Guatemalan Workers Strike
GUATEMALA CITY- Since Jan. 23, 50,000 agricultural workers in southern Guatemala have gone on strike, paralyzing, and in some cases, temporarily seizing more than 20 major agro-export plantations in the Esquintla, Retalhuleu, Suchitepequez and Quetzaltenango provinces.
The strike was called by the semi-clandestine Campesino Unity Committee (CUC) and the national federation of Trade Union and Popular Action (UASP). According to a Jan. 24 CUC press conference in Guatemala City, the primary demands of the strike are a doubling of the minimum wage to approximately S3.50 U.S. a day and an improvement in the working conditions on the fincas (plantations).
The strike in the Pacific Coast region is centered principally in the sugar cane plantations and in the sugar refineries where the work forcé earns an average of S.87 to $1.75 per day, according to UASP. Coffee and cotton plantations have also been struck. UNAGRO, the national association of agro-export businessmen, flatly rejected the strike's central demand, namely a doubling of minimum wage.
Finca owners and President Vincio Cerezo denounced the strike as illegal, and as being led and promoted by "extreme left-wingers." On Jan 24, Cerezo acceded to finca owners demands and sent in thousands of troops and National Police to quell the rebellion and occupy the fincas. On Jan 24, according to reports in El Grafico and Prensa Libre, striking workers occupying sugar refineries in Escuintla were violently dislodged by armed police. Hundred of strikers fought back, building barricades, throwing stones, and attacking trucks that tried to cross the picket lines. Riot police, wearing gas masks, fired hundreds of tear gas cannisters and clubbed workers to the ground in clashes that took place in over a dozen locations. As National Police occupied the sugar refineries and major plantations, roving bands of militants began setting fire to sugar cane fields and delivery trucks and damaging farm machinery, causing almost a million dollars in losses, according to news reports on Jan.' 26.
In a press conference called on Jan. 26, General Héctor Gramajo, Minister of Defense, denied that the CUC had any chance of success, and stated that the CUC had direct connections with the EGP (Guerrilla Army of the Poor) organization based in the northern highlands of Quiche. Gramajo blamed the turmoil on "13 armed leftists-extremists," whom he claimed had forced the thousands of campesinos to go on strike.
Trade union, student, campesino and human rights groups have denounced Gramajo 's statements as preposterous, and have pointed out that recent government slander directed against the progressive movement is setting a dangerous precedent that could lead the country back to the bloody carnage of the early 1980s.
In 1980, the CUC organized a nationwide two week work stoppage that succeeded in raising plantation workers' wages from $.40 to $1.12 per day. However, following the 1980 action, 10,000 strikers lost their jobs and the Guatemalan Army and right-wing death squads launched a campaign of retaliation. In the agrarian South and the mountainous highlands of the North, the campaign resulted in the killing of thousands of people, forcing the CUC underground.
The CUC re-emerged only last year, appearing in May Day demonstrations in Guatemala City and several provincial capitals. Since that time the CUC has become increasingly active, despite assassination threats by finca owners' gunmen and military officials. Recently CUC organizers have been seen handing out leaflets on the plantations and encouraging the primarily indigenous workforce to band together and demand their rights. On Jan. 23 the CUC ran an advertisement in the nalional press, explaining how the current wage levels of agricultural workers make it impossible lo survive. Throughout 1988 and continuing through the strike, the CUC bas receivcd overwhelming support from trade unions, progressive activists, students, and the human rights movement.
Recent reports by Amnesty International and Americas Watch have called attention to the rise in politically inspired killings, kidnappings, and human rights abuses in Guatemala. Since the military coup in 1954,over 140,000 Guatemalans have been murdcred or disappeared, giving the country the dubious distinction of being the worst human rights violator in the hemisphere. Human rights activists claim that the S150 million per year in U.S. aid to Guatemala is instrumental in keeping the country ' s repressive system functioning. According to reports in the national press and the news organization Enfopress, over 100 civilians a month are being murdered or kidnapped.
Currently, the CUC is holding firm in its demands and the strike continues. The country is holding its breath in hopes that the bloodbath can be advanced, but the military occupation of the area - stopping all cars and buses, and occupying the major fincas one by one - is not encouraging.
On Jan. 26, CUC held a press conference in the office of the UASP in Guatemala City and sued the following statement: "The agricultural workers' struggle has its roots in the misery and hunger in which our people live, in the grand injustices and suffering that we must endure, and in the high cost of living and consistent discrimination. Farmworkers do not earn money like the ministers and deputies of the government, like the president. We do not have money like the plantation owners. Those people know nothing of the hunger and pain of a community that is struggling tirelessly to obtain justice, liberty and peace." The CUC went on to denounce the military cupation of the Pacific Coast region, and pointed out that thousands of strikers were being dismissed. Thousands more were being forced to work at gunpoint. The Guatemalan press on Jan. 27 listed no fewer than ten murders and attempted murders of campesinos in the zones of conflict in the South, all of which look place the preceding day.
The UASP and the Archbishop of Guatemala, Rodolfo Quezada Toruno, have called for the plantation owners to enter into dialogue with the strikers. As of press time. President Cerezo has refused to cali for negotiations.