1970 - Carlos Arana Osorio
The 1970 elections were held in an atmosphere of fear, which polarized the population and drove a frightened middle class to vote for the candidate of the army and the right. This was Colonel Arana Osorio, dubbed by his critics the “ Jackal of Zacapa ” because he had conducted the ruthless anti-subversion campaign in that department that had cost the lives of thousands of peasant bystanders. Arana, who was nominated by the PID and MLN, received 43 percent of the vote, defeating the candidates of the PR and the Christian Democrats (Democracia Cristiana Guatemalteca - DCG ), originally a conservative party that had moved to the center left as the PR had moved from the left toward the center. Because he had garnered less than the majority of the popular vote, it was necessary for Arana to be confirmed in office by vote of Congress.
Once in power, Arana acted forcefully. The New York Times estimated that there were 2,000 murders in the six months between November 1970 and May 1971. Le Monde quoted foreign diplomats as estimating that right-wing terrorists committed 15 assassinations for every one committed by left -wing guerrillas. Another estimate was of 15,000 deaths from political violence during Arana's first three years in office. In response to criticism of his support of right-wing terrorist squads, usually operated by the army and police, Arana replied that “if it is necessary to turn the country into a cemetery in order to pacify it. I will not hesitate to do so." With the news that "we have four guerrilla prisoners, after a skirmish on the Rio Grande." Arana replied: "And since when do we have prisoners?"
The reason he was chosen as the candidate of the National Liberation Movement party was because he was a fervent anti-communist and because of his notable triumphs against the guerrillas in eastern Guatemala in the 1960s. During his government, extreme right-wing paramilitary groups proliferated, beginning a climate of great insecurity and violence; Groups such as the Secret Anti-Communist Army (ESA), the New Anti-Communist Organization (NOA), the Anti-Communist Council of Guatemala (CADEG), the Committee for Anti-Guerrilla Repression (CRAG), the White Hand and the organized nationalist action movement (MANO) began to commit all kinds of actions against any person considered to be a suspect. Public opinion accused the Army of being the instigator of these groups, but it denied these accusations.
Arana Osorio was the first in a series of military presidents associated with the country's extreme right and who dominated Guatemalan politics between 1970 and 1982. Arana had been Guatemala's ambassador to Nicaragua during the Somoza regime in the 1960s.
Despite the fact that by the time he took office the insurgent activity was minimal, Arana Osorio imposed a state of siege in November 1970; In addition, it imposed a curfew from 9:00 pm to 5:00 am in which all pedestrian and vehicular traffic - including ambulances, firefighters and the Red Cross - were prohibited from circulating. The state of siege led to an increase in kidnappings, torture, forced disappearances and extrajudicial executions of those who considered themselves opponents of the regime. In January 1971, a bulletin from the United States Defense Intelligence Agency detailed how the Guatemalan armed forces quietly eliminated hundreds of terrorism and common crime suspects in rural Guatemala. Although repression in the countryside waned, urban repression increased against any vestige of the guerrilla.
Arana also showed little sympathy for upper status critics of his regime; for example, in 1971 he deported the Episcopal bishop. In 1974 Arana rigged the presidential elections, forcibly prohibiting demonstrations of protest. The Christian Democrats, by then the leading opposition party representing mildly progressive elements among the urban middle and working classes, had thought they might be allowed to take power with a military candidate; they therefore chose as their nominee Brigadier General José Efraín Ríos Montt, who had served briefly as army chief of staff under Arana. The candidate of the MLN and the PID, who was declared elected, was Brigadier General Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García — former minister of national defense - with the MLN leader Sandoval as his vice president. Ríos Montt was persuaded not to contest the election results and to accept appointment as military attaché in Madrid.
Arana tried to become the power behind the throne through his own party, originally called the Organized Aranista Center (Central Aranista Organizada — CAO) but renamed the Authentic Nationalist Center (Central Auténtica Nacionalista — CAN ). He was unsuccessful in this, not only because a serving president was necessarily the dominant figure in the counry but also because Arana's prestige was heavily tarnished. The right-wing assassination squads sponsored by Arana had used their immunity from the law to branch out into other activities. such as drug trafficking, arms smuggling, and kidnapping for ransom ; shoot-outs between rival gangs over division of the spoils caused some of this to become public knowledge. Arana's CAN soon lost force and plausibility as a political party.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
