RIGHT-WING TERROR UNIT FLASHES GUATEMALA POWER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000300490004-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 17, 2004
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: March 25, 1968
• Content Type: NSPR

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Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-0
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F,0S.0N, LASS.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
MONITOR
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STAT
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Nelson Goodsell
Latin America correspondent of
The Christian Science Monitor
Washington
Right-wing terrorists have again taken
the offensive in Guatemala.
If information coining from Guatemala
City is correct, La Mano Blanca (the White
Hand) is responsible for:
0 The recent kidnaping of the Roman
Catholic Archbishop of Guatemala City.
0 A recently unearthed plot to overthrow
the government of Julio Cesar Mendez
Montenegro.
In fact, both developments, may be
related.
The evidence so far gathered and re-
leased in the Guatemala capital suggests
that La Mano Blanca has grown increas-
ingly strong and that it ha% clearly become
the most important right-wing terrorist
group in Guatemala.
The Archbishop,. the Most Rev. Mario
Casariego,' was kidnaped March 16 and re-
leased four days later, after it had been
reported that President Mendez Monte-
negro received an ultimatum that he must
resign if the Ca:',holic prelate was to be
released.
La Mano, has been repeatedly demonstrated
and the kidnaping of the Archbishop is
the latest example.
The rightist terrorists became a force in
the Guatemalan picture something over a
year ago when they were formed as a
counterforce to leftist terrorist" elements,
principally the Communist-leaning Fuerzas
Armadas Rebeldes (FAR). ?.
La Mano Blanca is credited with a variety
of terrorist activities in the past 12 months.
It has frequently carried out raids on rural
peasants in Guatemala suspected of collabo-
rating with the FAR. Together with other
terrorist elements on the right, La Mao
Blanca is believed to have killed more than
3,000 peasants in the past year.
The. kidnaping of Archbishop Casariego
was apparently an effort of right-wing ele-
ments to block the mildly reformist efforts
of the Mendez Montenegro government. The
President, who came into office on a plat-
form of economic and social reform nearly
two years ago, has made some advances in
this direction. .
Threat shifts
But he has been much buffeted by Guate-
mala's continuing political instability, par-
ticularly in the form of guerrilla opera-
tions. When he came to office, it was the
leftist rural guerrillas and urban terrorists
who appeared to cause the most problems.
But as the Mendez Montenegro term has
continued, the rightist elements have grown
Apparently the effort failed-for Presi-
I dent Mendez Montenegro refused to resign,
and Archbishop Casariego was released.'
`l Nevertheless, the abilyty of La Mane ~`-Z~lanca, sometimes referreU..,i, as simply It
increasingly powerful and have probably
caused more of a threat to political stabil-
. ity than have the. leftist terrorists. .
The Guatemalan police, according to
some sources here, have the names and
know the movements in detail of many right-'
ist elements.
Raul Estuardo Iorenzana, according to;
these sources, probably carried out the kid-.
naping of Archbishop,Casariego. It is likely,,
these same sources say, that Roberto Alejos
1" Arzu, a wealthy coffee planter whose farm;
g Agency-sponsored Bay of 'V gs rnvasion;
forges"in 19G1, also was i,.voav~.".
Alejos is close to right-wing activities)
Mr
.
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Approved For Release 2004,11brft :193C8y8~3 ii.30GR~-5
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