Weekly Report - 5 August 2003

Rí­os Montt has been registered as a candidate, but new legal challenges have arisen, and the issue has started having concrete political effects, bringing together the opposition. 

On 30 July an enlarged constitutional court ruled in favour of a new suit brought by the lawyers of retired General Efraí­n Rí­os Montt, nullifying the supreme court's provisional injunction against him, ordering the electoral authority to register Rí­os Montt as presidential candidate of the ruling Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (FRG), and barring the supreme court from granting any further injunctions or hearing any further appeals in this line of litigation. 

New legal avenues sought 

Rí­os Montt was duly handed his registration papers, but this was not the end of the story. Two political groups, the Gran Alianza Nacional (Gana - the coalition fielding poll frontrunner Oscar Berger) and the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE - a left-of-centre coalition fielding Alvaro Colom; frequent target of the 'clandestine security groups'), have resorted to another avenue, filing a suit with the registry office for the annulment of Rí­os Montt's registration, on the grounds that it is unconstitutional. This new line of litigation could follow the same path as the previous one, up to the supreme court and the constitutional court. 

Perhaps the least expected legal challenge was the suit filed by 15 indigenous organisations against Rí­os Montt, President Alfonso Portillo and interior minister Adolfo Reyes, for allegedly breaching the recently approved law against discrimination and racism. The claim, pioneered by Nobel prizewinner Rigoberta Menchú, is that Rí­os Montt was responsible for 'obliging' or 'pressuring' Indians into joining the mob that rioted the previous week in Guatemala city in a show of force designed to intimidate the judiciary (WR-03-29). 

Some of the Indians had been paid the equivalent of US$12 to join the demonstrations; according to Menchú they were misled, as they were given no indication that there would be violence. Other Indian participants were drawn from among former members of the PACs, the 'civilian self-defence patrols' pressganged during the internal war to assist in the army's counter-insurgency efforts. According to Menchú, testimonies of coercion have been collected to back up the accusations. Portillo and Reyes are cited as accessories, for not having prevented the riots organised by the ruling party. It is not at all clear that the suit will prosper. 

Political ramifications 

The first sign that the Rí­os Montt issue was influencing change on the political front was when all opposition parties in the single-chamber congress announced, on 30 July, that they were coalescing into the Instancia Parlamentaria de Oposición, with the overriding aim of monitoring the electoral process, to ensure that Rí­os Montt, with the assistance of his son Enrique, a serving general who is chief of the defence staff, does not attempt to repeat the methods seen in the Guatemala city riots. 

They also intended to make a strong gesture by tabling on 1 August, when congress reconvened, a motion condemning the riots. It could not be more than a gesture, since even as a bloc they were outvoted by the FRG, which holds 59 of the 113 seats in the legislature. In the event, though, they achieved more: clearly fearing that they would incur public opprobrium if they voted down the motion, the FRG legislators chose instead to walk out, depriving the body of the necessary quorum. 

Two days later an even broader coalition, the Frente Cí­vico por la Democracia, was formed by the leaders of the opposition parties, unions, business associations, human rights organisations, academic and student bodies, artistes, NGOs - even groups of Guatemala expatriates. 

Their first act was to prepare yet another legal challenge, this time aimed at the four magistrates of the constitutional court who ruled in favour of Rí­os Montt. They are filing a suit with the ethics tribunal of the lawyers' association, with a view to getting them disbarred. If things move fast enough, this could influence the outcome of other suits in the pipeline.