to turn public opinion against the Central American country and deem it a threat to public safety in the US because of its Soviet tendencies (Schlesinger and Kinzer

1984:89).

The UFC lobbied for various invasion plans through the US government, but was denied each time by the Truman administration. The Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, and his brother, CIA director Allen Dulles, would find a more favourable climate for intervention in the Eisenhower administration, whose “decision to use the CIA as a blunt instrument of political intervention [in Iran in 1953] marked a break from the practices of

President Truman, who had used the CIA principally to collect intelligence” (Schlesinger and

23 It is important to note the financial relationship between brothers John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles and the UFC. The common financial interests of the brothers and the UFC are made evident in Bitter Fruit (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1984:106), in particular the Dulles’ legal work for the firm Sullivan and Cromwell, which in turn did legal work for the J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation. The UFC wanted full control of the International Railways of Central America (IRCA) to be able to set transportation rates and further monopolize banana production in the country; John Foster Dulles handled the negotiations and ensured a beneficial deal for the UFC, while making an excellent profit for the Schroder bank. Allen Dulles was appointed to the board of directors of the bank, and the president of Schroder was on the board of IRCA. These financial interrelationships demonstrate cooperation between the upper classes, across borders, to ensure the maintenance of class relations. 27

Kinzer 1984:99). This was the support needed by the UFC; having already created a forceful public relations campaign touting the Central American country as a Soviet haven threatening the West (Handy 1984:140), the political land was fertile for sowing intervention plans.

The CIA would, after various military operations and arms deliveries involving opposition military members and right-wing sympathizers in Guatemala, Honduras, and

Nicaragua24, eventually reach its goal of the ouster of Jacobo Árbenz with their hand-picked

Guatemalan replacement, Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, but at significant cost to the country; what would follow would be more than three decades of civil war.

What were the reasons for the ultimate demise of the first period of democratic reform in Guatemala? When examining the reforms of Arévalo and Árbenz, Schlesinger and

Kinzer (1984:41) note that the reforms were not able to alter the structures of society, but created the base for a democratic system. Handy (1994:25) distinguishes the ongoing political system of the country at the time from American propaganda around Soviet intervention, observing that “[t]he economic and social policies of the Arévalo administration reflected a somewhat contradictory faith in the benefits of capitalism coupled with a determination to structure policies to benefit the less well-off” and further describes the political and economic philosophies of his successor Árbenz as “pragmatic and capitalist” and aimed toward economic independence and increased production (1994:36), which reflected closely New Deal policies in the United States in the post-World War II era. Árbenz and Arévalo looked to increase the standard of living of the Guatemalan population, in particular the vast majority of whom had been exploited since conquest, culminating in the

24 For a detailed account of the military operations and support of the CIA in the 1954 coup against Guatemala, Bitter Fruit by Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer is a primary resource. 28

imperial influence of the American export industry. The communist movement in the country had not been hugely successful according to Schlesinger and Kinzer (1984:56), and communist parties in the country never gained a foothold in municipal politics (Handy

1994:63). The modest (yet revolutionary, based on Guatemala’s history) reforms enacted during this period could be seen as somewhat socialist, but certainly did not coincide with the portrayal by the US state and UFC lobbyists of the country as a Communist stronghold.

Handy’s (1994:79) recounting of the cries during the creation and implementation of agrarian reform in Guatemala that it “attacked the sacred right of private property” is indicative of the conviction of one of the basic tenets of capitalism – the right to private property. Gary

Teeple, in The Riddle of Human Rights (2004), demonstrates how private property and the focus on civil and political rights pushed aside the social rights that came briefly to the forefront during the New Deal and Keynesian economics, which in turn influenced

Guatemala and its political scenario at the time.

Human rights in the capitalist mode of production are individualistic, as Teeple

(2004: 34) so succinctly notes: “The freedom of one individual to exercise the rights of private property ends when it comes up against the freedom of another.” It became evident that, when the beneficiaries of Decree 900 began to exercise their right to property under the new law, these new property rights antagonized the oligarchic landowning class in

Guatemala. The 1954 coup represented a reaction, on the part of numerous actors, to the land rights espoused in Decree 900, and reflects Teeple’s notion that the rights afforded landless peoples in Guatemala ended when they came up against the private property rights of the latifundista25 class in the country. Indeed, a year and a half after Castillo Armas’ takeover of

25 As Suzanne Jonas (1991:15) notes, during the colonial era large swaths of land were appropriated by the criollo population, and small areas of land adjacent to these haciendas were parceled out to the indigenous 29

the Guatemalan government, all but a few of the beneficiaries of the agrarian reform had been displaced from their newly-gained property (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1984:233). Handy

(1994:169) hypothesizes that the unrest in the country caused by the communist movement combined with rural peasant organizing unsettled much of the military and the middle classes, facilitating Árbenz’s overthrow. Schlesinger and Kinzer (1984), on the other hand, ascertain that both communism and US state imperialism were prime factors.

After briefly examining land tenure in Guatemala, it is clear that the most significant threat to the oligarchy as well as to American corporations was the redistribution of its resource. As Samir Amin (2004:14) indicates, the capitalist system is inherently unstable, as the continual reproduction of the accumulation of wealth leaves more and more of the global population at the peripheries of society, but in turn causes waves of blowback, examples of which we can see in the brief advancement of social rights during Keynesian economics and the New Deal and that which occurred during the Ten Years of Spring in Guatemala.

Paradoxically, the rather tame capitalist-oriented reforms of Guatemala posed such a threat to both the Guatemalan oligarchy and US imperial interests that, combined with the growing construction of the fear of communism, it was enough to push Guatemala’s Ten Years of

Spring far into the past, and continue the new imperialism of capitalist development in the country, based on maintaining the division of land that was previously entrenched.

Guatemala’s brief experience with something similar to embedded liberalism, in which concern for and policy on the improvement of social issues combined with a capitalist economic stance led to significant reformism in the government (Harvey 2005:11), hit a wall comprised of powerful forces within and outside of the country once the impetus became the population for cultivation during the off-season from work on the hacienda. “Thus was born the latifundia- minifundia system (large underutilized rural estates surrounded by tiny plots used for subusistence), which dominated the Guatemalan political economy for centuries.” 30

redistribution of land. The primitive accumulation of land resources since conquest grew into a power structure capable of quelling a popular movement, at least momentarily. It is important to note, as Kevin Anderson (2010:228) has outlined in his book Marx at the

Margins, that Marx was not attempting to impose a linear process, drawn from the English experience of capitalism, that would apply to all societies equally, but that his studies and writings on non-European societies showed that he saw a multi-linear process in the development of socialism. The quick reversal of years of authoritarian rule during the Ten

Years of Spring demonstrated a very different, more abrupt transition towards socialism, but still represented the move towards a more egalitarian society. Yet, it threatened the imperial process described by Marx (1967:753) in Capital: “[t]he treasures captured outside Europe by undisguised looting, enslavement, and murder, floated back to the mother-country and were there turned in to capital.” The outflow of capital on the part of foreign corporations was evident in Guatemala, particularly in the case of the UFC, and it was indeed this haemorrhaging of capital that led to the overthrow of Ubico and the establishment of the revolutionary governments of the Guatemalan Spring, although it was equally the power vested in this corporation as one of the largest land-owners in the country that led to the death of the movement. US state imperialism lent its power to ensure that this example of capitalist development with a socialist undertone would be crushed quickly, and would return the majority of land to its previous heirs.

Structures of power in Guatemala were built through conquest and morphed through the years, with the unifying theme being a small oligarchic bourgeoisie that maintained control over natural resources; land was (and continues to be) fundamental to the maintenance of this power. Pushing back against power structures that developed over

centuries would prove to be as difficult as was anticipated by Arévalo and Árbenz, something that would only become more and more apparent as the country descended from this point into a period of deepening violent civil conflict.

Usurping Power: The Military, the Bourgeoisie and the Unnamed

In Liberation Guatemala, the government dissolved all the political parties and called it democracy, attacked workers and called it social justice, oversaw the killing of thousands because they had dreamed of a different Guatemala and called it peace, and forced tens of thousands of peasants and rural workers from the land they had so recently torn from the estates of landlords and called it agrarian reform. (Handy 1994:202)

The 1954 coup d’état began the process of reversing changes made during the

Arévalo and Arbenz administrations. Carlos Castillo Armas (1954 – 1957), hand-picked by the US to lead the liberation forces in 1954, governed for a short time with weakening support (Grandin 2004:85). His ascension to power, organized in large part by the US, was not the sole factor in the deconstruction of the changes made over the ten years of spring;

Arbenz’s emphasis on combating poverty through redistribution of land encroached on power previously held by the military in the countryside. The increasing development of institutional power in rural communities caused worry on the part of the military (Handy

1994:184). Despite other scholarly sources emphasizing fear of US power (Grandin 2004;

Schirmer 1998), Handy’s (1994:188) analysis contributes to an understanding of the vehement insistence of the military on the necessary extermination of rural Mayan communities and the continued repression of rural activists, both indigenous and campesino.

He notes one of the main reasons for the military’s lack of action against Castillo Armas’ liberation forces in their removal of Arbenz as a fear of rural uprising. During the onset of

US-led aggression in 1954, Arbenz ordered arms to be distributed to rural communities in

order to fend off the liberation; his orders were ignored, as increasing factions of the military turned against him. This, according to Handy, was a more compelling reason for the downfall of the Arbenz administration than fears of the US or anti-communism at that particular moment in history (see also Castañeda 1992).

Castillo Armas was assassinated by his bodyguard in 1957, and his political party, the

National Liberation Movement (Movimiento de Liberación Nacional, or MLN) turned to more extreme methods of repression to maintain power (Grandin 2004:87). General Miguel

Ydígoras Fuentes (1958 – 1963), who ran against Arbenz in the 1951 elections, came to power in 1958 after a failed attempt to wrench the presidency from the MLN (Handy

1994:37). His denunciation of US intervention under the MLN, calls for national reconciliation, and accusations of fraud on the part of the MLN in that election garnered him enough support to win election as president, despite resounding claims of patronage and corruption increasing throughout his five-year tenure (Handy 1984:152). The reign of

Ydígoras Fuentes ended with a military coup removing him from power; US influence played a role as they saw increasingly blatant violence against the public as well as a lack of cooperation in terms of increased countersubversive intelligence as negative outcomes of his presidency (Grandin 2004:95).

The US-supported coup in which Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia (1963 – 1966) took power was a defining moment in the turn toward increased military control of the State, and the systematic violence that accompanied this shift. Ydígoras Fuentes’ term in power had turned all public support away from his regime; political parties of the elite were fractured, unable to assemble policy or attract support. Conversely, leftist parties were developing policy and gaining in popularity in the lead up to the 1963 coup (Handy 1984:155). Both

internal factors and external US support led to the commencement of the prolonged and systematic violence that would characterize the civil war of the next three decades. As noted in the 1983 Judgement of the Permanent People’s Tribunal, held in Spain in 1983, systematic violence on the part of the Guatemalan military, supported both financially and technically through US training, began in earnest with the coup that toppled the corrupt Ydígoras

Fuentes regime (Jonas et. al. 1984:235). It also solidified the growing guerrilla movement that had been initiated by two ex-military officers in 1960, Luis Augusto Turcios Lima and

Lieutenant Marco Antonio Yon Sosa.

Both officers received training at Fort Benning, Georgia in antiguerrilla warfare operations, and used this instruction to train the MR-13 guerrilla movement in 1961

(Schirmer 1998:15). Azurdia’s successful coup “increased military rule in every facet of government and civil society, compared to past military presidents” (Grandin 2004:95). The urban guerrilla movements were soon up against an increasingly sophisticated intelligence program, a new military civic-action program that was coordinating new infrastructure and community development projects, as well as a new military literacy program. Although it did not necessarily convince the Guatemalan population of the good intentions of the military, it did facilitate their involvement in development, cementing the military’s reach into communities around the country, one of numerous steps toward military domination of the state (Handy 1984:156; Jonas 1984:70-71). Another facet of the Azurdia regime supporting military control was the complete reconfiguration of the political machinery of the country, with Azurdia creating his own political party and rewriting the Constitution in 1965, the new electoral law including a tool to hand-pick which parties would participate in the next election (Handy 1984:158).

The winner of the 1966 elections, Julio César Méndez Montenegro (1966 – 1970) of the Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario, or PR), who touted his election as the commencement of the Third Government of the Revolution, signed a pact with the military following his election, ensuring their control over counterinsurgency operations as well as budgetary and personnel matters within the military body (Jonas 1991:60). Despite his reformist election claims, Méndez Montenegro spent much of his time mollifying the military. During his tenure, one of the first scorched earth campaigns began against the guerrilla under Colonel Carlos Arana Osorio, commander of the Zacapa military base. With guerrilla forces’ numbers around two hundred at the time, the majority of victims were rural peasants (Black 1984:68; Handy 1984:170), a premonition of larger and more strategic scorched earth campaigns to come.

The companion counterinsurgency campaign in Guatemala City involved the use of death squads, a significant number of which were created by the MLN, such as the White

Hand (Mano Blanca). These groups were widely alleged to be created by the military and their ranks from members of the security forces themselves, although it was claimed that they were beyond official control (Handy 1984:162). Individuals thought to have left-leaning sympathies were ‘disappeared’ by members of these death squads, but particular attention was paid to intellectuals who maintained ties to popular groups and the ideology of the revolution (Jonas 1991:63). A particularly important incident is the kidnapping of 28 members of various revolutionary groups and parties such as the Guatemalan Worker’s Party

(Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo, or PGT), as well as Guatemalan intellectuals, in March

1966 during the lead up to that year’s election. Those kidnapped were killed by government firing squad and dropped into the Pacific Ocean from army transport planes; this action was

conducted under the auspices of Operation Cleansing (Operación Limpieza), a US-led series of raids with the parallel goals of reducing the ranks of revolutionary groups and gathering intelligence on these groups to be used in forthcoming military operations (Grandin 2004:97-

98; Jonas 1984:63). Operation Cleansing “can be considered Latin America’s first large-scale

Cold War collective disappearance” (Handy et al 2011:258).

Power in this time was beginning to change hands, although the bourgeoisie came to see the military as their iron fist to quell a conflict that was in its infancy. As Jonas (1984:62; author’s emphasis) notes, “the political power of the armed forces was an expression of the class alliance underlying the Counterrevolution. The militarization of politics permitted the

Guatemalan bourgeoisie and foreign investors to rule indirectly, with CACIF26 as their main political representative.” It is important also to note that the MLN, the party seen as mainly responsible for the organization of the death squads, aligned continually with the armed forces from 1966 onwards (Handy 1984:163); this is demonstrative of the consolidation of power between the military, political parties (in particular the MLN), and the latifundistas.

The elections of 1970 marked a sharp decline in guerrilla forces and consequently a reduced threat to the military. The swelling ranks of increasingly well-trained military officers and the operations aimed at their eradication, combined with media exposure and fissures in unity, resulted in a guerrilla army that saw itself devastated by the onset of the

1970 elections (Black 1984:68-70). Colonel Carlos Arana Osorio (1970 – 1974), previous commander of the Zacapa military base and recently returned from Nicaragua, was the military favourite in the elections, running with the MLN and supported by the military party, the Institutional Democratic Party (Partido Institucional Democrático, or PID). Arana

26 CACIF is Guatemala’s influential business federation, the Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial, and Financial Associations (Comité Coordinador de Asociaciones Agrícolas, Comerciales, Industriales y Financieras) (Jonas 1991:43). 36

Osorio’s campaign focused on law and order, and was fraught with electoral chicanery including threats of violence against rural communities should they not support his presidential bid, and the strategic placement of polling booths in areas of support (Handy

1984:167).

Arana’s years in office were marked by a significant increase in state violence; death squads were acknowledged as necessary and leaders of these groups came to serve in government posts; the ideal of democracy buried to introduce counterinsurgency measures into the state itself (Jonas 1991:121). Indeed, even a chief of the Presidential General Staff

(Estado Mayor Principal, or EMP), former president of Guatemala Colonel Otto Pérez

Molina, noted how successful the Arana Osorio regime was in unifying various military cliques and combating urban insurgency (Schirmer 1998:158). Between 1970 and 1971 during a state-sanctioned state of siege, the military and the death squads were successful in eliminating countless members of various popular groups in a full frontal assault on any perceived opposition, whether or not the victims were members of the guerrilla. Opposition politicians, academics, lawyers, and trade unionists were all among those killed in the brutal first years of the Arana regime (Handy 1984:168). ‘Aranismo’27 was institutionalized, and under this regime the Northern Transversal Strip (Franja Transversal del Norte, or FTN)28 was plundered by the president’s military supporters. This fomented divisions among some military cliques and caused friction between the military and latifundistas in the region

(Jonas 1991:122), alluding to the nuanced and conflictual power relations between landowners and upwardly-mobile Aranistas in the military.

27 “Aranismo”, according to Susanne Jonas (1991:121), was the institutionalization of military economic and political force within the Guatemalan state. 28 The Northern Transversal Strip is a resource-rich swath of land that spans the northern reaches of four departments; Huehuetenango, El Quiche, Alta Verapaz and Izabal. It is home to a significant number of megaprojects, including hydroelectric dams and mining operations (Peace Brigades International 2012:5). 37

The 1974 elections were openly fraudulent; the coalition of the MLN and the PID was maintained, and Kjell Laugerud (1974 – 1978), Arana Osorio’s chief of staff, was the presidential candidate. All candidates in this election were military officers (Jonas 1991:122), demonstrating where power lay in the annals of Guatemalan society in the mid-1970s. A coalition of parties intent on defeating Kjell Laugerud’s presidential bid formed under a new party, the National Opposition Front (Frente Nacional de Oposición, or FNO), choosing Ríos

Montt as their presidential candidate. The MLN allegedly won the elections, resulting in armed groups taking to the streets in opposition to the results (Handy 1984:170) and furthering disillusionment around legal spaces for democratic participation, yet not stifling the desire for change in urban and rural spaces.

Democratic Openings and Resurgent Resistance

During this period, both open and clandestine organizing continued. The guerrilla movement was engaged in rebuilding and reflection on the errors of their past campaigns.

The PGT, which had shied away from armed warfare, openly engaged in xenophobic commentary in regards to the Mayan population; more generally, most guerrilla groups at the time underestimated the potential within Mayan communities for building resistance to the oppressive and increasingly military-controlled state (Black 1984:70). Having lost significant control over rural areas during the 1944-1954 period, successive military regimes realized the potential power in the immense rural Mayan population, the first concrete example being

Colonel Arana’s initial military campaign during his presidency, in which thousands of peasants and rural Mayans were wiped out (Handy 1984:161). These counterinsurgent actions would intensify as the war wore on, leaving many more thousands dead, and

demonstrating the military’s cognizance of the revolutionary potential of rural peasant and

Mayan communities.

While the guerrilla movement was recouping, growth of popular and peasant organizations continued. Grandin (2004:125) notes that Laugerud’s regime represented a democratic opening, however small. According to Handy, “[t]he level of military-controlled violence decreased and the government even tolerated a minimal level of trade union activity” (1984:172). In the wake of an economic crisis and growing inflation, popular groups began organizing in the face of the rising cost of living, beginning with national strikes by teachers and growing into a larger popular front (Jonas 1991:123). Following on the heels of the success of the teacher’s strike of 1973 (in which Arana, on the eve of the

1974 election, was forced to accede to the teacher’s demands for pay increases), railway workers, electricians, and tobacco workers began to organize, leading to increased unionization (Black 1984:87) which, although seen as a threat to the military and economic ruling class, was tolerated first because of the upcoming elections and second because of

Laugerud’s tame reformism.

The devastating 1976 earthquake became a space of cooperation and increased organizing, with wide swaths of devastation combined with increasing inflation prompting the creation of new opposition organizations. Jonas (1991:124) termed the 1976 disaster a

‘class-quake,’ due to the discrepancy in quake-related impacts on different social classes; among the lower class, 25,000 people perished and 20 percent of the population was left homeless, while the majority of the upper class returned to normal life quickly after the event. Trade union and peasant organizing continued unabated, reacting against patronage politics and military control in urban and rural areas (Handy 1984:173). The creation of the

Committee of Trade Union Unity (Comité Nacional de Unidad Sindical or CNUS), which was formed in the aftermath of the earthquake, and the Coca Cola worker’s strike of the same year (Black 1984:38) were indicative of a perceived change in democratic potential, a tremendous feat in consideration of the intensity of repression under the two previous regimes.

The appearance of the Peasant Unity Committee (Comité de Unidad Campesina or

CUC) in 1978 represented the commencement of re-organization in rural peasant and Mayan communities, revealing the strength of rural organizing. Pablo Ceto, a peasant from El

Quiché describes both the felt racism of indigenous and peasant Guatemalans but also the surging strength of rural organizing:

The men would show up in their straw hats, with their machetes, their hoes and their placards made of straw and nylon. It also revealed to the Guatemalans and foreigners that the rich color of our Indian huipiles (women’s blouses) was not just for folklore, that we Indians are not only good for carrying loads on our backs, but that we have developed equal or greater strength for pushing forward the struggle to win better wages, better working conditions. Indians and poor ladinos appeared together, and we have begun to weave this alliance forever. (Jonas et al. 1984:138)

A flourishing opposition movement posed a significant threat to the armed forces as well as the Guatemalan economic elite, and although military oppression had diminished significantly under the Laugerud regime, there were still sporadic and selective operations in rural areas, particularly in the Northern Transversal Strip (Handy 1984:174; Schirmer

1998:18). Concurrently, the military continued its appropriation of power within all levels of government, with military officials heading the majority of government departments and widespread theft of government funds giving the military a firm grip over state power

(Handy 1984:174).

An important economic consideration during this period is the collusion of these military regimes with foreign capital, a premonition of the future wave of neoliberalism that would come to pass in the wake of the 1996 Peace Accords. US corporations had invested upwards of $200 million in the country, and were the predominant players in the industrial economy in the country (Black 1984:28). EXMIBAL, a consortium of foreign companies, enjoyed numerous concessions during this period, including a revamped Mining Code endowing tax exemptions on mineral exports, and unfettered use of the waters of Lake Izabal

(Jonas et al. 1984:32). The upsurge in the extractive industry and petroleum development would be short-lived because of global markets and insecurity in the country (Jonas

1991:78), but this concessionary development model would serve as a prototype for future extractive developments.

