Lynchings and the democratization of terror in postwar Guatemala: Implications for human rights

Human Rights Quarterly

Volumn 24, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 640-660

  Godoy, Angelina Snodgrass ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CIVIL WAR; DEMOCRATIZATION; HUMAN RIGHTS; POLITICAL VIOLENCE; POST-WAR;

GUATEMALA;

EID: 0036688389     PISSN: 02750392     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/hrq.2002.0035     Document Type: Article

References (59)

1. For purposes of this paper, lynchings are defined as incidents of physical violence committed by large numbers of private citizens against one or more individuals accused of having committed a "criminal" offense, whether or not this violence resulted in the death of the victim(s). Therefore, confrontations between armed groups, military actions, disputes over land which may result in murders, individual settling-of-accounts or vengeance killings, and other types of violence are not considered "lynchings." The numbers of lynchings cited here reflect the number of incidents, not the number of victims; in fact, many lynchings involve multiple victims.
2. From May to August 1999, and in October and November 2000, the author conducted ethnographic research on lynchings in Guatemala. The author interviewed over 150 people from all sectors of Guatemalan society, from a former president and several sitting congresspeople to teachers, housewives, campesinos, landowners, and businessmen. Many interviews were extremely illuminating - but none so much as those interviews the author conducted on a trip to the highlands province of El Quiché, where the greatest number of lynchings have occurred. Here, assisted by local human rights organization CERJ, the author was able to interview dozens of residents of communities where lynchings had occurred, many of them eyewitnesses to these incidents.
3. Furthermore, it should be noted that lynchings are not limited to Guatemala. Similar acts of collective vigilantism have been documented in Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, and many other countries. See, e.g., INFORME ANUAL, Programa Venezolano de Educacion y Accion en Derechos Humanos (PROVEA) (2001), available at 〈http://www.derechos. org.ve/〉 (on lynchings in Venezuela); Carlos M. Vilas, (In)justicia por Mano Propia: Linchamientos en el Mexico Contemporaneo, 63 REVISTA MEXICANA DE SOCIOLOGIA, at 131-60 (on lynchings in Mexico); Jose Martins de Souza, Lynchings - Life by a Thread: Street Justice in Brazil, 1979-1988, in VIGILANTISM AND THE STATE IN MODERN LATIN AMERICA: ESSAYS ON EXTRALEGAL VIOLENCE (Martha K. Huggins ed., 1991) (on lynchings in Brazil); Eduardo Castillo Claudett, La Justicia en Tiempos de la Ira: Linchamientos Populares Urbanos en America Latina, ECUADOR DEBATE No. 51, available at 〈http://www.lahora.com.ec/paginas/ debate/paginas/debate12.htm〉 (on lynchings in Peru, Ecuador, and Guatemala).
4. Furthermore, it should be noted that lynchings are not limited to Guatemala. Similar acts of collective vigilantism have been documented in Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, and many other countries. See, e.g., INFORME ANUAL, Programa Venezolano de Educacion y Accion en Derechos Humanos (PROVEA) (2001), available at 〈http://www.derechos. org.ve/〉 (on lynchings in Venezuela); Carlos M. Vilas, (In)justicia por Mano Propia: Linchamientos en el Mexico Contemporaneo, 63 REVISTA MEXICANA DE SOCIOLOGIA, at 131-60 (on lynchings in Mexico); Jose Martins de Souza, Lynchings - Life by a Thread: Street Justice in Brazil, 1979-1988, in VIGILANTISM AND THE STATE IN MODERN LATIN AMERICA: ESSAYS ON EXTRALEGAL VIOLENCE (Martha K. Huggins ed., 1991) (on lynchings in Brazil); Eduardo Castillo Claudett, La Justicia en Tiempos de la Ira: Linchamientos Populares Urbanos en America Latina, ECUADOR DEBATE No. 51, available at 〈http://www.lahora.com.ec/paginas/ debate/paginas/debate12.htm〉 (on lynchings in Peru, Ecuador, and Guatemala).
