CERIGUA WEEKLY BRIEFS, NUMBER 44, NOVEMBER 7, 1996 URNG Makes Peace Offering Guatemala City, November 6. The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) has made another bid to resume peace talks, cut short last week after a rebel commander was implicated in a high-profile kidnapping. But the government has yet to announce it s acceptance or rejection of the offer. Without receiving a government response to their first statement on guerrilla Commander Isaias' involvement in the kidnapping of Olga Alvarado de Novella, the URNG issued a second communique November 4. This time the rebel General Command proposed accele rating an end to the war by jumping ahead to an accord on a definitive cease-fire before discussing the other issues pending on the peace talks agenda. The rebels also pledged to end the propaganda activities they have carried out with increasing frequen cy in different parts of the country. "The URNG General Command is aware of the urgent need to continue the Guatemalan peace negotiation process in conditions of equanimity and maintaining the content and profundity of the same," the statement read. Prior to the suspension of talks, the reincorporation of rebel forces into civil society had been the next topic slated for negations between the two sides. The official response to the proposal has yet to come. But presidential spokesperson Ricardo de la Torre said the government is treating the new communique with "extreme caution." Statements by both sides in the talks are only the public face of a series of emergency meetings and closed-door conferences that have occupied negotiators, U.N. moderator Jean Arnault and international diplomats since the government first publicly reveal ed the charges against Isaias at an October 28 press conference. There the government announced the suspension of the negotiations and conditioned their resumption on a satisfactory explanation of Isaias' conduct. A rebel statement issued two days later , in which the URNG General Command assumed "political responsibility" for the act but denied knowledge or approval of the kidnapping, has received no official reply. The decision to suspend negotiations has not had the support of the Assembly of Civil Sectors (ASC) -- the body established to give ordinary Guatemalans a voice in the talks. "The clarification of the events which caused the suspension of [the talks] sho uld not put at risk the accords already reached... nor affect the continuation and conclusion of the negotiations," reads an ASC statement released yesterday. And while former peace talks moderator Monsignor Rodolfo Quezada Toruno said the change in the order of the accords is a significant concession by the guerrillas and merits a positive response from the government, Carlos Aldana of the Archdiocesan Information Office (OIA) argued that concluding a cease-fire first could reduce the incentive to debat e seriously the remaining topics. Peace Talks Suspension Fallout: PACs Disarming Halted Guatemala City, October 31. Citing last week's postponement of peace talks between the government and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG), the army has stopped short their much heralded demobilization of the paramilitary Civil Defense Patrols (PACs). Col. Otto Noack Sierra of the Army Department of Information and Dissemination (DIDE) announced today that the disarming and disbanding of the paramilitary units would cease until peace talks between the government and rebels had "normalized." According to Noack, as of October 28 some 195,000 patrollers -- 95 percent of the total still in service when the demobilization program began last August -- had turned in their weapons. The army had projected complete demobilization for November 15. Grassroots and human rights groups have long called for an end to the patrols, pointing to their involvement in hundreds of human rights violations including massacres, disappearances and forced labor. The DIDE announcement follows the October 28 government expose of one rebel's involvement in the kidnapping of one of the nation's economic elite. The government announced that the peace talks had been called off until the URNG provided an satisfactory e xplanation of their apparent involvement in the crime. According to analysts, the temporary breakdown in peace talks has also fueled the efforts of those who want to see both the rebels and the peace process crushed. "In his endeavor to achieve peace, the president had to confront challenges that perhaps onl y with time will be made public," wrote la Hora director Oscar Clemente Marroquin, saying that despite opposition from conservative groups and army hard-liners President Alvaro Arzu had until now maintained an unwavering commitment to the peace process. "The kidnapping of Olga de Novella... leaves President Arzu without arguments." The suspension of negotiations was quickly followed by rumors that a military coup was in the works. Troop mobilizations in Chimaltenango province -- which the army reportedly ordered to provide protection for a cycling race -- fed the fear. And DIDE bo lstered condemnation of the URNG by releasing an army intelligence file that details the history of Isaias' militancy in the URNG and links his rebel unit to acts of sabotage and the killing of a plantation owner. But most commentators say that the days of army coups are past. Instead, they argue, pressure from sectors of the army and