Early this spring, almost 1,000
representatives of popular organi-
zations gathered in Guatemala
City to found the Democratic Front
Against Repression (FDCR) whose
single objective is to build a unified
resistance against the campaign
of terror raging in Guatemala.
Fifteen people have been mur-
dered each day since the begin-
ning of the year; in the capital city,
few people venture out after dark
and visitors report almost nightly
gunfire. While such violence and
terror have been chronic in Guate-
mala since the CIA-backed estab-
lishment of a military dictatorship
in 1954, the present campaign has
a particular significance: it is aimed
at crushing, not only peasant and
guerrilla insurgency as in the past,
but a rapidly growing mass move-
ment, organized, shaped and in-
spired by working-class leader-
ship.
The advance of the popular
movement is associated with the
creation of the National Commit-
tee for Trade Union Unity (CNUS),
formed in the wake of the 1976
Coca Cola workers’ strike. Under
the leadership of the CNUS, which
has sought to build ties between
the labor, peasant and student
movements, the working class has
conducted a series of militant ac-
tions, culminating last October in
a four-day general strike aimed at
blocking an attempted hike in bus-
fares (See Update, Nov-Dec 1978
Report). The concerted action of
workers, students and shanty-town
38
dwellers bore unmistakable testi-
mony to the intense polarization of
classes that has taken place in
Guatemala over the last three
years.
In response to the “threat”
posed by the popular movement,
terrorist “hit squads”-the Secret
Anti-Communist Army (ESAO) and
the Armed Action Force (FADA)–
have circulated death lists and
undertaken the assassination of
unionists, student leaders and
university officials. While govern-
ment spokespersons place blame
for these murders on the “fight
between extreme right and ex-
treme left,” the materials and
methods employed by the squads,
as well as the impunity with which
they act, point unequivocally to
collusion between police and army
intelligence units and the ter-
rorists.
THE COMPLICITY OF
PRIVATE CAPITAL
On April 5, Manuel Lopez
Balam, the new Secretary General
of the Coca Cola workers’ union,
was knifed to death while on his
delivery route. The leadership of
this union, perhaps the strongest
union in Guatemala and a principal
force in the CNUS, has been a
prime target of the hit squads.
Lopez Balam was the second
union leader at Coca Cola killed in
the space of a few months; the
former Secretary General, Israel
Marquez, fled the country after
several attempts on his life.
GUATEMALA
THE POPULAR RESPONSE
Charging company complicity in
the assassination of their leader-
ship, workers at Coca Cola pointed
out that only Coke officials had ac-
cess to the addresses and delivery
routes of the slain unionists.
There is also evidence of com-
plicity on the part of both govern-
ment and business in the assassi-
nation of Manuel Colom Argueta,
the mayor of Guatemala City from
1970-1974, the leader of the
moderate United Front of the
Revolution (FUR) and a likely 1982
presidential candidate. His brother
Gustavo has charged that at a
meeting with private business
leaders in March, senior army of-
ficers decided to assassinate
Colom Argueta. The latter was ap-
parently organizing opposition to
the government’s economic devel-
opment plans for Guatemala’s
“Northern Transversal Strip.”
THE DEMOCRATIC FRONT
AGAINST REPRESSION
The essential task of the FDCR,
formed on the initiative of the
CNUS, is “to defend our organiza-
tions to enable them to continue
pushing forward the struggle for
popular and democratic rights.”
The problem of “self-defense for
organizations, groups or individu-
als threatened by repression” is
recognized by the FDCR as a vital
aspect of its struggle. Accordingly,
security measures for meetings,
demonstrations or threatened in-
dividuals are gradually being
developed.
But the principal significance of
the FDCR consists in the unity it
has forged between formerly op-
posing forces. Traditionally, the
petty-bourgeoisie-shopkeepers,
civil servants and intellectuals-
formed the ranks of the democrat-
ic, nationalist parties, Colom
NACLA Reportupdate * update * update * update
Argueta’s FUR and Fuentes
Mohr’s Democratic Socialist Party
(PSD), and, hence, were engaged
in the very electoral politics so
deeply suspected by the CNUS
and other popular organizations.
However, with the murders of
Colom Argueta and Fuentes Mohr
and the spread of repression to its
own ranks, much of the petty-
bourgeoisie has begun to despair
of electoral politics and to look in-
stead to the popular movement or
revolutionary organizations. Their
participation in the FDCR ex-
presses their recognition that only
a structure completely indepen-
dent of traditional political institu-
tions can insure their survival.
REVOLUTIONARY SUPPORT
The formation of the FDCR has
received expressions of support
from both the Rebel Armed Forces
(FAR) and the Guerrilla Army of the
Poor (EGP). Moreover, the EGP
has conducted a series of armed
propaganda actions throughout
the country in an effort to build a
united struggle against the enemy
offensive. Its most successful
mass meeting was held in Nebaj
where 4,000 Indian peasants and
workers met for a full day with
armed peasant guerrilla units of
the EGP. Following the 12-hour
meeting, the newly painted walls
of businesses and municipal
buildings proclaimed: “Let no one
give information or any kind of help
to the repressive forces! “; “Every-
one organize to combat repres-
sion together!”; “Our objective is
the Revolution, the Popular War is
the only road!”
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