Guatemalan Elections, Guerrillas and the Case of Two Flagpoles
GUATEMALA CITY--The fourth time I came into the little out-of-the-way bookstore in Guatemala to search through the shelves for second-hand books, the old bookseller invited me for a cup of coffee and began to tell me stories.
One of them that I remember best of all explains fairly well why the election was boycotted. The old bookseller some months before had gone back to visit his home village.
"I noticed that something had happened, " he said. "The police were walking around without weapons and there were two. flagpoles standing next to each other in the square, one a bit shorter than the other. On the tallest flew a red flag with Che Guevara's picture.
"It turned out that a few months before, a group of guerrillas from the EGP (Guerrilla Army of the Poor) had entered the town. They assembled all the people in the square, including the police and the mayor.
"They proceeded to hold a long session explaining how the struggle for land, for electricity, for better roads, for water-for all the things that the villagers had long fought for--was the same struggle that the guerrillas were fighting. As a symbol of the unity between the townspeople and the EGP, the organization's flag was hoisted up on the official flagpole in the square. Whoever takes that flag down, we know that he is a traitor and an enemy of the struggle, ' the guerrillas said."
One day when the mayor realized that national independence day was approaching, a problem arose. Not for the towns-
His problem became a subject of public discussion for a long time. shaving. His clothes started coming to
He couldn't sleep anymore. He was seen pacing back and forth across the square, his eyes fixed on the flagpole. Then he struck himself on the head and sighed so deeply that all the wind seemed
His problem was that independence had to be celebrated as it always had been. That is, the national flag had to be hoisted with pomp and circumstance, the school children had to be assembled in the square, and he, the mayor, had to give his yearly speech. Then at sunset the flag had to be lowered whilesthe police served as an honor guard.
But how could the flag be lowered without breaking the promise that had been made to the guerrillas, without the mayor being seen as a traitor and presumably dealt with as such. townspeople started betting on whether he would find an answer to his problem or not.
"He found one, all right, the old fox, the old bookseller laughed as he brought more coffee.
"Do you know what he did? He set up another flagpole. But the new one was a little shorter than the old one. So, when independence day was celebrated, the guerrilla flag kept flying, a bit higher than the national flag."
I don't know whether the guerrilla flag is still flying in the old bookseller's village and whether or not there is still another flagpole there that is a bit shorter. But I do know that on March 7, neither the old bookseller nor the inhabitants of his home village will cast their votes, just like about 60% of all potential voters.
Unlike in the 1960s, the guerrillas are linked to the underground mass movement. The armed struggle in itself was not enough. It had to become, as it is now, an expression of the organization of the working people, of the workers and their unions, of the Indians who are fighting for their land, for the 70,000 agricultural workers who struck in 1980.
15
The elections that have been held in Guatemala over the last twenty-five years have never offered any real choice. All of the parties that are legal in Guatemala, and therefore all the candidates, represent the oligarchy, the interests of the big landowners, not those of the workers, the peasants, or the poor.
The incumbent president, General Lucas Garcia was elected in 1978. He was preceded by General Kjell Laugerud, who was elected in 1974, following General Carlos Arana Osorio. The man elected president on March 7 will also be a general. Without any doubt, General Anibal Guevara will be Guatemala's new president.
Among the alternatives to Anibal Guevara there is Mario Sandoval, who is a leader of the grandiosely named National Liberation Movement, and who has proudly declared that he is the chief of the Secret Anti-Communist Army, one of the paramilitary groups responsible for the political mass murder that has gone on in Guatemala in recent years. Another candidate is Gustavo Anzueto. He is a founder and active member of Mano Blanca (the White Hand), another one of the paramilitary groups.
It is the experience of how the ruling class has acted when there were real attempts to improve the lives of the poor that lies behind the decision made by the old bookseller and the people of his town to fight by their own means to change the situation.
The March 7 election is not one of these means.