Surprise in the Sermon

By George Russell

Rios Montt discomfits guerrillas but postpones elections

Up to a point, the speech was the kind of bizarre and rambling homily that Guatemalans have come to expect from their born-again military President, Brigadier General Jose Efrain Rios Montt, 56. As he has almost every Sunday evening since he assumed power in a March 1982 coup, the silver-mustached member of the California-based Christian Church of the Word last week appeared on Guatemalan television to deliver a sermon on patriotism, morality, local politics and the revelations of divine wisdom. He advised citizens against the use of drugs to combat high blood pressure because, he said, it led to impatience. That, in turn, could produce dictatorship, which, Rios Montt declared, "does not work."

Then Rios Montt delivered a minor bombshell. Guatemala, he said, was "not prepared" for democratic elections that he had been vaguely promising for six months. More time was needed, he said, to restore the country's voter rolls, some of which were falsified by Guatemala's previous military rulers. Rios Montt also said that the country's suspended political parties must be reformed, "to coincide with the equitable interests of a majority and with pressures of a minority." Translation: Rios Montt does not intend to schedule elections until he has created a new party system that he is comfortable with.

The general's remarks came as a surprise to a high-level Guatemalan delegation that was visiting the U.S. Jorge Serrano, president of Rios Montt's advisory Council of State, had assured a U.S. audience that an election date would be announced no later than March 1984 and that voting would probably take place the following June. Rios Montt's reversal was "incomprehensible," said a member of the visiting delegation. "I don't know what the President had in mind."

The remark echoed the confusion of many Guatemalans. Since he took over--at God's direction, as he put it--Rios Montt has made far-reaching changes in the brutal and corrupt government that he inherited from his predecessor, General Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia. The country is now flooded with blue-and-white posters bearing a favorite Rios Montt slogan, I DO NOT ROB, I DO NOT LIE, I DO NOT ABUSE. Under the President's moralizing eye, corruption has all but dried up. Government-sanctioned death squads that used to roam the streets of Guatemala City have almost disappeared. Most important, Rios Montt appears to have succeeded, at least temporarily, where the government of neighboring El Salvador has failed: in winning a war against a powerful Marxist insurgency involving an estimated 4,000 guerrillas and their supporters.

Only a year ago, the guerrillas controlled vast swatches of territory in at least seven of Guatemala's 22 departments. Now the number of insurgents has substantially diminished and, says a Western military analyst, "the guerrillas are bleeding. Their cadres are scattered all over the place, and the rest are not willing to pay the price to confront the army." Many of the guerrillas have fled to safety in southern Mexico.

At the core of Rios Montt's military success is a program initially known as "beans and rifles" and now called techos, tortillas y trabajo (roofs, tortillas and work). In essence, it is the kind of campaign that U.S. military advisers have advocated without success in El Salvador. Under Rios Montt's direction, the 25,000-member Guatemalan armed forces have saturated the countryside with small antiguerrilla patrols, aggressively chasing the rebels from their support bases. Rural villagers, some armed with vintage rifles but most equipped only with machetes and sticks, are organized into civil defense patrols to aid the counterinsurgency efforts. Those who take the army's side are rewarded with food, public works, jobs and housing. In areas where the guerrillas have been routed, the government is pouring money into the rebuilding of schools, health clinics and municipal centers. Rios Montt has also issued a strict code of conduct to the army. Among the rules: pay promptly and fairly for all food supplies, respect the customs and traditions of the Indian villagers and even yield the right of way on highways and roads to civilian traffic where feasible.

Despite government denials, Rios Montt's antiguerrilla campaign has cost the lives of thousands of innocent noncombatants. Perhaps as many as 1 million Guatemalans have been made homeless by the fighting. Guatemalans who refuse to join the civil defense patrols are sometimes shot summarily as guerrilla sympathizers. International human rights observers point to Rios Montt's use of secret military tribunals, backed by firing squads, to administer justice. Last March he incurred the wrath of Pope John Paul II by executing six men, convicted of subversive activity, on the eve of the papal visit.

The country's future course may be decided by the performance of the economy. For all practical purposes, Guatemala is virtually bankrupt; it cannot even afford to import the pesticides needed for this year's cotton planting, one of the nation's economic mainstays. The delegation that was in Washington last week was trying to get a threeyear, $125 million loan from the International Monetary Fund. If Rios Montt cannot get additional funds and the country's economy continues to deteriorate, foreign military analysts estimate that further guerrilla trouble is possible within a year.

The biggest question mark of all is about Rios Montt's continuing performance in office. Although he claims to have the support of the Almighty, he does not have much of an earthly political power base. Says a Western diplomat in Guatemala City: "He's managed to go it alone, largely on rhetoric." But just barely: over the past year, Rios Montt has nipped at least four coup plots in various stages of gestation. His latest announcement of a delay in election plans is almost certainly bound to cause an increase in political restlessness.

--By George Russell. Reported by James Willwerth/Guatemala City

With reporting by James Willwerth This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.