obstacle to peace in the region. In Nicaragua, the Sanand lifted press censorship. amnesty for contra forces who lay down their arms, unilaterally imposed previous war zones. his campaign for $270m of contra aid.
negotiate with the liberation forces in their countries.
name to the peace accord - Guatemala.
PRIOR TO the 1985 elec-.
DOES Guatemala Wals byword for military dictaluis, coups aru iculcosioli of the most brutal kind. 38,000 people have been murdered or disappeared.
The human rights situation • was so bad that even the US was forced to cut off aid. So Vinicio Cerezo, won what was generally accepted as a tair lection, (the first time since THE SIGNING of the Guatemala peace treaty by the five Central American presidents has shown to the world that it is the US and its clients who are the chief dinistas have reopened La Prensa and Radio Catolica, They have declared an cease-fire in three Meanwhile Reagan continues As we go to press, the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala have been forced to sit down and In this, the third article in our series on the treaty, BRIDGET ELTON looks at the country which gave its the CIA organised coup in 1954 that the military did not fix the results), Guatemalans were hopeful of improvement.
Nothing changed.
Cerezo the military's front man ne Is Mr Clean. After 32 years of virtually unbroken military rule, ana wild a growing trade union and peasant guerrilla struggle, the army decided Guatemala needed a new image. As former army spokesperson D'Jalma Dominguez put it receiv. *Hor convenience sake a civilian government is preferable. It's better to remain outside: the real power will not be lost'.
Having failed to physically annihalate the guerrilla the (Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity), a civilian government was central to the army's plan for enforcing mass involvement in the army's civilian patrols alie called development programmes. (known in viet nam as strategic hamlets). The army returned to barracks after Cerezo's election, but on its definition Guatemala.
port Group Relatives the Disappeared (GAM) demanded lustice Cerezo told them 'not to poke around in the has Hauc society.
Rogoberta Guatemalan Indian Solem GeTTOCAC 1986 expected year in presentians ansert ts presenting himself regional peacellakel Cerezo hopes to ensure that the money keeps flowing in and tries to brand liberation forces of as ponents of peace.
But Guatemalan lawyer, Frank La Rue - in with kigobert:
Menchú pointed out, like the FMLN of El Salvador ; and unlike the Contras, the 'URNG are indigenous and receive no aid from outside, so a cut off of aid will not aftect them. "There will be no peace in Central America without dialogue with the FMLN and the 'URNG', he said, vuatemala Is a counny where there is struggle' There could be no peace while there were human rights violations, . he went on. "The peace plan has not altered the situation of the Guatemalan people'. Menchú added, Either we die of 'yielded " " hunger or of bullets"
slander.
tried by Stalin -the the by communists throughout the world. has either excluded mention of certain key personalities or simply subjected leaders like Trotsky, Zinoviev and Bukharin to calumny and It is possible that some legal formula will be designed to discriminate between particular leaders such as rehabilitating those who were • Trotsky was 'simply' expelled from the party and executed by Stalin's agent and would therefore not be included. Certainly there will be no rehabilitation of Trotsky's, Zinoviev's or others' political views. But mere recognition that these were genuine leaders of the revolution and not 'agents' or 'criminals' would allow a more objective appraisal of them