GUATEMALA:
Indigenous Groups Sceptical about Social Dialogue
Alberto Mendoza

GUATEMALA CITY,  (IPS) - Labour and campesino organisations in Guatemala are sceptical of recent government calls for a formal national dialogue to address the social agenda set out in the 1996 peace accords that officially ended the country's 36-year civil war.

"The government of Óscar Berger does not have the necessary leadership to implement the kind of national accord it is proposing," Manuel Pablo Quino, executive secretary of the Confederacion General de Trabajadores de Guatemala (CGTG), a national labour federation, told IPS. "The current lack of governability will hamper the plan."

Berger plans to initiate a broad national dialogue on Thursday in order to make progress towards commitments contained in the peace agreements, specifically focusing on challenges related to land reform, poverty, health, indigenous groups and transparency in government.

The peace accords specifically outline commitments to respect indigenous rights, strengthen the country's democratic institutions and foster socioeconomic development in all areas, including agriculture. A tax package agreement could also be on the agenda, as the State looks for ways to raise the funds needed to implement related social and economic reform.

Representatives from the country's political, social, academic and economic sectors, Congress and the judicial branch have been called to participate, although they have yet to receive official invitations.

Sources in the vice president's office told IPS that the proposed national dialogue also aims to bring Guatemala closer to meeting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As such, a top priority will be eradicating poverty, hunger and systemic social exclusion, which prevents full participation in society.

According to Guatemala's National Statistics Institute, 56 percent of the country's citizens live below the poverty line; of these, 15.7 percent live in extreme poverty.

The vice president's office has said that indigenous groups - who officially make up 41 percent of the population - stand to gain the most from the proposed national dialogue. A U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) report on ethnic diversity found that more than 80 percent of indigenous people are concentrated in the lowest socioeconomic strata.

Norma Quixtán, the government's secretary for peace and a prominent indigenous activist, reiterated the necessity of building "a plural and multilingual State," given that "racism is still a daily fact of life."

Ricardo Cajas, who heads the Presidential Commission Against Racism, added that "Guatemala was built on a foundation of discrimination, and racism still rears its head in every State institution."

This comes as no surprise to anyone, and is backed up by statistics. Twice as many indigenous people as members of other Guatemalan groups live in extreme poverty. Of the 158 members of Congress, only 12 are indigenous, and only one of 13 cabinet portfolios - the Culture Ministry û is headed by an indigenous person.

Cajas further noted that indigenous groups are also excluded from the educational system, given that it is "monolingual in areas where the population is multilingual."

Guatemala's Academia de Lenguas Mayas (Mayan Language Academy) estimates that half of Guatemala's 13 million people speak at least one of the 22 Mayan languages, but only at home, because Spanish is required to gain access to public services.

Magdalena Pérez, the academy's Linguistic Planning director, said that the situation will only improve "with significant consciousness-raising among officials and public employees, and political will."

In addition to greater social inclusion, better education and increased respect for the culture of indigenous groups, participants in the national dialogue are to discuss land issues and reparations for victims of the armed conflict.

Rosalina Tuyuc, head of the National Reparations Commission, said indigenous populations have suffered under "policies of extermination, such as the more than 200,000 victims of the armed conflict. The latifundium [large estate] is one of the country's major structural problems, as those who do not work the land own most of it, and many of those who do work the land do not own any," added Tuyuc, whose background is Kaqchikel, a Mayan nation.

According to the UNDP report, in 2000 a mere 1.5 percent of the population controlled 62.5 percent of the land, while 94 percent of property owners held only 18.6 percent.

Ten years after the signing of the peace accords, progress has been slowest in the area of rural and agrarian issues. The agreements themselves established that campesinos must have access to land to overcome poverty and marginalisation. In the wake of various failed initiatives to redistribute income and land, this remains one of the most disputed pending issues, and one of the most difficult to accomplish.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) had recommended agrarian reform as a strategy for combating hunger and meeting the MDGs. However, two years into President Berger's term, land redistribution has not yet made it onto the agenda.

Rafael González, spokesman for the Committee for Campesino Unity, is frustrated that the government "has left land issues off the agenda while there have been more than 75 violent evictions of campesinos since it came to power."

On Aug. 31, 2004, an eviction carried out at the Nueva Linda estate in Guatemala's western province of Retalhuleu resulted in the deaths of nine campesinos, including three minors, and four police officers.

As a condition for participating in the national dialogue, indigenous and campesino organisations have demanded that those responsible for these crimes be brought to account.

The National Coordinator of Campesino Organisations has not confirmed its participation in the government's proposed dialogue. The head of the umbrella group, Carlos Arriaga, told IPS that "the government is issuing this invitation after 27 months of ignoring the peace accords and campesino demands."

On Apr. 20, campesinos, students and teachers demonstrated throughout the country and threatened a national uprising. Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein responded with a promise to create sectoral roundtables to address their grievances and demands.



In the eyes of trade unions and campesino organisations, the proposed national dialogue is a concrete fulfilment of that promise. However, the government categorically denies that the initiative is a response to the protests.

But that may be a moot point; the national dialogue will go nowhere if social sectors refuse to participate.

Guatemalan analyst Víctor Ferrigno said the process is not about coming to the negotiating table with a list of problems, but rather "meeting to discuss a political agenda for implementing solutions with measurable goals and indicators."