US embassy cable - 05GUATEMALA163

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 GUATEMALA 000163 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, ETRD, EAID, SNAR, MASS, ASEC, PHUM, SENV, GT 
SUBJECT: LETTER FROM GUATEMALA (4) 
 
REF: (A) GUATEMALA 0047 (B) 04 GUATEMALA 3211 (C) 
 
     GUATEMALA 0162 
 
1. (SBU) The year got off to a rough start for Guatemalan 
President Oscar Berger. 
 
--------------------------- 
Campesino Protests Get Ugly 
--------------------------- 
 
2. (SBU) Solola, the province best known for the 
breathtakingly beautiful Lake Atitlan, became the center of 
attention when campesinos hijacked some heavy equipment 
destined for a Canadian gold mine in San Marcos, which 
borders Mexico.  Campesinos in the tiny village of Los 
Encuentros detained the mining equipment on December 2. 
 
3. (SBU) As previewed in an earlier letter (ref B), the 
protestors at Los Encuentros had refused to allow a bridge 
over the highway to be dismantled in order to let the 
over-sized mining equipment be on its way to San Marcos.  The 
well-coached campesinos said they objected to gold mining and 
would not budge.  In the following weeks, the GOG sought to 
get the mining equipment rolling again, first by suasion, 
then by force.   Things came to a head on January 11, when 
the protesting campesinos stopped all traffic going through 
Los Encuentros, and the GOG deployed to Los Encuentros a 
thousand police backed up by several hundred army troops. 
 
4. (SBU) Having had six weeks to rally their forces, the 
campesinos were pumped up for a confrontation and initially 
resisted the police intervention.  GOG sources claim the 
police were unarmed and the soldiers, although photographed 
aiming their weapons, had not been issued bullets.  Footage 
of the confrontation was reminiscent of the August 31 
eviction of squatters from the Nueva Linda plantation in 
Retalhuleu, which left four police and seven squatters dead. 
This time, one campesino died of a gunshot wound.  However, 
since he was injured about half a mile from the scene of the 
riot, speculation is that he was killed by a stray bullet. 
And since some of the campesinos were allegedly armed with 
AK-47s, the fatal bullet may have been fired by a fellow 
campesino.  An autopsy was performed, but it only confirmed 
that the victim was killed by a bullet, and a large one at 
that. 
 
-------------------------- 
One Clash Leads to Another 
-------------------------- 
 
5. (SBU) Just several months ago, the issue of gold mining 
had provoked an acrimonious exchange between Berger and the 
Catholic Church's Cardinal Quezada, with Berger accusing 
Quezada of resorting to populist demagoguery in questioning 
the issuance of licenses for gold mines.  Berger and Quezada 
patched things up in November, but after the police clashed 
with the demonstrators in Solola, Berger resumed his 
rhetorical skirmishes with the Church.  This time, however, 
Berger criticized Bishop Ramazzini of San Marcos for failing 
to use his influence to pacify the protestors.  Implicit in 
Berger's grievance was the allegation that Ramazzini had 
encouraged the protestors and their organizers.  Ramazzini 
has long been a bete noire of Guatemala's landed elite, who 
have complained to us for several years that the Bishop has 
used rural radio broadcasts to instigate land invasions. 
Ramazzini was front and center in photographs of the small 
crowd of demonstrators who gathered in front of the Congress 
January 14 to protest government policies. 
 
--------------------------------- 
Just When You Thought It Was Safe 
--------------------------------- 
 
6. (SBU) Almost simultaneously with the problems at Los 
Encuentros, Guatemala's air traffic controllers walked off 
the job on January 11, shutting down Guatemala's airports for 
20 hours.  In this crisis, however, the Berger administration 
moved quickly and decisively.  Berger fired the controllers, 
and the government brought in foreign air traffic controllers 
to reopen the Guatemala City airport, but not before the 
travel of hundreds of airline passengers was disrupted.  The 
traffic controllers bore the brunt of public opprobrium for 
their precipitous walk-out, and the media reported that the 
strikers, as they left the control tower, had flipped off the 
runway lights just as a jet was trying to land.  (See ref C 
for details.) 
 
------------------------ 
First Year's Report Card 
------------------------ 
 
7. (SBU) While the dust from these two crises was still 
settling, Berger went to the opening of Congress on January 
14 to deliver his State of the Union address.  Berger 
impressed the Ambassador and others in the attendance with 
the brevity of his address.  He focused on his efforts to 
restore confidence in Guatemala's public institutions, 
severely deteriorated as the result of his predecessor 
Portillo's kleptocracy.  In this connection, he recalled the 
new leadership he brought to the corrupt tax collection 
service (SAT), the prosecutor's office, the comptroller, and 
the superintendent of banks.  He dwelt on his efforts to root 
out corruption, reduce public spending without cutting social 
investment, and make government more transparent 
(particularly with on-line procurement system, Guatecompras). 
 He cited tax reform and military downsizing as the greatest 
accomplishments of his first year in office.  Critics panned 
Berger's address for dwelling too much on the sorry state of 
affairs left behind by the Portillo administration and for 
not stating clearly what he would do to address Guatemala's 
two biggest problems:  crime and unemployment. 
 
8. (SBU) In the midst of a rough week putting out fires, 
Berger may have found a little comfort in some poll findings 
published by "Prensa Libre" and "El Periodico."  Although 
"Prensa Libre" found that 58% of respondents did not approve 
his first year's performance, about 52% thought he had the 
ability and leadership to solve the country's problems.  "El 
Periodico" said Berger was popular with 56%, followed closely 
by Rigoberta Menchu with 54% and his opponent in the 2003 
presidential election, Alvaro Colom, with 48%.  On support 
for political parties, the most popular was Berger's GANA 
coalition with 19%, followed by 11% for Colom's UNE. 
HAMILTON