GUATEMALAN COMMUNISTS TAKE HARD LINE AS INSURGENCY CONTINUES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-00927A004900140002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
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• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
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• Content Type: REPORT

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"w 6 August 1965
Copy No. 55
SPECIAL REPORT
GUATEMALAN COMMUNISTS TAKE HARD LINE AS INSURGENCY CONTINUES
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
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The actions of the strongly anti-Communist mili-
tary regime imposed by Col.Enrique Peralta after the
ouster of President Ydigoras in March 1963 have
caused Guatemala's Communist Party (PGT) to alter
its tactical line. Many of the younger party lead-
ers have become more and more attracted to the idea
of armed struggle and resentful of the old guard's
subservience to the Russian line of coexistence and
peaceful revolution. This militant element appears
to have recaptured the leadership of the Guatema-
lan revolutionaries and to have made the PGT a
hard-line party. Continuation of the insurgency
problems will adversely affect the transitional
regime's plans for a return to constitutional rule.
Beginning of Guerrilla Movement
Guatemala is a prime target
for Communist subversion in the
Western Hemisphere. It has
achieved this position as a re-
sult of Communist prominence dur-
ing the Jacobo Arbenz adminis-
tration (1951-54), the ability
of its small but experienced and
disciplined Communist party to
survive in very adverse circum-
stances, and the esteem gained
in revolutionary circles by "so-
cialist" guerrilla groups led by
Marco Antonio Yon Sosa. The
party has been strongly supported
by international Communist propa-
ganda, which has used the 1954
anti-Communist revolution under
Castillo Armas as a case study in
"American imperialism."
With the anti-Communist
"liberation" in June 1954, Guate-
malan Communists were confronted
with the problem of survival un-
der a regime pledged to eradicate
Communist influence and destroy
the party. Throughout the Cas-
tillo administration (1954-57)
the PGT remained a relatively in-
effective clandestine organiza-
tion. After the assassination
of Castillo in 1957 the PGT made
considerable gains, particularly
in the tide of resurgent leftism
that took place during the re-
gime of President Miguel Ydigoras
Fuentes (1958-63). This leftist
revival was, however, broad and
disunited and beyond the control
of PGT. The guerrilla movement
had its beginning in the upris-
ing of 13 November 1960 by a de-
fecting group of young army of-
ficers. As far as is known, the
revolt was a purely military
movement whose sole aim was the
overthrow of Ydigoras. Unsuc-
cessful in this goal, the rebel
officers went into exile or hid-
ing and continued plotting. Lt.
Yon Sosa became leader of those
who decided on guerrilla action,
and the group organized as the
"13 November Revolutionary Move-
ment" with its base in the north-
eastern department of Izabal,
a mountainous jungle region
well suited to guerrilla opera-
tions.
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GUATEMALA: Area of Insurgent Activity,
F. 7
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Cuba began giving material
assistance to the group in early
1962, and Yon Sosa himself later
spent some months in Cuba. Un-
der Yon, the guerrillas scored
limited success--petty harass-
ment of communications lines,
buses, and railroad tracks; at-
tacks on military supply points
and plantations to acquire
money and arms; assassinations
of army collaborators; and spo-
radic attacks against commercial
and official installations.
The PGT soon established
contact with the guerrillas. It
began supplying them with food
and medicine and initiated a
propaganda campaign to exagger-
ate the popularity and signifi-
cance of the movement. At this
point, the PGT's international
line was the standard Soviet
line and the Sino-Soviet split
had little effect in Guatemala.
The party's main activity was
in the political realm, infil-
trating partisan, labor, and
student organizations. Violence
was espoused only as one of many
means toward revolution, and mil-
itary work received only inci-
dental attention.
By 1962, perhaps a score
of PGT members had been trained
in guerrilla tactics in Cuba.
The party's first use of such
tactics, however, ended in dis-
aster, when a group sponsored
by a former high-ranking Guate-
malan military officer, Carlos
Paz Tejada, was crushed.
PGT Split Over Use of Violence
From 1961 to 1963 the PGT
leadership had little difficulty
in maintaining ideological unity
in spite of incipient pro-Chi-
nese feeling among some of the
members. PGT and other leftist
groups made progress under Ydi-
goras, although they were kept
divided by the President's deals,
threats, and contradictory ac-
tions. They were preoccupied for
much of 1962 and early 1963 by
the problem of selecting a candi-
date to support in the presiden-
tial elections scheduled for No-
vember.
