Immediate Reactions to the CEH Report
As in the case of El Salvador, Guatemalan society’s various reactions to the February 25,
1999 presentation of the CEH report would set the tone for the post-Commission process of
acknowledgment, healing, and justice-seeking. “The success of the CEH rests…uniquely on the
reception and impact of the report because it was the Guatemalan commission’s only product.” 196
The reactions would identify real or false commitment to reconciliation and acceptance of the
nation’s essential needs. Even more, the degree of congruence between public and government
reactions would determine Guatemalans’ own personal degree of hope for national
reconciliation.
The CEH report “far exceeded the expectations of civil society,” which was especially
excited about the Commission’s conclusion that genocide had occurred and its pointed
encouragement of trials with the urgent reform of the judiciary.
197
Unfortunately, reactions from
civilian government officials were mixed. The Arai government did not accept the CEH report.
During the official presentation of Memoria del silencio in Guatemala City’s
National Theater on 25 February 1999, victims, their relatives, and members of
popular and human rights organizations greeted each conclusion with clamorous
applause. Guatemala’s president, Alvaro Arza, his close advisors, and military
officers, however, appeared stunned. Arai did not personally receive the report,
instead delegating the government’s secretary of peace to the stage. Following
the presentation, he exited through a back door without comment. 198
Immediately following the presentation, Raquel Zelaya, the secretary of peace, remarked that the
commission’s work was commendable, yet reminded listeners that “those responsible for the
massacres will not be brought to justice.” 199 Roberto Robles, head of Guatemala’s official tourist
institute grumbled that such a negative portrayal of Guatemala would cause more “damage than
79reconciliation.” 200 The Minister of Defense, General Hector Barrios, responded to the report that
day by noting that the report was “a partial truth, since its version of history is nothing more than
the point of view of the commission.” 201 This slight of the commission’s credibility would
reappear later in a more pointed criticism of the CEH and “its truth.”
President Arzti s government finally responded publicly to the report on March 16th , 1999 in
a newspaper advertisement. 202 In this written address of the CEH report, President Arai, in
effect, excused the State of Guatemala for not having any responsibility to implement further
reforms. He denied even the need to acknowledge the victims and crimes against them in a
formal apology, explaining that on December 29th , 1998, the second anniversary of the signing of
the final Peace Agreement, he had already expressed some amount of regret. 203 This was clearly,
strategically timed before the release of the CEH report in order to “count” and so that any
apology following the report would not appear to be an endorsement of and submittal to the
report’s conclusions.
Arai, who had been garlanded the world over for the part he claimed in the
peace process, seriously set back the cause of reconciliation through his actions.
The clear rejection of the report, the creation of an ‘us and them’ reaction and
the simple churlishness of his behavior derailed serious comment on its findings
and set the tone for future discussion. 204
Four months after the publication of the CEH report, on June 30th, 1999, President Arzd declared
that that the report was wrong in proclaiming that genocide had occurred in Guatemala. 205
However, there’s no denying that massacres, disappearance, and forced displacement of
hundreds of thousands of indigenous Maya due to a systemized, targeting government and
military policy constituted genocide. The Arzii government’s negative responses amounted to a
rejection of the entire idea of the CEH report, leading to a most-significant re-polarization of the
country — this time not around the issue of the conflict, but around the issue of the truth of the
80past and reconciliation. Although it is disappointing to receive such a caustic reaction from the
State about the official truth commission’s work, a negative response was predictable.
Media coverage surrounding the release of the CEH report was active and intensive
nationally and internationally. Prominent opinion columnists in national newspapers such as
Prensa Libre and Siglo Veintiuno offered differing opinions that cut exactly along the lines of
political persuasion. Conservatives like Fernando Linares charged that the report was biased,
“an ideological instrument of the Left.” 206 A comment by Alfredo Klatsmitt demonstrated his
wary doubts that the report would be able to heal people and reconcile society: that it would
“open wounds in the memory of a people tormented by both sides.” 207 Disappointingly, the
report did not create a lively debate for very long. But the fact that interest in the report, shown
through coverage in the media, subsided relatively soon is not altogether surprising. The fear
that the military still perpetuated and the secrecy surrounding circles of political dissent or
government criticism demonstrate the personal risk involved in carrying on a public dialogue
(via the press) that upheld the incriminating CEH conclusions of, primarily, the military.
Only a few months after the presentation of the CEH report, the country elected Portillo, of
Efrain Rios Montt’s FRG party, into presidential office