/* Written 11:19 PM  Dec  3, 1990 by cerisea in igc:reg.guatemala */
/* ---------- "Cerigua Briefs" ---------- */
    CERIGUA WEEKLY BRIEFS, November 25 - December 1, 1990

Massacre Sunday in Santiago Atitlan

Army troops killed at least 11 people and injured at least 18
others when they opened fire with machine guns on a group of
villagers from Santiago Atitlan late Saturday night, Dec. 1.

Residents report that shortly after midnight on Saturday soldiers
entered the town, robbing a store and kidnapping its owner.
Relatives of the shopkeeper woke other residents by ringing the
church bells.  A crowd of approximately 2000 formed and, armed
with sticks, made their way to the Panabaj military garrison just
outside of town to demand that the army, "leave us in peace,"
according to a Reuters dispatch carried in the New York Times on
Monday.  A participant said that the villagers began to throw
rocks and the army opened fire.

Nine men and two boys were murdered and a fireman reported
transporting at least 18 people wounded by gunfire to the hospital
on the other side of the lake in Solola.

Santiago Atitlan has been the site of massacres and continuous
murders ever since the army permanently occupied the town in 1978.
The Guatemala tourism commission complained that their presence
was affecting business and so for years now the soldiers have
withdrawn from the main streets of town during the two hours each
day when the tourist boat arrives from Panajachel.

Swift Change of Positions on Dialogue Before Second Round

Presidential candidates Jorge Serrano and Jorge Carpio both
announced this week they will not meet with leaders of the URNG
before the second round of elections on January 6.  Before
dedicating himself full-time to the presidential race, Serrano had
led the delegation from the Commission for National Reconciliation
to Oslo, Norway in March, where he presided over the signing of
the original agreement that spelled out a series of meetings
between the URNG and different representative Guatemalan groups.
Until now, Serrano has been stressing the role he played in
encouraging a political solution to the country's armed conflict.

The Commission for National Reconciliation last week called for a
meeting between the two presidential hopefuls before the runoff
elections, but in statements in Wednesday's Prensa Libre, Serrano
said he now does not wish to introduce the subject of peace into
the political discussion.  Similar statements were attributed to
Carpio on Friday.

In another change of attitude regarding talks with the URNG, the
chairman of Guatemala's foremost private enterprise association
CACIF directed an open letter to the URNG and"those who support
them," taking a strong stand against dialogue between the
government and the armed opposition until the latter lays down its
arms.  This contrasts with the position taken when insurgents met
with business representatives in Ottawa in August.

Danger Seen for Opposition Organizations

The two sets of statements above coincide with rather cryptic
remarks made by the Guatemalan Human Rights Ombudsman on
Wednesday.  Ramiro de Leon referred to commitments the candidates
have made to the private sector, which could lead to broken
campaign promises.  These in turn will lead to widespread popular
unrest, putting at risk members of opposition groups and even the
Human Rights Ombudsman's Office itself.  He was not more specific.
Given De Leon's former positions as legal counsel to various
member organizations of CACIF and former advisor to military
governments in the seventies, it is believed that he would not
make such warnings lightly.

"The right-wing business sector feels emboldened," he said.
"Their priorities are company efficiency; they see the State and
everything else through this lense and nothing else matters.  They
have no frame of reference for social movements or human rights."

"In their efforts to win the presidency the candidates areoffering
every kind of promise, creating false hopes.  Disillusionment will
come later to Guatemalans, bringing with it social confrontation
and polarization."  De Leon was quoted in the Thursday edition of
Prensa Libre.

Violence Against University Students

Association of University Students (AEU) leader Byron Cruz warned
that several students have recently received death threats and
that a change is being noted in death squad methods.  Threats are
not being made against student associations or leadership but
instead against individual students.  Cruz interpreted this as a
precursor to a heavy blow to the university and cited the murder
last Friday of an economics student in San Marcos.

Another student, 18-year old Enoc Mendez, was found dead in the
capital this week after having disappeared a few days earlier.
The dean of the University of San Carlos (USAC), held a meeting
with Interior Minister General Carlos Morales to express his
concern over the "grave crisis affecting the university
community."  The results of that meeting have not been reported in
any depth. The interior minister had said before the meeting took
place that the situation at the USAC is worrisome because "the
youths are disoriented. There are problems of drugs, and of
terrorism as well; there are aseries of illegal activities because
advantage is being taken of open admission."  He added, "the young
students have been reluctant to have a uniformed presence, but
times have changed substantially and if they authorize it we would
be very glad to provide this."

Crimes Against Street Children Continue Despite Coverage

Guatemalan children living on the streets of the capital continue
to be the victims of police violence that is now also affecting
counselors who try to work with the minors.

A graphic report by Amnesty International released in June
detailed the beating deaths of more than a dozen Guatemalan youths
by police officers.  Since then authorities in the capital have
been conducting a hunt using photograph albums and lists of names
of children associated with the victims, in an effort to rid the
city of witnesses.

Foreigners staffing the few agencies that work with the street
kids have also been the subjects of threats and attempted
kidnappings. Covenant House, where trained social workers
encourage the children to seek refuge, is under twenty-four hour
surveillance.  Three weeks ago the house received a wreath of
burial flowers with a card bearing the name of one of its staff
members.  Days before, this counselor had intervened when she
found uniformed police beating and attempting to kidnap three
children at the doors of the agency.

