7 of 312 DOCUMENTS

The Washington Post

September 23, 1998, Wednesday, Final Edition

SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A21

LENGTH: 995 words

HEADLINE: Guatemalans Train With Weapons of Peace

BYLINE: Terri Shaw, Washington Post Foreign Service

DATELINE: CHIMALTENANGO, Guatemala

BODY:

Francisco Vasquez was 17 when he left his Kaqchikel Indian village in the Guatemalan highlands to join guerrillas fighting the military government. That was in 1984. Today, Vasquez has set aside his rifle for carpentry tools, learning woodworking in a U.N.-sponsored program stemming from the 1996 peace agreement that ended the 36-year insurgency.

Vasquez's journey from mountain rebel to carpenter is emblematic of efforts by the Guatemalan government and international agencies to find a place in society for the nearly 3,000 onetime guerrillas who laid down their arms under terms of the peace agreement. The demobilization of the guerrillas, one diplomat said, was surprisingly peaceful: "It went off without a hitch."

But adjustment to civilian life has not always gone smoothly for the former guerrillas or their erstwhile enemies. Under the peace accords, one-third of the army is to be discharged and the paramilitary forces allied with it have been disbanded. Many former combatants returned to their homes, but others found that their villages had been virtually destroyed during the war or that they were no longer welcome there.

Several countries and international agencies have set up programs to teach the former rebels trades, such as tailoring and hair styling. But there are not enough opportunities for all, and the end of hostilities was accompanied by what the diplomat called "a massive, uncontrollable crime wave." Many Guatemalans and foreign observers believe that some of the armed men who no longer have a war to fight have turned to robbery and kidnapping to support themselves.

But the former guerrillas who have settled in Chimaltenango, in a fertile farming area about 20 miles west of Guatemala City, seem to be adjusting well. One of them, Sylvia Arenas, who comes from a poor family in Guatemala City, began doing "small jobs" for the insurgents while studying social work at the state-run University of San Carlos. Then a Spanish priest working in Guatemala recruited her to work with a peasant organization in the highlands.

"My dream was to join the armed struggle," she said. And so, at age 19, she became a member of the Turcios Lima Front of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor. Now, she and her partner, Flavio Ruiz, run a modest diner not far from the small shop where Vasquez and six other single men are learning to be carpenters.

The guerrilla war ended on March 19, 1996. Vasquez and his unit received a message saying, "Military action is suspended." Some of his comrades were worried about what would come next -- especially those who had been fighting for 20 to 25 years, Vasquez recalled. But most reported to demobilization camps run by the United Nations and turned in their weapons.

Canadian army Capt. Claude Vadeboncoeur, a member of the U.N. mission in Chimaltenango, observed the demobilization process, as he had at the end of civil conflicts in Nicaragua and El Salvador. He said the guerrillas and their supporters spent two months in the camps, where they received some training in how to adjust to civilian life. Many then returned to their former homes. But some, such as Vasquez, could not.

"The army had moved my family from their land to a place inside the village," he said. "My brother had to move to Guatemala City; he had been threatened. I was the first [former guerrilla] to come back. People in the village had never understood. They looked at me and made comments. They were afraid the [army] repression would begin again."

One source of frustration for the former guerrillas in Chimaltenango is a plan to build 100 houses for them and their families. The land has been purchased with the assistance of European countries and the United Nations, and the new owners plan to provide the unskilled labor themselves. But the project has become mired in bureaucratic and financial delays.

Other residents of Chimaltenango are sometimes suspicious of the former guerrillas, said Juan Carlos Monge, a Costa Rican who heads the local U.N. office. "They ask, 'What are they going to live on?' 'Where will they get water?' 'What if the electricity goes out?' 'What will they plant?' "

Under the final peace accords signed in December 1996, local committees have been formed throughout Guatemala to ease the transition of former guerrillas and army veterans. While the former receive help from international agencies and other countries, there seems to be little assistance for soldiers who are leaving the military. The number of troops is being reduced by attrition, with soldiers leaving the service when their enlistments are up, former defense minister Gen. Julio Balconi said.

The United Nations, the United States and Western European nations have provided vocational training for more than 2,000 members of a military police force that also was disbanded under the peace accords.

The former rebels' official goal now is to win power through democratic means. The guerrilla coalition that negotiated the peace accords, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity, is forming a political party that will participate in next year's presidential election.

Arenas, who in her guerrilla days conducted indoctrination sessions for the rebels and propaganda rallies in highland villages, seems content for now as the owner of a diner. The cooking is done by an older woman who wears traditional Indian attire. Arenas addresses her respectfully as companera, which means "friend" or "comrade."

Although she earned a teaching certificate in secondary school, she does not want to become a schoolteacher, Arenas said, because then she would not be free to express her political views in the classroom. "There is no freedom of expression" now in the schools, she said.

Instead, she plans to offer her services to the former guerrillas' new political party.

Sylvia Arenas and Flavio Ruiz are former guerrillas who now run a small diner in Chimaltenango, Guatemala.

GRAPHIC: PH,,TERRI SHAW

LOAD-DATE: September 23, 1998