the nation's landed elite may have pushed the government to end what had been locally dubbed its "honeymoon" with the rebel command ers. And some fear that a behind-the-scenes power play may have secured a better position for army hard-liners within the Arzu administration. Washington General Investigated for Links with Smuggling Ring Guatemala City, November 5. Defense Minister Gen. Julio Balconi Turcios has ordered an investigation following yesterday's report in a local daily linking Guatemala's military attache in Washington to smuggling king Alfredo Moreno Molina. The report, allegedly based on information leaked to the Prensa Libre by army intelligence sources, claims Brig. Gen. Roberto Letona Hora helped create the military infrastructure that enabled Moreno to build his smuggling and tax evasion empire. The Prensa Libre article was accompanied by a photo showing Letona, Moreno, Alfonso Portillo and German businessman Peter Stolz embracing during a meeting in Washington. The meeting was reportedly arranged to facilitate a reconciliation between Moreno an d Stolz. Portillo was presidential candidate for the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) in last year's general elections. Five high ranking army officers were dismissed following Moreno's arrest September 14 for their alleged involvement in his crime ring but none have been charged. But this week police arrested two customs officials in relation to the Moreno scandal. Char ged with tax fraud are Ruben Oliva Espinoza and Cesar Augusto Alarcon. Alarcon is also charged with smuggling. Arrest warrants have been issued for eight others in relation to the case, according to National Police. Actions Against Land Occupiers Continue Villa Nueva, Guatemala, October 31. Simmering land conflicts continue to result in police actions against both the rural and urban poor. Faced with forcible eviction by several hundred Special Forces police, yesterday some 50 squatter families peacefully abandoned lands they had occupied for the past four months. The squatters chose not to resist the dismantling of "Isabel II," their community on the outskirts of Villa Nueva, after residents of a neighboring community offered them temporary lodging until new land can be found. Other marginal community residents in Villa Nueva protested the jailing of several of their leaders this week. In an October 30 press conference, the Guatemalan Union of Settlements (UNASGUA) -- a national coalition of marginalized communities -- condemn ed the arrests and called on the U.N. Verification Mission (MINUGUA) and the Human Rights Ombudsman to intervene in the case. The six representatives of the community were arrested October 24 after the Guatemalan Electric Company (EEGSA) filed charges against them for theft of electrical current. UNASGUA representatives counter that the community was forced to connect its own w ires to the EEGSA grid because the company had failed to provide power to the community. Meanwhile 23 campesinos arrested September 24 during the violent eviction of La Blanca Estate in San Marcos province remain in prison. Charged under Guatemala's new Aggravated Usurpation Law -- which severely sanctions land invasions -- the 23 are not el igible for bail. Paradoxically, the campesinos are also charged with homicide, although the only death in the police attack was fellow land occupier Mauricio Godoy Garcia. Reforms Punish Tax Evasion Guatemala City, November 6. In an attempt to stifle the massive evasion of taxes that has plagued Guatemala's revenues for years, Congress yesterday passed a law to punish tax fraud with up to six years in prison. Congress voted to reform the laws governing tax fraud and smuggling, stipulating new sanctions for the crimes that range from one to six years in prison and payment of the appropriate taxes. Repeat offenders will have their business licenses revoked. The recent arrest of smuggling king Alfredo Moreno Molina -- accused of evading some US$3.6 billion over the last 20 years, enough to finance all government expenditures here for a year and a half -- and the implication of dozens of officials in the racket may have smoothed the quick passage of the legislation through the House. Past attempts to enact prison terms for tax evasion have always buckled before the opposition of the powerful Chamber of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Associations (CACIF). CACIF president Jorge Briz Abularach called the new legislation insufficient, saying that the government should revamp the entire tax collection system, to make it simpler and easier to calculate and pay. According to economist Jose Molina Calderon, the government's ability to increase its tax receipts is crucial to implementing the peace accords signed by the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) and the government, since foreign governments and international lending institutions are conditioning the flow of post-war aid on these kind of reforms. The International Monetary Fund estimates that some 50 percent of government tax revenue is lost to evaders. AIDS Alarm Goes Off Guatemala City, November 4. At a conference on health issues held here last week, the Pan-American Health Organization announced that Guatemala can expect some 81,000 new cases of AIDS by the year 2000. This figure -- based purely on estimates, since there is no official data on AIDS cases in Guatemala -- was echoed by doctors from