Descent into Chaos, or the Window Closes

General Romeo Lucas García (1978 – 1982) was the planned victor for the 1978 elections; the MLN no longer held favour with military groups, and the PID, in coalition with the PR and the Aranistas, successfully undermined any even mildly reformist opposition by using the Constitutional clause created by Azurdia in 1965 to deny these parties the right to participate. Lucas’ electioneering promised reform and open government dialogue (Handy

1984:176). Voter participation was at an all-time low, reflecting the population’s disillusionment with the democratic process; the rate of voter abstention was 63.5 percent, and Lucas conquered the presidential post with only 8.3 percent of the population voting for his bid (Black 1984:43). Handy (1984) describes the campaign waged by the regime upon his ascent to power:

All elements of reform in Guatemala were ruthlessly attacked. Trade unionists, students, teachers, lawyers, journalists and opposition politicians were killed at the rate of five or more a day. For peasants, especially those in the Franja Transversal, the four years of the Lucas government were a nightmare of brutality and anguish. While the guerrilla organizations and opposition politicians in exile were augmented daily by the relatives, friends and colleagues of the dead, the contradictions and rivalries within the military and bourgeoisie deepened. (Pps. 176-77)

Importantly, the Lucas regime’s blitzkrieg against social forces, and continued corruption and enrichment of military officers, was fracturing relationships with the latifundista and industrial economic elites. As Schirmer (1998:158) notes, the military and the right-wing latifundistas had been working together since 1954, ensuring that bourgeois interests were protected from another uprising similar to 1944. Indeed, many lower-paid intelligence officers took second jobs working with latifundistas and businessmen (Schirmer 1998:172), demonstrating collusion between the military and bourgeois elites.

At the outset of post-1954 electoral processes, there had been some hope for political legitimacy, and a struggle by political parties with reformist agendas to get to the table; despite collusion among political parties and the military, the political process had seemed a possibility for reform on the part of civilian actors, however small the window. In this era, a unity of power within the bourgeoisie could be seen, with political parties, the military, and the Guatemalan economic elite holding court in the annals of power. The Panzos massacre of

1978 is demonstrative of a major shift in many senses, and analytically proves to be an important event in illuminating major power shifts in the country.

In Panzos, the Agrarian Reform of the Arbenz government transferred land title to many rural peasant communities, but as Grandin importantly delineates, the post-1954 situation of land ownership was highly ambiguous; there were no clear expropriations of peasant land, so peasants began settling on uncultivated land and planters began claiming

large swathes of terrain for their own operations (2004:142). Further, the EXMIBAL nickel mine near Panzos had usurped many areas to which the peasants had laid claim, displacing numerous communities from the banks of the Río Polochic (Black 1984:98). The PGT, still attempting to work within legal means, had been accompanying local communities with the goal of settling land claims in the favour of the peasantry; the affected latifundistas, claiming tenure to lands usurped post-1954, appealed to the military to deal with an increasingly troublesome peasant population and a land conflict that soon promised to detonate (Grandin

2004:146-48). On the 29th of May, 1978, at the behest of the local mayor, hundreds of

Q’eqchi’ peasants gathered in the town square on the assumption that they would finally begin to work out longstanding land conflicts; they were met with 150 troops brought in from

Zacapa who opened fire on the demonstration, killing over one hundred (Black 1984:98).

The Panzos massacre began a particularly sanguine era of the civil war in which the military began the use of massacres as a part of the broader counterinsurgency (Schirmer

1998:39). The parade of fraudulent elections since 1954, while vying for some sort of democratic legitimacy, became each time more of a farce. The dwindling power of political parties was evident at this juncture, and the Panzos massacre marked a period in which the armed forces assumed control over the state and its functions (Handy 1984:255). Thus, the consolidation of power of political parties, the military, and the economic elite was reduced to two main currents of power: the armed forces and the economic elite. The military came to the aid of local latifundistas in the Panzos area, demonstrating the maintenance of relations between these two groups (Schirmer 1998:39). As Jonas (1991:128) notes, the massacre was committed without any precautionary measures, in the middle of the day, with hundreds of witnesses; this community was to be made an example for others with similar goals, goals as

simple as the Panzos communities’ desire to gain title to the land they had cultivated.

Further, the location of Panzos in the Northern Transversal Strip is significant, and “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 US transnational companies exploring there for oil and minerals [...].”

This is not to say that the population complied with the message dealt out by increasingly violent means on the part of the military state. The largest public protest in

Guatemala in 25 years arose in response to the atrocities committed in Panzos, as 80,000 took to the streets (Jonas 1991:128); in March 1980, the newly-formed CUC organized and led a strike of sugar workers on the South Coast, which both shut down the plantations and became a platform for Ladino-Mayan cooperation (Black 1984:85).

The Lucas regime reached a crisis point in the months before the 1982 elections.

Unable to defeat the revolutionary forces, and facing an economic crisis, the state, despite

Lucas himself claiming that the PID had nothing to do with the repression, was held responsible by various independent organizations, including the Organization of American

States (OAS) for the deaths of up to 10,000 in 1981 without including the deaths of combatants (Handy 1984:181). Personal interests of Lucas and his in-group predominated both in economic terms and in the use of terror, which was often used as a personal vehicle for economic gain or in a way that was fractious and imprudent, according to many in what

Gabriel Aguilera Peralta calls the hegemonic fraction of the dominant social groups in the country (Jonas et al. 1984:60-61). Further demonstrating the fractious nature of social relations between the dominant bourgeois groupings in the country, internal support of the military was splintering, partly due to increasing and egregious financial corruption on the

part of commanders and generals, but also because the guerrilla movement grew significantly during Lucas’ regime. One factor in this growth was the military use of conscription to fill out its ranks, the conscripts being mainly from highland villages. As casualty rates increased to 250 per month, the increasing conscription was detested by the communities it affected, and this turned many rural highland people to join or support the guerrilla. Significantly, military-trained soldiers were increasingly deserting, and the guerrilla ranks increased with military-trained soldiers, who then fought against the army that had trained them (Handy

1984:181-82). Further, by the end of the 1970s, land accumulation on the part of latifundistas had led to a food crisis. In the highlands, 90 percent of the population lacked the necessary land to maintain subsistence agriculture, and the landless labourer population increased to

400,000. Expropriation processes had left many communities in dire economic and social circumstances (Jonas 1991:79). It was this widespread corruption and inability to curb the growing revolutionary movement that contributed to the dissolution of the Lucas regime’s political and military control (Jonas 1991:147; Schirmer 1998:18), leading to the bloodiest regime of the civil war.

A military-coordinated coup d’état on March 23, 1982 installed Ríos Montt (1982 –

1983) as its head of state. The coup was organized by a junta of young military officers, and supported by the CIA, which was said to be pleased with the new regime considering the fall of Nicaragua’s dictator Somoza and General Romero in El Salvador (Schirmer 1998:20-21).

The regime was tasked with two main goals, the first being the reimagining of the counterinsurgent war, which was supported with a unity not seen in the previous Lucas regime (Jonas 1991:148). The business of counterinsurgency would not prove to be a simple task, as the insurgency had spread into sixteen of twenty-two departments, with estimates of

up to 350,000 supporters. Three high-ranking generals developed the National Plan of

Security and Development (Plan Nacional de Seguridad y Desarrollo), which would be composed of five separate phases: Plan Victoria 82 or Operation Ashes (Operación Ceniza), which represented the brutal scorched earth campaign, Firmness 83 (Firmeza 83), instituting civil patrols and the military’s plan to offer ‘Shelter, Work, and Food,’ (Techo, Trabajo y

Tortilla), New Institutional Encounter 84 (Re-Encuentro Institucional 84), in which the Poles of Development and Model Villages would be developed and a new constitution written, then

National Stability 85 (Estabilidad Nacional 85), and Advance 86 (Avance 86), when the state would transition from military to civilian control (Schirmer 1998:22-23). Continuing a process that began with the ouster of Arbenz in 1954, the military would usurp almost entirely the form and function of the Guatemalan state during Montt’s turbulent regime. As

Schirmer (1998:27) notes, “[i]n 1983, army and security forces were united under one command (Decree-Law 149-83) and in 1984, all levels of municipal, departmental, and national governmental institutions were integrated into the counterinsurgency coordinating efforts of Poles of Development (the National System of Inter-Institutional Coordinators

[IICs]; Decree-Law 111-84). The military targeted the hearts, minds, and stomachs of the highland population.” The total integration of the military into the state apparatus would effectively and permanently close any window for participation of social actors within the political system.

The second mandate of the Montt regime was to undertake a political project; to re- establish the confidence of the economic elite in the military’s capability to ensure control over the socioeconomic state of the country (Jonas 1991:153), and further, through plans such as Shelter, Work and Food and the Model Villages, offer a socio-political alternative to

the guerrilla campaign, with the hope of effectively pacifying the multitude of landless and starving rural communities. The Guatemalan armed forces became a significant group within the bourgeoisie, rather than its coercive arm used to suppress dissent in the proletariat.

Counterinsurgency: Business of the State

Operation Ashes, the initiation of the National Plan of Security and Development under Montt’s military state, would oversee the most brutal counterinsurgency tactics to date in Guatemala’s civil war, with the destruction of more than 440 rural villages, up to 150,000 killed or disappeared, one million displaced persons, and destruction of vast tracts of the highlands, causing far-reaching environmental damage (Jonas 1991:149). Montt’s charisma and rhetoric began to sate the ruling classes by arguing that class conflict did not exist, and further that the economic structure of Guatemala was not a causal factor in class issues. His nationalist rhetoric implied that the indigenous population was part of the nation, to the point that the words ‘Indian’ and ‘indigenous’ were to be expelled from the Guatemalan vocabulary. Meanwhile, rural indigenous populations were caught in an ever-increasing counterinsurgency strategy in which their extermination was paramount to winning the war against the guerrillas, despite the rhetoric of assimilation (Black 1984:131).

Montt’s regime, supported by the young officers who had organized the coup, became somewhat of an embarrassment to other military cliques in his brief period as head of state.

His weekly televised messages were increasingly becoming evangelical tirades, and his control over the conflict situation in the highlands was quickly disintegrating. General

Gramajo, one of the architects of the National Plan of Security and Development under

Montt, stated that the leader saw Guatemala as his ‘church’; after the 1983 coup that would remove Montt from power officers would call it “a relief from the ‘Government of the Word’

(el Gobierno del Verbo)” (Schirmer 1998:28-29). Jonas (1991:153) notes that the majority of large-scale massacres were carried out under Montt’s regime, renewing the tarnished image it held internationally; further, the oligarchy saw its influence reduced, particularly in terms of economic matters, and felt it necessary to “reassert itself,” indicating that Montt had lost favour both within the armed forces and the ruling economic elite.

Minister of Defense General Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores (1983 – 1986) would be

Montt’s successor; the broad disillusionment of internal and international actors with Montt’s performance led to various rumours of coup attempts during his brief tenure as head of state.

Mejía Victores met in Honduras with various US, Honduran and Salvadoran military officials on the US aircraft Carrier Ranger before the 1983 coup (Black 1984:5-6). Montt’s scheduled meeting with the aforementioned military personnel was subverted by Mejía

Víctores, who had called a meeting with his new Council of Commanders and with their backing, relieved Montt of his duties as head of state. He was seen as a particularly positive candidate for the next military head of state; he would continue the military’s planned pacification campaign, but also was part of an ultraconservative army clique that attempted to reconcile with the powerful latifundistas during Montt’s tenure (Schirmer 1998:30). The intensification of Civil Self-Defense Patrols (Patrullas de Auto-Defensa Civil, or PACs) was indicative of the inherent racism against and disregard for the indigenous population in

Guatemala on the part of the armed forces. Local highland populations, mainly indigenous, were forcibly recruited to act as intelligence agents for the military in a complicated command structure, with PACs being headed by a civil patrol commander and reporting to the local military commander. The PACs included various battalions, platoons, and other organizational structures. Depending on the perceived level of support for the guerrilla in an

area, more or less people were recruited into the PACS (Fumerton and Remijnse 2004:55).

The sister project of the PACs was the creation of development poles (polos de desarollo), in which displaced populations were moved into military-controlled communities, creating a dependence on the armed forces for work and food. The coalescence of these two projects was often heralded by military officers as a means by which peasants could participate in the counterinsurgency, demonstrating both a military perception that these projects were somehow voluntary as well as the depth of military integration into the day-to-day lives of rural Guatemalans (Jonas 1991:151-52). As Schirmer (1998:65) notes, the armed forces, through a military-as-development model, aimed to “forcefully ‘penetrate’ and restructure the socio-cultural, economic, and settlement patterns of the massacred highlands and at the same time, institutionalize the military’s permanent presence throughout the country.”

Mejía Víctores continued the carnage in the highlands while making an effort to bring the indigenous population to the side of the military with the development poles and model villages, creating a moral pretense to begin preparations for the election of a civilian president as outlined in the National Plan of Security and Development. Jonas (1991:155, author’s emphasis) describes the process of attempting to legitimize an illegitimate state:

The 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 politics since 1983 as normal “democratic politics.” In fact, given that the return to politics 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 than of restoring true legitimacy. And it was in this process of legitimation that the politicians were to play a key role.

The military’s process of state-crafting is evident in the production of the 1985 constitution, legalizing and institutionalizing counterinsurgency within its clauses; paradoxically, the constitution inscribed token rights to the population of Guatemala, while also legalizing the

PACs within the same document (Jonas 1991:155; Schirmer 1998:75), ostensibly showing a commitment to the re-democratization of Guatemala while maintaining army authority beneath a veneer of legality.

A sense of hope surrounded the inauguration of Vinicio Cerezo (1986 – 1991) of the bourgeois Christian Democrat party; his would be the first civilian presidency following twenty years of state regimes consisting of various levels of fraud and illegitimacy (Nelson

1999:81). However, Cerezo was beholden to military interests, as “the army had sponsored the civilian transition; the army would dictate its limits” (Grandin et al. 2011:364). Apart from the legal institutionalization of the counterinsurgency in the new constitution, the Mejía

Víctores regime would pass various decree-laws days before Cerezo’s inauguration assuring the armed forces, nervous of the new civilian regime, that military personnel would be protected from prosecution for crimes committed during the war, and an oral agreement was reached between Cerezo and the outgoing military regime as to how the transition would unfold (Schirmer 1998:76).

The election of Cerezo is an important turning point for many reasons, including the re-opening of democratic spaces, albeit with strict controls on their use by the popular classes. It also represented the waning of overt military violence; as examined in this chapter, military officials began to examine the various ways in which counterinsurgency could be institutionalized and made an integral part of the juridical system in Guatemala, thus transforming the perception of violence in the country.

Conclusions

There are various important themes that emerge as a result of an analysis of this violent period of Guatemala’s history, many which will be pertinent in examining current power relations in the country today in later chapters.

The use of the military in maintaining class lines goes back to the time of Barrios, as noted by Handy (1984:70); his administration felt it was important to organize a professional military force, which prompted the creation of the Escuela Politécnica military academy in the late 1800s. The Escuela Politécnica came to play a large role in the revolution of 1944; the military coup ousting General Jorge Ubico was led by military officers in an adamant bid for socioeconomic change in the country, which did precede the first free elections in

Guatemala. Yet, as Schirmer (1998:15) notes, “the paradoxical legacy of the 1944 liberal revolution was, on the one hand, to provide a firm constitutional basis for the army’s political ascendancy and, on the other, to produce an officer-led guerrilla insurgency as the vanguard of social and economic justice.” In short, militarization of Guatemala’s political system began long before the civil war, setting the stage for military power despite the socioeconomic gains of the revolution.

Other influential factors in the ascension to power of the armed forces were the contributions and pressure from the country’s oligarchy, particularly the landowning or latifundista class, to maintain systems of control over the lower classes, ensuring a broad- based and desperate labour force to safeguard the continuance of capitalist production. The oligarchy and the military both recognized the danger of permitting the majority population of indigenous people to regain the means of production through redistribution of land as per

Decree 900. All of the scholars quoted here have noted the influence of the Guatemalan ruling classes on the military29, which is persuasively articulated in the following:

In the past it was possible to differentiate between the dominant social forces and army men; the latter usually came from the middle strata and served as “instruments” of the former. However, over the last decade this situation has changed in a fundamental way. At present, higher-ranking officers tend to become an organic part of the dominant social forces as they acquire means of production. Within the framework of the dominant social forces, hegemony is held by a monopolistic fraction, linked in particular with agribusiness and finance, and with close ties to transnational monopoly capital. The military belongs to this fraction, which controls the state apparatus and thus uses it for accumulation. This is why it is structurally impossible for this fraction to allow any democratic policies. Its permanent control over the state apparatus is implemented through a policy of terror, and through manipulation of the elections and the political parties. (Peralta in Jonas et al. 1984:59)

This excerpt is demonstrative of both the past role of the military, in which the ruling classes made use of the armed forces as a coercive arm for the protection of the means of production; it also establishes a turning point in the composition of the ruling class. As Peralta notes, the upper classes within the military institution became integrated fluidly into the bourgeoisie of the country, of which the usurpation of land in the Northern Transversal Strip by high- ranking military officers is a striking example. Grandin (2004:163) notes the change in military officer perception of their role after the Panzos massacre in 1978; the officers involved began to realize the potential economic benefits of development for themselves, beginning a shift in the perspective of their role as protector of ruling class interests. It will be important to consider the amalgamation of the upper military classes and the ruling economic classes of the country in further discussions of class-based power relations in

Guatemala, particularly in light of top posts occupied by ex-military officials in the Pérez

Molina regime.

29 Black 1984, Handy 1984, Jonas 1991, Jonas et. al. 1984, Schirmer 1998, Nelson 1999, all confirm in their analysis of events in Guatemala the influence and intervention of the ruling classes in military actions, particularly in the politico-economic spheres. 52

Another significant theme that continues through the preceding chapter is that of racism on the part of both the ruling economic elites and the armed forces. The rural proletariat, generally viewed since conquest as useful mainly in terms of their labour value to the oligarchy, became to the military a similar force, with conscription into the military and forced service in the PACs a means to broadening the counterinsurgency. As Schirmer

(1998:114) notes, “the military’s view of the indigenous community as a child needing to be disciplined, ‘ladinoized,’ entrepreneurized – that is, ‘forged’ to fit the ‘new’ modern

Guatemalan state” evidences the embedded psychological perspective of the military as guardian of the indigenous population and creator of democracy. However, indigenous agency is apparent throughout this period, with the formation of the CUC and participation in the guerrilla forces; Carlota McAllister’s account of the village of Chupol, a small community in the department of Quiché, illuminates the resistance of indigenous peoples to state forces through the guerrilla movement. As she notes, modernization programs aimed at sating the basic needs of the indigenous populations were seen as paramount in importance to ensuring non-participation in the war on the part of rural communities; yet, these efforts were couched in a racialized discourse that easily displayed its boundaries when pressure from increasingly coordinated indigenous organizations for change met with state violence in return (Grandin et al. 2010:280-82). The unwillingness on the part of the state to accept the agenda and mandate of indigenous communities demonstrated the necessity of seeking out change through other channels, and in the case of Chupol, a community that had already been organizing around various initiatives with a Jesuit priest named Sebastián, became a central front for the Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres (Guerrilla Army of the Poor, or EGP). The

“seizure of the revolutionary process” by Chupolenses is demonstrative of the agency of

indigenous communities taking action in a desire for a better society (Grandin et al.

2010:291), laying bare the assumptions and racist attitudes of the ruling classes who had so long taken for granted indigenous populations as a source of inexpensive labour. A second layer of discrimination is demonstrated in much of the above reviewed literature with a lack of female perspective. Although some authors specifically address the socio-political situation of women before and during the civil war30, identifying the patriarchal structures that have developed, in addition to literature on the silencing of Mayan women31, a significant segment of the discourse around the civil war and the actors involved does not demonstrate in detail the role of women in the socioeconomic sphere.

Overarching these themes are the national and international capitalist structures that necessitated the maintenance of class systems to ensure profitability and capital accumulation. Strongly tied to the US during the period leading up to and after the Ten Years of Spring, the development of both alliances with international capital through the development of extractivist projects, particularly the usurpation of land on the part of the military in the Northern Transversal Strip which contains vast natural resources, as well as the interconnections between the military and the oligarchy in the country in the reformation of the bourgeoisie, demonstrate the new means by which capitalist development would continue to dominate Guatemalan economic and political spheres. It is important to return to the concept of land ownership as a fundamental aspect of power relations in Guatemala,

30 Chapter 5 in Grandin’s The Last Colonial Massacre demonstrates the development and maintenance of a deeply patriarchal society, noting that “as government bureaucracy expanded, much of women’s activity was either ignored in official record keeping or contained to the domestic spheres. This ‘modernization of patriarchy,’ as one historian has described the process of national state formation, created an actual and ideological distinction between the public and the private: actual in the sense that despite their continuing political and economic activities women were legally disempowered and marginalized; ideological in the sense that men’s endeavours came to define the normative political and economic realm” (2004:135). Further reading can be found in Diane Nelson’s A Finger in the Wound (1999), chapter 7 in particular. 31 See The Silencing of Maya Women from Mamá Maquín to Rigoberta Menchú (2000) by Victoria Sanford. 54

private property being a “sacred” aspect of capitalist development (Amin 2004:54). Harvey’s concept of accumulation by dispossession, which he terms as “the continuation and proliferation of accumulation practices which Marx had treated of as ‘primitive’ or ‘original’ during the rise of capitalism” (2005: 159), can be viewed as a process with its roots in the era of the civil war. In particular, the displacement by force of rural communities from their land as part of a strategy of counterinsurgency, and the displacement of communities from the resource-rich Northern Transversal Strip by high-ranking military officers recognizing the potential future value of this terrain are both means by which accumulation by dispossession occurred in Guatemala. Proceeding to the more recent history of the country, the structures of this concept will become more evident as the neoliberal project begins; with a strong class structure maintained by the horrors of the civil war ensuring power remained within certain sectors of the population.

