Guatemala.

• Position: Human rights

Guatemala

In 1982, the Commission on Human Rights asked its Chairman to appoint a Special Rapporteur to prepare a thorough study of the situation in Guatemala. The Assembly then invited the Government of Guatemala and other concerned parties to co-operate with that Special Rapporteur and consider further steps for securing human rights for all in that country.

Mark Colville, Viscount of Culross (United Kingdom), was appointed Special Rapporteur in March 1983. Guatemala promised him full co-operation. The Special Rapporteur's mandate calls for him to submit an interim report to the Assembly in 1983 and a final report in 1985.

The Third Committee in November reviewed the interim report (document A/38/485), in which the Special Rapporteur reviews the historical background to the situation in Guatemala up to and including the installation in August of General Oscar Humberto Mejia Victores as President; the status of revolutionary movements and of the indigenous population; reforms instituted by the Guatemalan Government; the separation of Church and State; the operation of special tribunals; and the situation of Guatemalan refugees in Mexico.

The main revolutionary groups in Guatemala, the Special Rapporteur says, combined in January 1982 into the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (URNG), which said it strives for respect for human rights, an economic transformation and guarantees of equality for indigenous and Ladino (mixed-race) polulations. The Rapporteur says the URNG is, "by all accounts, almost entirely home-grown with very little foreign influence or involvement'. Its leaders include well-educated people of European origin, but its active forces consist largely of indigenous people and Ladinos, he states.

The Rapporteur concludes that the co-operation of rural villagers with guerillas was obtained by means of promises of social justice and, in many cases, by violence and terror. Faced with the relative success of the guerillas, "the army appears to have adopted ruthless tactics', suspecting most of the rural population of having subversive inclinations, he states.

When General Rios Montt assumed the presidency, efforts were made to alter the army's approach, stressing aid to the population. Amnesties were declared for guerillas and collaborators. Nevertheless, there was evidence that not all of the army changed tactics immediately. Accounts were given of army massacres of civilians; some were corroborated in such detail that the...