Word: guatemala
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...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...
...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...
...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...
...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 Anibál Guevara, a former Defense Minister. His main opponents are Alejandro Maldonado, a lawyer and former Guatemalan Ambassador to the United Nations, and Mario Sandóval Alarcón, 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...