Chapter 4: Theoretical Review

The capitalist system pre-supposes the complete separation of the labourers from all property in the means by which they can realise their labour. As soon as capitalist production is once on its own legs, it not only maintains this separation, but reproduces it on a continually extending scale. (Marx 1967:714)

Tierra. Land. The word echoes through many conversations in Guatemala. Who owns it? Who were the original inhabitants of it? How was it expropriated from the hands of those who originally cultivated the fertile lands of the country? Historically, land in Guatemala has been a key component to the generating of wealth in the hands of a dominant class. The ownership, use of, and struggle to control land underpins the majority of the analysis laid out within this chapter.

The foundational theoretical base on which this analysis rests will provide a context within which the research component of this thesis can be viewed. A Marxist method of inquiry is woven throughout this work with class being one of the key concepts both directly and indirectly. As noted by Alan Maass (2010):

For hundreds if not thousands of years, most societies around the world have been divided between exploiters and exploited – between a ruling class of people that runs society in its own interest and much larger exploited classes whose labor is the source of their rulers’ wealth and power. (P. 117)

This concept of class, which Marx and Engels (1992:9) note as the development of a small owning class, the bourgeoisie, in tandem with the proletariat, or “a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital,” is intertwined throughout the following work to best understand the historical and contemporary context of Guatemalan society. Although the groups spoken of are not consistently referred to in a language of bourgeoisie or proletariat, the reader is afforded the

ability to conceive that those groups referred to over the duration of this analysis certainly fit within one of the class rubrics.

Secondly, the role of the state as a coercive force to maintain the capitalist system figures strongly into this work. Particular attention is given to the transformation of the state as a medium of governance, with the capacity to use aggression to stabilize the continuity of its authority, to a structure of power as expressed through an overt militarized form. Marx and Engels (1992:5) considered that “[t]he executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie”. The Guatemalan state, throughout its development from conquest onward, demonstrates the ways in which this body is used by the bourgeois class as a means for ensuring the continual accumulation of the means of production – and the profits that accompany such accumulation – through the continual oppression of the proletariat. As articulated in the work of Robert Tucker (1969),

The state [...] is an instrumentality for waging the class struggle from above. The possessing class, as the beneficiary of an existing social order of production, will necessarily resist all efforts of the producer class to transform society. In doing so it will freely make use of organized coercion. (P. 62)

The various uses of force evinced in this analysis, such as forced labour law enacted in the early years of capitalist development in Guatemala to the genocide that occurred in the early

1980s, serve as striking examples of the willingness of the state to use force in the maintenance of class lines. These basic tenets as expressed in Marxist thought will reveal themselves to the reader time and time again throughout the analysis of historical and contemporary power relations in Guatemala. Having a brief idea of the class-based nature of this analysis aids the reader in garnering a broader understanding of the issues discussed in this work.

Further, the concept of neoliberalism will prove important in understanding the socioeconomic context and its political implications in more contemporary periods of

Guatemalan society. While sometimes confusing, due to the array of forms it can take theoretically and concretely, and its predominance as a political-economic schematic and global ideology, neoliberalism is addressed as a theme necessary for investigation and understanding. When referencing Marx, Tucker (1969:55) noted that it is the economy that shows itself to be “the prime historical locus of the political relationship between man and man.” Hence, one of the foundations of neoliberalism is the use of economy in the maintenance of the capitalist system. In reversing the Hegelian thesis that the state was the foundation of civil society, Marx understood civil society to be the foundation of the state, and the economy to be the foundation of civil society (Tucker 1969:60). Human beings,

Marx argued, produce all the material goods that surround them; but as capitalist development began, through the process of primitive accumulation (explained shortly), the producers become displaced from the means of production, and this continual and increasing separation becomes embodied as one of the fundamental tenets of the capitalist system. The producers, separated from this rudimentary principle of their humanity, become what Marx calls ‘wage slaves’ and so began the formation of the proletarian class. Neoliberalism is the contemporary manifestation of this economic process within capitalist society.

There are significant debates, some of which are outlined by Dag Einar Thorsen and

Amund Lie (2006), about what role neoliberalism and neoliberalization play in contemporary society. The authors interrogate whether it is an economic policy, ideology, or defining paradigm of the current era or whether it is as influential as many scholars claim.

Alternatively, is it an extreme ideological position that is used to mask the complexity of

society and the economy by those who use the term as a negative connotation for any unwelcome economic or political developments? This analysis concludes that the question of whether or not our society is neoliberal cannot be answered, suggesting that neoliberalism has had significant effects on contemporary society but that other concepts could be instructive in understanding current issues (see Dunn 2017). Manuel Aalbers (2013:2-3) argues that neoliberalism is not a condition but rather a process. He furthers that neoliberalism is not simply free market economics, although is highly influenced by it and the mainstream free market economists who promote this framework; indeed, the two are

“intrinsically linked.” Neoliberalism’s continued predominance in contemporary society continues today and is one of the primary means of maintaining the class system that favours the bourgeoisie. This is most starkly demonstrated in the events surrounding the 2008 financial crisis. Aalbers (2013:6) notes the main responses to the crisis as

bail-outs and stimulus packages for the financial sector and other giant corporations, the socialization of private debt and the privatization of public debt and risk, further privatization of public assets, further commodification and depoliticization of labor and, particularly in many EU countries, austerity measures.

In stark contrast to the capital pumped into the flat tire of failed financial speculation, the US working class lost nearly ten percent of their household income between 2008 – 2009 (Maass

2010:34). This trend continued throughout the 2000s, which, in broad economic terms, was a period of expansion. This bloc of time was the first decade in history where the median income in the US did not increase alongside economic growth (Maass 2010:35). This process exemplifies Marxian leanings toward the state as a medium that exists to facilitate the accumulation of wealth of the ruling class (Tucker 1969:62). The majority of the economic losses incurred by the working class in the US went directly into the coffers of financial

institutions and corporations that were recipients of a multi-billion bailout package proffered by the US state (Maass 2010:17).

Both Aalbers (2013) and William Tabb (2003), albeit ten years earlier, posit that a neoliberal mode, despite its failures, functions by reinvention so as to ensure a continuity of ruling class power. Simon Springer (2012) endeavoured to reopen the debate about whether neoliberalism is a Foucauldian governmentality or a hegemonic ideology more in the vein of

Marxist inquiry, with the aim of analysing neoliberalism from a discourse perspective.

Springer’s examination outlines four main streams of theorizing on neoliberalism and urges theorists to attempt to overcome the divide between poststructuralism and political economy analyses.

Bill Dunn (2017) suggests that the concept of neoliberalism has become murky and convoluted, and calls definitively for its abandonment. He describes the myriad ways in which the term has been used and defined, arguing that without conceptual clarity, which occurs as a result of breadth of usage, the term has become “impossibly vague” (2017:441).

Dunn makes a compelling point in noting that the term “seems to be the preserve of the left, used by those who are critical of that which they purport to describe (2017:443), echoing the analysis of Thorsen and Lie (2006).

For the purposes of this analysis, David Harvey’s (2005) definition is used to serve as the basis for identifying the economic forces at work in maintaining the class system in contemporary Guatemala and analysing the power structures that keep it in place. Couched in

Marx’s argument that the economy is the fundamental basis of humankind, Harvey offers:

Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. The role of the state is

to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices. The state has to guarantee, for example, the quality and integrity of money. It must also set up those military, defence, police, and legal structures and functions required to secure private property rights and to guarantee, by force if need be, the proper functioning of markets. Furthermore, if markets do not exist (in areas such as land, water, education, health care, social security, or environmental pollution) then they must be created, by state action if necessary. But beyond these tasks the state should not venture. State interventions in markets (once created) must be kept to a bare minimum because, according to the theory, the state cannot possibly possess enough information to second-guess market signals (prices) and because powerful interest groups will inevitably distort and bias state interventions (particularly in democracies) for their own benefit. (P. 2)

Springer (2012:5) contends that this analysis defines neoliberalism as an “ideological hegemonic project,” which involves a class-based analysis and identification of actors and groups involved in the formation and continued transformation of neoliberalism. This critique notwithstanding, additional aspects of Harvey’s idea of neoliberalism are evidenced in other of Springer’s streams of neoliberal analysis. Additionally, Harvey’s concepts emerge in Dunn’s analysis; he notes that Harvey’s interpretation of a neoliberal state as a

“reconfiguration of state institutions and practices” is practical within the various analyses cited (2017:448). Although, as noted, there are various ways through which neoliberalism can be theorized, Harvey’s (2005) assessment is instructive when identifying power structures and the class system in Guatemala, and the effects it has incurred on the sociopolitical and economic spheres of the country.

One facet of neoliberalism that is salient to the analysis presented in this thesis is the advent of structural adjustment policies (SAPs). The US, which had enjoyed the extraction of capital from economies across Latin America for decades, mainly through direct investment

(such as the UFC), began a process of increased lending to foreign governments through

New York investment banks (Harvey 2005:28). When it became evident that changes in US interest rates alone could put a country into a default position vis-á-vis their debt and the

banks could lose on their investments, there was a transition to another style of lending that came with obligations on the part of the borrower country; thus, structural adjustment policies were created (Harvey 2005:29). According to James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer

(2001:18), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) set in place a framework for international free trade, reducing tariffs and removing other policies designed to protect national economies; an integral part of these policies was structural adjustment, creating “a new enabling policy framework for a global free trade regime and the constitution of a new imperial economy.” Harvey (2005:29) notes one of the key differences between the previous liberal and incoming neoliberal economy: previously, lenders who invested would shoulder the financial burden of defaulted loans, but with neoliberal policy, the borrower country is responsible for debt repayment regardless of the potential negative effects on the populace. As Suzanne Jonas (1991:83) demonstrates, Guatemala’s economy was considerably affected by structural adjustment policies in the 1980s, including currency devaluation, wage controls, removal of protectionist policies in order to open the economy, privatization of state-owned entities, cuts in public spending including subsidies to social services, and a diminishment of the state’s economic interventions. As a result of these policies, the state implemented shock measures in 1989, allowing the national currency’s exchange rate to ‘float’ which led to a 30 percent devaluation. This in concert with further and more drastic SAPs led to “negative repercussions for virtually all sectors of Guatemalan society, the exception being a tiny group of speculators and financiers” (Jonas 1991:84).

There exists in Guatemala a tangled web of past relationships, corruption, and a vying for power in a country where democracy supposedly has leveled the playing field for all stakeholders in the socioeconomic development of the country. This web has contributed to

maintaining an obdurate class-based system where the majority still live in conditions nestled between poverty and extreme poverty. The issue of land and its use in maintaining these structural socio-political and economic lines has been the subject of many academic examinations to date. Simon Helweg-Larsen (2011) notes the strong correlations between the economic and military elite and their manipulation of public discourse and policy to maintain rigid class structures; others such as Saturnino M. Borras Jr. et al. (2012:404-5) have noted the continual nature of land grabbing to maintain control. This is evidenced in the context of global capitalist accumulation strategies and particularly in regards to flex crops32, while noting the emergence of new classes of capital in Latin America, who now hold significant clout in large-scale land investments throughout the region. Further, in the particular context of Guatemala, the concept of land-grabbing is more specifically couched in the cultural and economic context of the country according to Alberto Alonso-Fradejas (2012:510), who argues that “contemporary corporate land control-grabbing by sugarcane and oil palm agribusinesses is embedded in a historical continuum of indigenous territorial dispossession by, and subordination, first to colonial powers, then to post-colonial, non-indigenous landed classes and political elites and currently to the latter and to the (financialised) national and international capital,” and that “the employment generation opportunities of the large-scale land deals pointed out by the World Bank are far from real. And, moreover, direct and indirect erosion of the peasant-forming abilities of different classes of labour prompted by the land control-grabbing of the flex crop agribusinesses is damaging the territorial economy as a whole.” This gives heed to the arguments of Arlyn Jiménez et al. (2012:51) in

32 According to Borras Jr. et al. (2012:404-5), flex crops are crops “that have multiple uses (food, fuel, industrial raw material) that can be easily and flexibly interchanged: soy (feed, food, biodiesel), sugarcane (food, ethanol), oil palm (food, biodiesel, commercial/industrial uses), corn (food, feed, ethanol),” which demonstrates the reaction to multiple crises, including food, energy, climate change and financial crises. 63

recognizing that the maintenance of a skewed balance of landownership is one of the major contributing factors to the situation of chronic malnutrition in Guatemala that wears “a peasant face.” Pablo Bandeira and Jose Maria Sumpsi (2011:159), after extensive quantitative research into variables related to landownership affecting income and therefore poverty reduction, argue that land redistribution is not a cost-effective solution to rural poverty based on the increasing importance of off-farm income, despite noting that

“households with more than two hectares of agricultural land are found to be on average less poor than the landless rural households”. Although the research is extensive in terms of its quantitative reach, important factors such as the type of land redistributed to date through the decentralised institution Land Fund (Fondo de Tierras, or FONTIERRAS) are not entirely analyzed for their quality as agricultural land, as well as the perceptions of the research operating within the structure of the dominant neoliberal paradigm, which flies in the face of the concepts of communal landownership both used by indigenous communities prior to the

Spanish invasion and advocated for by indigenous groups throughout the negotiations of the

Peace Accords. Many Guatemalans I spoke with alleged that FONTIERRAS is a front for latifundistas to rid themselves of unproductive land, receiving in return funds from the institution, and in turn indebting rural peasant and indigenous communities who, due to the deficient quality of the purchased land, are unable to repay the loans granted by

FONTIERRAS. This perpetuates an economically desperate population, although now with debts owed, ensuring a continual flow of inexpensive labour, to the benefit of latifundistas who can now call themselves the benefactors of rural development.

These developments, couched within the neoliberal paradigm of contemporary global capitalism, can be related strongly to the concept of accumulation by dispossession noted by

Harvey (2005:159), described as

[t]he continuation and proliferation of accumulation practices which Marx had treated of as ‘primitive’ or ‘original’ during the rise of capitalism. These include the commodification and privatization of land and the forceful expulsion of peasant populations [...]; conversion of various forms of property rights (common, collective, state, etc.) into exclusive private property rights [...]; suppression of rights to the commons; commodification of labour power and the suppression of alternative (indigenous) forms of production and consumption; colonial, neocolonial, and imperial processes of appropriation of assets (including natural resources); monetization of exchange and taxation, particularly of land; the slave trade (which continues particularly in the sex industry); and usury, the national debt and, most devastating of all, the use of the credit system as a radical means of accumulation by dispossession.

Many of these practices are currently in use or were enacted during the period following the signing of the Peace Accords. Alvaro Arzú’s privatization of numerous state entities in the positive economic development climate immediately after the signing of the accords (Bull

2018), the continual conversion of communal to private property rights over the last centuries, the growth of the extractive industry and proliferation of megaprojects, which includes the expulsion of peasants for mining and agriculture projects, as well as the unbalanced system of taxation in the country are among the many examples of the ongoing processes of accumulation by dispossession. As noted by Helweg-Larsen (2011:628), “it could be argued that an improved business environment, not compliance with Peace Accord measures, is the true goal of these institutions,” in reference to the World Bank and the

International Development Bank. Massimo De Angelis (2001:6) proposes that the concept of separation in Marx’s interpretation of primitive accumulation, the separation of producers and means of production, is a common facet of both accumulation and primitive accumulation. He posits that the difference between the two is not substantive, only

consisting of a “difference in the conditions and forms in which this separation is implemented.” He argues that primitive accumulation, by any other name (such as accumulation by dispossession) is the same although occurring under different circumstances, particularly in terms of the fact that, for Marx, examples of primitive accumulation do not lie in the initial enclosure of the commons, but through other means as well, stating that any means used to reverse the increase in class conflict can be named as primitive accumulation due to its continual separation of the producer from the means of production. This concept holds weight in the Guatemalan context, as the author notes Marx’s own argument that the bourgeoisie eventually needs the power of the state to regulate wages and keep the worker in a state of dependence (De Angelis 2001:15). Throughout the history of Guatemala, the emerging state and its functionaries have used their power over the production of law to separate the Guatemalan proletariat (in particular rural peasant and indigenous populations) from the means of production in an extreme manner. This ensured a broad labour force for latifundistas of the coffee class, up to and including Arzú’s privatization of state entities, removing from the population a new type of ‘commons’ in the form of social services. Consistent in both arguments is the concept of separation, which in terms of land distribution in Guatemala has been maintained with significant vigor on the part of the bourgeoisie. Democracy, that which arrived with much fanfare at the time of the signing of the Peace Accords, presented at best a justifiable entry point for neoliberal strategies of dispossession.

Recent research on democracy in Latin America shows many states that have claimed democracy for twenty to thirty years (such as Guatemala) are often far from what is considered democratic, in particular due to continued and increasing state and interpersonal

violence, continued and increasing economic equality, the absence of the rule of law, and opaque public institutions (Desmond Arias and Goldstein 2010:2-3). Handy (2002:11-16) argues that, in understanding the limited progress made in creating democracy in Guatemala, that indigenous peoples in the Americas pose a challenge to democratization. He identifies the continuance of strong ethnic divisions in the country as an issue based within the very concepts of state, nation, and democracy, positing that the community-based ethnicity of

Mayans in Guatemala flies in the face of modernity and the modern state’s facilitation of the development of capitalist relations of production in said communities. To advocate for diversity and pluriethnicity along with a model of liberal democracy is disingenuous, as the concept of liberal democracy does not coincide with the Mayan concept of community. He argues that “we need, finally, to broaden our conceptions of democracy beyond a particular type of societal organization and a particular conception of progress,” which reinforces the necessity of breaking down the dominant neoliberal paradigm and reimagining the potential for other forms of state organization. Peter Smith and Melissa Ziegler (2008:47) discuss liberal and illiberal democracy in Latin America in a ten-year study that employs both quantitative and qualitative analysis in analyzing democratic movement in Latin America.

Taking liberal democracy as the standard of measurement, they argue that “the most prominent structural determinant of transition from illiberal to liberal democracy has proven to be high levels of inflation,” juxtaposing free and fair elections with “a panoply of basic liberties – the freedom to form and join organizations, freedom of expression, access to alternative sources of information (through freedom of the press), and so on” (2008:32). The authors, by ascribing to the postulation that liberal democracy is the de facto positive outcome for Latin American nations, neatly insert themselves into the dominant neoliberal

paradigm Handy previously argued must be overcome. Ethnocentric tendencies are demonstrated in the inability to take other state organization schema into account, as in the analysis of Venezuela transitioning from a liberal to an illiberal democracy (Smith and

Ziegler 2008:35); it could be argued that democracy is stronger in Venezuela than in many developed nations due to the broad, grassroots participation of its population in numerous areas of community and national decision-making. Overall, it can be argued that the current neoliberal structure of liberal democracy in Guatemala has served to maintain the rigid class structures that have proliferated over much of its history, and at the current socio-political juncture, there are few powerful political voices advocating for a different perspective on economic development in the country.

De Angelis’ emphasis on the separation of producers from the means of production, by whatever means necessary, could give rise theoretically to the idea that the remilitarization of Guatemala, and the subsequent criminalization of those struggling for social justice and in particular for economic, social and cultural rights, is the next wave of primitive accumulation/accumulation by dispossession/separation in Guatemala. As Teeple

(2004:38-9) notes, the emphasis on private property and civil and political rights that is embedded in the current neoliberal paradigm resulted from the subsuming of social, economic and cultural rights during the course of the development of universalist human rights mandates based on a particular mode of production and system of property relations.

With civil and political rights taking precedence in this process, the current hegemony of global corporations has now begun to reduce the potential of people to realize even those civil and political rights seen as universal, often resulting in a state-led defense of global corporate rights against conflicting demands of subordinate classes for their social and

collective rights, evidenced strongly in the conflictual nature of contemporary resource extraction in Guatemala, and demonstrating the necessity of the continual separation of the producers from the means of production (in this case, land for extractive development).

Harvey (2005:165) further elucidates this point in arguing that in developing countries, opposition to accumulation by dispossession can be stronger, demonstrated in the struggles of Guatemalan HRDs and organizations for social justice, and that reaction to this opposition by the neoliberal state “quickly assumes that of active repression even to the point of low- level warfare against oppositional movements.” He notes the convenience of designations such as drug trafficker or terrorist as enablers to garner US support for repression of these movements, words which bore an uncanny resemblance to the rhetoric of the regime of Otto

Peréz Molina. Amin (2004:76-77) contends that these processes contribute to the ongoing hegemonic project of the US, as by identifying narcotrafficking, terrorism, or weapons of mass destruction as the political pretexts for increasing military capacity, the project of ensuring subordination of all regions of the globe to US military power can continue unabated. In terms of a Guatemalan analysis, military assistance becomes beneficial for both the US, with the aim of subordinating Latin American states, in addition to a boon for the current Guatemalan regime, as noted by investigative journalist Dawn Paley (2012):

Fighting organized crime and drug trafficking is the most recent justification for US incursions in Guatemala, also serving to justify the increased activity of Guatemalan military around the country. This militarization is taking place in areas where there are fierce social and land conflicts related to the imposition of mega-resource extraction projects, such as in mining and oil industries. In addition, communities that resist displacement and the extractive industries have been tarred with accusations that they are involved in organized crime; in some cases entire peasant villages have even been labeled “narco-communities.”

Because of the occurrence of themes such as violence and crime, poverty, corruption, and remilitarization within a country that deems itself democratic, it becomes important to re-

examine the means by which academia gives (or doesn’t give) merit to a nation’s particular form of state organization. Arias and Goldstein (2010:4) argue that elections and structures of governance are insufficient to gather a holistic idea of lived experience in violent societies such as Guatemala, and that analysis of the political situation of Latin American nations necessitates a new analysis, one which “joins democratic state functioning more explicitly to the daily social violence and apparent state breakdown that affects much of the hemisphere.”

