Elections
Demonstrate Desire for Participation, Sovereignty and End
to Impunity: Rios
Montt eliminated, Berger and Colom face off in a Second Round
By
Annie Bird
In the November 9, 2003 Guatemalan presidential
elections the biggest news is who did not win. The ruling
party, the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) presented Efrain
Rios Montt, a former military dictator who presided over the
massacre of tens of thousands of unarmed men, women
and children in a State-sponsored genocide between 1982 and
1983, as its presidential candidate.
After widespread repudiation during his campaign, having been
stoned, protested, and denied entry to towns during his campaign,
and even booed while he voted, Rios Montt was eliminated in
the first round. In loosing his candidacy, Rios Montt will
also lose the immunity he has enjoyed during his term as President
of Congress, possibly expediting efforts to bring him to trial
for the crimes against humanity committed during his rule.
Oscar Berger and Alvaro Colom will face off in a December
28 run off election, given no candidate captured more than
50% of the total vote. Berger is the candidate for the GANA
coalition and Alvaro Colom is candidate for the UNE party.
Colom had previously run in the 1999 elections for the ANN
coalition that included the URNG party composed of the former
revolutionary movement. The URNG had little presence in these
presidential elections, and their performance may have been
further affected due to internal party administrative problems
that left at least two mayoral candidates favored to win in
Rabinal and San Miguel Chicaj, Baja Verapaz off the ballots.
The millions of Guatemalans who voted did so in spite of tremendous
difficulties. Late opening and early closing of voting tables
caused unrest. Problems with the voter registry caused mass
confusion, with voters waiting in line for hours then being
told they had to go to another voting center or were not registered.
In Chajul, Quiche two elderly women were crushed to death
in line when voters pressed in to the late to open polling
center. Some voters had to walk for hours, bus
drivers refusing to transport voters in two municipalities
known to lack support for the ruling party.
According to the official numbers, virtually every adult Guatemalan
was registered to vote. This extraordinarily high number of
voters led to suspicion that the ruling FRG party had manipulated
the registries. Many suspect that false citizen identification
cards were issued, especially given a well-publicized robbery
of the blank cards from the national printer over a year ago
and the lack of control of the private companies that produce
the cards. Others suspect the reason for the high turn out
was corrupt use of State resources by the ruling party in
conditioning payment for having served as a paramilitary during
the war and participation in development programs on voting
for the FRG.
There were widespread reports that the supposedly indelible
ink that marked people who already voted was easily removed.
Several false citizen cards were detained, trucks with ballots
marked in favor of the FRG were detained and people intending
to vote in municipalities to which they were not residents
were stopped. In months leading up to November 9, there were
many reports of people carrying two citizen cards and that
others were voting in the place of dead people. Though corruption
did not bring Rios Montt to power as some had feared, it is
unclear to what degree municipal and congressional elections
may have been effected.
VIOLENCE OVERSHADOWS ELECTIONS – VOTERS WANT END TO
IMPUNITY
Many feared more violence, given that violence has been ever
present during the campaign and during the elections. Reported
elections-related violence has included killings, threats,
violent
attacks, rape, kidnapping, rioting and arson. Violence was
particularly targeted against journalists, in hopes of limiting
citizens’ access to information. However, opposition
party activists were the principal victims.
Elections day violence was relatively limited; more than 9,000
votes were burned in El Quetzal, San Marcos and 11 tables
of votes were burned in Cuyotenango, Suchitepequez by mobs
of former Civil Defense Patrolers (PAC) discontent at not
having received the promised payment for their services during
the war.
Even today, 17 years after the formal shift from military
to civilian rule and seven years after the signing of the
peace accords, Guatemala lives in the shadow of the massive
State sponsored violence that peaked between 1981 and 1983
with widespread massacres in the highland Mayan
villages. More than 200,000 Guatemalans lost their lives,
93% of those as a result of US and western-backed military
repression against a largely civilian population in what the
United Nations sponsored truth commission called “State-sponsored
genocide”, those responsible for the violence continue
to hold positions of power in local and national government.
Human rights organizations combat the clandestine networks
of occult power which continue to maintain impunity and control
resources through corruption and violence. The FRG government
has been considered the maximum expression of the marriage
of State and mafia and most reporting of these elections has
focused on the nefarious role of Rios Montt in the elections.
