A New and Deadly Phase

By George Russell.

Guerrillas and the army escalate combat

Windows in the genteel Zona Diez district of Guatemala City rattled last week to an increasingly familiar sound: the blast of terrorist bombs. Local residents merely shrugged off the dynamitings--and that in itself is a sign of how life is changing for the worse in the most populous (7.5 million) and richest country in Central America. A chaotic, four-year confrontation between government and Marxist guerrilla forces is entering a new and deadly phase, one that is escalating on both sides.

A bustling tourist haven in the past, the nation's capital (pop. 1.5 million) currently resembles a city under attack. Major hotels are cordoned off and closely guarded. Some skyscrapers have a spooky, battered look; as many as one-third of their windows have been blown out by leftist bombs. Dozens of streets near sensitive government and military installations have been closed in an attempt to foil terrorists. Death threats against Frederic Chapin, Washington's Ambassador to Guatemala, were taken so seriously that a special Marine sniper team was temporarily added to the U.S. embassy staff. For safety's sake, Chapin and his wife spent part of the Christmas season in a makeshift bedroom in the ambassador's office rather than at home.

The violence is reaching new levels even for Guatemala, where left and right have been at bloody odds since a CIA-sponsored coup overthrew the left-leaning government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in 1954. For 27 years, the country has been dominated by a coalition of conservative politicians and military figures who have been backed by the army. Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia, the current president, is an army general himself. Despite Washington's support for the 1954 coup, relations between the two countries have been severely strained in recent years by Guatemala's appalling human rights record, widely considered to be one of the worst in the Western Hemisphere. Guatemala finally rejected U.S. military assistance in 1977, and the country receives a mere $6 million annually from Washington in economic aid.

As the government fights its left-wing opponents, the death toll is staggering and still on the rise. Last year an average of 300 people a month were killed, or simply disappeared, as anonymous death squads, sent out by both sides, did their work. In recent months the number of deaths has climbed toward 500.

The guerrilla forces that challenge the government are divided into four main Marxist factions, and supplied with at least some weapons and training by Cuba. The guerrillas are under a unified command, but also operate independently. The Marxist organizations have been growing and organizing clandestinely on a scale that finally came as a shock to authorities. Guatemalan army analysts now estimate the guerrilla strength at 3,000 active fighters, plus as many as 30,000 untrained reserves and supporters. The strategy of the guerrillas is to isolate Guatemala City and to seize portions of outlying Guatemalan departments. The eventual aim of the insurgents is to win some form of political recognition abroad.

The government gained an insight into the scope and sophistication of the insurgency by staging a series of raids on about 30 clandestine guerrilla "safe" houses in and around Guatemala City, most operated by the country's second largest guerrilla organization, the Revolutionary Organization of the People in Arms (ORPA). In the houses, the military discovered everything from quantities of arms to bomb factories to enterprises devoted to turning out fake police and military uniforms and even fake license plates. At one location the army also found the body of U.S. Businessman Clifford Bevens, 56, who was kidnaped in December 1980 and held for a multimillion-dollar ransom. The guerrillas shot Bevens when their hideout was surrounded by soldiers and police.

The information uncovered by the raids led to a dramatic change of attitude within the Guatemalan army. Once content to rely mainly on passive defensive tactics, the military is now launching sweeps through the countryside under the command of a colorful, French-trained army chief of staff, Brigadier General Benedicto Lucas Garcia, who is also the brother of the Guatemalan President. A flamboyant commander who likes to hop aboard a blue-and-white helicopter to visit the front lines, "Benny," as he is called, has brought to the antiguerrilla fight some modern tactics: the use of large numbers of mobile troops guided to their targets by spotter aircraft and helicopters, and the rapid deployment of elite commando units by air when the fighting begins. Lucas has also tried to instill a new resolve in the Guatemalan troops, demanding clear proof that they have actively engaged the enemy in firefights.

The army first launched its new style of campaign in the Guatemalan departments of Chimaltenango, Solola and Quezaltenango, major tourist and agricultural areas west of the capital. After resisting briefly, most of the guerrillas quickly moved elsewhere. Now the army is massing its forces in the northwest department of El Quiche, a mountainous jungle area that is considered to be one of the guerrillas' major strongholds. The rugged terrain favors the insurgents, who are surprisingly well equipped. At one fortification discovered in the earlier sweep, the soldiers found networks of tunnels and supplies of M16 rifles, .50-cal. machine guns, recoilless rifles, bazookas, tons of medical supplies, and enough canned goods to feed 40 guerrillas for a year. Many such stockpiles were uncovered. Said an army spokesman: "The presence of an infrastructure was no surprise, but the quantity and quality of the arms we found was."

General Lucas seems confident that the guerrillas can be beaten, but more than a few obstacles stand in the commander's way. By the conventional wisdom of counterinsurgency, where a 10-to-1 superiority of conventional forces is necessary to defeat guerrilla groups, the 14,000-member Guatemalan army will not be large enough to do the job. Lucas talks of expanding his forces to 50,000, a costly chore. The army is also short of such critical items as helicopters and spare parts. Substantial help is unlikely to come from the U.S., despite the Reagan Administration's desire to halt Marxist expansion in Central America. Already concerned about Guatemala's human rights record, Congress undoubtedly would balk at providing new aid. The funds for the army therefore would have to be taken from other areas of the hard-pressed economy. Says one local intelligence analyst: "Something has to give. If they expand the army, that will cut into the budget for building roads, schools and health clinics."

Guatemala is in no shape for that kind of sacrifice. The country is attracting virtually no foreign investments, and international banks are phasing out loans as they come due. Tourism, once Guatemala's third largest source of foreign exchange, has dwindled to a trickle. Major export crops such as coffee and cotton are also suffering. The economy is stagnant; the country's foreign exchange reserves have fallen from $718 million in 1979 to an estimated $70 million today.

Guatemala's increasing unemployment has benefited the guerrillas, who are trying to win the cooperation, if not the allegiance of the traditionally passive native Indians, descendants of the Mayan Empire, who make up some 40% of the population. The guerrillas reportedly are hiring some of the poverty-stricken Indians as fighters for $100 a month, plus food. The army, in turn, has offered the Indians protection from the combat in camps located in fire-free zones.

The latest escalation in warfare is also casting a shadow over Guatemala's presidential election, which is scheduled for March 7. The army and the government have agreed on their candidate: conservative Brigadier General Anibal Guevara, a former Defense Minister. His main opponents are Alejandro Maldonado, a lawyer and former Guatemalan Ambassador to the United Nations, and Mario Sandoval Alarcon, an outspoken right-winger who sports a pearl-handled revolver and has threatened that if elected his government would kill 1,000 "Communists" a week.

Guevara is expected to win, at a time when Guatemala is under heavy pressure from the U.S. to hold an election that is more honest than the one that resulted in President Lucas' victory, widely regarded as fraudulent. The U.S. and the Guatemalan government want a big turnout at the polls to show that the new regime has the support of the people. For just that reason, the guerrillas will be trying to disrupt the election. Thus the increasingly open warfare in Guatemala seems likely to become even more bloody in the months ahead. --By George Russell. Reported by James Willwerth/Guatemala City

With reporting by James Willwerth

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