The cause of the small
PGT minority in disagreement
with the party's relative in-
action in the guerrilla move-
ment.was boosted by the mili-
tary ouster of Ydigoras at the
end of March. Very shortly af-
ter Minister of refense Enrique
Peralta imposed what the PGT
now calls "the military dicta-
torship," party leaders estab-
lished a separate military com-
mission for guerrilla warfare
and terrorism. In May 1963,
central committee member Carlos
Rene Valle y Valle contended
that armed struggle was a real-
ity in northeastern Guatemala;
that it implied a new way of
life for all party members; and
that, although the usual peace-
ful methods would be used for
a while, the entire party would
eventually be armed. Some in-
dividual PGT members were work-
ing with the organized guerrilla
groups, but these members were
admonished not to hold party
meetings among the other guer-
rillas who were men of differ-
ent ideologies.
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Throughout 1963 and 1964,
PGT leaders remained divided
over recourse to violence as the
major form of struggle. Members
who were working with the guer-
rillas in the hills increasingly
championed the insurrectional
line and called for the party to
follow their example. Party doc-
uments of the day upheld armed
violence as a form of struggle
forced on the party but continued
to emphasize organizational work
among the masses as the PGT's
primary mission. Party leaders
admitted that conditions for rev-
olution had not completely ma-
tured in Guatemala. This unwill-
ingness to take a strong stand
in favor of violence was regarded
by some members as unrealistic
subservience to the Soviet line.
A pro-Chinese faction became
more vocal and some rank and file
members defected.
The party had managed by
late 1963 to establish a united
guerrilla front, called the Rebel
Armed Forces (FAR). FAR included
three main guerrilla groups: Yon
Sosa's 13 November Movement, a
Communist "12 April" youth group,
and a Communist-dominated "20 Oc-
tober" group. Also established
was a more ambitious revolution-
ary front to coordinate antigov-
ernment activity. This group,
called the United Resistance
Front (FUR), encompassed the FAR,
the PGT, and two leftist parties.
FUR occasionally had the partici-
pation of the leftist university
students, Francisco Villagran
Kramer's far leftist Democratic
Revolutionary Unity Party (URD)
and the Communist-dominated
Autonomous Trade Union Federa-
tion of Guatemala (FASGUA).
The establishment of the
FAR and FUR represented a new
attempt by PGT to control the
guerrilla movement. Yon Sosa,
while accepting material aid,
had never been willing to accept
PGT direction--a stand in which
he was supported by many of the
extremists, including some PGT
members. The revolutionaries
resented the PGT's attempts to
control them while it was reluc-
tant to commit itself wholeheart-
edly to armed revolution. PGT
efforts to dominate the guerril-
las also were undercut by the
guerrillas' ability to secure
funds, equipment, and training
from other countries. In late
1963, action groups under the
military commission of the PGT
were ostensibly released from the
control of the central committee
to act as agents of the FUR. The
party's intent was to gain covert
control of FUR and direct guer-
rilla activity through these ac-
tion groups.
Emergence of "Trotskyite"
Influence
The Peralta government's
security forces, relatively in-
effective in the unconventional
warfare waged in the northeast,
acted with vigor and some suc-
cess against party installations
in Guatemala City. There the
party was demoralized, members
became suspicious of one another,
and the rank and file refused to
carry out party tasks for fear
of the police.
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As a consequence, the PGT
presumably lost a good part of
its low-level membership and was
whittled down to militant, dedi-
cated stalwarts. Feeling ap-
parently began to develop against
those members of the central com-
mittee and other high-level PGT
members who, while living com-
fortably in Mexico, continued to
emphasize work among the masses
and to warn against the error of
wholesale dedication to violence.
At the same time, the guerrilla
bands were aided by emissaries
from Cuba and Mexico, who brought
encouragement and recognition
along with supplies and funds
to the revolutionaries.
By midsummer 1964
began to
mention Maoist influence among
the guerrillas. One source de-
picted Mario Silva Jonama, a
member of the central committee
and a leader of FAR, as leader
of a strong pro-Chinese fnrtinn
on differences wit in
FAR, and claimed that the guer-
rillas were influenced by Fran-
cisco Amado Granados, a Guatema-
lan exiled in Mexico who "took
the Chinese view of violent rev-
olution."
In July Revolution Social-
ista, a publication purporte to
Ee the periodical of the 13 No-
vember Movement, first appeared.
It derided peaceful means of revo-
lution as inadequate for the
struggle in Guatemala. This
first issue did not attack the
Soviet Union and tended to avoid
the Peiping-Moscow issue. But
it did support an uncompromising,
nationalistic revolutionary
creed.
