Complete Thesis_double spaced abstract.pdf

administration insinuated that the military had kept the police force ill equipped to control
political violence in the urban and rural areas. In April of 1986 as the level of political violence
rose the army claimed that the violence was in response to an increase in guerrilla activity in the
north, northwest, and southwest of Guatemala. In May of the same year there were 24 killed and
seven disappeared in politically related violence. In June the government initiates the “Master
Emergency Plan,” calling for a more professionalized police force and the hiring of more police
officers to combat the increasing political violence. In the one month following President
Cerezo’s announcement to reconstitute the police force there was a rash of political violence
including the murder of priests, government workers, family members of government workers,
teachers and professors, members of the business sector, President Cerezo’s personal pilot, new
military recruits, and ten members of a family in Jutiapa. The victims of the violence were linked
by their direct or indirect ties to the investigation of corruption and previous violence.
Interestingly, the national police were increasingly implicated as the perpetrators of violence
against community organizers and union members and leadership. The violence continued into
1986 as guerrillas and military clashed, 15 guerrilla members, including “Comandante Augusto”
of the ORPA were reported killed by the military in the month of June (Central America Report,
1986, 202). By the end of 1986, one year into Cerezo’s civilian presidency, Mexico was
pressuring for the return of the more than 40,000 Guatemalan refugees living in and around
Campeche and Quinta Roo. However, the continued violence in the areas where Guatemalans
would return to limited the amount of Guatemalans returning. During the last three months of
1986 there were “165 killings and 454 kidnappings” (Central America Report, 1986, 380). Also
impeding the return of refugees and migrants to their original communities was the continued use
of PACs and development poles.
168