PROFILE
- ALFONSO PAIZ
GUATEMALAN
ACTIVIST
By
Chaparral Fireland
"A new person is being formed.
This person, this revolutionary person, insists that human values be applied to
government. This leads to a ruthless and revolutionary conclusion . . . children
should not be free to die of malnutrition, no one should be allowed to die of
polio or malaria, women should not be free to be prostitutes, no one should be
free to be illiterate. The loss of these freedoms is essential for a people to
make their own history."
So writes Blase Bonpane in his book
Guerrilas of Peace," drawing upon his decades of work among the grassroots
of
In December, 2002, on his radio
program "World Focus," Bonpane interviewed 85 year old Guatemalan,
Alfonso Bauer Paiz, whose career began in the mid 1930's as a journalist. Paiz
was also an editor and for almost twenty years, a professor of Law. Throughout
his professional life he has been a tireless activist on the front lines of
Paiz participated in the overthrow
of dictator Jorge Ubico in 1944 who had, up till then, enjoyed the support of
the U.S. government which had begun "...to distrust him because of his lax
attitude towards the German immigrant population in Guatemala," according
to the United Fruit Historical Society. Additionally, Ubico's cavalier attitude
toward the middle class who were slipping beneath the cracks of a government
dominated by wealthy land-owners weakened his support at home. Ubico resigned
in 1944 when his violent repression of street demonstrations backfired.
"It was a peaceful
revolution," said Paiz, "and an absolute change in the way things had
been run in
The promised democratic elections
were usurped by internal revolts and takeovers. An interim government thrived
until a junta government took power with Captain Jacobo Arbenz Guzman as its
leader in 1949. Despite conflicting opinions as to whether Arbenz assassinated
his rival, conditions for Guatemalans were favorable under his rule. Under a
new liberal constitution censorship ended and presidential elections would be
subject to a one term limit. Men and women were declared equal under law and
racial discrimination was criminalized.
"We established administrative
autonomy," said Paiz, who held key government positions during the ten
years following the revolution. "Beginning with municipalities we
decentralized the power. Same with the universities. The President of the
Republic used to appoint the rectors and the professors, but we changed all
that. We gave the university the name
Paiz went on to say how the central
bank was also decentralized. Labor unions were legalized. "Up until the
revolution there hade been no labor law. Civil code stated that the owner -
master - determined how people would live and work."
Public Health? "There wasn't
any prior to the Revolution of 1944," said Paiz. The government gave the
institution of Social Security its own hospital, and provided services to women
who had none at the time."
Arbenz instituted agrarian reform
which was approved in 1952. He sought to expropriate portions of uncultivated
land from plantations larger than 223 acres and reimburse the land owners with
25 year government bonds at a 3% interest rate. These lands were to be
redistributed only to landless peasants in plots of under 50 acres, and could
not be sold or profitably speculated upon by the new owners, according the
Historical Society.
"The United Fruit Company
protested that the purchase price sharply undercut the value of the land,"
said Paiz. This contributed to
According to several sources,
including the National Security Archives and CNN, both Truman and Eisenhower,
in 1952 and 1953, respectively, approved and authorized CIA operations to
overthrow Arbenz. He was ousted by an Honduran colonel in June of 1954 who held
power for six months, after which "a reign of terror by the Guatemalan
military began," resulting in the imprisonment of 9,000 Arbenz supporters.
Among the refugees was Che Guevara who went to
Paiz continued his career as a
professor, as well as an organizer and a collaborator in the creation of
progressive and revolutionary political parties. In 1963 Colonel Enrique
Peralta Azurdia's coup d'etat suppressed all political parties. In 1964 Paiz
left his post at the University.
Little by little alliances have been
forged and new accords have been drafted to restore some autonomy and land use
to Guatemalan citizens. But, according to Paiz in a 1996 interview, "...
something positive will come out of it only if the peasant population
organizes, avoiding divisions and fractures, and struggles in solidarity with
... the working class ... the petty bourgeoisie, intellectuals and
professionals to reclaim its rights."
Paiz lived in exile twice during the
1970s' and 1980's. He founded a mutual support group in the 80's for the human
rights of families and friends of the "disappeared." He worked with
refugees for over eight years.
Arbenz, too, lived as an exile in
Asked in the 1996 interview what his
vision of the political panorama would be after the signing of the accords in
May of that year between the government and the Guatemalan National
Revolutionary Unity (URGN), Paiz responded:
"[My vision] is very restless.
I am not a pessimistic fatalist. In some way I have maintained a fairly utopian
outlook since my adolescence and youth, utopian in the sense of Tomas Moro in
the Middle Ages, and of Che Guarvara in recent times ... I hope ... that the
popular forces as well as the political-military forces of the insurgency
maintain their unity."
So far the accords have produced
education reforms, greater access to land use, fiscal reforms and government
support for elections, according to the US Agency for International
Development's web site in 2001.