Guatemala in Search of Democracy

In the political debate which swirls around “democratization” Guatemala must be counted. The policies of its first civilian government since the 1960s, now completing its term, have been important for the success of regional peace. Yet a new wave of violence surrounds the preparation for elections and is testing the government's fragile accomplishments. Underlying such phenomena is Guatemala's struggle to discover what democracy really means in the Latin context where elected officials often serve as a façade for ongoing military control.The contest extends the debate beyond bourgeois and popular conceptions of democracy, especially when Guatemala's civilian-military government is characterized as a “permanent counter-insurgency state” (see Anderson and Simon, 1987; exchange of letters in The Nation, 1989; Guatemalan Church in Exile, 1989). Such a portrayal effectively reduces the nation's democratic manifestations to a charade.