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Issue-Specific Analysis
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Guatemala's 'Transitionless' Transition towards Democracy – Summer 2002

The three day takeover of Guatemala's Petén province last June by supposedly defunct wartime paramilitary units, followed by President Portillo's announcement that the government will attempt to meet their demands, should make US policymakers sit up and take notice. This is what happens when "transitions towards democracy" remain essentially 'transitionless'. After blocking roads leading to the Mayan ruins of Tikal, an immensely popular tourist site, the former Civil Defense Patrols (exPACs) demanded compensation for "service to their country"— a reference to their brief but deadly role in the military state's counterinsurgency war. President Portillo's assertion that he will seek compensation for exPACs and that such payments would be consistent with the goals stipulated in the Peace Accords for resarcimiento (restitution for the victims of human rights violations perpetrated by state agents) is so outrageous that it has even shocked Guatemalans—a population long accustomed to the surreal when it comes to national politics. Who are these former paramilitaries? Why did the president Portillo negotiate with them rather than have them arrested? Who should really be compensated? And finally, why should we, as Americans, care?

In 1981, General Benidicto Lucas García, the brother of then military dictator Romeo Lucas Garcia, initiated the organization of the first Civilian Defense Patrols (Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil) or PAC. The Guatemalan state was entering its third decade of armed conflict with Marxist insurgents and the violent suppression of civilian dissidents in the capital, when signs that rural Mayan populations were primed for a massive popular insurrection shifted the focal point of the struggle. The state rushed to build military outposts across the highlands and began the forced recruitment of indigenous men into army controlled paramilitary units—the PACs. As state violence against rural populations surged, a 1982 coup d'état ousted Lucas García turning power over to the General Efraín Rios Montt. Nevertheless, the orchestration of devastating violence across the northern and western indigenous highlands continued, and the replacement of civilian leaders with militarized authorities was fully realized under the new regime. The Peace Accords were not signed until December of 1996. However, most analysts agree that by 1983, massive state violence against civilian populations had squashed the insurrection, and that the PACs had played a significant role in the campaign.

In a mind numbing example of doublespeak, the now retired General Benedicto Lucas García continues to claim that the PACs were voluntary citizen groups that he helped organize in order to protect rural communities from violent insurgents groups. The reality is that the vast majority of patrollers were forcibly recruited and that these paramilitary units were not used to protect civilians from guerillas, but rather to extend state militarization and a divisive culture of terror into the farthest reaches of Mayan communities. The Guatemalan Truth Commission Report (Guatemala: Memory of Silence) reported that 18% of all documented human rights violations committed during the course of the 36 year internal conflict were perpetrated by PAC—and that 95% of those crimes were committed in less than a three year period (1981-1983). Almost half of their crimes were extra judicial executions, followed by torture, forced disappearance and rape. The PAC were officially dissolved as part of the December 1996 Peace Accords, but the networks created by militarization, the love of authoritarianism, the quest for local power and continued impunity, have not faded from the rural landscape. That would require a real political transition, something that Guatemala has yet to achieve.

President Portillo is a young politician who hails from the eastern region of the country where rural ladinos (descendents of Spaniards and Mayans) have cultivated a hyper masculine culture reminiscent of the stereotypical Texan: they are tough, and macho, cowboy-loving, no-nonsense, hardworking, roll up your shirt sleeves and get to work type guys. Portillo, a lawyer trained in Mexico, got his big political break when retired General Rios Montt was prevented from running for president because the Guatemalan constitution prohibits individuals who have attained power through a coup d'état from participating as candidates in presidential elections. Rios Montt's party, the Far-Right, Frente Republicano de Guatemala (FRG) selected a stand-in. Portillo's youth, understated education, macho appeal and vaguely centrist populist discourse plays extremely well with young men and especially ladino farmers. Rios Montt's hard right, charismatic evangelical populism, and legacy as the General who won the war, captivates thousands of rural indigenous men who still call him "mi general." Portillo and Rios Montt are much less popular with women—but up until this point not enough women in Guatemala have galvanized their political voices to be seen as a significant political threat. With Rios Montt behind him, Portillo won the 1999 election. Thus, it is not so difficult to imagine why Portillo did not have the paramilitaries that took over the Péten province arrested. His promise to seek funding to meet their demands for compensation—after Right Wing Guatemalans made it clear that they would not tolerate a tax for this purpose—was based on a simple political assessment: the militarization of civil society worked, and the FRG's political future depends on that legacy.