This shifts an analysis of violence in Latin America from the simplistic theory that the state has somehow failed, to what role violence plays in daily life as well as how it is implicated in democratic transition. This concept of violent pluralism is key in moving past democratization theory, which “sees disorder principally as a failure of institutions resulting in a material loss of rights, to a conception of politics that looks to the complex ways in which order (and/or disorder) is created through the interactions of multiple violent actors, both within and without the state” (Arias and Goldstein 2010:10), addressing some of the analyses outlined above which remain strongly within the confines of a predominant scholarly paradigm of liberal democracy/neoliberalism. It can also add a layer to the Marxist concept of separation, as there is potential in analysis of violent phenomena as partly affected by the struggle to reclaim the commons and the repression that in Guatemala is often the initial reaction.

Guatemalan HRDs, as well as the broader body of organizations struggling for social justice in the country, are centred within this reclamation of social, economic, and cultural rights, work that often results in violent reprisals. Numerous reports demonstrate the ongoing

issue of repression against HRDs in Central America33 and the Americas more broadly34. The

United Nations adopted the Declaration on HRDs in 1998, just two years after the signing of the Peace Accords in Guatemala. A 2012 report by Amnesty International (AI) outlines the concept of human rights defender, and demonstrates both those groups most at risk and specific examples of individuals who face threats for their actions as HRDs. In this report, AI

“uses the term [...] in an inclusive manner and alongside other terms such as human rights activist, human rights advocate or human rights worker, without prejudice to the use of other terms appropriate in specific countries or contexts” noting that “[e]ven when people’s actions are not explicitly or obviously linked to the defence of a human right, they may still fall within the scope of what it means to be a human rights defender,” such as those who, in addition to their regular job, make increased efforts to ensure that human rights standards are followed. Two standards by which the United Nations considers an individual to be a human rights defender are the acceptance of universal human rights and peaceful action in defense of human rights (AI 2012:13). Some scholars have demonstrated the difficulties in accurately defining a human rights defender; Alice M. Nah, Karen Bennett, Danna Ingleton and James

Savage note that the broad definition permits the potential for opposing agents to simultaneously be viewed as HRDs when considering their actions, yet one of the actors may experience the other as a perpetrator (2013:404). Luis Enrique Eguren Fernández and

Champa Patel contend that the ambiguity in the United Nations definition of human rights defender could detract from an actor’s potential for protection under the law. The authors cite

33 See ‘We are Defending the Land with our Blood’: Defenders of the Land, Territory, and Environment in Honduras and Guatemala (Amnesty International 2016) and Mujeres Indígenas Guatemaltecas en Resistencia (Giovanna Teijido and Schramm 2010). 34 See Transforming Pain Into Hope: Human Rights Defenders in the Americas (Amnesty International 2012) and A Deadly Shade of Green: Threats to Environmental Human Rights Defenders in Latin America (Center for International Environmental Law 2016). 71

various examples in which states have defined who they will accept as a human rights defender, or alternatively have identified an actor under another terminology, such as terrorist

(2015:897). The re-framing of HRDs within the public discourse through a negative lens is a significant facet of the Guatemalan state’s means to justify repression, and is examined in chapter five more broadly. For the purpose of this research, the United Nations definition of human rights defender adequately portrays the respondents and the work they regularly undertake; all respondents discussed themselves and their colleagues as HRDs, working as a part of a larger body of individuals and organizations in the country to advance human rights and social justice.

The thesis statement strives to identify if and how remilitarization in Guatemala has ramifications for HRDs. Remilitarization has been referenced numerous times in journalistic efforts35; also, there is significant academic literature on the maintenance of civil war sociopolitical structures and the continuation of violence in Guatemala. What does not appear is academic work on current remilitarization, as well as work on Guatemala that attempts to broach an analysis of past militarization based in an examination of the cultural, social, economic, and political context, and how this, both historically and in contemporary times, contributes to ongoing processes of remilitarization in the country. Although this initial examination is not capable of a broad analysis with a relatively small sample size represented in the following research, it opens an important door to discussion on the topic and for broader research on a subject which needs urgent attention. The necessity of moving past analysis of state structures in identifying the role of violence by examining the narratives of daily life in Latin American countries (Arias and Goldstein 2010) is a large part of this research, and aims to identify and deconstruct dominant neoliberal and democratic discourses

35 See Abbott 2016, Abbott 2017, Casey 2011, and Schivone 2017. 72

to reveal a more holistic picture of the political, social, economic and cultural setting in which violence, remilitarization, and HRDs meet and struggle.

These concepts of the class system, of the state’s role in the maintenance of it, and how these structures are entangled in the contemporary neoliberal economic mandate, will all be instructive in the understanding of sociopolitical and economic issues that have affected the proletarian class in Guatemala for centuries. In Guatemala, land is a pivotal aspect of all of these concepts, as the reader will note throughout. The theoretical concepts described in this chapter will form a basis for the reader to conceptualize, both from an historical and a contemporary perspective, the central problem of this analysis, that of militarization and its impacts on HRDs.

Chapter 5: (Re)militarization – Antecedents, Effects, Repercussions

What follows in this chapter are the reflections of Guatemalan respondents on remilitarization in the country, forming the basis for the thesis as a whole. The central categories identified based on the contents of these interviews will be demonstrated principally through directly translated quotations in the succeeding pages: I will endeavour to allow the participant’s voices to speak for themselves.36 Following this I will draw on the central concepts of the thesis to determine if and/or how (re)militarization has or has not impacted HRDs in Guatemala. The main overarching themes emerging as a result of the coding of the interviews were Current and Past Militarization, Socioeceonomic Issues and

Repression, and Personal Effects of and Strategies to Deal with Increasing Militarization.

Current and Past Militarization

A significant portion of the literature review completed in previous and coming chapters identifies the Guatemalan military’s role as a coercive arm of the bourgeoisie, the crafting of the military state, transfer of economic power to the military, and the maintenance of clandestine military power structures despite the objectives of the 1996 Peace Accords.

The sitting president at the time of the interviews conducted, Otto Pérez Molina, was identified by all respondents as party to egregious acts during the war. Eva notes his impact:

“We were persecuted, assassinated, during 36 years of war, but sadly the population is who gave the government power. By way of the vote, the population was who, who voted, the majority of the population was who, who voted for and elected this president, how the people

36 All interviews were transcribed by the author, and following coding, selected quotations were translated by the author according to the central themes identified. All quotations in this chapter have been translated from the original interviews. The quotations in Spanish can be requested via [email protected]. 74

lost their consciousness and have lost all their dignity, because knowing that the general,

OPM is one of the genocidas that caused deaths, assassinations, and ¡hijole! He caused so much damage to our country. And, in the time [of the conflict], in 1982, he was in Santa Cruz del Quiché, and that was one of the places with the most massacres and talking about the internal armed conflict it was, for us, very difficult to live through.” Miriam echoed these statements, noting that “It’s so painful for me because… the people who elected this man, I don’t agree with them. Because even though he killed their children, their parents, family, they still voted for the current president [OPM].” Similarly and directly, Carina notes that

“Pues the reality is very, very complicated, because one knows what we’ve come to understand is the history of our Guatemalan community, with everything that OPM has done, you know, that he was one of the assassins, the assassins that was strongly felt here in

Quiché.”

The initial thesis statement for this inquiry centred on remilitarization, but there was significant and unanticipated discussion around militarization and remilitarization – whether there had been a demilitarization after the Peace Accords, or if it was rather that a demobilization had not actually occurred and that pre-accord militarization continued on in other forms. All of those interviewed identified a contemporaneous transition towards a militarized state.

Some likened the current system of food relief to similar wartime efforts. As Eva notes, “We have to put our hands out to take, and they give us 300 or 600 or 1000 quetzales per month, or they give us a bag maybe, called the bolsa segura that is worth maybe 50 quetzales. The people are happy and content. Unfortunately, it is part of the repression. It is the same situation as when we had the genocidal general, Efraín Ríos Montt. And he had the

Beans and Bullets plan. It is the same situation. We are returning once again. To fall into the past. We have been given a definite setback.” Ixchel noted that “the military is there, they’re given the same things all over again. Because [OPM] assumed power and is going to create a favourable environment for the military. They’re there once again.” She also described some of the ramifications of this militarization: “Pues and it’s not only there [military checkpoints on the Interamerican Highway], it’s here as well. […] For example, they’ve called down people from the bus, to do searches. And I say that the delinquents aren’t traveling on the bus.” Everardo prognosticated on the outcome of this remilitarization, saying “I know that it won’t be long until we see a confrontation, that there will be another guerrilla front. Because of the situation. One doesn’t know. Another war. Who knows what will happen. How many massacres were there in that time? Ojalá that it doesn’t happen.”

Militarization was recognized in a variety of ways by all of those interviewed. Two respondents spoke pointedly on the maintenance of military power that links back to the days of the civil war, supporting the premise that rather than a re-militarization, there is a reactivation of already-existing military structures in the country. Luis noted that “[…] clearly, and unfortunately, many highly-ranked military officials linked to organized crime, linked to massacres, including Ríos Montt whose government was de facto genocidal, after the signing of the Peace Accords, in the government of Portillo, [he] was president of the Congress of the

Republic. So he enjoys immunity, right? Now they’re bringing a lawsuit against [Montt] but there are also some conditions and there are officials, friends of his, who are also trying to defend him, trying to lengthen the process. So in this sense, I believe, with the social programs of the previous governments, it seems that what they’re doing is strengthening, maintaining and strengthening the structures of the military, in different levels, that they

never disbanded.” He went on to say “this is what’s happening, they’re using the structure that never disappeared. It exists there, but in this moment they’re strengthening and using more resources. This is the issue.” Ixchel attested to the reappearance of military structures in the government; “this is the problem in the country, as right now we are seeing for example that, all the ministries, those who make decisions are, those who are ex-military. [pause]

They are all there.” Eva continued in a similar theme, noting the return of military personnel to the current government: “Pues in many cases, it is the same people, the intelligence forces that we have in our country, with the arrival of president OPM are resurging again and strengthening the military even more.”

Recognizable civil war strategies and structures were identified as resurging within the contemporary Guatemalan socioeconomic climate. Carina saw remilitarization in the following way: “these two words go together I say, the structure that [existed] before, remilitarization is like restarting what was. For me. This is how I understand it. It’s restarting what they’ve done, right, so either way they’ve already created a path. This is normal for them, right, restarting, we’ll do this and that and that’s what they’ve documented, but really no. For me it’s this, right, returning to take what they’ve created.” Ixchel saw remilitarization as a calling on of civil war structures, a reactivation; “I say this because there are meetings with the PACs, with the ex-G2, it is to revive them, making sure they’re there and at the service of [the state]. Now it’s only a question of calling them. So, yes there is a connection; for example, for the guerrillas, they said deliver your weapons and there will be incorporation into civil society, etc. The guerrillas did that. But if you see, the security that the narcotraffickers have […]. They’re ex-kaibiles. […] They act as protection for narcotraffickers. They haven’t reintegrated into society.” Luis spoke to the military’s

circumvention of the Peace Accords with regards to the defense budget, noting that while a reduction in troops was realized, the defense budget was not only maintained, but increased.

He also noted the roles of other state entities in the current climate, stating that “in the time of the conflict the ex-national police [force] in Guatemala was prepared, was trained to repress, to implement, [and] involve themselves in counterinsurgent campaigns. And many of these police of the National Civil Police, it’s a recycling of these previous police, we have police that are prepared […] to be against social movements, because they are, they have been going in to drive policies and counterinsurgent campaigns in this country.”

Remilitarization was also identified as a strategy to monitor and criminalize social movements, and one demonstration of this was through the construction of new military bases. Everardo pointed out that “[…] this is his [OPM’s] plan, this year they’re going to install many military personnel, bases in each municipality. This year. But we’re waiting to see if they’ll do it, or if they’ve put the brakes on with some of the marches done by the community. We don’t know, we’re waiting for details.” According to Miriam, “we’re not happy because [OPM] has already established a detachment here in San Martin Jilotepeque, a military detachment. In San Martín Jilotepeque. He’s already established one in

Huehuetenango. He’s already established one in San Marcos. What’s happening? When they signed the Peace Accords, it’s that, they want to establish a detachment, but these laws, he’s not complying with this law.” Luis spoke to the pointed strategy behind the construction of these bases: “so it’s uncertain. It’s uncertain that [increasing military forces] are to control crime, for security, no, then what’s happening? They’re using the military that they have to criminalize the struggle of the popular movement. Because they just built a military base in

San Juan Sacatepequez. Where there is a social struggle, [where they’re] in resistance against

the establishment of the cement plant there in San Juan Sacatepequez. They build another where there is conflict, so they militarize, they mobilize the military where there are conflicts. Like what happened in Alaska. It was the military that committed the crime. It was the military that committed the massacre. ”

Respondents also pointed to the state’s identification of violence and delinquency as the justification for remilitarization. Eva noted that “this government took advantage of the extent to which violence has been increasing in its political campaign, to sell the discourse of security to the population. That which now, in reality, now, in place of reducing violence, it has been increasing much more than during the internal armed conflict.” Miriam attested to the increase in violence, explaining that “[things] have changed for the worse. It’s gotten bad.

Because it hasn’t gotten better. Look, he [OPM] says he’ll send the military. He’ll send the police. That there won’t be more deaths. But each time we read El Diario, there are 20, 30 deaths a day. A day! Dead, killed. Some are accidents. But accidents, you can know that it’s been an accident. But the dead, the murdered, men, women, why?” From Ixchel’s perspective, “I tell you, they are doing everything, everything to involve the military. If there are more crimes in different areas it’s as if they’re saying okay, look, we need more soldiers.

Because the few we have aren’t enough.” These accounts of the state’s use of a narrative of violence and delinquency to promote the role of the military in the country and to bolster budget and personnel increases reflects the analysis of the thesis on this topic.

Socioeconomic Issues and Repression

A central theme of both the literature reviewed and the interviews was that of land.

Theoretically, the framing of the issues discussed thus far has been based in a Marxist

analysis, identifying the continual separation of producers from the means of production since the initial invasion of the region in the 1500s to contemporary Guatemala. All collaborators interviewed considered land to be foundational to the various issues discussed – to the division of wealth and maintenance of the class system, the proliferation of conflict around resource development sites, and the significant problem of food security and chronic malnutrition in the country. The following is the perspective of those interviewed on the subject of land and how it relates to the historical and current socioeconomic context in

Guatemala.

“The CCDA works, this is one of the main struggles, [in] the defense of territory, access to land, for food security and sovereignty,” notes Eva. Ixchel reiterated the importance of this work; “this is another proposal that we’ve made in collectivity with the communities, and it’s the strongest; we’ve returned to working on agrarian reform, which is important and necessary [to improving the diet of the population]. If we have no land, we can’t cultivate, and we can’t say that there will be food sovereignty in the country if we have nowhere to plant.” Eva elaborated on the issue, stating that “as people don’t have land on which to sow, sadly the businesspeople, the landowners have been producing on the fincas and the people don’t have land, so a large part of the population has to go and work on the fincas. This has been one of the large problems, as the people don’t have money. And as we have placed the capitalist system within our minds, and therefore have to do everything with money, and without having it, the population is dying of hunger.” Both respondents demonstrate a fundamental issue affecting food security in Guatemala; the lack of access to, and the disproportional division of land.

Luis also spoke to the capitalist system of land tenure, noting that “because we have now a model of individual property that gives absolute power to the supposed owners of the land. […] Private property, prohibited entry, right?” He elucidates the nature of the class system in the country, stating that “in Guatemala we have to recognize that there are the exploited, and the exploiters. Guatemala and this struggle that the CCDA is also involved in is a class struggle. Pues here, there’s a huge distance in the gap between rich and poor. There is a small quantity who have a lot, a lot of land, have accumulated land without accumulating a stone, and yes enslave the people.” Eva reiterated the deep inequality in the country, stating that “because the oligarchy has always had the best of our land, the best of our people, we are and continue being indigenous and campesino, cheap labour for them; we, including indigenous and campesino, the small amount we produce on our land, in our communities, sometimes we don’t have enough even to buy ourselves a pair of shoes while they, with what we produce, with cheap labour, they have enough to buy planes and travel the world. It is part of this huge inequality!”

Another response identified the need for land and organizing as a means to acquire it, as expressed by Everardo: “when I heard that there was a strong organization here in San

Felipe, I had to seek them out. For the same situation of needing mother earth. To buy a finca, I wanted to involve myself with some brothers that buy fincas. And we haven’t been able [to buy one] to date, so here I stay at a standstill, but throughout this time, I’ve been strengthening organization. Still without land but still here […].” He refers to Law 4084, the

Rural Integral Development law, as “a thorn for them, for the government and congress, because [Law 4084] will see some part of the land that they will have to give to the people.

This is what they don’t want, why they don’t want it,” reflecting the maintenance of the class

system by the state through the continued separation of producers from means of production.

Everardo identified one of the consequences of this, lamenting that “if they had a place to work and had good land, they’d work, and I believe they wouldn’t turn to the military. But, as there isn’t any, where can they go? There isn’t a salary, there’s nothing, so they turn to the military,” speaking to the situation of youth in his community.

Miriam spoke specifically to the separation of communities from land through resource extraction projects: “if we want to give our mines, if we want to give away our mountains, ask us. They ask the government, but the government isn’t the owner of our lands. We are the owners of our lands. This is what I want, that they listen closely, that it’s our land, our territory, and no one, no one has the right to come and exploit our territory. It is ours, it is our ancestors, where we now live. So I believe that it isn’t just, that the government has sold what isn’t theirs [to sell]. This isn’t his [OPM], what he’s sold isn’t his, he’s making money off of us, off of our lands, off of our territories. And this isn’t feasible.” Carina expands on this topic, stating that “mining exploitation is intense, it’s intense because it’s not authorized by the indigenous peoples or by the campesinos. This has not been in any way authorized. It’s dirty business on the part of the government who’s done, who’s decided, and because of this people are doing popular consultations. As according to the grandparents, our ancestors, they consulted, talked with mother earth, asked and looked, is this permitted or not permitted you know, it’s to protect that which was theirs before.” Again, it’s important to relate this back to the many ways in which separation has been integral to maintaining the class system in Guatemala.

The responses given in the interviews that relate to the issue of land demonstrate one of the fundamental outcomes of the literature review: that possession of land correlates

strongly to the maintenance of power in the Guatemalan socioeconomic context. It is important to note throughout these responses the reference to the land as mother earth, and the related allusion to the concept that capitalism is not the exclusive means of organizing a society. Ixchel illuminates this perception specifically, stating that “to change life for the population, to have access to land is one of [these opportunities]. Seen not as merchandise, but rather as something that gives life. That we have to respect it.”

The oligarchy in the country was repeatedly identified by those interviewed as one of the main groups in the country who have built and maintained power through land ownership. “The government only responds to the interests of the country’s oligarchy. It has historically been this way, but actually the current government said they were going to increase employment in our country. To promote investment by transnational companies in our country. But this is a huge lie. Because this isn’t really investment, it is an invasion all over again. In the lands and territories of the campesinos,” notes Eva. Luis reiterates her point in saying that “I believe that if [the government] implemented what indigenous and campesino organizations are demanding, it would be, these are the demands, it’s the feeling of the people. So it seems to me that they would be responding to what the people truly need.

Truly, but unfortunately public servants respond to the interests of big capital,” demonstrating the state as an agent of class maintenance. He also noted that “this [policy development – law 4084] definitively signifies a threat. For the oligarchy, the landowners, for the right, because more and more the people are waking up, learning more, and making themselves more conscious of the reality in the country, that someday they have to liberate

[themselves].” The division of land and the role it plays in the maintenance of the class

system in contemporary Guatemala is not only explanatory, but serves as a foundation upon which rest a significant number of other socioeconomic issues.

Repression was identified by all respondents in a variety of ways, and the concept is inextricably linked to land ownership in the country, both from a historical and contemporary perspective. Ixchel notes the repression specific to leaders of organizations, noting that “it’s not only his second year, it is a one-of-a-kind year, a dreadful year of massacres, disappearances, and all. And now we as organizations are looking at and trying to see how to create our own defences. Not with weapons, but to try and protect ourselves.” She went on to speak to the specific case of Yolanda Oquelí, an activist in La Puya: “there will be martyrs, there will be martyrs, but we have to carry on, plain and simple. The case of Yolanda, for example. For resisting in San Rafael, La Puya. They shot her and almost killed her.”

Everardo spoke more broadly, stating that “there are threats against you. Not everyone, rather those who are leaders. Those who lead the struggle. […] They’re the ones who are threatened.” Carina affirms this observation, stating that “yes, from this government there are threats to leaders, we say. A lot. Yes there are. Because whoever demands their rights, repression comes to them. Repression, right, punishment. They’re jailed. They’re threatened.

They’re tortured, the now famous extortions, sometimes between family, but through a chain that comes to a certain person. They’re extorted, robbed, they do this or that but because of the manipulative system.”

Security forces and their role in repression, which parallels the previous statements regarding the state’s response to the landowning class in policy development, was described at various junctures by Eva. She asserted that “they are placing military zones in areas where there are conflicts. Be it problems related to mining, to electric cables, and where people are

in resistance and continue the resistance, to criminalize the struggle.” She goes on to note that “the greater part of the population, of the citizenry, are fearful [of the police]. Because they are the ones who, in many cases, create spaces for assassinations by others, or in the worst cases they themselves act against the population”. Carina reiterates Eva’s assertion of the reasons for increasing militarization: “They’re installing more police, more soldiers, for social security. But this isn’t really why. No, it’s because, as I see it, I don’t see this positively, rather it’s militarization, you know, because for him it’s security, to intimidate the people more. For him it is security but for the people, those who are living in the communities, not one day will you see a police agent, we are our own security.” Eva delves more deeply into the repercussions of security as repression, speaking of displacement as repression. “There have been benefits [of hydroelectric projects] but for large businesses. For mega businesses, and megaprojects, but there are no benefits for the population. It is the new model of dispossession of the original natives, the original landowners. And even through we’ve demanded it, the application of [International Labour Organization] Convention 169 doesn’t apply in our country.”

