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RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHGT #1262/01 3171559
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 131559Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY GUATEMALA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0398
INFO WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS GUATEMALA 001262 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV ECON ELAB EAGR PHUM SOCI ASEC GT
SUBJECT: Peasant Groups Growing Impatient with Colom 
Administration 
 
REF: REF A) 937; REF B) 442 
 
¶1.   (SBU)  Summary:  Guatemala's various peasant and indigenous 
groups are growing increasingly impatient with the Colom 
administration for what they believe has been its slow and 
inadequate response in addressing the needs of the rural poor, many 
of whom have been hit hard by the combined effects of the country's 
recent economic downturn, falling remittances, and a severe 
drought.  The leaders of these groups are particularly frustrated 
with the government's failure to deliver on previous promises to 
provide debt relief.  To show their displeasure and political 
muscle, protestors brought traffic in the capital to a standstill 
and effectively shut down the nation's highways twice in October. 
Such actions are likely to continue periodically throughout the 
country.  End Summary. 
 
 
 
¶2. (SBU)  On October 27, up to 25,000 peasants and indigenous 
protesters erected roadblocks in at least a dozen locations 
throughout the country, in the process severely disrupting vehicle 
traffic along the nation's highways.  The action was organized by 
the National Struggle Front (FNL), a labor and peasant group, and 
the Committee for Peasant Development (CODECA).  On the same day in 
Guatemala City, members of a third peasant group, Platforma Agraria 
(Agrarian Platform), occupied the headquarters building for the 
Fondo de Tierras (Land Fund), the government agency charged with 
helping the rural poor finance land purchases. 
 
 
 
¶3. (SBU)  According to protest organizers, the timing of the two 
actions on October 27 was coincidental.  Neither were the October 
27 demonstrations directly linked to those that occurred on October 
12, when protestors brought traffic in large parts of Guatemala 
City to a standstill.  These earlier protests had been organized by 
several different leftist groups, including the National 
Coordinator for the Indigenous and Peasant Peoples (CONIC) and the 
Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC) (Ref A).  Nonetheless, many of 
the public demands of the October 27 protestors mirrored those 
articulated by the demonstrators on October 12, including: 
 
 
 
*    providing land reform and debt relief for poor farmers; 
*    nationalizing electrical power; 
*    canceling various mining licenses; 
*    restoring cuts made to the health and education budgets; 
*    investigating recent violence against labor and peasant 
leaders. 
 
 
 
¶4. (SBU)  FNL coordinator Luis Lara (Ref B) confided to post Laboff 
that addressing food security in the countryside is at the top of 
his list of concerns.  In this respect, FNL is demanding the Colom 
government authorize the release of a subsidy of 75 million 
quetzales (a little over USD 9 million) to help poor, small farmers 
who have fallen into debt during the current economic downturn. 
Lara claims the funds are being held by the Fondo de Tierras and 
blames a lack of political will for its failure to distribute them. 
Lara, who also serves as Secretary General of the National Union of 
Health Workers, is insistent that the government reverse this 
year's cuts to the health and education budgets.  In addition, he 
is adamant the government do something to lower utility costs for 
its poorer citizens, which he claims are being charged exorbitant 
fees by the Spanish electrical conglomerate, Union Fenosa. 
 
 
 
¶5. (SBU)  In a separate meeting with Laboff, Platforma Agraria 
spokesman Israel Macario listed reactivating the rural economy at 
the top of his organization's list of demands.  Macario claimed the 
Colom government has designed programs that benefit its political 
clients rather than the general population.  If the government 
could allocate a Q90 million (USD 10.8 million) subsidy to fund a 
trans-metro bus system in the capital then surely it could provide 
a similar subsidy to help peasants get out of debt, he argued. 
Like Lara, Macario is very frustrated with the government's failure 
to disburse existing budgetary funds and to deliver on previous 
promises.  Macario showed Laboff a July 30 agreement signed by 
Secretary of Peace Orlando Blanco, Minister of Agriculture Mario 
Aldana, and other government officials pledging, among other 
things, to provide the supporters of his organization with Q20 
million (USD 2.4 million) in microloans.  So far, the government 
has failed to deliver on any of the promises it made, Macario 
claimed. 
 
¶6. (SBU)  Enrique Torres, a long-time labor lawyer and President 
Colom's brother-in-law, told Laboff that the various protest groups 
have similar but not identical agendas and, in fact, compete with 
each other to a certain degree.  While all of these groups continue 
to publicly demand land reform, none of them really believes that 
this is a realistic goal under current circumstances.  What their 
demands essentially boil down to, Torres asserted, is getting 
Colom's government to deliver on previous agreements that it made 
to provide debt relief. 
 
 
 
¶7. (SBU)  Torres said the various peasant groups ideally would like 
the government to provide them with grants to help them pay the 
banks what they owe.  He noted that the government does not have 
the authority or budget to do this, so the best the peasant groups 
can expect is to receive loans on very favorable terms (that is, at 
very low interest rates).  Torres alleged that money is available 
for this purpose and that the Ministry of Agriculture has only 
spent 41% of its budget for this year.  Other peasant demands - 
such as nationalizing electrical power and cancelling existing 
mining licenses - are probably not hard demands but rather 
bargaining chips to get debt relief.  In a separate conversation 
with the Ambassador, Torres noted several times that the government 
had severe problems with carrying out agreements; this included 
actions for which no funding was required, or for which funding was 
available. 
 
 
 
¶8. (SBU)  Comment:  The worldwide economic downturn, falling 
remittances, and the country's recent severe drought have been 
particularly hard on Guatemala's peasant farmers, many of whom were 
already in debt before these developments.  Following the peace 
accords in 1996, the government helped peasant collectives 
throughout the country buy land, usually by putting up to half of 
the money.  The peasant collectives were then supposed to pay off 
the rest of the purchase price over time but many have fallen 
behind in their payments. 
 
 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  While Guatemala's various peasant and indigenous groups 
lack a central coordinating body and common platform, they do share 
many of the same demands, including helping rural farmers with debt 
relief.  Two years into Colom's administration, the leaders of 
these groups are under pressure from their own constituency to get 
the government to deliver on its promises.  Adding to this pressure 
may be the realization that the next government may be even less 
amenable to negotiation than Colom's.  To date, only one principal 
demand has been met:  On October 29, the International Commission 
Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) announced that it intended to 
investigate the deaths of twenty union and peasant leaders in 
Guatemala since 2007.  While this is a significant development, it 
is unlikely to be enough to dissuade peasant and indigenous groups 
from orchestrating future protests such as those that occurred this 
October.  End Comment. 
MCFARLAND