Last week a marked police car drove past the Plaza Colon where
groups of street children are known to gather, spraying it with
machine-gun fire which killed one child and injured seventeen
others, according to a two-part series Monday and Tuesday in the
Mexican daily La Jornada.

Survivor of El Aguacate Found Dead

A man identified in reports as a survivor of the massacre at El
Aguacate has been murdered.  His charred body was located by
villagers who said his hands and feet were tied with barbed wire,
according to radio reports in Guatemala Thursday morning.

The body of 53-year-old Jose Meza Callejas was found by residents
ofthe village known as El Pueblito in the district of Santa
Catarina, in the capital province.  He had disappeared from the
place known as El Trebol in Guatemala City on November 19.  His
identity was verified by fingerprinting, despite disfigurement
apparently aimed at making the body unidentifiable.

In November 1988 twenty-two men from the highland village of El
Aguacate in Chimaltenango province disappeared, and theirbodies
were found three days later in shallow graves in the hills outside
the town. According to interviews with persons who later saw the
bodies, they showed disfigured genitals and signs of death by
asphyxiation. Independent investigations indicate that the army
was responsible for the massacre.

Jose Meza's name does not appear among the reports as a survivor
of the Aguacate massacre, making it difficult to specify what his
relation to the event and those murdered may be.  His second last
name, Callejas, is the same last name held by all those who were
killed.  Why it is not mentioned may be due to the fact that in
all the independent investigations conducted, knowledgeable
persons would speak only on condition of anonymity, in the hope
that this would provide some degree of protection from further
army violence.

Body of Second Brother Found--Shot 40 Times

The second of two campesinos kidnapped two weeks ago not far from
Antigua, Guatemala has been found dead, his body riddled with
bullets.

Cristobal Oron was kidnapped together with his brother Damian by
armed men in olive green uniforms from the farm in Sacatepequez
province where they were working harvesting squash on November 13.
Cristobal's body was found Sunday with forty bullet wounds and
numerous burns, according to the press on Monday.  His brother's
body was found last Tuesday.  The face had been burned with acid
and there were other signs that he had been tortured.

Both men were participants in the Civil Defense patrols.
Recently, more villagers have been opposing the patrols, and it is
thought that the Oron brothers may have been murdered for such
opposition.

Homeless Families Removed by Riot Police

One hundred twenty-eight families who had set up housing on
parcels of land in Zone 12 of the capital were removed by riot
police on Monday. The owner of the properties requested a judicial
order to have the families removed.   The justice of the peace of
Villa Nueva and the president of the Guatemalan housing authority
reportedly met with a spokeswoman for the squatters.  When they
were unsatisfied with the response, the riot platoon proceeded to
dismantle the makeshift dwellings, most of which, according to
Notisiete on Tuesday, housed at least five children.

The inhabitants were then forced into police vehicles and two
hours later taken to the 5th precinct police station for booking
on charges of land usurpation which carries a prison term of up to
three years. Nineteen families were detained at the precinct
including eight children.  Father Andres Giron,leader of a large
movement of campesinos to obtain land, has been trying to secure
their release.

Before they moved onto the land in Zone 12, the housing bank BANVI
had made promises to resettle the homeless families in another
area, cccording to Leticia Guajaca, who spoke for the families,
but the promises have been forgotten since the elections.

Opposition to Pension Law Continues

Following a lengthy battle which had apparently ended with a labor
protest at the Congress last week, a new pension law was signed
and published in the government newspaper on November 22.  The new
law provides for the equivalent of 12% of a worker's salary to be
set aside by employers for retirement.  The president of the
Council of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial
Associations (CACIF) Jorge Briz said this week the organization
plans to appeal the law because it reduces operating capital and
therefore productivity, efficiency and "the possibilities to
create more and greater sources of work."

The Guatemalan Union of Solidaristas, or management unions, is
also taking action against the new law, as is the Chamber of
Industry.  The association took out a paid newspaper ad this week
and is holding a special dinner in the next few days to discuss
the impact of the new law.  The solidarista union lobbied hard
against the bill's passage and maintains that it is
unconstitutional.

Members of Diplomatic Corp in Guatemala Visit Quiche

A delegation of diplomats from the European Community accredited
in Guatemala travelled to Quiche to look into the increase in
violence against civilians in the war zone.  The diplomats met
with the bishop of Quiche diocese Monsignor Julio Cabrera and with
Commander Hector Santizo of Military Zone 20 to discuss reports of
human rights violations in Nebaj and the Ixil Triangle.  They also
spoke with leader of the Runujel Junam Council of Ethnic
Communities (CERJ) Amilcar Mendez.  No report has been issued on
the trip.

U.S. Embassy Presses Case of Hotel Keeper in Peten

The United States ambassador to Guatemala Thomas Stroock travelled
to Poptun, Peten this week to press the case of U.S. citizen
Michael Devine, found murdered in the northern province on June 9.
Stroock met with the local magistrate to ask about the progress of
the investigations. He was accompanied by U.S. consul Susanne
Patterson.

On Thursday the Patrullaje Informativo radio broadcast stated that
several "western diplomats" (a term not usually employedin the
local press) have decided to back the U.S.  ambassador's efforts.
The diplomats will help put pressure on the Guatemalan government
to investigate the case.

****************

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