Shortly thereafter, the PGT
replied to the 13 November Move-
ment in an open letter. The PGT
response pointed out that the
subversive movement was not as
successful as 13 November had
painted it, that revolutions
took time, and that impatience
could only bring harm to the
cause. PGT decried the divi-
sionist tendencies of 13 Novem-
ber and appealed for unity. The
PGT letter, signed by the Politi-
cal Commission of the central
committee, was heavily larded
with laudatory comments on the
Soviet Union. The polemic be-
tween the two groups continued
for some months.
The party consistently
praised Yon Sosa--blaming provoc-
ateurs for his lapses. It tried
to convince him that his Mexican
contacts were "Trotskyites,"
possibly with connections with
Communist China, who intended to
betray the guerrillas. In De-
cember the polemic diminished
and there were reports of a modus
vivendi under which the PGT
would accept 13 November lead-
ership of terrorist activities
and guerrilla operations while
the party publicly stuck to its
peaceful coexistence line on in-
ternational affairs. Yon Sosa
was to command guerrillas in the
field, and Luis Turcios Lima was
to operate in Guatemala City.
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International Concern Over
isunit'y a uerr- as"
The Communist presses in
Europe and Latin America have
given considerable attention
to revolutionary forces in Guate-
mala, and the guerrillas are
known to be in contact with em-
issaries from Cuba, other Cen-
tral American countries, and
Mexico.
One such representative
is Victor Rico Galan- a -
ist iournalis
in the a o
1964 Guatemalan security forces
confiscated a large amount of
propaganda including the text
of an address by Rico Galan to
the guerrillas. After lauding
the 13 November movement as the
symbol of the struggle for na-
tional liberation of all of
Latin America, Rico said that
Cuba's Ernesto "Che" Guevara
believed that the revolutionary
movement was most solid and
firm in Guatemala and Venezuela
and told the 13 November group
that their difficulties were
due in large measure to PGT re-
luctance to forsake ideas for
action. He described the role
of the PGT as one of support,
and that of 13 November as one
of dragging PGT into a more ac-
tive commitment to the struggle.
Rico accused the revolu-
tionaries in Guatemala of em-
bracing an ideology beyond the
grasp of the masses. The Guate-
malan masses, he said, had a
very elementary understanding
of their own problems. Rico also
chided the guerrillas for engag-
ing in polemics with the PGT. He
encouraged ideological study but
warned against preoccupation with
intellectual matters which could
not be translated to the unedu-
cated masses. Rico then urged
unity among all the revolution-
aries.
These points expressed by
the Mexican Journalist appear
to have been affirmed by the meet-
ing of Communists in Havana in
November 1964, which called for
unity among the liberal forces
and a more activist stance on the
part of the orthodox parties in
several countries including Guate-
mala, Whether in response to ex-
ternal nudging or not, the 13 No-
vember group and the PGT appar-
ently reconciled their differ-
ences, but only temporarily.
PGT Takes a Harder Line
Prior to the fall of Khru-
shchev, the 13 November publica-
tion Revolucion Socialista care-
fully-57 oi avoided taking a sfrang po-
sition on the Sino-Soviet split,
After Khrushchev's political de-
mise, the publication labeled the
ousted Soviet leader as the cause
of most Communist troubles, It
unabashedly praised the Chinese
Communists and criticized PGT for
backing international peaceful co-
existence and bourgeois nationalist
revolution. No mention was made
of the call for unity which re-
sulted from the Cuban Communist
conference of November, and in
fact Yon Sosa withdrew his group
from the FAR.
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A little later, the PGT
began endorsing the use of force
to achieve its goals. A PGT
Political Commission document
of early 1965 states that the
revolutionary struggle cannot
be realized by peaceful means,
and that the party must carry
out a protracted armed strug-
gle. However, because the peas-
ants and workers are not yet
a sufficiently strong and deci-
sive element in the national
life, the social revolution can-
not take the form of immediate
insurrection. The struggle is
said to be in its first phase,
which is organizational and de-
fensive, calling for ideologi-
cal development of the masses,
creation and development of the
necessary clandestine organiza-
tions, and formation of ex-
perienced and dedicated cadres.
At about the same time the
party began to implement its
verbal sanction of violence.
It reconstituted the FAR, which
now presumably incorporates all
ideologically sound revolution-
ary elements, and is itself in
the process of reorganizin
along quasimilitary lines.
