Word: guatemala
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Windows in the genteel Zona Diez district of Guatemala City rattled last week to an increasingly familiar sound: the blast of terrorist bombs. Local residents merely shrugged off the dynamitings-and that in itself is a sign of how life is changing for the worse in the most populous (7.5 million) and richest country in Central America. A chaotic, four-year confrontation between government and Marxist guerrilla forces is entering a new and deadly phase, one that is escalating on both sides...
...skyscrapers have a spooky, battered look; as many as one-third of their windows have been blown out by leftist bombs. Dozens of streets near sensitive government and military installations have been closed in an attempt to foil terrorists. Death threats against Frederic Chapin, Washington's Ambassador to Guatemala, were taken so seriously that a special Marine sniper team was temporarily added to the U.S. embassy staff. For safety's sake, Chapin and his wife spent part of the Christmas season in a makeshift bedroom in the ambassador's office rather than at home...
...violence is reaching new levels even for Guatemala, where left and right have been at bloody odds since a CIA-sponsored coup overthrew the left-leaning government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954. For 27 years, the country has been dominated by a coalition of conservative politicians and military figures who have been backed by the army. Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia, the current president, is an army general himself. Despite Washington's support for the 1954 coup, relations between the two countries have been severely strained in recent years by Guatemala's appalling human rights record...
...organizations have been growing and organizing clandestinely on a scale that finally came as a shock to authorities. Guatemalan army analysts now estimate the guerrilla strength at 3,000 active fighters, plus as many as 30,000 untrained reserves and supporters. The strategy of the guerrillas is to isolate Guatemala City and to seize portions of outlying Guatemalan departments. The eventual aim of the insurgents is to win some form of political recognition abroad...
...Lewis criticized Reagan's "double standard" on human rights violations, as he has in recent Times columns. Lewis has faulted the United States government for focusing on human rights violations in Poland while neglecting racism in South Africa, repression in Guatemala, and antisemitism in Argentina...