5. Furthermore, it should be noted that lynchings are not limited to Guatemala. Similar acts of collective vigilantism have been documented in Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, and many other countries. See, e.g., INFORME ANUAL, Programa Venezolano de Educacion y Accion en Derechos Humanos (PROVEA) (2001), available at 〈http://www.derechos. org.ve/〉 (on lynchings in Venezuela); Carlos M. Vilas, (In)justicia por Mano Propia: Linchamientos en el Mexico Contemporaneo, 63 REVISTA MEXICANA DE SOCIOLOGIA, at 131-60 (on lynchings in Mexico); Jose Martins de Souza, Lynchings - Life by a Thread: Street Justice in Brazil, 1979-1988, in VIGILANTISM AND THE STATE IN MODERN LATIN AMERICA: ESSAYS ON EXTRALEGAL VIOLENCE (Martha K. Huggins ed., 1991) (on lynchings in Brazil); Eduardo Castillo Claudett, La Justicia en Tiempos de la Ira: Linchamientos Populares Urbanos en America Latina, ECUADOR DEBATE No. 51, available at 〈http://www.lahora.com.ec/paginas/ debate/paginas/debate12.htm〉 (on lynchings in Peru, Ecuador, and Guatemala).
6. Furthermore, it should be noted that lynchings are not limited to Guatemala. Similar acts of collective vigilantism have been documented in Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, and many other countries. See, e.g., INFORME ANUAL, Programa Venezolano de Educacion y Accion en Derechos Humanos (PROVEA) (2001), available at 〈http://www.derechos. org.ve/〉 (on lynchings in Venezuela); Carlos M. Vilas, (In)justicia por Mano Propia: Linchamientos en el Mexico Contemporaneo, 63 REVISTA MEXICANA DE SOCIOLOGIA, at 131-60 (on lynchings in Mexico); Jose Martins de Souza, Lynchings - Life by a Thread: Street Justice in Brazil, 1979-1988, in VIGILANTISM AND THE STATE IN MODERN LATIN AMERICA: ESSAYS ON EXTRALEGAL VIOLENCE (Martha K. Huggins ed., 1991) (on lynchings in Brazil); Eduardo Castillo Claudett, La Justicia en Tiempos de la Ira: Linchamientos Populares Urbanos en America Latina, ECUADOR DEBATE No. 51, available at 〈http://www.lahora.com.ec/paginas/ debate/paginas/debate12.htm〉 (on lynchings in Peru, Ecuador, and Guatemala).
7. For a discussion of this finding, see the Commission's 1999 report Guatemala: Memoria del Silencio [hereinafter CEH REPORT]. COMISIÓN PARA EL ESCLARECIMIENTO HISTÓRICO (CEH), GUATEMALA: MEMORIA DEL SILENCIO (1999). For this portion of the report, see 〈http:// hrdata.aaas.org/ceh/report/spanish/conc2.html.〉
8. Readers should bear in mind that an alarming number of political crimes still do happen in Guatemala; there has been a notable decrease since the darkest days of the armed conflict, but the massive violence of the war makes even dangerously high levels of contemporary violence appear moderate. Although the human rights climate improved measurably after the war's end, political crimes experienced a marked resurgence after mid-2000, prompting Amnesty International to proclaim the country had experienced a "human rights meltdown" in 2002. Nonetheless, a significant change has happened in Guatemala since the 1980s, and in sheer numbers, most of the killing today does not respond to political concerns nor is it carried out by state actors. AMNESTY INT'L, GUATEMALA'S LEGAL LEGACY : PAST IMPUNITY AND RENEWED HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS 62 (2002).
9. MAYRA BUVINIC ET AL., INTER-AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK, VIOLENCE IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN: A FRAMEWORK FOR ACTION 2 (1999).
10. Id. at 3.
11. For a discussion of the shortcomings of government crime statistics, see CIEN (Centro de Investigaciones Económicas Nacionales), Investigando la Violencia en Guatemala: Algunas Consideraciones Conceptuales y Metodológicas (unpublished manuscript, on file with author).
12. Id. at 2.
13. Although estimates vary, the Inter-American Development Bank calculates Latin America's overall homicide rate to be 28.4 per 100,000 population, based on 1994 figures. See BUVINIC ET AL., supra note 6, at 2. Most estimates hover around the 30 per 100,000 mark.
