Celebrating the one-year anniversary of accords that ended Guatemala's 36-year civil war, late on December 29 residents of Guatemala City enjoyed a concert played on more than 100 bells in 20 churches in the capital's central district. When the ringing died away, however, the arguments resumed about what difference the peace accords have made in the lives of Guatemala's citizens.
     "As long as there is no justice and as long as impunity continues, reconciliation is impossible," declared Miguel Angel Albizures of the Familiares de los Detenidos y Desaparecidos.
     The accords to end the war offered a complicated road to peace. More than a dozen commissions were set up, each dealing with a specific theme and facing a precise timetable. Yet most of the commissions are behind schedule, and the director of the government's Secretaria de Paz, Raquel Zelaya, has requested a three-month extension for most of the government's commitments. 
     "Peace hasn't been easy," Zelaya acknowledged.
     Zelaya tried to shift blame for the delays off the government. "We would have had bigger advances if the people of Guatemala had involved themselves more in the process of a firm and lasting peace," she complained. "It's impossible to comply with the goals we planned without the involvement of all sectors of Guatemalan society."
     Yet many popular leaders and political activists claim they've been left out of the peace process. They blame the two signatories to the accords--the administration of President Alvaro Arzu and the former Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) guerrilla movement--for monopolizing important post-war decisions.
     "What's done a lot of damage to the process is that the URNG and the government have taken the process as their own, without giving participation to the other political parties and social organizations," declared retired Gen. Hector Gramajo, a former defense minister.
     According to columnist Mario Antonio Sandoval, this "political marriage" has been one reason for the relative silence of the URNG about the government's shortcomings. Rather than fight for compliance with the accords, he says the URNG has been more interested in building a political base in preparation for 1999 elections. On December 23, URNG leaders presented petitions to the government recognizing their legal organization in 45 municipalities around the country.
     Many popular leaders worry that if the commitments of the peace accords aren't taken more seriously, the causes of the civil war won't be addressed. 
     Rosario Pu, a leader of the Coordinadora Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas, complained that the government has yet to begin a new land registry, a key commitment in the accords. She said that was one cause of several violent land conflicts this past year. Pu charged that the commission charged with land issues "visits the sites of conflicts but then doesn't do anything afterward."
     While the rapid demobilization of 2,959 URNG combatants and supporters was considered an early success in the peace process, some 500 of those former fighters still linger in "temporary" refuges. 
     The government demobilized more than 15,000 soldiers in 1997, yet increased crime has caused Arzu to increase the military budget and reopen some rural bases closed earlier in the peace process.
     The military's budget for 1998 is up 10 percent over last year, despite a requirement in the peace accords that it be reduced by one-third--as a percentage of GDP--by the year 2000.
      "If we continue to give the army more arms to combat the problem of common crime, and as long as we allow the army to recuperate their power we won't be able to overcome the past," said Edgar Gutierrez, director of the Catholic Church's Project Recuperacion de la Memoria Historica.
     One of the most notorious of the military's branches, the Policia Militar Ambulante (PMA), was finally disbanded in December, as called for in the accords. Yet many former PMA members are being recycled into the newly created Policia Nacional Civil (PNC) with only three months of "retraining" at a new academy. According to Oscar Recinos, president of Guardianes del Vecindario, an anti-crime group, "The Police Academy is like a tortilla factory without quality control" designed to produce 20,000 PNC agents by 2000. "In three months of training they can't teach honesty nor take away the bad habits from anyone," Recinos said.
     The peace accords committed the government to significant economic reform, including raising tax collection from 8.5 to 12 percent of GDP. The increased income will yield greater outlays for education and health.
     Yet human rights groups criticize the government's plan to raise revenues through increased consumer taxes rather than an effective income tax. And diplomats recently warned that the almost $2 billion in international financing for the peace accords is in danger if the government can't overcome private sector opposition to meaningful tax reform.
     "We can't keep helping if Guatemalans won't help themselves," said Miguel Martinez of the Inter-American Development Bank.
     The German law professor directing the country's truth commission complained in January that the Arzu administration and the military were refusing to turn over government documents from the most brutal years of the war. "An army that doesn't want to talk about its past is cause for fear," declared Christian Tomuschat, president of the Comision para el Esclarecimiento Historico (CEH).
     Tomuschat warned that it "would be prejudicial for Guatemala if the CEH had to state in its final report that the government hadn't cooperated, because this would lead to a virtual isolation of the country and would negatively affect economic assistance and tourism."