When the Blood Began to Run

Not long after he was inaugurated as President of Guatemala last July, Right Wing Army Colonel Carlos Aarna Osorio complained wearily to his people: "But you are so hard to govern." Since November, when Arana declared a state of siege, armed thugs of every political variety have been doing their best to remedy that problem by eliminating as many Guatemalans as possible. According to the Latin American Federation of Christian Trade Unions (CLASC), a Catholic labor movement based in Venezuela, at least 700 and possibly 1,000 have been murdered; some 4,000 have been arrested in a land of only 5,000,000 people. Congressmen of the ruling M.L.N. (National Liberation Movement) Party are guarded by a force of 60 men, who tote submachine guns and grenades, and the legislature itself sometimes resembles an armed camp. When TIME Correspondent Bernard Diederich visited the legislature in Guatemala City last week, he saw one gun-for-hire character who wore a black cowboy hat, black shirt and black trousers and carried a low-slung .45 automatic.

After becoming President on a law-and-order platform, Arana tried briefly to moderate his strongman image. But terrorist kidnapings and murders continued--mostly by the ultraleft F.A.R. (Rebel Armed Forces). Arana, a former counterinsurgency chief who is credited with wiping out 3,000 people during an antiguerrilla campaign in northeastern Guatemala between 1966 and 1968, heard mounting calls for a crackdown. Finally, after four policemen had been gunned down by guerrillas in two days, Arana imposed the state of siege and a 9 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew. Soon the blood began to run in earnest.

Leftist terrorism has continued. Two weeks ago the guerrillas killed one of their prime targets--Lieut. Colonel Noe Delgado Villegas, former chief of the police "complaints section," popularly known as the "Scream Section" because of the tortures that allegedly occurred there. But the leftists' bloody record is now being challenged by a rightist group that calls itself Ojo por Ojo (Eye for an Eye). Organized after West German Ambassador Karl von Spreti was murdered by F.A.R. guerrillas last April, the Ojo por Ojo has been credited with a dismaying number of murders, mostly of leftists or even moderates who are working within the system.

Julio Carney Herrera, a wealthy lawyer with mildly left-wing views, was machine-gunned to death while driving home in broad daylight. The bodies of liberal Businessman Humberto Gonzalez Juarez, a friend and a secretary were found beside a highway. Two young radio newscasters disappeared. So did Juan Luis Molina Loza, 27, a philosophy student and amateur actor who had played a convincing Che Guevara in a student carnival last year.

Two labor leaders were murdered, as was Congressman Arnoldo Otten Prado, himself a labor leader and a member of the moderate wing of the ruling M.L.N. Uncertain whether he had been killed by rightists or leftists, his congressional colleagues quickly voted themselves life insurance policies.

The most outrageous killing occurred early this year. Adolfo Mijangos Lopez, 43, a Sorbonne-educated law professor and leader of a five-man opposition bloc in congress, had told a friend not long before: "I know they're after me, but I have one little insurance policy --my wheelchair. They might hesitate before shooting a man in a wheelchair." In mid-January, Mijangos, who was paralyzed from the waist down, was shot in the back 27 times as he was leaving his office building--in his wheelchair. His law students tore to shreds a floral wreath sent by the ultraconservative president of Guatemala's congress, Mario Sandoval Alarcon.

Death Squads. Meanwhile, the bodies of petty criminals keep turning up. The circumstances suggest the existence of Brazil-style "death squads"--gangs of policemen and others that round up and execute criminals who have eluded the law. Some Guatemalans insist that people with ten or more arrests are being disposed of "to help clear the courts of pending cases." On two occasions, police claimed the victims were killed "attacking an army patrol," an unlikely venture for inveterate pickpockets and drunks.

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