14. See MINUGUA, EL PRIMERO-DECIMO INFORMES SOBRE DERECHOS HUMANOS DE LA MISIÓN DE VERIFICACIÓN DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS EN GUATEMALA (1994-2000), available at 〈http:// www.minugua.guate.net/derhum/〉.
15. CEH REPORT, supra note 4. Such clandestine forms of "crime control," of course, have a long history in Guatemala; death squads played key roles at many points during the armed conflict. During the war, the possession of certain political sympathies was seen by some as constituting a criminal threat to the community, and the language which groups like La Mano Blanca and others used when talking about their targets ("delincuentes," "grupos actuando fuera de la ley") is strikingly similar to what is heard today in reference to common criminals. Today, there is evidence of such groups' reemergence in a number of areas, likely with the participation of people with links to the military or especially to local mayors (themselves often with strong military connections). At least some of these groups advertise their existence and distribute lists of victims, past and future, to corroborate their claims. One group claims to roam the national territory, "taking care of" one state at a time.
16. Víctor Ferrigno, El Estado Democrático de Derecho Frente al Conflicto Social, paper presented at the conference Linchamientos: Diagnóstico y Búsqueda de Soluciones, Panajachel, Guatemala, May 1998.
17. See HARVEST OF VIOLENCE: THE MAYA INDIANS AND THE GUATEMALAN CRISIS (Robert M. Carmack ed., 1988); OFICINA DE DERECHOS HUMANOS DEL ARZOBISPADO DE GUATEMALA (Human Rights Office of the Archbishop in Guatemala), GUATEMALA: NUNCA MÁS: INFORME DEL PROYECTO INTERDIOCESANO RECUPERACIÓN DE LA MEMORIA HISTÓRICA, vol. I-V (1998) [hereinafter REMHI REPORT]; CEH REPORT, supra note 4, available at 〈http://hrdata.aaas.org/ceh/index.html〉; RICARDO FALLA, MASACRES DE LA SELVA : IXCÁN, GUATEMALA, 1975-1982 GUATEMALA (1992); RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ, ME LLAMO RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ Y ASÍ ME NACIÓ LA CONCIENCIA (Elisabeth Burgos ed., 1983); LINDA GREEN, FEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE: MAYAN WIDOWS IN RURAL GUATEMALA (1999).
18. See HARVEST OF VIOLENCE: THE MAYA INDIANS AND THE GUATEMALAN CRISIS (Robert M. Carmack ed., 1988); OFICINA DE DERECHOS HUMANOS DEL ARZOBISPADO DE GUATEMALA (Human Rights Office of the Archbishop in Guatemala), GUATEMALA: NUNCA MÁS: INFORME DEL PROYECTO INTERDIOCESANO RECUPERACIÓN DE LA MEMORIA HISTÓRICA, vol. I-V (1998) [hereinafter REMHI REPORT]; CEH REPORT, supra note 4, available at 〈http://hrdata.aaas.org/ceh/index.html〉; RICARDO FALLA, MASACRES DE LA SELVA : IXCÁN, GUATEMALA, 1975-1982 GUATEMALA (1992); RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ, ME LLAMO RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ Y ASÍ ME NACIÓ LA CONCIENCIA (Elisabeth Burgos ed., 1983); LINDA GREEN, FEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE: MAYAN WIDOWS IN RURAL GUATEMALA (1999).
19. See HARVEST OF VIOLENCE: THE MAYA INDIANS AND THE GUATEMALAN CRISIS (Robert M. Carmack ed., 1988); OFICINA DE DERECHOS HUMANOS DEL ARZOBISPADO DE GUATEMALA (Human Rights Office of the Archbishop in Guatemala), GUATEMALA: NUNCA MÁS: INFORME DEL PROYECTO INTERDIOCESANO RECUPERACIÓN DE LA MEMORIA HISTÓRICA, vol. I-V (1998) [hereinafter REMHI REPORT]; CEH REPORT, supra note 4, available at 〈http://hrdata.aaas.org/ceh/index.html〉; RICARDO FALLA, MASACRES DE LA SELVA : IXCÁN, GUATEMALA, 1975-1982 GUATEMALA (1992); RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ, ME LLAMO RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ Y ASÍ ME NACIÓ LA CONCIENCIA (Elisabeth Burgos ed., 1983); LINDA GREEN, FEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE: MAYAN WIDOWS IN RURAL GUATEMALA (1999).