GANA, IMPUNITY & WAR CRIMES
However, little has been reported on the wide spread presence
of military actors implicated in human rights violations in
most of the political parties. This includes the GANA coalition
which is favored to win. GANA, a party led by the economic
elite, has been billed as the “clean” alternative
to Rios Montt. However, the GANA coalition includes the Partido
Patriota, a new party formed by former military officers,
and allies such Otto Perez Molina, who served as an intelligence
officer during the genocide. Harris Whitbeck, another PP leader,
was in charge of the social programs during the period of
genocide which formed the Beans of the “Beans and Bullets”
strategy. In this infamous social control strategy, peasants
were given the choice of forming paramilitary organizations
commanded by the military and receiving development aid,
or being massacred. This spawned the widespread support of
the FRG by these paramilitaries who still form the party’s
principal base.
Unfortunately, the electoral process appears to offer little
possibility of ending the impunity enjoyed by the ongoing
alliance between the military, the local economic elite and
their international business partners.
A DEEP DESIRE FOR DEMOCRACY AND SOVEREIGNTY – DENIED
Irrespective of how much violence and corruption have tainted
the elections, what was made clear today and in the months
leading up to the elections was the tremendous desire by the
majority of Guatemalans to participate in the governance of
their country, a basic right denied to
them throughout Guatemalan history, beginning with the Spanish
colonies, followed by the interests of competing colonial-imperial
powers and then by a century of constant direct and covert
military and economic interventions by the United States.
While civil society struggles to rebuild itself and foster
the ability of the people to exercise self-governance, international
financing institutions (World Bank, Inter American Development
Bank and the International Monetary Fund) have pushed through
programs and legislation that weaken Guatemalan citizens’
ability to exercise control over their own nation, its resources,
and basic social services such as education, healthcare and
energy. These institutions have promoted the privatization
of basic services to transnational corporations, the concession
of natural resources to multinationals with little or no benefit
to the population or control of environmental damages, free
trade policies that undermine small producers and destroy
local economies and the dedication of State resources to creation
of infrastructure needed by corporations rather than investing
in promoting local markets, social services, better conditions
for small producers,
and guaranteeing fundamental human rights.
“THE US EMBASSY CANDIDATE”
Both Berger and Colom are promoting agendas favorable to international
economic interests. Indeed, Berger is known as the US embassy
candidate. Widespread reports indicate that US embassy officials
and USAID funding has openly supported GANA through both political
support and financial resources for GANA-dominated non governmental
organizations which, among other things, have promised easier
access to US travel visas for those who participate in their
activities.
Guatemala’s ability for self-governance is further undermined
given that policies related to two of the largest sources
of income for the nation, remittances sent by undocumented
workers in the United States and profits from drug trafficking,
are entirely determined by the United States. Though very
different in nature, migration and drug trafficking have led
to increased militarization and human rights violations. Drug
profits appear to be controlled by many of the same mafia
that maintain influence in the government, and have led to
the increased violence, arms and death squads freely operating
in sections of the country. The ability of the United States
to act directly in military and policing operations to control
drug trafficking and migration has increased, especially in
the context of the “War on Terrorism”.
Just how “clean” the elections were is difficult
to determine, despite the presence of thousands of Guatemalan
elections monitors and many international observer delegations.
Over the next few days, much will be reported about the electoral
process.
However, there is little discussion of the global structural
conditions that undermine self-determination in a small, former
colonial nation like Guatemala and the efforts of thousands
of organized Guatemalans struggling to make a decent life
for their family and their community
and in the process build a better nation.
Over the next few weeks, Rights Action will be distributing
information related to the possibility of democracy and self
governance, impunity and social control, and information produced
by volunteers accompanying community based organizations,
RA partners, struggling to transform
their society and their planet.
===
For
updates on the Guatemalan Elections, check out the Electoral
Watch Updates by the Network in Solidarity with the People
of Guatemala (NISGUA).
Click
here for related
articles.
===
Annie Bird is co-director of Rights Action,
www.rightsaction.org,
a tax-charitable organization that raises fund for community
based development and human rights organizations in southern
Mexico and Central America.
Currently, Rights Action has a team of international volunteers
providing human rights accompaniment in the context of Guatemala’s
elections.
RIGHTS ACTION, info@rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org,
416-654-2074:
* to invite us to give public presentations on this and other
related issues;
* to come to Guatemala on fact-finding delegations to learn
more about these issues;
* to work as a human rights accompanier in Central America;
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