The Guatemalan Peace Accords, 25 years later

In the framework of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Secretary of State has developed this morning a seminar to analyse the implementation of the Guatemala Peace Agreements 25 years later (they put an end to an internal armed conflict in December 1996), "essential premise for the enjoyment of the agendas of change and any other fundamental right on the planet", in the words of the Secretary of State for the 2030 Agenda, Enrique Santiago Romero, in charge of the presentation of the event at the headquarters of Casa America. During the assessment of the aforementioned Agreements, the vice-president of the Latin American Presidential Mission, Olinda Salguero, warned that "Europe should not become Latin Americanised through malpractice, but should consolidate processes as a key player in the region". She also argued that the fact that war is not honourable in Guatemala today is a difference from heaven to earth. Enrique Santiago, who proudly proclaimed that Spain played an essential role in accompanying the Peace Process, paid emotional tribute to the 37 victims of the 1980 assault on the Spanish embassy in Guatemala, which ended tragically. An incident provoked by the Guatemalan police during the dictatorship of Fernando Romeo Lucas-García, who invaded the diplomatic headquarters to set it on fire with white phosphorus.

In this sense, although Salguero has reiterated on numerous occasions that she does not belong to the generation that lived through the civil war in Nicaragua, she has celebrated Casamérica's efforts to give visibility to all the challenges, without forgetting that 65% of the Central American population is under 30 years of age and in these 25 years, there has been an increase in complaints from a much more sensitive citizenry in the areas of conflict.

Likewise, who is also Chief of Cabinet of the General Secretariat of the Central American Integration System (SICA), highlighted the optimistic vision of a young Guatemalan population, eager to be linked to the issues of the 2030 agenda but through other channels, which is why she described these Agreements as a current agenda, in full evolution that will set the trend for what may happen in the rest of the Region.

In light of recent events (the tragedy of the migrants in Chiapas), Salguero acknowledged that the ideal conditions for development are not yet in place, but that there is a need to redefine Peace and Democracy itself in the current context of this intergenerational dialogue, "we see the conflict in Guatemala from another dimension, so there are reasons for optimism".  

The current young population in Guatemala, very participative but detached from the negotiations of previous eras, has created spaces of ideological confrontation, leading to an increase in extreme polarisation in social networks, although it is moving towards great opportunities. There are things that have been done well and there are reasons for hope, according to the Vice-President of the Latin American Presidential Mission. "There would be no point in this seminar if we did not project ourselves into the future". According to data provided by Salguero, there is an objective growth of the middle class in distribution, although not as desired; health indicators are improving with many challenges ahead, such as the issue of hunger, "but we can solve it". It should not be forgotten that the poverty of indigenous women in conflict areas is still very marked, and political participation is permeable to drug trafficking, "but I maintain an optimistic view", "even though we have not fulfilled the Peace Accords or got rid of other types of violence". "Today, more people die from traffic accidents or suicide than from a war," Olinda added, insisting that we have to build a culture of peace that allows us a different, inclusive, positive reality... without going backwards.

Olinda Salguero concluded her intervention by alluding to the existence of a greater sensitivity in society and a modification of the mental paradigm in Guatemalan youth because they are achieving a common point where they can build, within the different context in which they live: the metaverse. For Olinda Salguero, peace is now the norm in Guatemala. Progress is being made, albeit at a slow pace. "We are having spaces of opportunity that give us hope within a complex reality". Peace and democracy go hand in hand".

For his part, José Manuel Martín Medem, Director of RTVE, correspondent in Latin America, denounced the lack of protection and the lack of news coverage in Guatemala as one of the most important causes of non-compliance with the Peace Accords, in a scenario of impunity where different interpretations arise: The follow-up to the Peace Accords constitutes a foundational change in the country in order to advance socially, together with the historical reality of a nation, which became involved in a war to maintain the system of a few over an indigenous majority, while at the same time encountering successive setbacks, within the need to implement an electoral democratic transition. "Those who had the impunity to kill have always been able to do so". The Accords were negotiated in this harrowing scenario, without ignoring the fact that there have been different assessments of whether or not they have been fulfilled.