20. See HARVEST OF VIOLENCE: THE MAYA INDIANS AND THE GUATEMALAN CRISIS (Robert M. Carmack ed., 1988); OFICINA DE DERECHOS HUMANOS DEL ARZOBISPADO DE GUATEMALA (Human Rights Office of the Archbishop in Guatemala), GUATEMALA: NUNCA MÁS: INFORME DEL PROYECTO INTERDIOCESANO RECUPERACIÓN DE LA MEMORIA HISTÓRICA, vol. I-V (1998) [hereinafter REMHI REPORT]; CEH REPORT, supra note 4, available at 〈http://hrdata.aaas.org/ceh/index.html〉; RICARDO FALLA, MASACRES DE LA SELVA : IXCÁN, GUATEMALA, 1975-1982 GUATEMALA (1992); RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ, ME LLAMO RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ Y ASÍ ME NACIÓ LA CONCIENCIA (Elisabeth Burgos ed., 1983); LINDA GREEN, FEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE: MAYAN WIDOWS IN RURAL GUATEMALA (1999).
21. See HARVEST OF VIOLENCE: THE MAYA INDIANS AND THE GUATEMALAN CRISIS (Robert M. Carmack ed., 1988); OFICINA DE DERECHOS HUMANOS DEL ARZOBISPADO DE GUATEMALA (Human Rights Office of the Archbishop in Guatemala), GUATEMALA: NUNCA MÁS: INFORME DEL PROYECTO INTERDIOCESANO RECUPERACIÓN DE LA MEMORIA HISTÓRICA, vol. I-V (1998) [hereinafter REMHI REPORT]; CEH REPORT, supra note 4, available at 〈http://hrdata.aaas.org/ceh/index.html〉; RICARDO FALLA, MASACRES DE LA SELVA : IXCÁN, GUATEMALA, 1975-1982 GUATEMALA (1992); RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ, ME LLAMO RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ Y ASÍ ME NACIÓ LA CONCIENCIA (Elisabeth Burgos ed., 1983); LINDA GREEN, FEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE: MAYAN WIDOWS IN RURAL GUATEMALA (1999).
22. See HARVEST OF VIOLENCE: THE MAYA INDIANS AND THE GUATEMALAN CRISIS (Robert M. Carmack ed., 1988); OFICINA DE DERECHOS HUMANOS DEL ARZOBISPADO DE GUATEMALA (Human Rights Office of the Archbishop in Guatemala), GUATEMALA: NUNCA MÁS: INFORME DEL PROYECTO INTERDIOCESANO RECUPERACIÓN DE LA MEMORIA HISTÓRICA, vol. I-V (1998) [hereinafter REMHI REPORT]; CEH REPORT, supra note 4, available at 〈http://hrdata.aaas.org/ceh/index.html〉; RICARDO FALLA, MASACRES DE LA SELVA : IXCÁN, GUATEMALA, 1975-1982 GUATEMALA (1992); RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ, ME LLAMO RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ Y ASÍ ME NACIÓ LA CONCIENCIA (Elisabeth Burgos ed., 1983); LINDA GREEN, FEAR AS A WAY OF LIFE: MAYAN WIDOWS IN RURAL GUATEMALA (1999).
23. Here the author refers to the fact that lynchings have also taken place among communities of returned refugees, many of whom spent most or all of the last fifteen to twenty years in Mexico.
24. This is the definition adopted by the UN Genocide Convention into international law. Many social scientists have used different definitions. For a partial list of these, see the Association of Genocide Scholars' web site, available at 〈http://www.isg-ags.org/ definitions/def_genocide.html〉.