Closely related but distinct was the theme of state repression, which was reported by the majority of respondents, and this was often referenced in connection to government policy. “[We've made proposals] in different spaces,” Ixchel said, “we’ve made proposals in congress, and we’ve done it in the judicial body as well, because the other part is that after a proposal, after trying to make [the state] value rights which aren’t convenient to them, there is also political persecution. This is to say that we need the judicial executive so there can be protection for those who drive these actions.” Everardo continued this line of thought, noting that “there are threats because the government doesn’t want the people to protest against it.

To ask for the needs of the people. Partly it’s food, there’s a lack of potable water, lack of schools. There’s a lack of highways. There’s a lack of houses. There’s a lack of fertilizer. It’s a lot.” Luis demonstrates the connection between state repression and repression by security forces, noting that “unfortunately, in Guatemala, we have a colonial state. A state that just created the measure to respond to the interest of foreign investment, transnationals, the businesspeople, and so we don’t have a state that responds to the interests of the people, to the interests of the population. In Guatemala, to be able to modify this situation, for example now, we’ve just finished a video, we had a meeting with a governor, and we put out a video where the actual president came out saying that the Guatemalan state is morally obligated to defend foreign investment in Guatemala. This implicates any indigenous community, those of us who are native to these lands, whichever campesino organization that opposes megaprojects are very repressed by the government, plain and simple.” From the perspective of Luis, the state is beholden to the interests of capital, whether it be large landholders or extractivist corporations, and through the state, security forces are then engaged to repress organizations and activists who are struggling against these groups. This position has been a main point in all of the interviews, echoed by all of the respondents in this study, either directly or indirectly and often more than once. Miriam noted the similarity in contemporary and historical state repression, explaining that “pues then, [after the Peace Accords], there was the ability to have meetings, workshops, we didn’t have this freedom to work with the people [before the accords]. But now, the government of OPM wants to put in place a law where we won’t have the right to have meetings. We won’t have the right to have protests.

We won’t have the right to unite ourselves. We won’t have the right to form groups.”

At the height of the civil war, HRDs had to take their organizing underground as the counterinsurgent tactics of the military did not discriminate – any dissent was perceived as a threat. Miriam notes the return to this type of rhetoric on the part of the government, demonstrating the return of wartime counterinsurgent tactics, which will shortly be corroborated by additional respondents to this study.

This thesis addresses the rhetoric of delinquency as a rationalization for increased violence against the population, inclusive of HRDs; Ixchel spoke to this issue, noting that

“there are many deaths that have been justified as a crime, for example, for women, it’s a crime of passion. All of the dead, if it was a woman, it was a crime of passion.” Miriam recognizes this discourse as well, stating that “his reason [for increasing military forces] is to reduce, to combat delinquents. But where are they fighting? They can put in place millions of soldiers and things will be the same. Because the thousand soldiers and the same police are the same thieves.” Carina echoes this with an example from her own community: “For security they’re installing more soldiers, more police. It is security but it’s not for the people.

So we live far, far from the town, we’re from a community, where a police agent has not been even once. And if the police come it’s that, it’s shit, they provoke, it’s not like hey, great a police agent is coming, or soldiers are coming, how great, they’re coming to protect us, no. It’s the opposite.” Luis expands on this, noting that “they create the strategy first, […] a breaking down of the organization, breaking down and confrontation with the base, they link us with organized crime, they link us with theft, they link us with narcotrafficking, so that when we are apprehended, we’re assassinated, we’re attacked, so practically we have a link with these groups let’s say. This is a bit of the situation.” He identifies how members of the organization can feel threatened: “You’d better not organize in the CCDA because they

are a part of organized crime. This is a total lie. What we are wanting is to confront, to confront among the population, to legitimize our struggle, right? In order to remain firm, to maintain a model that doesn’t continue fucking our country.” He also alludes to new security measures being created by the state, noting that “within the last five or six months, congress approved the creation of an elite group to offer security to the population, but that has all of the authority to break into, to force entry while a suspicion exists about someone that they’re linked to organized crime or narcotrafficking, illicit business and such, this group is authorized, before the law, without a police order, without an order from the public prosecutor, they can come, they’re plainclothes, they can come and search a house and can take someone [away] while they investigate them, whether or not they are linked. This causes even more vulnerability for human rights, more vulnerability for organizations, because I believe [this group] was created not precisely to combat crime, but precisely to paralyze the popular movement in this country.” This delinquent trope is a frequently recurring theme in the responses of participants in this study. Another related trope enacted by the state is that of the terrorist; Ixchel asserts this by stating that “for us, [political persecution] is terrorism, but in actuality, that is what they call us, terrorists that are destabilizing, that we are the ones that create chaos in society, so for this we also make proposals before the [judicial] body requesting that the rights of all those driving actions at the national level be respected.”

Many of the participants felt that another means of repression by the state was monitoring. This surfaced as a theme both in this area of responses addressing repression in its various forms, as well as in the area addressing effects felt personally as a result of remilitarization. As a facet of oppression in the country, Eva notes that currently “they are monitoring. One of these is that there is telephone monitoring. It is taken into account that

there is spying. Via telephone. There is spying other than through telephones, that they are coming to question, to see what, within all the activities that the social movement creates, there are people that are infiltrated, and watch, take pictures, take down information, and in social media pages they are also watching, what it is they’re doing, they are monitoring the population. But overall leaders [are being monitored].” Ixchel noted how this can happen, saying “before, there was the word; given and received. Now, look, phones are tapped. This was a law that was passed. […] If I am saying look, this and that here in the Quiché, and the

G2 is there, they will find me where I am and poom. Oh, she died, they wanted to rob her.”

Miriam speaks both to the public experience of another human rights defender as well as her own personal experience, respectively. “And they follow her [Lolita Chávez], they’re watching her, what is she doing, where is she going? What is she doing? This is what bothers us because they’re, it’s like they’re investigating us.” Miriam notes that “we haven’t had any threats yet, thank God. Because they’re watching. Watching, nothing more. But there haven’t been threats to us, but we are afraid because they’re always watching. Look, sometimes I go to hold meetings, I feel [that], although I go they ask me ‘where are you going?’ and if I’m going to Coatepeque I tell them that I’m going to Guatemala [City]. If I’m going to

Guatemala [City] I tell them I’m going to the coast.” This theme will be explored in more depth in the following section on the effects of remilitarization.

Another theme identified in the interviews relating to socioeconomic issues was that of structural issues, which from the perspective of the respondents centred on state policy and the justice system. Ixchel, in speaking to the justice system, noted that “it’s difficult because, as we say, how many narcotraffickers are there, they go to jail, they pay, and get out. How many corrupt politicians are there, they have robbed millions from the country, go to jail,

pay, and get out. How many rich are there, the rich who have committed an offence, an assassination or who knows what, go to jail, pay, and get out! […] But when a campesino is fighting for land, land which belonged, in many cases, land which was stolen before the war.

It is his property. And he goes to jail for fifty years.” She goes on to note that “this year is the most violent. More persecution, more imprisonment. Because it’s his year. It’s his year, and with his government there will be no investigations of the deaths. You know? This year we have it hard.”

Criminalization as a means of repression was a theme which was discussed at length by many of the respondents, in particular in regards to the incarceration of HRDs. As Ixchel notes, “[in the case of Barillas], where are the questions of the violation of their rights? Or, why are they being detained if there was no crime committed? It’s a psychological issue also, as there are cases where justice isn’t so just, that we have to make an emphasis on this because also they must respect the actions of the movement. […] We say that, this injustice has much to do with all of the problems of investigation.” Miriam speaks again to the situation of Lolita Chávez: “like what happened with [her]. Another defender of indigenous peoples. She’s from our department of Santa Cruz del Quiché. She also travels here, they’re monitoring her, where is she, what is she doing? Because she’s a woman who defends human rights. […] She sometimes organizes consultas populares.” Carina spoke to the impacts of megaprojects on HRDs, stating that “hydroelectric projects and megaprojects have caused problems, like the problems in Huehuetenango. They incarcerated campesino leaders. […]

For defending their territory, they didn’t want to permit the installation of the hydroelectric project in the municipality. What’s happened is that they put them in jail, those who opposed the project. And the government, when we ask really what has the government done, they’ve

sent the military, soldiers, police. They sent a lot and sent them to get rid of the people in this place.” Carina also spoke to the criminalization of CCDA and CUC leaders, contending that

“it’s not recent but the case of Mateo, right? He’s been persecuted a lot because he defends, he speaks for the people, he doesn’t speak for himself or his family, rather he defends life.

And now there is the campesino leader of the CUC who, he’s one of those who is being threatened right now with, exactly what with I can’t remember, but he’s in danger, he speaks, he says things in the face of enemies and this isn’t good. So there is a lot of persecution.”

According to Luis, “the Guatemalan police are unfortunately unprepared, we need police academies that can teach police in place of police as security, to be public servants, and to be those who guarantee the security of the citizenry. Here they are instructed to control. Here they are instructed to take control of, to neutralize any just struggle that there is

[…].” He also links the criminalization of HRDs to land more broadly, noting that “it seems to me that criminalization is tied to, where there is a struggle and resistance for the defense of territory, there’s crime. Where there is a struggle for the defense for the recuperation of land, there is crime. Where there is a struggle for resistance against mining, there is crime. So, we aren’t inventing [it], we aren’t inventing, this government is criminalizing our struggle so, we create a resistance movement and there are hundreds of riot police to keep us there, despite that in the territories they aren’t living in our house, we are defending our territory, and they remove us so that transnational companies come to exploit, to destroy, to contaminate, to confront, to create violence. So this is the model that this government is defending. So they criminalize us, so they can destroy our country. This, this is clear this is open, they can put, it seems to me that there is a lot of worry, there is a lot of worry because also there is a campaign of criminalization in the media. Columnists, journalists, media directors, who

indicate any act […] of mobilization, action, for human rights, these acts are often marked as acts of terrorism. They mark them as acts of terrorism, when what we’re seeking is constitutional compliance in this country. The compliance with the rights that we have in this country. But so they see us as if we are terrorists. Peaceful terrorists, maybe.” He spoke specifically of groups in the country who name organizations as terrorist, noting that “look, it’s part of criminalization when columnists and such, it’s like there are, four, supposedly four groups that are using the internet, are using, including a supplement […] saying that we are terrorists, right, including Chapines Unidos are there and also there is the Fundación

Contra el Terrorismo. […] Here in Guatemala! And so, here in Guatemala I think we don’t have terrorists. But, they say, they call us terrorist. To those of us who are implementing legitimate struggles in favour of our people. […] So, well, I would say, I would say that terrorism, what terrorism is in Guatemala, is that which has neutralized and hijacked the state. Yet, this is terrorism.” Carina noted that “while we as a community continue to confront the situation, we always say no. [No to] the things that aren’t in our interest to do.

We’d see simple threats because, there’s no moment, there’s no space where there aren’t threats, there is no fear, there is no intimidation. There always is. There always is. They are strong because of their weapons. So we, if we pick up a stone, this is a crime,” reiterating

Luis’ supposition that the state is criminalizing specific groups.

The attestations of the respondents in this area of inquiry fall firmly within the literature outlined in the previous chapters, which echo the theory that the root of many of the issues affecting the country stem from the division of land, theorised as the separation of producers from the means of production (through both primitive accumulation and accumulation by dispossession). The issues described above and the described threats and

criminalization that accompany efforts to address them were important areas both within the literature review as well as to those interviewed for this thesis.

Personal Effects of and Strategies to Deal with Increasing Militarization

One of the major inquiries as a part of the thesis statement for these writings was to examine the effects of (re)militarization on HRDs themselves – how it affects their day to day life, their feelings, and their work. The two main areas that came up during interviews were feelings relative to remilitarization, and specific actions that respondents were taking or planning on taking in response to contemporary remilitarization in the country.

With respect to effects on HRDs, five out of six respondents described feelings of fear; Ixchel spoke at length about her fears, noting that “it is quite difficult, this remilitarization. Although at the international level, they bring another message. Of peace, harmony, of citizen protection. When we, in place of being protected, pues we feel terror.”

She went on to speak to the effects of a public presence of the military, stating that “with the same military presence it is chilling psychologically for the people to see them, for those who have lived, those that we see, having been part of the war. In the streets, this is what we are seeing now.” She conveyed the necessity of continuing despite feelings of fear: “Look, yes I feel this climate of insecurity and fear, and it’s scary; you’re not human if you don’t feel that way. You’re scared, but there’s also a social commitment pues.” Everardo also described feelings of fear and pain; “I feel pain,” he said, “pain because there isn’t any good in the current situation. […] The sorrow, so many deaths, so much violence, thieves, and more; those who have been, how many women have died, men, campesinos, and this is what one feels of what is called pain. I was in pain because me, and only me, I can’t do anything,

except to strengthen the organization, to be more to the organization, inform the people, incite, to move forward the mobilization of the people in large protests, meetings, marches, so that people realize, and maybe this way we’ll achieve the bigger objective, for the future.”

Miriam echoed this fear but noted that it induces anger as well, declaring that “pues truly I am scared of them. But yes it gives me rage. A lot of rage. Seeing that they never do any good, nothing good, and there are other civil presidents, who never did these things. It was never exploiting mines. And now this is what they’re doing. See, they’re doing it quickly.”

Carina also related her own feelings of fear, explaining that “well, for me, knowing myself a bit, the questions of confronting problems this big, I am a bit scared. Of what happened to my father. So sometimes it’s worth it and sometimes it’s not.”

Luis spoke at length to fear felt as a person having lived through the armed conflict.

He notes “look, first I know there is a psychosis right, to believe that to live through the armed conflict, to be a victim of threats, attacks and repression, so particularly we, it’s that we’re put at risk, and we hope that it doesn’t happen but one is always thinking that in any moment, they can be attacked again, or can be threatened again because there have been these kind of experiences. So someone almost lives constantly with this psychosis right, it’s good that, hopefully that not each time that we mobilize that we’re with this fear, it definitively changes your life. It changes your routine, we have to change schedules, we have to change the days we go out, we have to change, but there should be a routine, planning of activities that we have to do, but in this frame, we also sometimes have to improvise, precisely for this situation. Right, this security, this repression, the criminalization that there is in the country.”

Other feelings that presented as themes within the interviews were anger and sadness;

Ixchel spoke to dealing with threats against other members of the CCDA: “When they threatened [him], they also sent us messages. If you don’t stop doing what you’re doing…

We didn’t respond. They were difficult messages. And yes it affected me, because we have feelings, a life to live. But beside this, it makes me angry because, then what, people are being used, and are often paid […] but they don’t realize they’re being used.” Miriam describes sadness in wishing she could do more, noting that “I feel sad, I feel bad, I feel… depressed sometimes, because I wish I was a million women. I want to be like the corn. Or like beans. What abundance, abundance, what an abundance there is. […] I want to be energy in life, I want to have a good group, who are capable. Who can defend themselves. Who defend their people. Who defend their children. […] It’s that we want to be, I want to be, a flock of birds, a flock of animals, to have strength and to feel strong, to feel much more than one. But you can’t.”

Another of the themes that came up numerous times representing a significant emotional effect on the respondents was familial experience with violence during the armed conflict. Eva, in response to telling a story of her father’s encounter with two soldiers during the conflict, said “I am crying a lot! I am, I don’t know, very sentimental. And one time

Eliseo said to me ‘Why cry? You shouldn’t cry.’ But it’s because it is emotional. The repression that we’ve lived through, and that indigenous peoples continue to experience.”

Ixchel, speaking to the resurgence of checkpoints, noted that “truly, the first time that they did this it terrified me because, I recall when I was with my father going from Patulul to San

Lucas, all the men got off with their documents.” She speaks further to her father’s encounters during the war: “look, I feel that we’ve been affected since, for some time, since

the war because, as I mentioned before about my father for example. We were always hiding my father. We always thought that someday they would kill him. This was marked with, there were flyers, for example, dropped in this community; the following will die, [names people]! […] Indirectly it touched me, because of my father.” Miriam described the need to flee with her family; “when the war happened, during the armed conflict here in Santa Cruz del Quiché, […] when the repression, the problem began, I left for my family, I went to the capital. I didn’t like it there, but because my family was so young, the three children, […] we worked in the mountains, struggled alongside the people to defend ourselves, but what caused the most pain was that bullets passed over our heads, the bullets of the military that sent us running, and we had committed no crime as we were working as campesinos.” She went into more detail about her reasons for fleeing, explaining that “we endured only two years in our village because there was so much repression, pues. They killed many people in my village; they locked up 40 families and burned them. And who were they [who committed this act]? The fucking military; OPM was the soldier there at the time. It’s sad, much of our family stayed there, and thank God that none of my children died, but my sister- in-law died, she was burned with her son, and everyone there remains sorrowful.”

Luis noted the threats that he’s experienced personally in the current sociopolitical climate in Guatemala; “I believe that there’s a worry, a personal worry because unfortunately, during 88, 89 until now, there are more than 20 years in which we’ve been involved with the CCDA, unfortunately, well fortunately we’ve been connected, we’ve sought many milestones, we’ve advanced enough, for our demands, to find responses to the necessities that exist but also, there have been, in different moments, attacks, threats, and well you will remember that we had to leave the country, so there is a bit of worry, but it was

also the commitment let’s say, that we assume, when we left the country we said that the threats and all wouldn’t intimidate us, wouldn’t paralyze us, that we wouldn’t let them neutralize the struggle.” Everardo also described threats against his person for his work in the

Defensoría Maya, due to the issues they bring forward on behalf of the indigenous community.

The past and current experiences of the respondents are indicative of the significant impact that the armed conflict has had and continues to have on a day to day basis, on an emotional level. In many of their responses, those interviewed described how the remilitarization in the country has affected their actions and how they go about their work day to day. Some, like Eva, stated their lack of concern for what may happen when faced with the sociopolitical climate, noting that “it doesn’t matter to me, the conditions of the things that might happen. In a climate of repression. Because I have political clarity.”

Everardo also conveyed this point, stating that “I feel strong. I won’t fall back. I’ll move forward, stronger. […] Pues, if they kill me, they kill me. I’ll die for my people. Right?”

Respondents identified one of the things that inspire them to continue as the work they do being integral to providing a better future for their communities and country. Ixchel explained that “leaving a better country for other generations [gives me strength to continue].

That they never have to live through what we lived. Persecution, exploitation, inequality, discrimination. But that they are distinct multiculturally, that there is a big opportunity for development and wealth, that all women also have a protagonist role, that they are not used but rather introduce their ideas.” Everardo noted that “when I see my children, I don’t want them to remain, to leave them in, that they continue to be exploited. I want to help them with something important. I want to leave a history for them.”

One of the concrete actions that came up numerous times for the respondents was the development and proposal of policy. As Ixchel notes, “look, we have carried out various proposals at the national level. And this is particularly important because one doesn’t only demand, but proposes.” She speaks to the interconnecting nature of this work, explaining

“and so there are proposals that we have carried out and that we haven’t worked on solely as the CCDA. We have also had the capacity to unite with other organizations in an effort to make proposals.” Everardo, speaking to the need for change at a fundamental level, explained that “we have protested, we’ve been involved in policy issues to attain a very fundamental objective here in Guatemala. But, to date, we haven’t been able to do it.”

Miriam spoke specifically to some of the policy work the CCDA has done, explaining that

“for us, this is the problem with [the government], we want them to sign the law that we want to put into place, law 4084. This is what we want. […] This is what we want to put into place as the CCDA.”

Luis spoke at length on the policy work done by the CCDA at various points in his interview. He noted that “this is basically what the CCDA does, but apart from this, apart from these claims also it is policies, we also have economic claims so in this sense, certainly nutrition because the same situation, of poverty and marginalization that the rural population is subject to, there is misery, there is poverty, many people are living in extreme poverty and

[with] hunger. Unfortunately, in 2012, more than 1040 people died because of hunger, 50 percent of the population under five years suffers from chronic malnutrition, and so, these basic predicaments, we say, for us extreme poverty won’t be combated with social programs that are stopgap, clientelist, that seek to, more than anything, return the favours of the financiers of the politicians who come to power. So it’s not so much to solve the predicament

of extreme poverty, there can’t be development in Guatemala if public policies that will guide financial investment in the country don’t happen. Guatemala doesn’t invest. […] So there’s a big, it’s clear the intent, to not want to invest, rather, the interest is in maintaining the model of submission. To maintain the model of slavery, and why? It’s to continue exploiting our people in the rural areas. And these are the conditions we would also like to change.” He explained the efforts made by the CCDA to enact change: “we have our struggle which is aggressive to demand our rights. Rights that have been unrecognized, rights that the state hasn’t complied with, but at the same time [we’re] implementing alternatives and development, and generating public policies like the law of rural development, the policy of rural development.” Speaking to resistance to the rural development law, Luis explained that, “for me, public servants are in service of the people because the people, through taxes, pay them, the salaries of these public servants but in reality, often they get paid to act against the people, and this is part of what the people still aren’t reacting against. For example, this rural development law. The principal party that opposes the rural development law in this moment is incredibly Líder. The Líder party. […] Because, because the businesspeople have already met with the leadership of the party and has told them that they’re the next government. But, if they approve the rural development law, they won’t have financing, or public space in the media! So they have to decide if they want to be or don’t want to be president for the coming years.” Much of the focus of the respondents in speaking to what actions they take were linked to Law 4084, representing to the concrete steps taken by respondents to alleviate many of the socioeconomic issues plaguing rural areas.