From the correspondent Medem's point of view, if one alludes to a state of mind without fulfilling the Accords within a state context, sustained by illegal networks of power such as the drug trafficking mafias that have been on the rise... "You have to have a lot of good will or naivety to think that a firm and lasting Peace is developing". The war, in order to maintain a system of domination by a few, endures and those who thought it looked like a promise to create the conditions for a great national agreement, ran into successive inconveniences or "sticks in the wheels...": "a debatable reality, - "a debatable reality, - a reality that is not a reality". A debatable reality, as I say, "although dozens of illegal apparatuses dominate Guatemala", added the RTVE adviser.

Velia Muralles, Guatemalan documentary expert, proposed to focus on the fight against corruption and impunity. The long process represented a fruitful dialogue between the sectors that made up the citizenry of a Guatemala that is currently in a worst-case scenario. Velia Muralles has been deserting over a long process that represents the exercise of dialogue between the sectors of agricultural workers, the Church, universities, indigenous peoples, businessmen, internally displaced persons, political parties, military, insurgents and participants in the dialogues, in search of consensus. The signing represented the perspective that "Another Guatemala was possible". The end seemed to have come, but reports showed that 93% of the violations committed were the responsibility of the state security forces, with a death toll of 200,000 people killed and 45,000 detainees disappeared, 50,000 of whom were minors. The terror triggered the flight of half a million displaced and refugee Guatemalans from the Mayan communities. The worst conclusion: that acts of genocide were carried out among this ancient people. 

According to Velia Muralles, a documentary expert, Guatemala barely exceeded 8 million inhabitants in the 1980s. The Peace Accords created a platform as a set of measures to transform society with a restorative effect and served for the recognition of a multi-ethnic, pluricultural and multilingual Guatemalan identity. "While the exclusion of the Mayan peoples is a national shame".

Apparently, the National Reconciliation Law, intended to fulfil the function of an Amnesty Law, included Art. 8 which literally reads: the extinction of criminal responsibility will not be applicable to crimes of genocide, which opened the door to impunity. The Peace Agenda was forgotten and found democratic spaces closed, actions detrimental to efforts to stimulate change in the search for truth and justice. "We are talking about corruption entrenched in the system by groups in power, which has led to a resurgence of authoritarianism and terror. "States of exception, which lead to violent evictions, raids and theft of archives and the obstruction of access to public information in the face of public protests, criminalising the independent press", Muralles concluded.

Eric de León, Prosecutor of the Unit of Special Cases of the Internal Armed Conflict of the Human Rights Prosecutor's Office of Guatemala, a prosecutor of the Public Prosecutor's Office, confirmed to this correspondent that there have been advances and setbacks. The crimes currently being investigated by the Public Prosecutor's Office in Guatemala are genocide, crimes against the Duties of Humanity, assassinations and forced disappearances. The Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) points out that, as a result of the internal armed conflict that the country experienced, 45,000 people were victims of these types of crimes, most of which were committed by state security forces and, to a lesser extent, by non-state groups. The CEH stresses that the exact number of victims of this scourge suffered by Guatemalan society has not yet been established. The CEH concludes that forced disappearance constituted a systematic practice that corresponded to intelligence operations. The Congress of the Republic of Guatemala issued resolution 19-04 by which a total of 45,000 illegally detained citizens are now forcibly disappeared, whose whereabouts are unknown, while their families are demanding that they be located. The CAI investigations in the Human Rights Prosecutor's Office point to 627 under investigation and 3,288 connected.

According to the Project for the Analysis and Filing of CAI cases, of the MP's Secretariat for Criminal Policy, which resulted in the partial processing of files related to events that occurred in the CAI, these are still being processed in the Prosecutor's Offices of Huehuetenango, Quiché, Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz, Chimaltenango, Peten and Sololá.