25. See CEH REPORT, supra note 4; REMHI REPORT, supra note 14.
26. See CEH REPORT, supra note 4; REMHI REPORT, supra note 14.
27. CEH REPORT, supra note 4, at 97.
28. REMHI REPORT, supra note 14, at 106.
29. CEH REPORT, supra note 4, ch. 3, at ¶ 459.
30. REMHI REPORT, supra note 14, at 119.
31. AMERICAS WATCH, CIVIL PATROLS IN GUATEMALA 2 (1986).
32. REMHI REPORT, supra note 14, at 34.
33. Id. at 122.
34. MINUGUA (MISIÓN DE VERIFICACIÓN DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS EN GUATEMALA), DÉCIMO INFORME SOBRE DERECHOS HUMANOS DE LA MISIÓN DE VERIFICACIÓN DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS EN GUATEMALA (Jan. 2000); MINUGUA (MISIÓN DE VERIFICACIÓN DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS EN GUATEMALA), LOS LINCHAMIENTOS: UN FLAGELO CONTRA LA DIGNIDAD HUMANA (Dec. 2000); AMNESTY INT'L, GUATEMALA'S LETHAL LEGACY: PAST IMPUNITY AND RENEWED HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS 62 (2002).
35. MINUGUA (MISIÓN DE VERIFICACIÓN DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS EN GUATEMALA), DÉCIMO INFORME SOBRE DERECHOS HUMANOS DE LA MISIÓN DE VERIFICACIÓN DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS EN GUATEMALA (Jan. 2000); MINUGUA (MISIÓN DE VERIFICACIÓN DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS EN GUATEMALA), LOS LINCHAMIENTOS: UN FLAGELO CONTRA LA DIGNIDAD HUMANA (Dec. 2000); AMNESTY INT'L, GUATEMALA'S LETHAL LEGACY: PAST IMPUNITY AND RENEWED HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS 62 (2002).
36. MINUGUA (MISIÓN DE VERIFICACIÓN DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS EN GUATEMALA), DÉCIMO INFORME SOBRE DERECHOS HUMANOS DE LA MISIÓN DE VERIFICACIÓN DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS EN GUATEMALA (Jan. 2000); MINUGUA (MISIÓN DE VERIFICACIÓN DE LAS NACIONES UNIDAS EN GUATEMALA), LOS LINCHAMIENTOS: UN FLAGELO CONTRA LA DIGNIDAD HUMANA (Dec. 2000); AMNESTY INT'L, GUATEMALA'S LETHAL LEGACY: PAST IMPUNITY AND RENEWED HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS 62 (2002).
37. The FRG, or Frente Republicano Guatemalteco, is a right-wing party founded by former dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt. The party, which includes many military hard-liners and their civilian sympathizers, was swept into power in the elections of 1999, in large part thanks to its get-tough-on-crime platform.
38. Personal interview, 24 Oct. 2000 (on file with author).
39. Personal interview with a K'iche' Mayan man from municipality of Chichicastenango, 24 Oct. 2000 (on file with author).
40. Juan Carlos Llorca, Xalbaquiej visto como masacre encubierta, no un linchamiento, EL PERIÓDICO, 2 Oct. 2000, at 3.
41. Linchamientos: Vecinos de Xalbaquiej justifican muertes, PRENSA LIBRE, 22 July 2000.
42. Personal interview with a Maya K'iche' man from municipality of Chichicastenango, 24 Oct. 2000 (on file with author).
43. The Mayan derecho consuetudinario, or indigenous customary law, is built on past practices as opposed to a legal code, much like English common law. It is based on restitution of damages rather than punishment, and on mutually satisfactory accords reached through negotiation and discussion rather than the winner-takes-all model of Western justice. For more on these forms of justice, see MAYA DEFENSORÍA, SUK'B'ANIK, ADMINISTRACIÓN DE JUSTICIA MAYA, EXPERIENCIAS DE DEFENSORÍA MAYA (1999); RAQUEL Z. YRIGOYEN FAJARDO, PAUTAS DE COORDINACIÓN ENTRE EL DERECHO INDÍGENA Y EL DERECHO ESTATAL (1999); CLAUDIA DARY, EL DERECHO INTERNACIONAL HUMANITARIO Y EL ORDEN JURÍDICO MAYA: UNA PERSPECTIVA HISTÓRICA (1997).