One of the predominant themes of this area of inquiry was the ways in which respondents engaged in actions to protect themselves. Ixchel noted that “because of

persecution, we are discussing the creation of, between similar organizations, what we can do to protect ourselves pues, because if we are doing our work, we are aware, that is to say that we have the courage to do the work. […] If we can protect one of our lives pues it would be better.” She conveys the resurgence of the need to self-protect, stating that “like us in the

CCDA, they already know who we are, so it’s the case that we create some security measures, but we need to bring back the measures we had in the past.” An example of this she gave was “what we did during the march. In the march, we didn’t use cell phones, we didn’t use email. Everything was by word of mouth. It was planned. We didn’t send text messages, because we knew that they were tapped.” Ixchel affirmed the necessity of self- protection, noting “as we say, there are things that were done during the war that we need to bring back, but we have to show the new generations how to work like this. […] So as not to put their lives in danger, nor the lives of others.”

Miriam also responded to the need to self-protect, relating that “I am fearful. I feel this way because many things have happened. […] With other compañeras. The threats, I’ve had this way of thinking in that time. As we are in conflict, at that time we were persecuted pues. So then you have to protect yourself. […] Although I told you that I could die but no. I don’t want to die.” Miriam noted this sentiment in a recent meeting: “but yes, we are taking more precautions, including about a month ago when we went to a CCDA meeting they said

‘compañeros, we have to be careful. We have to be careful of these soldiers, because they’re stronger. They’re stronger. And we don’t want them to harm us.’ […] And I think this way as well. That they do us harm but we’ve already done something. But if we haven’t done anything and they harm us, there we are wrong. This is what they want, because they’ve already done this to our compañeros in Toto.” Carina succinctly noted “it’s worse to carry a

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stone than a pistol. For them. But in any case a person has to defend themselves in one way or another.”

Protest was another theme that came up numerous times, how it had increased under the regime of OPM and how many saw it as one of the only weapons in the struggle of

HRDs. Everardo spoke to this, noting that “So, pues, someone who is the leader, or a representative of the community, pues you feel that you know what huge fear there is now.

It’s a huge fear. Being a general, military, if you were military, the power would be in your hands, to be able to do what you want; us, without weapons, with nothing pues, the only policy we have is to march, to protest and all. They still respect it a bit. They back off.” He conveyed the increase of protest in the country: “Pues, I can tell you, nothing positive will come here, no support for the community, what the community needs won’t be given. Rather now we are seeing that the government are negating everything, completely. And for this now the people are organizing more. To see in what way to act against the government. It may be through marches, protests, presenting petitions, taking policy before congress with rural integral development. This is what’s lacking. […] More rural integral development. It’s what we say they need to pass. Because rural integral development contains everything the people need. For this they don’t want it.” Miriam spoke to the need to continue protesting:

“we have to strengthen marches, continue with the marches. Fighting for rights, because we can’t allow that the government’s general comes all the time, come to kill us, comes to do what he wants with us. It’s not right. And we won’t allow it. We’ll defend ourselves. […]”

Carina explained that “there are many, many confrontations between the people and the government because we have the right to demand, to say no, why yes and why no.” She went on to say that “it’s us, the protests that happen, blocking roads, or an assembly in front

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of the palace, or another place right, so that the population is heard. So this is what’s increased, what has increased, the actions that have happened is this right the confrontations between the people and the government. He doesn’t want to listen to us and we want to demand that this no, this no, but he says no, it’s not a setback. What he does is done and it’s decided. But he didn’t decide.” Luis also spoke to the necessity of protest, stating that “we believe that this is the only alternative there is, we can’t articulate in this moment despite the risks that exist, despite the desperation, perhaps, because it is hard, right, to survive in this, but I believe that it is our challenge, and it is a necessity, that there is to be able to survive, and be able to resist, before the sphere of criminalization and repression that exists in this country.”

Throughout the interviews, there were various allusions to organizations, leaders, and situations that faced repression in Guatemala, and one incident that came up frequently was the massacre in Totonicapán. Ixchel reacted to the incident, stating that “as you saw in the case of Totonicapán, eight died. So this man, Harold Caballeros, who participated in the elections with his party, Viva, and who is an ex-pastor of the Evangelical Church. Everyone was really upset because he said, I don’t know why we are paying attention to eight dead.

When typically, in this country, a hundred people die. It’s like, in what country is he, in what world, what he says is crazy!” Everardo noted that “the thing is that now, the people are reacting harshly against this government. […] And this was one of the reasons why the communities of Totonicapán were in the highway, right? Before. This and what else was it, constitutional changes, right?” He further stated that “It’s a lie [that the government didn’t order the military action at Totonicapán]. The government gave the order. He washed his hands, didn’t want to say it.” Miriam stated that “for example, what they did in this time,

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what happened in Totonicapán. What is happening? They’re now asking that the soldiers who killed the eight campesinos are thrown out. What happened, why did they kill the campesinos? Why do they come to kill us? The problem is, the government is the one that sent them, to kill them, but they sent our people as well. The killers were our own people!

[…] It isn’t just, before the law of God it isn’t just, that they come to kill because people are reclaiming their rights.” She explained further that “in Totonicapán there was a protest, where youth, women, and men came, to protest the legal reform [increasing the years of study] to five years for students at the institutes, as there was a reform to increase the years of study for a teacher to five, they’ll have to study five years! […] Why are they doing this?

Because, look, we the indigenous people, we are rising up. So now they want, as they say, to have our heads under their feet. Five years, he knows that we as indigenous people can’t pay for five years of study for our children. We’re people of scarce resources, there isn’t money, and there isn’t work to provide for our children. So he, what he’s seeing is… Because what he wants is that we, as the poor, get poorer. And they get richer. They eat because of our work, they provide for themselves because of our work, from our taxes. And this isn’t just.

What they did in Totonicapán is a serious crime.”

Carina explained that “what happened in my department of Totonicapán – the massacre, to defend against the increase in the price of electricity, the increase to five years

[of study for teachers] and removal of the school of education, and this is truly why people demanded their rights, because we aren’t in agreement with what he’s doing. Because he said to us okay, this is what a document will be worth, a law just like that, without having consulted the people, the communities, and this is when the intense clash happened. It’s him that is our enemy. He is our enemy, you know, because there, there was an intense clash

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because he tells us something but then no, it’s not certain.” The action taken at Totonicapán represents the reintegration of military forces into civilian affairs, in direct opposition to the

Peace Accords.

These, and many more instances of repression linked to increasing militarization, form a significant barrier to the social justice work in which the respondents engage: yet, despite demonstrated emotional and physical effects in their lives, they continue to struggle.

It is a testament to the drive of all of the respondents that they continue, for myriad reasons, some which have already been described in this chapter; Miriam described what she wants to see as a result of their organizing work. “What I want is to get ahead and prevail. Because I want to have a member of congress, a president. They will be our president, our member of congress. It will be of our indigenous labour. This is what I want. To see a president, even if my last days come, to see an indigenous president. An indigenous member of congress. A woman.”

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Chapter 6: Neoliberalism and Power

After decades of naked military rule, the Guatemalan military have crafted a unique Counterinsurgent Constitutional State in which State violence has been reincarnated as democracy. (Schirmer 1998:258)

In the years leading up to the 1996 Peace Accords, and over the following years of purported democratic governance and neoliberal development, there are many areas of significance to examine in terms of analysis of the current situation for HRDs. Among these is an analysis of continual, albeit covert, state repression; an examination of democracy both from the perspective of popular groups vying for space in the democratic process as well as from the perspective of the economic elite and foreign investors, and the neoliberal process from privatization to SAPs. Woven throughout these factors is land and its continued relationship with power, both national and international. As Jonas (1991:88, emphasis added) notes,

One of the most striking characteristics of the Guatemalan bourgeoisie, and one that has 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 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 America.

Access to the means of production has meant a wholesale denial of socioeconomic advancement for the burgeoning proletariat, and a lucid example of this is the story told to me by Marta, a woman living in the altiplano (highlands) of Guatemala. In close proximity to her community there is a milk production facility, and many members of the community work as labourers on this farm. She recounted to me how the dueños of the cattle finca would kill off any male calves born with the exception of the few needed for breeding. She lamented the fact that the dueños were so greedy as to destroy something that would be of

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such benefit to the workers or others the community; instead of killing them, she asked, why do they not let us take them? This is one example of brandishing control over the means of production, ensuring in this particular case that any potential independence of those living in the vicinity was not a possibility, again safeguarding access to a labour force with scarce land and few options for work. How these factors, including the maintenance of a stringent racism-tinged class structure within a security-qua-development state, are factors in the situation of HRDs will be the subject of the following chapter.

Neoliberalism and its Proponents

The effects of structural adjustment in Guatemala were devastating in the 1980s; privatization of state assets, cuts to social services, currency devaluation leading to a significant spike in basic foodstuffs, as well as the removal of protectionist policies developed during the 1970s and 1980s all contributed to the increasing economic crisis of the

1980s. The effects of these changes were felt in concert with the global capitalist crisis of the

1970s, which was devastating for Guatemala’s export-driven economy as international prices and demand dropped (Jonas 1991:81-83). The instability of the various state regimes during

Guatemala’s ongoing civil war made it difficult for the US to justify further aid to the Central

American state, and the economic policy changes provided by structural adjustment programs would prove to be an interstice for the re-entry of foreign capital into the region.

Vinicio Cerezo’s regime would spark an upsurge in grassroots organizing, heralding a new era for labour, peasant and indigenous organizations in the country which were unfathomable in the deepest throes of the civil war in the early 1980s. The later years of this decade created new currents in the non-military upper classes regarding the role of the state.

Some sought to maintain the socioeconomic structure of the country and others felt that new

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civil institutions could overcome some of the issues of underdevelopment while maintaining a strong investment climate within the growing neoliberal paradigm. Both groups saw state solutions as negative, with the ominous cloud of new tax burdens overshadowing any plans for state-sponsored as opposed to civilian institutional development and were unresponsive to military requests for development funds (Smith 1990:13). Cerezo was to be the great mediator between the private sector and the military; he engaged both groups in lengthy talks to discuss what a new military-civilian co-governance would look like, excluding any popular groups from this re-envisioning of the state and its role in the affairs of the country

(Schirmer 1998:192). Yet it is important to note the dual processes of the opening of spaces for popular participation combined with the institutionalization of military power and the dogmatic pursuance of security.

As Arias (2001:10) notes, once Cerezo assumed the presidency, he began the project of proving the country’s transformation into a democracy by inviting those who fled or were exiled to return; it was at this time that the book written about Nobel-prizewinning Maya activist Rigoberta Menchú Tum became widely available, and Cerezo’s son invited her back to the country37. The period following Cerezo’s inauguration was a time in which ‘the Indian question’ became a topic of debate after a prolonged period of indigenous ethnocide at the hands of the armed forces (Nelson 1999:91), whose main aim was the assimilation of indigenous identity into the body politic. In the years following Cerezo’s inauguration, there was a significant amount of emphasis put on initiatives geared towards indigenous issues,

37 The story of Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a controversial one, particularly in terms of the scholarly debate over the validity of armed struggle. It begins with a testimonial biography documenting her life as an indigenous K’iche’ woman and her activism around human rights violations committed during the civil war, written based on interviews with Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, entitled I, Rigoberta; followed with an investigation published by David Stoll, Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of all Poor Guatemalans, a criticism of the facts documented in Burgos-Debray’s retelling of Menchú Tum’s story. An excellent reference on the controversy surrounding the book from both perspectives is The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy (2001), edited by Arturo Arias. 107

deriving from the impetus of both state force and indigenous groups (Nelson 1991:102). Yet, the constitutionalizing of military control would severely restrain the openings available for participation in the state proper.

Two developments that occurred during Cerezo’s regime are key for understanding the current situation for HRDs in the country: the incongruity between reformist and subversive rhetoric, and the consolidation of intelligence in the presidential palace in concert with the creation of the System of Citizen Protection (Sistema de Protección Ciudadana, or

SIPROCI). The dominant discourse of democratization expounded by Cerezo and his administration was demonstrated by token praise for the resurgence of organizations while continuing to demonize opposition groups; Schirmer (1998:195) notes that “[t]his convergence of criminal/subversive categories collapses security ‘needs’ with traditional criminal procedures and ‘normalizes’ State repression.” This perception of opposing views as subversive, even within a supposedly democratic framework, is crucial in understanding the ongoing criminalization of dissent in contemporary Guatemala. SIPROCI was created with the stated mandate of fighting crime in a climate of growing violence, creating what Jonas

(1991:164) calls a “super-police force” comprised of military, paramilitary and police forces.

Despite the rhetoric of protection, SIPROCI task forces can be seen as an extension of the death squads and counterinsurgency tactics used in the depths of the civil war, as they were used in various social cleansing operations in this era, torturing and killing students and those deemed delinquents (Schirmer 1998:199). The symbiotic relationship between these two factors in Cerezo’s regime is something that became a criterion for dealing with dissent. The democratic veneer of rhetoric supplanted the brute use of force, while state institutions continued intimidation and violence against popular groups, the assassinations of Myrna

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Mack in 1990 (Nelson 1999:64) and Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera38 being two of the most prominent examples in this era of democratization.

The neoliberal austerity program of Cerezo’s regime as president coupled with numerous corruption charges led to significant social and economic instability, with the highest inflation rates in Guatemalan history at 83 percent (Jonas 1991:227). With increasing protest on the part of the popular classes who received the brunt of the negative impacts of structural adjustment, 1989 ushered in a period of increased repression against popular movements. The 1991 election of Jorge Serrano Elías (1991 – 1993) would be mired in increasing illegitimacy, with 70 percent of the population abstaining, demonstrating the contraction of hopes for a democratic window in the new state apparatus. Serrano’s regime followed in the economic footsteps of Cerezo, continuing with a neoliberal socioeconomic program, but also began negotiations with the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity

(Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca, or URNG), the umbrella organization consisting of the various guerrilla fronts in the country (Jonas 1991: 228-29). Serrano’s tenure would also oversee the ratification process for ILO Convention 169 on the Rights of

Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, which despite the discouragement around the mandate of

Serrano, would open up spaces within the state for the participation of indigenous Mayan stakeholders as well as exiled members of the Social Democrat Party, recently returned to the country and overseeing the ratification process through the Labour Ministry (Nelson

1999:313). Again, despite these brief and controlled apertures for popular participation, the military retained a great deal of control within the state bureaucracy. Intelligence services developed during the civil war continued to be used by the Serrano administration as well as

38 See Francisco Goldman’s The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? (2007) for an exhaustively investigated and incisive analysis of the assassination of Bishop Gerardi. 109

by his successor, Ramiro de León Carpio for selective state repression against purported delinquents, under different names and formations but with a corresponding mandate

(Schirmer 1998:199). As Jonas (1991:230) notes, Gramajo’s Thesis on National Stability, the document meant to modernize military counterinsurgency tactics in this era of democratization, “identif[ies] any organized expression of grievances by the popular classes

(strikes, demonstrations, etc.) as being in opposition to the national interest, hence

‘subversive.’” The concept of pluralism collided with administrations keen on maintaining socioeconomic structures by way of selective repression against popular movements, carried out by intelligence structures founded in the civil war. Indeed, the entire concept of democratic development in Guatemala was undermined in this period by the inattention to the basic socioeconomic needs of the 87 percent majority population of Guatemala (Jonas

1991:229), exacerbated by neoliberal austerity measures, and further aggravated by the state’s perception of opposition as subversive.

The Peace Process and State Legitimization

Negotiating Peace Accords in the wake of thirty years of civil war would be an arduous and long-term process, beginning in 1983 with an initiative led by various Latin

American governments. The president of Costa Rica, in 1986, presented a plan with the stated aim of resolving various regional issues at the same time, resulting in the Esquipulas II

Agreement, named for the Guatemalan town in which the meetings took place. The period of

1992 to 1994 marked a breakdown in negotiations, but the signing of the Framework

Agreement for the Resumption of the Negotiating Process between the Government of

Guatemala and the URNG led to two years of United Nations-monitored negotiations, distinguished by numerous hiatuses in the process (United Nations 1998:2-3). Although the

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URNG in 1984 was greatly debilitated by the armed forces, columns remained in strongholds throughout the country and although it was rarely spoken aloud, the guerrillas continued warfare with the counterinsurgent forces (Nelson 1999:10).The negotiation process was staunchly opposed by the military, state, and oligarchy (Helweg-Larsen 2011:621; Jonas

1991:234). The agreements negotiated included reforms of state policy in regard to, among others, population resettlement, human rights, establishment of a clarification commission, indigenous identity and rights, social and economic aspects of the agrarian situation, and the role of the armed forces in a democratic society39. At the signing ceremony, the Secretary-

General of the UN noted that the agreements were a milestone for the country as well as the region, stating that

As a result of the process begun in 1983, there was peace throughout the region, with democratically elected governments in each of the Central American countries. At the same time, the Secretary-General recalled that one of the basic tenets of the Guatemala peace process has been that the cessation of the armed conflict was not an end in itself. Rather, it was a precondition for pursuing national reconciliation across the political, social, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic divides (UN 1998:6).

The Peace Accords framed clearly the structural inequalities of the country and set out a path to broad socioeconomic changes necessary to not simply end the war but further to work towards social and financial discrepancies amongst the population. Despite the positivity surrounding this new era in Guatemala’s history, “the winner of the Guatemalan peace appears to be the country’s business elites” (Grandin et al. 2011:442-43), those who most vehemently opposed the process from the beginning.

Again, control of land was a main factor in the dissent of the ruling classes in the face of Peace Accords and was somewhat divisive in relations between the military and the oligarchy. The resistance to structural change in laws governing land tenure were delineated

39 These and other reforms are outlined in detail in The Guatemala Peace Agreements (UN 1998). 111

in unflagging opposition to the ratification of ILO Convention 169. Those in opposition to the convention, in particular members of CACIF, saw its ratification as a frontal assault on private property, and feared land invasions on the part of indigenous communities. This outspoken opposition exposed the assumptions of the oligarchy that the land rightfully belongs to ladinos (Nelson 1999:324) and lay bare the structural racism of the class system as the country approached the signing of the Peace Accords.

The perceptions of the ruling classes towards the convention resembled reactions towards the negotiations of the Peace Accords and demonstrated the dominant class’ desire to maintain the socioeconomic structures that had dominated the last century of Guatemala’s history. The economic elites were the primary beneficiaries in the final ratification of the

Agreement on Socio-Economic Issues and the Agrarian Situation. Proposals from campesino and indigenous organizations were based on a framework of communal land rights and redistribution of idle and state land; private sector groups called for the privatization of state lands and repudiated any idea of communal landownership. This agreement, which is only one component of the accords, conformed with neoliberal economic policy in that it was

“overly technical” and “market driven,” and did “not begin to address economic injustice and inefficiency nor the deep historical grievances that are the root causes of past and ongoing rural conflict” (Grandin et al. 2011:456). Despite growing openings in policy development around ILO Convention 169 and the negotiations of the Peace Accords for indigenous and campesino groups, it is demonstrative of the hegemony of the dominant capitalist paradigm that during both processes, free market ideology prevailed. The goal of attaining a democratic system, inclusive of the particularities of various groups seen as stakeholders in

Guatemala, was not realized; the negotiations and outcomes of these two processes are

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demonstrative of the basic precept of liberal democracy that private property is the predominant form of landownership. The endeavour on the part of indigenous and campesino groups to change the way land is distributed, and indeed the fundamental relationship of people with land, is a fight for concessions rather than the perception that rural Guatemalans have some form of right to land regardless of the modality of landownership (Teeple

2004:14). The changes outlined in the Agrarian Agreement of the Peace Accords have largely been ineffective even considering the reforms contained within it were nominal at the outset, with very few advances in terms of its mandate, demonstrating the capability of the economic elite in Guatemala to prevent changes to the structures that maintain their power within the country (Helweg-Larsen 2011:621). The reality of the tremendous inequity in the distribution of land in Guatemala, a structural issue that persists today, continued to be an important factor in the division of power in the country.

The Maintenance of Military Might Despite Demilitarization

The Agreement on the Strengthening of Civilian Power and on the Role of the Armed

Forces in a Democratic Society outlines what is necessary for the demilitarization of a country whose state and institutions had been usurped by military power over a number of decades. Among the reforms deemed necessary, it states that “it is incumbent upon the

Guatemalan armed forces to discharge the essential task of protecting national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” and that “[p]ublic authority, in the service of the common good, must be exercised by all the institutions of the State in such a way that no person, social sector, military force or political movement can usurp its exercise” (UN 1998:131-32).

Further, it specifically notes constitutional reforms should ensure “[the National Civil Police] shall be the only armed police force competent at the national level whose function is to

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protect and guarantee the exercise of the rights and freedoms of the individual [...]” (UN

1998:140). In respect to the armed forces, the agreement reaffirms the necessity of various constitutional reforms reinforcing the idea that the armed forces’ sole role is as defender of

Guatemala’s sovereignty and territory and states that a new military doctrine based in the

“spirit of the agreements on a firm and lasting peace” was necessary as part of demilitarization in the country (UN 1998:145). Some important operational considerations were the demobilization of the PACs, the mobile military police, and the reduction of the budget and size of the Guatemalan military (UN 1998:153). Various scholars point to the continuance of military power and the ways in which military personnel have continued, both in legal and illegal manners, as perpetrators of violence in post-war Guatemala (Alston in

Grandin et al. 2011; Fumerton and Remijnse 2004; Manz 2008; Martinez 2003; Smith 1990,

Smyth in Grandin et al. 2011).

As noted in a report by the Washington Office on Latin America (Peacock and

Beltrán 2003:14), “[m]uch of the configuration of hidden powers40 and their clandestine groups in post-conflict Guatemala can be traced back to personal relationships, patterns of interaction, and structures of authority that developed during the war and continue to operate”. In particular, it is important to note the community-level power structures that composed the PAC institution. As Fumerton and Remijnse (2004:70) indicate, “many former

PAC commanders have literally transformed themselves into local caudillos by expanding both their power base and the fear that this inspires among their neighbours”. Manz

(2008:153) also observes this tendency noting that “the army gave extraordinary power to

40 “Hidden Powers,” according to the WOLA report, are clandestine groups, growing out of groups that actively participated in military counterinsurgency strategies, who have ties to military intelligence, drug trafficking and organized crime, and had (at the time of the report) consolidated political power, holding influence with all major political parties in Guatemala “and therefore with the legislative and executive branches of government, regardless of which party is in power” (2003:33). 114

local cliques, who often used that power in violent ways.” Additionally, it is important to mention the disruption of community life that was a result of both the civil war in general and in communities where PACs were organized. The effects of the PACs can often be seen in the many cases of vengeance and direct violent action in response to disputes within communities, which, combined with the perception of an ineffective and corrupt police force41, has proved deadly in numerous instances42. The power garnered by many PAC members has led to public postings in municipal politics and the civil service. Alleged misuse of public funds, crimes such as lynching committed by ex-PAC members that due to lateral impunity43 remain unpunished, in addition to responsibility for politically-motivated murders are all sites of abuse of power garnered during the civil war (Peacock and Beltrán

2003:28).