I am an anthropologist from the US who has lived and worked in the town of Rabinal, which is located in the northern highland province of Baja Verapaz. For two years I worked with the Association for the Integral Development of the Victims of Violence in the Vera Paz Provinces, Maya-Achí (ADIVIMA). As part of my work with ADIVIMA, I coordinated interviews with hundreds of survivors of state violence in 17 of the most devastated villages in the municipality. We then compiled this data into a report that summarized the kind of damages that were sustained at the hands of state agents (soldiers and local PAC) and what kind of reparation the survivors believed would best serve the interests of communities still struggling to reconstruct their social, economic, political and cultural lives almost two decades after the massacres (but not militarization) had ceased. The report emphasized that the group that has suffered the most enduring socioeconomic hardship due to state violence is indisputably Achí widows. Improving the lives of these survivors will not only respond to any reasonable person's interpretation of justice (reparation according to severity of damage) but as development agencies have long understood, resources allocated to women tend to benefit the entire families and strengthen local communities. Thus ADIVIMA argues that compensation should begin with this group. For the children of these widows, who are now young adults, it is too late to reverse the effects of years of deprivation on their life chances. But ADIVIMA asserts that it is not too late to improve their lives through locally controlled development projects and to compensate their lost opportunities by providing student grants for the next generation, their own young children.

The remaining compensation funds should be directed towards a variety of collective projects that address socioeconomic and cultural issues beginning with the residents of villages that suffered the most devastation during the violence (massacres, prolonged displacement) while giving priority to the most ignored groups of survivors: those who suffered the complete destruction of their villages and are thus scattered around the region and country.

It is important to recognize that the vast majority of Civil Patrollers were forcibly recruited and that many were financially and psychologically damaged by their coerced participation in this brutal counterinsurgency strategy. Not all PAC members enjoyed their work. But with ADIVIMA's plan for compensation, exPAC members would not be summarily excluded. If an exPAC member is also the son of a widow or resident of one of the communities that suffered the worst damage due to state violence, he could then become an indirect or even direct beneficiary of compensation. Indeed, ADIVIMA would like to have most exPAC members join them in reconstruction of productive relationships amongst Achí and between the Achí and their ladino neighbors. If however, an exPAC member does not fall into one of these categories, or may have even benefited from involvement in the paramilitaries (a fact of life very evident in Rabinal) then he would not be entitled to any state-guided reparation for human rights violations. And that is as it should be.

US citizens and US policymakers should care what happens to Guatemalan civil society. It is not enough to cite the 1954 CIA led coup d'état that crushed a budding democracy and initiated over three decades of cruel military dictatorships in Guatemala, or even point to the technical and financial support that we as a nation provided to regimes that were busy terrorizing political dissidents, annihilating Mayan populations and militarizing every aspect of civilian life. U.S. Cold War strategies had a horrific impact on families, communities, and indeed, entire nations.

We must also care because of the ever increasing links between populations, goods and services due to globalization, which makes what happens to Guatemalan civil society an issue that will impact the lives of US citizens. Our interests will be best served if we are able to develop productive relationships with the Guatemalan government concerning trade, labor, environmental and health issues. Who will we be dealing with? There are relatively few Guatemalans alive today that remember the country's brief period of democracy (1944-1954). Most Guatemalans have lived under the control of military dictatorships, or, since 1986, civilian governments that have been unable or unwilling to institute the fundamental changes necessary to bring about a real political transition. Supporting Guatemala's transition from an authoritarian and militarized society to a democratic one means supporting the non-militarized networks of citizens working on the establishment of the rule of law, community reconstruction, public education, labor rights and environmental protection. They are the communities linked to human and indigenous rights organizations, and they are most willing to talk to US policy makers about what kind of help they need to bring about a real transition in Guatemalan society.

Thus, along with many other observers of Guatemalan society, I would like to express my dismay with Portillo's decision to provide compensation to the PAC. Using state-controlled funds to compensate exPAC while the individuals and communities most damaged by military state violence continue to be ignored may indeed assure the FRG success at the polls and is undoubtedly the primary motivation for wreaking havoc on the legitimate goals of state-led war reparations. If this plan is carried out, it will do irreparable damage to the painstakingly slow process of strengthening the non-militarized social networks that comprise civil society. I hope Guatemalans will reject this blatant ploy by the FRG to energize the network of militarized agents throughout the country in order to retain political power. Supporting this network will come at the expense of developing a strong civil society based on a respect for the rule of law and fundamental human rights.


Kathleen Dill
Department of Anthropology
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA 95616
Tel: (530) 752-0745
Fax: (530) 752-0885
kedill@ucdavis.edu

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