44. The Mayan derecho consuetudinario, or indigenous customary law, is built on past practices as opposed to a legal code, much like English common law. It is based on restitution of damages rather than punishment, and on mutually satisfactory accords reached through negotiation and discussion rather than the winner-takes-all model of Western justice. For more on these forms of justice, see MAYA DEFENSORÍA, SUK'B'ANIK, ADMINISTRACIÓN DE JUSTICIA MAYA, EXPERIENCIAS DE DEFENSORÍA MAYA (1999); RAQUEL Z. YRIGOYEN FAJARDO, PAUTAS DE COORDINACIÓN ENTRE EL DERECHO INDÍGENA Y EL DERECHO ESTATAL (1999); CLAUDIA DARY, EL DERECHO INTERNACIONAL HUMANITARIO Y EL ORDEN JURÍDICO MAYA: UNA PERSPECTIVA HISTÓRICA (1997).
45. The Mayan derecho consuetudinario, or indigenous customary law, is built on past practices as opposed to a legal code, much like English common law. It is based on restitution of damages rather than punishment, and on mutually satisfactory accords reached through negotiation and discussion rather than the winner-takes-all model of Western justice. For more on these forms of justice, see MAYA DEFENSORÍA, SUK'B'ANIK, ADMINISTRACIÓN DE JUSTICIA MAYA, EXPERIENCIAS DE DEFENSORÍA MAYA (1999); RAQUEL Z. YRIGOYEN FAJARDO, PAUTAS DE COORDINACIÓN ENTRE EL DERECHO INDÍGENA Y EL DERECHO ESTATAL (1999); CLAUDIA DARY, EL DERECHO INTERNACIONAL HUMANITARIO Y EL ORDEN JURÍDICO MAYA: UNA PERSPECTIVA HISTÓRICA (1997).
46. Personal interview with a Maya K'iche' woman, 25 Oct. 2000.
47. REMHI REPORT, supra note 14, vol. II, at 15.
48. Id. at 56.
49. JENNIFER SCHIRMER, THE GUATEMALAN MILITARY PROJECT: A VIOLENCE CALLED DEMOCRACY 44-45 (1998).
50. Other methods include stoning, shooting, and beating victims to death; MINUGUA documented at least one case in which a victim was thrown from a bridge in Chichicastenango at the urging of the assembled crowd. And the extensive media attention received by lynchings predisposes later cases to mimic the methods of execution so noted in earlier attempts, such that every incident of burning does not reflect a community's independent invention of the technique. Clearly, the phenomenon is more complex than a mechanistic repetition of wartime practices in new contemporary settings; my intention here is not to oversimplify this process, but merely to call attention to its origins in wartime practices. MINUGUA, supra note 25.
51. The name of this community has been changed to protect the informant.
52. Comments from a Maya K'iche' woman during group discussion about La Cadena, 24 Oct. 2000.
53. Due to economic necessity, many residents of the highlands travel to the coastal plantations to work, generally for months at a time, during harvest season. Although wages are low and working conditions harsh, many families depend on this source of temporary cash income.
54. Personal interview with Mayan woman from rural Quiché, 26 Oct. 2000.
55. The author does not intend to imply here that these communities lived conflict-free prior to the Army's arrival or that the war was the only force eroding community norms. Economic transformations, land disputes, and other forms of conflict preceded the militarization of the area, and have lingered in its wake.
56. Personal interview with Maya K'iche' woman in Santa Cruz del Quiché, 25 Oct. 2000.
57. In labeling these functions "repressive" the author simply means to suggest that they rely upon the exertion of state power to restrain the rights of certain individuals, not that they should have a repressive effect upon society as a whole. The point here is to suggest that forces in civil society must move beyond suspicion of the security forces to support for their strength - under conditions which guarantee their accountability, of course. In Guatemala, these conditions have yet to be met.
58. See T.H. MARSHALL, CITIZENSHIP AND SOCIAL CLASS, AND OTHER ESSAYS (1950).
59. The current president of Guatemala's Congress, Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, was popularly elected despite having served as head of state during the bloodiest period of the war. Well-known as one of the architects of the scorched earth policies, he now heads the right-wing FRG party and was chiefly responsible for its electoral triumph in 1999.