Another phenomenon that persisted in post-war Guatemala, and continues today, is the criminalization of HRDs, with links to both the maintenance of military power and the rigid walls of the class structure in the country. The austere violence that occurred during the civil war was no longer the norm, replaced with different forms of violence. As Manz (2008) describes it,

Paramilitary groups and former members of the military are actively engaged in criminal activities, ranging from personal vendettas and settling scores to corruption, kidnappings, rapes, thefts, shootings, and drug trafficking. Thus, the formal ending of war and the transition from military dictatorship to elected civilian government did not in itself bring about much needed changes and practices. (P. 157)

41 All of the respondents in this research study indicated some level of distrust for the Guatemalan National Civil Police. 42 For a detailed examination of popular justice, in particular lynchings, in Guatemala, see Popular Injustice by Angelina Godoy, who notes that in terms of popular justice, “it is here – at the level of institutions uprooted, not of individual lives lost – that lynchings are born” speaking to the after-effects of civil war violence on communities (2006:34). 43 “Lateral impunity refers to relationships and patterns of interaction that result in impunity for those who perpetrate crimes at the local level” (Peacock and Beltrán 2003:28). 115

The relationships formed during the civil war, such as those between military and PAC members, as well as between military elites and the oligarchy, play one part in the continuation of violence in post-war Guatemala. The main rationalization for ongoing violence in the country is delinquency or common crime (Manz 2008:157). The reappearance of death squads in 2002 demonstrated this concept, as flyers distributed throughout the country decried “pseudo-organizations of human rights and their sympathizers” who were

“discredit[ing] the image of our country” (Martinez 2003:43). Within this rhetoric of delinquency and criminalization, which is in many ways a protraction of the rhetoric of the pre-Peace Accords regimes of Cerezo, Serrano, and de León Carpio, the continuation of violence occurs within a country that can now claim the Peace Accords as a facade for deflecting international criticism of ongoing human rights violations.

It is critical to note that one of the conditions facilitating this climate of ongoing violence is the lack of both funding and political will within the justice system to prosecute those responsible for violent deaths in the country. The UN Special Rapporteur on

Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions reported on the disturbingly low conviction rate for murder in Guatemala ten years after the Peace Accords were signed, pointing out that although there is not sufficient evidence to enumerate how many killings are on the part of state forces and how many are on the part of non-state-affiliated persons, both were seemingly rampant. The report also indicates a propensity for a mano dura44-style response to controlling crime, but warns of the implications for following this avenue as opposed to legal processes, as this type of control is reminiscent of military policies during the civil war

44 Mano dura, or Iron Fist, is an approach to controlling crime that Alston notes has two forms; one “prioritizing harsh punishment and heavily militarized sweeps over prevention, prosecution, and rehabilitation” and the other more extreme form which “prioritizes force over legal process.” (Alston in Grandin et al. 2011:473). This concept is instructive in examining contemporary political norms under the regime of President Otto Pérez Molina, who came to power with the use of the rhetoric of mano dura. 116

(Grandin et al. 2011:473-74). Indeed, as Martinez (2003:43) notes, “[w]hat former and current death squads have in common [...] is total freedom to act with impunity and intimidate, persecute, kidnap, torture, and kill social leaders when it is convenient for the military establishment and other ruling powers to appear distant from political violence.”

This is one way in which militarization has been incorporated into Guatemalan society in the post-war period, as well as providing a vehicle in which both agents and a socio-political climate are conducive to the repression of popular movements seeking structural change in the country. Indeed, the maintenance of power in the form of clandestine groups was decried by Alfonso Portillo throughout his presidency, deploring the fact that power in the country did not sit with the president but rather with the hidden powers previously discussed. These hidden powers coincided with a deteriorating human rights climate, with increasing levels of threats and repression against HRDs in the country (Peacock and Beltrán 2003:27-28).

Another way in which militarization has been incorporated into post-war Guatemala is through the cofradía, or the brotherhood, a clique of top military intelligence personnel credited with the systematization of counterinsurgency that defeated the guerrilla forces

(Peacock and Beltrán 2003: 14). Notably, these intelligence commands maintained a code of silence in regards to their actions during the civil war, which in turn ensured that none of these officers have faced charges stemming from crimes committed during the civil war

(Grandin et al. 2011:481). This elite group of military intelligence commanders are mainly associated with the regime of Lucas García, and is alleged to be headed by two retired generals who were part of the military hard-line faction. The members of the cofradía were part of the more extreme faction of the military that saw the conflict as polarized and did not see any neutral parties in the civil war, as opposed to the regimes in the later years of the

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conflict that subscribed to the paternalistic, yet less extreme, security-as-development model

(Peacock and Beltrán 2003:15). The two purported leaders of the cofradía, Manuel Antonio

Callejas y Callejas and Ortega Maldonado, two influential directors of intelligence during the civil war, have created a clandestine chain of command within the organization, including subordinate ‘operators’ chosen from the ranks of army intelligence, who select civilians to act as military commissioners, who in turn act as a grassroots intelligence gathering group.

The evolution of the cofradía has taken place in tandem with drug trafficking through the country, and although the armed forces of various countries have been involved in narcotrafficking, those suspected of involvement in Guatemala are also seen to be orchestrators of these large criminal groups, rather than the protectors of such groups

(Grandin et al. 2011:484). This command structure mirrors the counterinsurgent systems constructed during the civil war, in particular showing similarities to the PAC structure, which is of great relevance in examining contemporary military structures yet predictable in consideration of the fact that many of the members of the cofradía were the architects of these structures. Another key structure in the maintenance of military power is the

Presidential General Staff (Estado Mayor Principal, or EMP), the presidential intelligence office, responsible for significant numbers of human rights violations throughout the later years of the civil war45 (Schirmer 1998:159). The Peace Accords called for the dismantling of the EMP, but the regime of Alfonso Portillo (2000 - 2004) did not adhere to the recommendations of the accord. The budget of the EMP tripled from 1999 to 2002, and there was significant involvement of members and ex-members of the EMP in the assassination of

Bishop Gerardi in 1998, days before the release of a damning report indicting the military for

45 As previously noted, and important for future analysis, Otto Pérez Molina, former president of Guatemala, once headed the EMP. 118

their role in the majority of the sanguine crimes of the civil war. The EMP officers’ charges included allegedly tampering with evidence at the crime scene before the arrival of police investigators (Peacock and Beltrán 2003:22), and eventually three military officers, former intelligence chief Colonel Byron Lima Estrada, his son Captain Byron Miguel Lima Oliva and presidential bodyguard Sergeant Obdulio Villanueva were convicted in the murder of

Gerardi (Goldman 2007:333). The EMP was dismantled officially in October of 2003, but approximately 30 percent of its staff was moved to the newly created Secretariat for

Administrative Matters and Security (Secretaría de Asuntos Administrativos y de Securidad, or SAAS), designed to be a civilian entity with the aim of demilitarizing the president’s office. Further, before the EMP was shuttered, a government accord legalized the creation of the Department of Strategic Analysis within the Ministry of Defense (Departamento de

Análisis Estratégico del Ministerio de la Defensa, or DAE), which would continue the intelligence functions of the military within a new department (Peacock and Beltrán 2003:24-

25). The perpetuation of military control throughout the bureaucracy of a foundering

Guatemalan democratization was not limited to intelligence agencies:

In November 2006, elPeriódico had published an investigative piece reporting that thirty military officers, many of them veterans of the war and of Military intelligence, held command posts in the National Police, in clear violation of the Peace Accords. Some of the officers had served in the EMP. (Goldman 2007:350)

Such was the extent of corruption in the post-war political arena of Guatemala that the

International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (Comisión Internacional Contra la

Impunidad en Guatemala, or CICIG) was created through a United Nations accord in 2006 and was ratified by the Constitutional Court in Guatemala in May of 2007. CICIG’s mandate is to “support the Public Ministry, the National Civil Police and other state institutions in both the investigation of crimes committed by members of illegal security forces and

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clandestine security apparatuses, and generally in actions aimed at dismantling these groups”

(CICIG: Mandato). CICIG was created because of the previously mentioned “hidden powers” that remained as remnants of civil war structures and relationships, but did not have a mandate to investigate crimes committed during the civil war; as Hudson and Taylor (2010; emphasis added) note, it was meant to

[..] address the current infiltration of government institutions by criminal clandestine organizations and the operation of violent illegal security forces outside of the control of the Guatemalan state. Such organizations have their roots in military intelligence and counterinsurgency structures established during the conflict but which were never dismantled. These groups operate with almost total impunity given links to the very state actors tasked with prosecuting them. (P. 56)

The impunity with which these groups operate, and the relationships that facilitate this impunity, are fundamental to understanding the clandestine groups that operate in

Guatemala, and gives weight to the concerns and allegations of previous research regarding parallel powers within the Guatemalan state. CICIG’s original mandate was two years, but continues to operate in the country. CICIG is tasked partly with policy development with the goal of strengthening the Guatemalan justice system, and the 2013 CICIG report’s recommendations note a disturbing lack of political will to move forward with suggested legal and institutional reforms intended to increase transparency and reduce impunity within the justice system, in particular constitutional reforms related to the process for selecting judges to represent various courts, including the Supreme Court of Guatemala (CICIG

2013:35).

The perception that the Peace Accords ended a legacy of military statecrafting is unfounded; the relationships and power structures developed within the military over decades of civil war, given further license by the economic elite in the country, charted a path to enduring power structures resilient in the face of demands for structural change, both through

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the Peace Accords as well as ongoing contemporary popular movements seeking social and economic justice. The challenges of seeking justice in Guatemala increased after a brief period of respite in the wake of the Peace Accords; the situation for HRDs has become increasingly perilous in the two decades since the historic accords came into force.

A New Climate of Insecurity for Human Rights Defenders in a Depressed Economy

The United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (Misión de Verificación de las

Naciones Unidas en Guatemala, or MINUGUA), created to monitor compliance with the agreements laid out in the Peace Accords, stated unequivocally in a press release on the six- year anniversary of the accords that racism and poverty remained rampant, and that it was

“impossible to ignore the persistent high levels of impunity, and that the defenders of human rights and labor and social leaders have to continue operating in the current climate of threats and intimidation” (Manz 2008:153). This is demonstrative of a continuation of the targeting of those involved in advocacy and action for social justice in the country, the same individuals and groups who were threatened, assassinated, and disappeared for their work that was perceived by successive military regimes as the work of communist insurgents.

As noted above, post-war regimes both maintained military structures in contravention of the Peace Accords, and in the case of Alfonso Portillo, decried the hidden powers that had consolidated power in the political arena in the country. It is important to note that Portillo had as advisors three important military men from the cofradía, who maintained military influence within his administration, also reflecting the military orientation of the FRG, the party of Ríos Montt’s regime in 1982 (Peacock and Beltrán

2003), and demonstrating the lack of political will to dismantle the military influence that maintained a grip on Guatemalan politics after the Peace Accords. The Human Rights

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Defenders Protection Unit (Unidad de Protección a Defensoras y Defensores de Derechos

Humanos Guatemala, or UDEFEGUA) formed in 2000 at the commencement of Portillo’s presidency to monitor threats against HRDs and to support those who receive threats through education and advocacy. As demonstrated in UDEFEGUA’s 2013 report, attacks against

Guatemalan HRDs increased from 59 in the year 2000 to 657 in 2013, with brief declines in

2007, 2010 and 2012. The sharpest spike took place between 2012 and 2013, with an increase of 352 reported attacks (UDEFEGUA 2014:1). Members of UDEFEGUA receive threats for their work on the situation of HRDs in the country as well; in April and May of

2009, three female members of UDEFEGUA received more than 30 death threats via text message on their cellular phones; in February of 2010 one of their vehicles was sabotaged, and in March of 2010 another’s house was broken into and searched (AI 2012:18). There is compelling documentation of the threats endured by popular sectors working in various areas of human rights defense, up to and including assassination46; trade unionists, journalists, peasant and indigenous activists, and members of the justice system have all been targeted, among others. Those who are involved in various types of advocacy work continue to battle an economic system that maintains the power of the economic elite.

46 See http://www.udefegua.org, ITUC 2013 report “Countries at Risk: Violations of Trade Union Rights,” the website of the Western Mayan People’s Council (Consejo del Pueblo Maya de Occidente, or CPO), http://consejodepueblosdeoccidente.blogspot.ca/, the website of the Committee of Campesino Unity (Comité de Unidad Campesina, or CUC), http://www.cuc.org.gt/es/, the website of the UN High Commission on Human Rights in Guatemala, http://www.ohchr.org.gt/, the website of the Guatemalan Human Rights Ombudsman (Procurador de los Derechos Humanos, or PDH), http://www.pdh.org.gt/, the website of Communities of the Population in Resistance (Comunidades de Población en Resistencia, or CPR), http://cpr-urbana.blogspot.ca/, as well as the 2008 Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani, at http://www.geneva- academy.ch/RULAC/un_resolutions_and_reports.php?id_state=78, for state, international, and popular movement documentation of threats to HRDs. These are some examples; this list is not exhaustive. 122

The Peace Accords were signed to cease the internal armed conflict and to confront the underlying reasons for it; the Agreement on Social and Economic Aspects and the

Agrarian Situation (UN 1998:87, emphasis added) states unequivocally that

A firm and lasting peace must be consolidated on the basis of social and economic development directed towards the common good, meeting the needs of the whole population. This is necessary in order to overcome the poverty, extreme poverty, discrimination and social and political marginalization which have impeded and distorted the country’s social, economic, cultural and political development and have represented a source of conflict and instability [...].

More than two decades after the signing of the accords, Guatemala’s socioeconomic system remains exclusionary to the majority of its inhabitants, with the indigenous population under higher levels of duress than other sectors of the population. The Human Development Index is a single statistic developed by the UN Development Program that draws from three main statistical areas to give a numerical value between 0 and 1 indicating the level of human development in a nation: life expectancy, level of education and ability to attain a decent living (UN 2013b:1). The index in 2013 was 0.581 in Guatemala (PDH 2013:95). In the same year, chronic malnutrition in children under five years old was 44.8%; the health system generally suffered from a lack of human and economic resources as well as deficient equipment and infrastructure, a situation which was compounded in rural Guatemala due to further lack of resources in these areas (PDH 2013:96-97). The percent of the population of working age that was fully employed sat at 58.74 percent; urban unemployment was higher than rural unemployment. Visible underemployment was higher in rural areas, at a rate of

46.7 percent. In terms of the working population, 70.5 percent were over the age of 25 and not insured47, demonstrating that “the right to social security is completely violated.” In discussing the working population, the report notes that these statistics are compiled

47 The national body for health care is the Guatemalan Social Security Institution (Instituto Guatemalteco de Seguridad Social, or IGSS), introduced under Arévalo’s presidency (1945 – 1951). 123

regardless of whether or not the working population’s labour rights are respected or are well paid in their employment (PDH 2013:116-18). Poverty remains a major issue, with 53 percent of the population living in poverty, which is a serious contributor to chronic malnutrition in children; it is also a significantly larger issue within the campesino population, in which 80 percent are living in poverty or extreme poverty (Jiménez et al.

2012:51).

Unionization rates in the country sit at 1.6 percent, and there are significant obstacles to ensuring labour rights are respected; those who struggle for the fulfillment of labour legislation in Guatemala face threats, violence and death in many cases. Since 2007, 53 trade unionists and labour leaders have been killed as a result of their advocacy. Additionally, the area of the justice system that deals with labour legislation is significantly backlogged with a lack of human and financial resources to deal with the accumulation of labour cases. In the rare event that an inspector brings a case to court, a constitutional challenge on the part of

CACIF ensures that no sanctions can be enacted on the part of the inspectors (ITUC 2013:

21-22), underscoring the influence of the bourgeoisie within the justice system as well as demonstrating the dangers that labour leaders in the country face in the pursuit of some measure of economic justice.

Economic injustice in Guatemala, demonstrated briefly in the preceding examples, remains significantly linked to the unequal distribution of land; in 2002, 62 percent of farmed land was in use by 1.5 percent of large farming operations, while 94 percent of small family and farming plots used only 18 percent of farmed land (Helweg-Larsen 2011:618). Ten years later, land distribution remained at a similar level, with 92 percent of small producers farming on 22 percent of land and 2 percent of commercial operations occupying 57 percent

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(Jiménez et al. 2012:51). The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De

Schutter, noted that the main contributors to hunger and malnutrition in Guatemala were “the inequitable distribution of wealth, high concentration of land ownership, and inadequate minimum wage” adding that the number of those suffering from hunger was more than three million, which had doubled since 1991 (UN 2010:5). Popular movements have advocated since 2009 for the Rural Integral Development Law 40-84, developed by the Alliance for

Rural Integral Development (Alianza para el Desarollo Rural Integral, or ADRI). The law initiative is a broad-based set of ten policies dealing with key aspects of the issue of rural development, including areas regarding issues of economy, environment, labour and food sovereignty, as a response to the issues of poverty in particularly rural areas, offering solutions of a structural nature to improve access to food (ADRI 2011). Previous government initiatives observed by the author in 2010-2011, such as the Solidarity Bags (Bolsas

Solidarias) program initiated during the presidency of Álvaro Colom, offered food supplies periodically to vulnerable populations, including basic staples such as beans, corn flour, and rice. The administration of Otto Pérez Molina continued the program under a new moniker,

Secure Bags (Bolsas Seguras), which is one of various programs developed to deal with the problem of chronic malnutrition in children in the country, coordinated under the National

System of Food and Nutrition Security (Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Alimentaria y

Nutricional or SINASAN), with 14 public institutions involved in efforts to eradicate hunger in Guatemala (Jiménez et al. 2012:15). The PDH congratulated the current administration’s efforts in this respect in 2013, citing in particular the Zero Hunger Pact (Pacto Cero Hambre) as an important part of efforts tackling hunger and poverty (PDH 2013:377). Others, such as

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Jiménez et al. (2012: 62) have noted the issues within the above-cited policy regarding food security and poverty reduction, stating that

[s]tate social policy is organized through a series of unfocused programs and projects without precise stewardship. Their design is focalization rather than universalization. With social spending at 7.7 % of Guatemala’s GDP it is one of the countries of Latin America that dedicates the least financial resources to social policy. Policy on Food Security and nutrition has a clientelist and aid orientation and is directed towards perpetuating poverty – soothing it with mitigation – its real objective is to create and sustain a partisan base constructed from government “gifts.” None of the ongoing programs hitherto have promoted capacity. Their greatest virtue is to have driven the increased registration of children in primary school.

Helweg-Larsen (2011:622-25) describes the process by which the Guatemalan oligarchy consolidated power within government. The presidency of Álvaro Arzú, the first peacetime government, notably enjoyed the strong support of CACIF, which in turn ensured that the

National Advancement Party (Partido de Avanzada Nacional or PAN) opened the doors for participation of the country’s economic elite in decisions regarding the economic agenda during Arzú’s term, precipitating a reduction in compliance with Peace Accord reforms.

Political influence of the bourgeoisie was significant in the pre-peacetime Serrano regime as well, such that many called it the business democracy (democracia empresarial). With a firmly established authority within peacetime government, the threats of rural development and redistribution of wealth as laid out in the Peace Accords could be systematically mitigated.

The inattention to socioeconomic reforms has not gone unnoticed, as various groups, such as ADRI, have continued advocacy for social justice in various areas, including land reform, rights of survivors of the armed conflict, and women’s rights, among others; their work, which carries with it a history of oppression on the part of the state, became significantly more dangerous in the year this research was conducted. The PDH (2013:282)

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has noted the lack of commitment of the current regime to dealing with issues facing HRDs, stating that neither programs or legislation dealing with the threats against HRDs have advanced in 2013, resulting in a lack of state protection for those working within human rights-related issues. Police protection for HRDs on the part of the PNC is seen as ineffective, selective, and sometimes detrimental in regards to the involvement of police officers in attacks against defenders (UN 2009:20-21); assassinations of those working in human rights increased in 2013 by 72 percent (UDEFEGUA 2013:4). With no significant improvement in the socioeconomic situation of the country, the struggle for reform continues, with an increase in the climate of danger surrounding the work of HRDs.

Pérez Molina, Remilitarization, and the War on Trial

In an ominous forewarning of the election campaign for the 2012 presidency, Marco

Castillo, a member of Grupo Ceiba, a Guatemalan NGO that works to prevent youth drug use and violence, was interviewed by the Centre for International Policy Americas Program, an

American group providing analysis of Global US foreign policy. Castillo lamented that campaigning would likely have a tone of hopelessness, advocating for repression or the iron fist as the only approach to take, reminiscent of the militarization and repression of the 1980s in Guatemala. He warned that the issues that are some of the root causes of increased violence would not take centre stage in campaigning, issues such as “unemployment, state corruption, a collapsed education system, urban and rural communities mired in extreme poverty and hunger, and other shortages and hard realities” (Martínez García 2011). The

Wall Street Journal highlighted Molina’s probable presidential win on the eve of runoff elections against Manuel Baldizón, who purportedly had strong links to narcotrafficking in the country, and signalled the issue of his military career, noting that should Pérez Molina

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succeed, he would be the first military president since the Peace Accords. In addition, it was noted that his role in the civil war had come under scrutiny. He lost the 2007 election to

Álvaro Colom who called his military history a ‘liability’ referencing a Spanish National

Court investigation of human rights violations during the regime of Ríos Montt being widened to include Molina’s potential role in war crimes. Testimony from US Lawyer

Jennifer Harbury, as well as peasant testimony, various interviews, and declassified documents all point to Peréz Molina’s intellectual responsibility for war crimes of soldiers under his command (Casey 2011). He served during the armed conflict as the army’s intelligence director (The Economist 2011), and once elected, demonstrated his connections to both military contemporaries and the bourgeoisie. As the Guatemala Human Rights

Commission (2012) points out:

His Interior Minister, Defense Minister, National Security Advisor and Private Secretary (which deals with administrative issues of the executive branch) are all career military men. He has stacked other ministries – Economy, Energy and Mines, Labor, Health – with representatives of the business community. Despite his condemnation of corruption and impunity and words of respect for indigenous communities, his administration is poised to leap forward with deeply controversial development projects and mining licenses, working hand in hand with some of Guatemala’s most notorious human rights violators.

