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CAFTA Recent News
Guatemalan Congress Approves Payment for Former Civil Defense Patrollers
Central American News #296
8/21/2004
The Guatemalan Congress has approved payment of some $420,000,000 to former members of the Self-Defense Patrollers (PACs), who acted in collaboration with the Guatemalan military during that country’s 36-year-long internal armed conflict. The PAC members were not included in the terms of the peace accords, signed in December 1996, which officially ended the civil war.
The members of the PACs, who as a group have been accused of war crimes and human rights violations, have been lobbying since the end of the war for compensation for what they see was their service to the Guatemalan State, and threatened recently to paralyze the country if the payments were not approved. Each of about 700,000 former PAC members will receive about $600, in three payments, to culminate in 2006. The PACs say that 1.3 million people are entitled to payment.
Legislative representatives for the left New Nation Alliance (ANN), the left Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG), the National Wellbeing party (Bien) and union members opposed the payments. Representatives of the ruling party, GANA (Great National Alliance), opposed how the payment will be made, saying, “... it is an attack against the national economy.” They proposed minimum payments to be made between this year and 2008. “This would allow the government to manage the figures within the budget, and would not affect the macroeconomic situation with the outlay of such a large amount of money,” said Víctor Ramírez, a GANA deputy.
The Congress’ decision to go forward with the payment goes against a
previous Constitutional Court ruling that the payments to the former paramilitary
members are a violation of the country’s constitution. The PACs were
set up in 1982, under the rule of former military dictator Gen. Efraín
Ríos Montt, and are accused of some of the worst atrocities committed
during the civil war. They were allegedly made up of volunteers, but many
say they were coerced into joining. “We had no choice, either we patrolled
for up to 24 hours at a time or the army killed us,” said one former
PAC member, Erasmo Ramírez.. (BBC from Reuters, London, 8/20/04;
Prensa Libre, Guatemala City, 8/20/04)
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