2000 - Alfonso Portillo
Guatemala is a democratic republic with separation of powers and a centralized national administration. The 1985 Constitution provides for election by universal suffrage of a one-term president and a unicameral congress. On 14 January 2000, Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) candidate Alfonso Portillo replaced President Alvaro Arzu of the National Advancement Party (PAN), following a free and fair December 1999 runoff election. The FRG also holds a majority (63 seats) in the 113-member Congress. Despite significant pledges, the Portillo administration took only limited steps to implement the Peace Accords that the Government concluded with the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) guerrillas in 1996. The judiciary is independent; however, it suffers from inefficiency, intimidation, and corruption.
The Minister of Interior oversees the National Civilian Police (PNC), created in January 1997 under the terms of the Peace Accords. The PNC had sole responsibility for internal security; however, some members of the predecessor National Police (PN) remained on duty, and awaited mandated training to become PNC officers. There are no active members of the military in the police command structure, but for the past 3 years, the Government had ordered the army to support the police temporarily in response to an ongoing nationwide wave of violent crime. On 21 March 2000, Congress enacted a law that enabled the Government to continue this practice. Under the new law, military personnel were not subordinated clearly to police control during joint patrols or operations; however, in practice army units generally were subordinated to police control in situations such as PNC road checkpoints, security deployments around prisons, and deployments in response to reported lynchings.
The Constitution required the Minister of Defense to be either a colonel or a general in the military. On January 14, a bill was submitted that would enable the President to appoint a civilian as Minister of Defense; in June Congress asked the Constitutional Court to determine the constitutionality of the bill. On October 3, the Court ruled that it would be unconstitutional for the President, as Commander in Chief, to name a civilian as the Minister of Defense, with the rank of assimilated general. The President had been slow to carry out his commitment to dissolve the Presidential Military Staff (EMP) and to have its functions taken over by a civilian agency. On 13 October 2000, Interior Minister Byron Barrientos announced the creation of a citizen security brigade in Santiago Sacatepequez as a pilot project that may be extended to other parts of the country. Some members of the security forces committed human rights abuses.
The mostly agricultural-based, private sector-dominated economy grew by approximately 3 percent during 2000. Coffee, sugar, and bananas are the leading exports, but tourism, textiles, and apparel assembly are key nontraditional export industries. According to a study by the Ministry of Agriculture, 4 percent of producers control 80 percent of the land. About 40 percent of the work force are engaged in some form of agriculture, and subsistence agriculture was common in rural areas. According to the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), between 50 and 60 percent of the population depends on subsistence farming. Officially, inflation was about 5.5 percent during the year, although most observers acknowledge that the official price index does not measure accurately actual price movements.
There was a marked disparity in income distribution, and poverty was pervasive, particularly in the large indigenous community. Approximately 83 percent of citizens live in poverty; this figure rises to 90 percent among the indigenous population. According to the UNDP, 59 percent of the population live in extreme poverty. Combined unemployment and underemployment was estimated at 46 percent. Per capita gross domestic product was approximately $1,600 during the year. Remittances from citizens living abroad continue to grow as a major source of foreign currency.
There were credible reports that some police tortured, abused, and mistreated suspects and detainees. Despite greater numbers of police officers on duty throughout the country, and less public apprehension about filing complaints against the police, in 2000 the total number of such complaints remained roughly the same as the previous year. Arrests and administrative sanctions against police officers remained high. In May the Secretariat for Strategic Analysis (SAE), the President's Peace-Accords-mandated civilian think tank, announced that it had discovered a database containing the names and other personal information of over 650,000 persons given to the SAE by Military Intelligence; the database appeared to have been compiled several years earlier.
Although the Government increased the security it provided for judicial personnel and witnesses in key cases, many observers believe that the level of protection still was insufficient. From April to June 2000, the number of threats against judicial personnel, journalists, and human rights workers increased significantly, further contributing to the public's already heightened sense of insecurity.
The U.N. Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA) continued to monitor peace implementation and human rights issues. On March 3 and August 9, 2000, the Government signed a series of agreements in which it accepted responsibility for a number of human rights cases pending before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). By December 5, the Government was negotiation with the IACHR on 79 of 140 pending cases. The Government began to pay reparations in a number of key cases. Violence and discrimination against women persisted, as did societal abuse of children and discrimination against the disabled and the indigenous population. Workers' efforts to form unions and participate in union activities are hindered by an ineffective legal system.
The Government conducted anti-lynching campaigns, achieved a very few convictions in past lynching cases, and made numerous arrests; however, fewer than a third of the hundreds of past lynching cases have gone to trial, and at year's end only one person was serving a prison sentence for taking part in a lynching. There was limited progress in the criminal case against a group of armed civilians who held the leaders of the principal banana workers' union at gunpoint in October 1999 and forced them to resign from both their jobs and union positions.
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