the Guatemalan Association for the Prevention and Control of AIDS (AGPCS). The doctors also predicted an increasing rate of infection among the 20- to 24-year-old sector of the population. According to their figures, in three years' time the country will be losing 85 of its citizens to the virus each week. Health care costs for these patients is expected to top 134 million quetzales (US$22.3 million). AGPCS President Dr. Eduardo Arathoon also revealed that the Guatemalan Social Security Institute (IGSS) has recently transmitted the fatal disease to eight more of its patients via contaminated blood. The IGSS, which operates the public hospitals and oth er public health facilities, is responsible for infecting the majority of AIDS patients here in the capital, according to Dr. Arathoon. Republican Front (FRG) congressperson Pablo Duarte, who heads a congressional committee on public health, accused the IGSS as well as privately run hospitals of completely ignoring the country's laws regulating blood banks. An average 2.8 percent of the blood collected by those banks is known to be contaminated with HIV, he said. The IGSS also came under fire from Dr. Ramon Carlos, who accused them of secretly performing HIV tests on individuals seeking employment at one of their facilities. Such testing violates the law, as does the refusal of employment to applicants testing po sitive. Though earlier this year Congress passed Decree 54-95 declaring the disease a national emergency and proclaiming the need to initiate nationwide campaigns for AIDS prevention and control, they have yet to apportion funds for such projects. Meanwhile, the army represents one of the few sources of data on AIDS cases. They have publicly claimed that 20 percent of recruits coming from indigenous areas tested HIV-positive. Sexist Law Slated for Reform Guatemala City, November 2. A law that conditions women's participation in the paid labor force on spousal approval may finally be struck from the books. Labor Minister Arnoldo Ortiz Moscoso presented to Congress October 31 a bill to reform Article 114 of the Civil Code, which stipulates that a married woman must seek her husband's consent to work outside the home, if he is able to sustain the family on his income. The reform would allow both men and women to freely seek paid employment and stipulates that both parents share responsibility for the care of their children. And yesterday, the Solicitor General's Office petitioned the Constitutional Court to declare Article 114 as it stands illegal. New Charges, Sentences for Rights Violators Guatemala City, November 6. While the army opts to delay the demobilization of the Civil Defense Patrols (PACs), crimes committed by these paramilitary groups continue to surface. The court system, meanwhile, issued sentences for three violent criminals, two of them PAC members. The Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Team (EAFG) uncovered two decapitated corpses this week in Joyabaj, Quiche province. One of the victims is believed to be local Campesino Unity Committee (CUC) leader Tomas Lares Ciprian. Former PAC member Santos Chich Us is charged with the 1994 killing of Lares, a vocal opponent of the civil patrols. Also this week, a judge sentenced two PAC leaders from San Jose Poaquil, Chimaltenango province to six years in prison for breaking the leg of a campesino as a punishment for tardiness. Last year when Juan Sirin Raxjal arrived 45 minutes late for civil patrol duty, the two PAC leaders bound and beat him, leaving Sirin permanently disabled. And on October 30 the a court absolved one security guard and sentenced another to 10 years for manslaughter for the killings of street children Efrain Castro and Daniel Escobar and the wounding of Victor Manuel Garcia. Guards Francisco Duarte and Leonel Villalobos had both been given 30 years for murder by a lower court, but that sentence was overturned on technical grounds. Duarte received 4 years for each killing plus 2 years for the wounding of Garcia. Refugees Criticize Slow Pace of Return Guatemala City, November 6. Refugee representatives are concerned the Avaro Arzu government places a low priority on the organized return of refugees from Mexico. The government is attempting to divide returning refugees into small groups to fill spaces in pre-existing communities, according to Refugee Permanent Commissions (CCPP) spokesperson Juan Matias. In this way it avoids having to purchase new land for the refugees, he said. Matias says the new government strategy destroys the refugees pre-existing organizations. A fragmented return means "they don't come with teachers, health promoters, catechists, or the human rights sectors," he added. CCPP representative Rubio Mejia says the refugees understand the government's priority of concluding the peace negotiations is important to all Guatemalans but, "the government should recognize that the return also contributes to the peace process and must not be neglected." More than 710 refugees are scheduled to leave Mexico November 25 to resettle in Xoxlac, Huehuetenango province. But hundreds more have been waiting for months in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo for permission to return. CCPP representatives say these refugees plan to occupy Guatemala's consulate in Quintana Roo November 20 unless the government provides them with land to replace what they lost when they fled army massacres in the 1980s.