Peréz Molina’s ‘mano dura’ approach to dealing with violence and crime in Guatemala was a significant aspect of his presidential victory, as violent crime and the insecurity that accompanies it cast a specter of fear over the population who were seen as desperate for some semblance of order (New York Times 2011). In 2008, the homicide rate was 48 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest in the hemisphere at the time. Much of the violence was attributable to clandestine security apparatus with links to public officials, undermining work aimed at addressing impunity in the country (HRW 2010:223), which in turn reflects the stalwart nature of these relationships, previously described in this chapter as

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‘hidden powers.’ In 2011, the situation remained deplorable, with the same clandestine actors noted for their involvement in “targeted attacks on civil society actors and justice officials,” with almost complete impunity for crimes committed in the country (HRW 2011:243).

Extortion by armed gangs had increased in the country fivefold from 2000 to 2011; these groups began to diversify their sources of income as a result of an increased focus on illegal economies, in particular narcotrafficking (UN 2013c:81). It was within this context of spreading violence that Pérez Molina came to power, and began to reintegrate the military into civilian matters, under the auspices of fighting narcotrafficking and violence.

Reintegration of military forces into civilian affairs brings up issues beyond the principal issue of non-compliance with the Peace Accords, as “the involvement of the military in public security activities not only blurs the line between the structure and functions of both institutions but also detracts attention and resources from efforts to strengthen civilian and police institutions. It places the army in roles that can lead to abuses, given that the army is not trained in proper law enforcement procedures, nor has legal jurisdiction to enforce the law” (Alford-Jones et al. 2012:3-4). Pérez Molina’s promotion of the military both in action and rhetoric was a predominant attribute of state policy since his presidency began. In 2013, 2,500 additional military personnel were instituted in roles of public security, including three new military units consisting of 1,500 members in total

(HRW 2014:251). The budget for military equipment and security in 2013 was Q266.5 million – the highest in a decade (Plaza Pública 2012). Highway checkpoints consisting of joint military-police forces became commonplace, and although the stated aim of the military’s presence at the checkpoints was to protect the police, many eyewitness accounts have stated that no police were present at the checkpoints. There has been a continued

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proliferation of joint military-police patrols in policing activities, and new military bases have been established, many in areas where there are serious land conflicts. Additionally, nine retired military personnel have been appointed to government positions related to citizen security, with concerns that a military-style approach to citizen security could permeate state institutions. The enactment of states of siege, particularly in areas of land conflict, have been concerning in terms of the removal of citizen rights as well as the granting of special powers to police and military forces, including search and seizure without a warrant (Alford-Jones et al. 2012:5-6). Pérez Molina’s rhetoric of militarization that began with his inaugural address has led to a period of closing of spaces for HRDs to operate. The lack of political will in ensuring free, prior and informed consent48 of communities affected by megaprojects49 has resulted in the criminalization of groups and communities in opposition to projects deemed economically important by the state (UDEFEGUA 2014:1). State rhetoric in opposition to

HRDs, who are often members of poverty-stricken rural indigenous communities affected by megaprojects, is eerily reminiscent of the criminalization of HRDs during the civil war. It also echoes the contention of Fernández and Patel that states “in some instances defined

HRDs as those inimical to their own interests or excluded those who are seen as a threat to state practices” (2015:897).

The ‘iron fist’ approach of Pérez Molina is not based in informed public policy, although it is generally accepted that more police (and in the case of Guatemala, military) is a

48 The requirement of free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous and tribal communities affected by development projects is outlined in the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169, to which Guatemala is a signatory; it outlines the rights of communities to participate in the stewardship of the lands they occupy, including the right to be consulted before exploration or exploitation of mineral or sub-surface resources can occur (ILO 1989:5-6). 49 Extractive and hydroelectric projects are often referred to as megaprojects (megaproyectos) in Guatemala; Peace Bridgades International define megaprojects as “the plan and implementation, by large corporations, the exploitation of natural resources (mining, hydrological, petroleum, intensive cultivation) that cause impacts both on the environment as well as on the life and culture of the communities and peoples localized in the affected area” (Giovanna Teijido and Schramm 2010:9). 130

key element in reducing crime and violence. When high rates of violence such as those in

Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are compared with the low level of violence in

Nicaragua, the defining variable was not the number of police per capita; in the example of

Nicaragua, important factors in low levels of violent crime included the social fabric of the country in addition to the creation of a police force during the Sandinista revolution that focused on community policing and preventative measures (UN 2013c:113). The ‘iron fist’ approach in Guatemala also does not address the grievous economic situation noted previously in this chapter. Some of the root issues of violence and narcotrafficking are poverty and landlessness, and it is evident that the State is unwilling or unable to embark on a program of tax reform and wealth redistribution to address these underlying issues which contribute to insecurity. According to the 2013-2014 UN Human Development report

(2013b),

The capacity for State tax collection is another key element to assure the public provision of citizen security. The majority of Latin American countries collect less than they would hope to be possible, as its level of income and its taxes continue to be regressive. That is to say, proportionally, in the region, the poor pay more than the rich. In the plane of citizen security, this inequality translates in the presence of a wealthy class that pays proportionally less taxes than poorer sectors and that opt to invest resources in private security before strengthening the capacity of the State. In Central America, it is estimated that surveillance and private security expenses rose in 2006 to 1.5 percent of the GDP, a percentage that exceeds what a country such as Guatemala spends on the security of its citizens. (P. 113)

Without the capability to provide for its citizens at least the basic elements of a dignified life, the cycle of violence will more than likely continue.

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Chapter 7: Discussion and Conclusions

The purpose of this work is exploratory in nature. While limited in scope in regards to the number of those interviewed, the thesis cracks open a door onto how remilitarization impacts human rights defenders. The initial aim of inquiry into the effects of remilitarization on human rights defenders was to determine whether this research area warranted further academic study, given the history of military influence in Guatemala and the broader Central

American region, and the ongoing work of organizations focused on social justice. What follows is a brief exploration of the perspectives unearthed through the interviews conducted, although the extent of the research does not permit generalization, given the sample size in the group of interviewees and the sample coming from a single organization. Far from anecdotal, the findings suggest that given the similar experiences cited both in the literature review and the interviews of other organizations and HRDs within them, in addition to the historical context that is similar across much of the country and region more broadly, this topic of inquiry necessarily requires more and broader exploration.

This work unpacks the phenomenon of increasing militarization of Guatemala, as examined through a review of relevant literature. Doing so provided an opportunity to examine the militarization of civil society throughout the civil war, and then in contemporary post-Peace Accord Guatemala. Initially identifying the more recent militarization of civil society as remilitarization, an unexpected outcome of this area of study was the expression of maintenance (of militarization within the state) after the Peace Accords; a period where the demobilization of military assets from civilian life was a key agreement. This discovery translated into discussions with interviewees as to whether remilitarization in Guatemala was a resurgence of military structures or a reinvigoration of structures that never ceased, albeit in

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a more clandestine manner, even with the advent of the Peace Accords. As noted in the previous chapter, in addition to research conducted around parallel powers, it can be argued that there is room for additional research into the phenomenon of remilitarization of the state through already-existing structures. Further, the ever-evolving interrelationships between members of the economic elite and higher-ranking military officers have produced a

Guatemalan socioeconomic landscape worthy of greater scrutiny. The findings of the literature review amply demonstrate the soft borders of the dominant class and their wax and wane in power over the state, whether influence throughout this historical period lay with the military or the landowning oligarchy, and the current puzzle of power relations in the state is key to a sound comprehension of which players are ensuring the continued maintenance of an unequal system. Given the similar historical background of many countries in the region, and the often analogous socioeconomic contexts, the study of already-existing military networks

(parallel powers) and their influence in contemporary political affairs merits further study.

From the perspective of respondents, the division of land ownership in Guatemala was foundational to issues of inequality. Unequivocally, land was the largest and most complex theme emergent from the interviews conducted. This presents a significant correlation with the central tenets of the literature review; that the separation of the producers from the land through primitive accumulation is a necessary prerequisite for capitalist development. Demonstrated through a detailed analysis of landownership and class relations through the post-colonial history of Guatemala, and through the more contemporary theoretical lens of accumulation by dispossession, the continual capitalist development and increasing striation in class in Guatemala was and continues to be contingent on separation of

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the producers from arable land. Indeed, Guatemala’s 36-year civil war began in reaction to a conservative program of land reform in the country.

Land possession correlates to the maintenance of power; after the Ten Years of

Spring, this was achieved both through the continued exploitation of the proletariat and through collusion of economic elites and the military. The division of land has fomented significant conflict in the country since colonial times, and has been a consequential determinant in post-accord repression, as the struggle of human rights defenders to right the imbalance in landownership in the country has generated in the contemporary socioeconomic context a vast narrative of oppression as described by each of the respondents in this research. Post-accord capitalist expansion, seen significantly in the form of large-scale resource development in recent years, reinforces the maintenance of power in the oligarchy as the landowning class, and presents as a significant motive for the oppression of human rights defenders who are often struggling to maintain a small share of existing landownership or to correct erroneous land claims lingering from the civil war.

The theme of repression was significant in the volume of unique narratives around it, in addition to the variety of ways repression manifested itself – as recounted by the respondents, repression was witnessed in everything from corruption in and distrust of security forces; threats and physical attacks; terrorist and delinquent tropes utilized by the government and media as criminalization; monitoring (often similar to military counterinsurgent strategies used during the civil war); and structural issues within the judicial and social security systems within the country, among others. The criminalization of HRDs is an issue that has been well documented in various reports and by many organizations,

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including UDEFEGUA, previously cited in this work, who noted in their annual report following the year these interviews were conducted:

This situation of critical violence fundamentally responds to the lack of compliance on the part of the state and its obligation to protect life and the defence of the human rights of its citizens and, above all, the defense of the people who are dedicated to protecting and denouncing these abuses, rather a policy that responds to oligarchic interests, typical of a monocultural state, continues. (Samayoa et. al. 2014:33)

This citation directly addresses the threats faced by human rights defenders, in addition to connecting the threats to a state which is significantly influenced by the country’s oligarchy, something that was described by many of the respondents. These varied and multitudinal narratives of repression, in particular criminalization, are representative of a significant issue facing human rights defenders in Guatemala, and are fundamental to understanding the reactions of respondents to the potential threats they face for the work they do. Here, the concept of violent pluralism (Arias and Goldstein 2010) allows for a deeper analysis of the multiple state and non-state actors that facilitate the quotidian violence experienced by HRDs and the broader citizenry.

The perceived repercussions of militarization affected respondents significantly, both in regards to the repression faced as described above as well as concerning effects on their personal lives and in their work. All respondents indicated some level of fear for their own safety due to the work that they do; many made comparisons to known counterinsurgent techniques used during the war, described in some detail in the literature review, being resurrected in Guatemala and causing increased unease in their work and movements. This also caused numerous recollections of similar fears felt during the civil war, and memories of family experiences with the military during that time.

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Despite the anxieties that continue to pervade the work of the human rights defenders interviewed, all respondents demonstrated a significant desire to continue the work they do, and the primary reasoning for this was to leave a better society for those who would come after them. All spoke to the development and proposal of policy as a central part of the work they do, referencing Law 4084, the Rural Integral Development law, the tenets of which reflect in many ways the policies developed during the Ten Years of Spring. Another central theme that came out of the discussion around effects of militarization was what actions both the individuals and the organization as a group were taking to increase precautions against the perceived monitoring and threats against human rights defenders in the country. Some made references to the similar processes they undertook during the civil war in an attempt to shield themselves from the military’s counterinsurgent actions, demonstrating one of the significant effects of (re)militarization in the country. Protest was seen by many of the respondents as an important tool in the arsenal of non-governmental organizations to continue to pressure the government for change, but all respondents also referenced the massacre in Totonicapán and ensuing state of siege as a direct assault on the right to protest, and fundamentally the right to life, in Guatemala. This event represented a pivotal moment in that it demonstrated the new ways in which military action pervaded civilian affairs, adding to the fears on the part of the respondents. Contemporary (re)militarization in Guatemala, and the subsequent criminalization of those struggling for social justice and in particular for economic, social and cultural rights, could theoretically be perceived as the next wave of accumulation by dispossession in Guatemala, enforcing the continued unequal division of land and in turn maintaining a class system that has endured for centuries.

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This thesis has demonstrated a need for further inquiry into the concept of

(re)militarization as well as a multi-disciplinary foray into the effects of militarization on human rights defenders. Further expansion into such affects and effects is important, as the area is left lacking from a sociological perspective. The central tenet of land and its importance to the well-being of indigenous and campesino Guatemalans reinforces the theory of primitive accumulation and later accumulation by dispossession as fundamental to the oppression of peoples in Guatemala. (Re)militarization, a relatively under-researched concept in academia, could become an essential line of inquiry given contemporary events in

Guatemala (such as current president Jimmy Morales and ties to the Guatemalan military) and in the region ([re]militarization in Honduras leading up to and following what many perceive to be a fraudulent election). Despite the sample size not permitting an extrapolation of the results of the research, this work has demonstrated that human rights defenders are experiencing predominantly negative effects as a result of remilitarization.

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Appendix I – Acronyms

ADRI – Alianza para el Desarollo Rural Integral (Rural Integral Development Alliance)

AI – Amnesty International

BTS – Breaking the Silence Maritimes-Guatemala Solidarity Network

CACIF – Comité Coordinador de Asociaciones Agrícolas, Comerciales, Industriales y Financieras (Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial, and Financial Associations)

CCDA – Comité Campesino del Altiplano (Highland Small Farmer’s Committee)

CIA – Central Intelligence Agency

CICIG – Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala)

CNUS – Comité Nacional de Unidad Sindical (Committee of Trade Union Unity)

CUC – Comité de Unidad Campesina (Peasant Unity Committee)

DAE – Departamento de Análisis Estratégico del Ministerio de la Defensa (Department of Strategic Analysis within the Ministry of Defense)

EGP – Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres (Guerrilla Army of the Poor)

EMP – Estado Mayor Principal (Presidential General Staff)

FNO – Frente Nacional de Oposición (National Opposition Front)

FONTIERRA – Fondo de Tierras (Land Fund)

FTN – Franja Transversal del Norte (Northern Transversal Strip)

GDP – Gross Domestic Product

HRDs – Human rights defenders

HRW – Human Rights Watch

IGSS –Instituto Guatemalteco de Seguridad Social (Guatemalan Institute of Social Security)

ILO – International Labour Organization

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IMF – International Monetary Fund

ITUC – International Trade Union Confederation

MINUGUA – Misión de Verificación de las Naciones Unidas en Guatemala (United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala)

MLN – Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Movement)

OAS – Organization of American States

ODHAG – Oficina de Derechos Humanos del Arzobispado de Guatemala (Office of Human Rights of the Archbishop of Guatemala)

OPM – Otto Pérez Molina

PACs – Patrullas de Autodefensa Civiles (Civil Self-Defense Patrols)

PAN – Partido de Avanzada Nacional (National Advancement Party)

PAR – Participatory action research

PDH – Procurador de los Derechos Humanos (Human Rights Ombudsman)

PGT – Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (Guatemalan Worker’s Party)

PID – Partido Institucional Democrático (Institutional Democratic Party)

PR – Partido Revolucionario (Revolutionary Party)

SAAS – Secretaría de Asuntos Administrativos y de Securidad (Secretariat of Administrative Matters and Security)

SAPs – Structural Adjustment Policies

SINASAN – Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional (National System of Food and Nutrition Security)

SIPROCI – Sistema de Protección Ciudadana (System of Citizen Protection)

UDEFEGUA – Unidad de Protección a Defensoras y Defensores de Derechos Humanos Guatemala (Unit for the Protection of Guatemalan Human Rights Defenders)

UFC – United Fruit Company

UN – United Nations

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UNHCHR – United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

URNG – Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity)

WTO – World Trade Organization

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Appendix II – Consent Form

CONSENT FORM

ACADIA UNIVERSITY

CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH

Remilitarization in Guatemala and its Ramifications for Human Rights Defenders

You are asked to participate in a research study conducted by Rebecca MacDonald, from the Department of Sociology at Acadia University.

If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact the Research Ethics Board at Acadia University [Dr. Stephen Maitzen, email: [email protected] phone number: (902) 585 1407] or the advisor for this research study [Dr. James Brittain, email: [email protected] phone number (902) 585 1292].

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

This study will look at the effects of increased militarization on the physical and mental well- being of Guatemalan human rights defenders.

PROCEDURES

If you volunteer to participate in this study, we would ask you to do the following things:

Take two to three hours of your time to engage in one-on-one interviews with the researcher, which will consist of questions about your thoughts and feelings on remilitarization in the historical context of Guatemala.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO PARTICIPANTS AND/OR TO SOCIETY

Although this research will not benefit directly the participants in a particular way, the information gathered will help to broaden the understanding of the current situation in Guatemala, and hopefully contribute to international solidarity work and international knowledge of the issues affecting human rights defenders currently. Also, once the research is finished, a resume of the research done will be given to participants and broader members of the Highland Small Farmer’s Committee.

PAYMENT FOR PARTICIPATION

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Participants will receive payment in the sum of Q200.00 for their participation, which will be provided whether or not the interviewee completes the interview process.

CONFIDENTIALITY AND RISK

Every effort will be made to ensure confidentiality of any identifying information that is obtained in connection with this study.

The names of people and places will be changed, ensuring that, once the information is available to the public, there will be no identifying characteristics to link the research to the participants. There is no foreseeable increase in risk to participants beyond the risk of the work done by members of the organization; therefore no problems will be anticipated due to the research conducted. The information collected will be accessible by the investigator and her thesis advisor only, for the duration of the investigator’s degree, as well as one year afterward. Furthermore, any data collected will be ‘sanitized’ and forwarded to a secure online server to ensure that data and participant information is kept entirely confidential.

PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL

You can choose whether to be in this study or not. If you volunteer to be in this study, you may withdraw at any time without consequences of any kind. You may exercise the option of removing your data from the study within forty-five (45) days of participating. You may also refuse to answer any questions you don’t want to answer and still remain in the study. The investigator may withdraw you from this research if circumstances arise that warrant doing so.

RIGHTS OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS

You may withdraw your consent at any time and discontinue participation without penalty. You are not waiving any legal claims, rights or remedies because of your participation in this research study. This study has been reviewed and received ethics clearance through the Acadia University Research Ethics Board. If you have questions regarding your rights as a research participant, contact:

Research Ethics Board Telephone: (902) 585-1407 Acadia University E-mail: [email protected] 214 Horton Hall Fax: (902) 585-1096 Wolfville, NS B4P 2R6

SIGNATURE OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT/LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE

I have read the information provided for the study “Remilitarization and its Ramifications for Guatemalan Human Rights Defenders” as described herein. My questions have been answered to my satisfaction, and I agree to participate in this study. I have been given a copy of this form.

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______Name of Participant (please print)

______Name of Legal Representative (if applicable)

______Signature of Participant or Legal Representative Date

SIGNATURE OF WITNESS

______Name of Witness (please print)

______Signature of Witness Date

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Appendix III – Research Questions

What are your recollections of the civil war in Guatemala?

Was anyone you know directly affected?

Why did you begin working with the CCDA?

Do you feel that Guatemalan civil society had been adequately de-militarized after the Peace

Accords in 1996?

Are you aware of recent events in Barillas and Totonicapan?

Is this, in your opinion, remilitarization in Guatemala?

Has this affected you, physically or psychologically? Why or why not?

Do you feel that this has affected your desire and/or ability to continue the work that you do within the CCDA?

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Appendix IV – Electoral Timeline

President Years in Power Political Party Jorge Ubico Castañeda 1931 – 1944 Liberal Revolutionary Government 1944 – 1945 Military Junta Juan José Arévalo Bermejo 1945 – 1951 Revolutionary Action Party Revolutionary Action Party / Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán 1951 – 1954 Party of the Guatemalan Revolution Carlos Castillo Armas 1954 – 1957 Military Military / National Democratic Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes 1958 – 1963 Reconciliation Party Enrique Peralta Azurdia 1963 – 1966 Institutional Democratic Party* Julio César Méndez 1966 – 1970 Revolutionary Party Montenegro Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio 1970 – 1974 Institutional Democratic Party* Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García 1974 – 1978 Institutional Democratic Party* Fernando Romeo Lucas García 1978 – 1982 Institutional Democratic Party* José Efraín Ríos Montt 1982 – 1983 Military Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores 1983 – 1986 Military Guatemalan Christian Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo 1986 – 1991 Democracy Jorge Antonio Serrano Elías 1991 – 1993 Solidarity Action Movement Ramiro de León Carpio 1993 – 1996 Independent Álvaro Enrique Arzú Irigoyen 1996 – 2000 National Advancement Party Alfonso Antonio Portillo 2000 – 2004 Guatemalan Republican Front Cabrera Óscar Rafael Berger Perdomo 2004 – 2008 Grand National Alliance Álvaro Colom Caballeros 2008 – 2012 National Unity of Hope Otto Fernando Pérez Molina 2012 – 2015 Patriotic Party Jimmy Ernesto Morales Cabrera 2016 – current National Convergence Front

*The Institutional Democratic Party was the official political party of the Guatemalan military (Jonas 1991:61).

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