I the PGT
has received wor rom Fidel
Castro that if it intensifies
its activities and can sustain
itself through 1965, Havana will
give the party complete finan-
cial support. Other informa-
tion, too, indicates that funds
from Cuba are contingent on an
increase of violence and terror-
ism.
The soft-liners in the PGT
no longer appear to control the
party. The influence of the
exiled PGT leaders--such as Victor
Manuel Gutierrez, Jose Manual
Fortuny, Edelberto Torres Rivas,
and Jaime Diaz Rozzotto--has
diminished and indeed may be non-
existent.
In December 1964, Luis
Turcios Lima, chief of the guer-
rilla band called "Edgar Ibarra,"
had written to both Yon and the
PGT attacking the infiltration
of Trotskyites into the 13 No-
vember Movement and calling for
a reconciliation among the revo-
lutionaries. In January 1965,
Turcios repeated his attack on
"Trotskyite" control of the guer-
rillas and announced his with-
drawal from the 13 November.
Turcios officially split with
Yon in early June 1965 and was
accepted into the PGT. His guer-
rilla group is now under the
direct command of the central com-
mittee.
The guerrilla movement in
Guatemala now consists of two
groups: the FAR or "Edgar Ibarra"
group led by Turcios under PGT
direction, and the 13 November
group headed by Yon with aid from
Maoists or "Trotskyites." There
is no way of estimating how many
chose to follow Turcios or how
many remained with Yon.
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The harder line implicit in
the PGT's acceptance of Turcios'
guerrillas appears to remain
within the bounds of Soviet ortho-
doxy. From what is known of the
Havana Conference in November
1964, Moscow apparently has given
the stamp of approval for a harder
line in domestic affairs to the
parties in Guatemala, Colombia,
Venezuela, Honduras, Haiti, Para-
guay, and Panama. Those PGT mem-
bers anxious to take advantage
of this green light seem to have
overcome the reluctance of the
"intellectual" leadership. Even
so, for some of the members the
espousal of armed struggle proved
too little and too late.
25X1
Many young members of the
party and associated youth groups
already had left the PG
join Yon in the hills.
July
stating that certain high-level
members of the party had adopted
the hard line with Ramirez and
that they believed Ramirez and
the others had joined forces to
form a new party.
It is certain that the party
is badly split, has lost pivotal
members, and has been damaged
by more efficient action by Gua-
temalan security forces. Never-
theless, terrorists continue
their activities, and the direc-
tion and purpose of their raids
imply organization and discipline,
assets that deny any imminent
departure of the party from the
Guatemalan scene.
Political Implications
The Peralta regime, in its
more than two years of rule, has
lost the political support of
all partisan organizations left
of center and has gained the
avowed enmity of most of them.
The current preparations for a
return to constitutional gov-
ernment are in the nature of
a "guided democracy," character-
ized by institutional and regu-
latory assurances that only
"safe" organizations will par-
ticipate in the national elec-
tions scheduled for March 1966.
The exclusion of all but those
partisan groups considered "safe"
by the incumbent government re-
presents to both extreme and
moderate liberals a commitment to
an intolerable status quo. It
has been clear to most of the
liberal parties for some time
that they have no early oppor-
tunity to achieve power through
legal means.
that PGT members roug out Guate-
mala and particularly in the zones
of guerrilla activity were con-
fused and demoralized by recent
PGT documents describing the 13
November as Trotskyite, provoca-
tive, and divisionist, and label-
ing Yon Sosa a traitor.
Central committee member and
guerrilla Ricardo Ramirez de Leon,
in a March 1965 meeting with PGT
leaders, expressed strong dis-
agreement with the party's ortho-
dox line and accused them of in-
decision in the armed struggle at
a time when strong leadership was
required. Ramirez said that he
was going to Mexico to start his
own group to represent PGT in the
struggle.
In June 1965 the central com-
mittee wrote to exiles in Mexico
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Most of the moderate groups,
while recognizing that subver-
sion is the only path open at
this time, have feared to engage
in serious plotting in the face
of the relative efficiency of
the security apparatus. The gov-
ernment, on the other hand, may
have painted itself into a cor-
ner. Renewed restriction of
civil liberties under martial
law (the state of siege has been
lifted, but probably only tem-
porarily) might well turn usu-
ally moderate groups to violence.
Terrorist groups, realizing this,
are planning increased sabotage
and assassination attempts to
force the maintenance of the
state of siege. Chief of Gov-
ernment Peralta's lack of po-
litical acumen and his apparent
inability or unwillingness to
clarify his political intentions
portend long-term insta y
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