Development & Aid, Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

GUATEMALA: Gov’t Backs Down in Face of Social Protest

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Jun 9 2004 (IPS) - Guatemalan activists interviewed by IPS said a nationwide strike in which trade unions and other civil society groups made a show of strength and unity Tuesday forced President Oscar Berger to tone down his threats to use force and take a more conciliatory stance.

”The social protest was necessary and successful, because the government seems to have understood that it must make a change in direction,” activist Gustavo Meoño, director of the Rigoberta Menchú Foundation, said by telephone from the Guatemalan capital.

Six months after Berger took office in the impoverished Central American nation, his conservative government is facing serious difficulties and huge challenges.

Eighty percent of Guatemala’s 12 million people are poor, and 60 percent of the productive land is in the hands of just 20 percent of rural property owners.

In the heat of the peaceful protest and strike, which paralysed a large part of the country, the government left aside its threat of using force, and agreed to dialogue with the roughly 100 civil society groups, including peasant farmer organisations, trade unions, and associations of small shopkeepers and street vendors, that called the strike.

After hours of negotiations, in which representatives of the government and the judiciary took part, an agreement was reached late Tuesday to call off the work stoppage, which was originally to last 48 hours, and set a 90-day deadline for compliance with the commitments assumed by the authorities.


The groups were demanding a halt to the violent evictions of peasant farmers who occupy private land. There have been 24 evictions so far this year.

They also want the government to suspend its plans to raise taxes, and called for a review of the free trade deal signed with the United States in late May.

Félix Méndez with the Committee of Campesina (peasant farmer) Unity (CUC), said the protest movement ”twisted the arm” of the Berger administration.

”We won, because we got them to agree to talks and to promise to change their policies,” he remarked to IPS.

”We haven’t seen anything good in six months of government, which is why it was good to give (the government) a jolt,” said Méndez.

Rodolfo Pocop, a leader of the Maya Campesino Common Front, said the agreement with authorities was a result of the determination of the poorest strata of society to defy the threat of government repression.

”More than almost ever before, Guatemala’s social movement, which was hit so hard by the (1960-1996) civil war, showed that it is united, which is important, but does not ensure that it will continue that way in the future,” said Meoño.

The president of the Supreme Court, José Quesada, promised to oversee the evictions of peasant farmers who have occupied rural land, and to punish abuses committed against them. For its part, the government said it would name a prosecutor to deal with land questions.

Before the strike, Berger threatened to use ”all of the state’s force” to prevent ”the interests of a group of activists” from bringing the country to a halt.

But in the end, he promised not to push through a stringent fiscal austerity package, which would include an increase in the Value Added Tax, from 12 to 15 percent, and other tax hikes.

With respect to the free trade accord signed by five Central American countries with the U.S. government, which is still pending ratification by the respective legislatures, the president pledged to make public everything that is negotiated, and said that if necessary, the agreement will be submitted to a referendum.

”We are going to wait the three months that we agreed on, without holding protests, but if the government fails to make good on its promises, we will protest once again,” said Méndez.

The United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA), in charge of overseeing compliance with the peace accord that put an end to 36 years of armed conflict in late 1996, urged the government and social movements last Friday to avoid violence.

MINUGUA is worried about the risk of a social outbreak in this country, where violent crime is on the rise.

The U.N. mission has condemned the brutality with which the police have carried out court orders to evict peasant farmers who have staged land occupations demanding improved living conditions.

During the evictions, houses have been burnt and campesinos beaten, and excessive force has been used, complained Méndez. ”We are seeing a return to the worst times of the repression,” he added.

According to Meoño, the head of the Rigoberta Menchú Foundation, which takes its name from the indigenous Guatemalan Nobel Peace laureate, the excessive concentration of land is an age-old problem, and if negotiated solutions are not found, there is a real danger of a resurgence of violence.

The dismantling of the country’s land reform programme in 1954, after a coup d’etat backed by U.S. troops, became one of the main causes of the civil war.

The struggle for a plot of land and the absence of democracy under authoritarian military governments fuelled the conflict in which around 200,000 people – mainly civilians – were killed, according to the report by the Historical Clarification Commission established by the peace accord.

Most of the victims were indigenous people, who comprise a majority of the population of Guatemala.

According to the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), poverty in the countryside, where most of the country’s indigenous people live, is perhaps more severe than when the peace agreement was signed.

The UNDP reports that the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty in Guatemala climbed from 16 to 21 percent between 2000 and 2002. But the greatest increase was seen in rural areas, where the proportion rose from 24 to 31 percent.

During the war, Guatemala’s social organisations were the target of harsh repression, and ended up atomised and weakened. But since the peace accord was signed, they have begun to make a comeback.

”This week’s protest showed that the hope for unity among the social movement remains alive, and that is important for the strengthening of democracy,” said Meoño.

 
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