Word: guatemalan
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...army first launched its new style of campaign in the Guatemalan departments of Chimaltenango, Sololá and Quezaltenango, major tourist and agricultural areas west of the capital. After resisting briefly, most of the guerrillas quickly moved elsewhere. Now the army is massing its forces in the northwest department of El Quiché, a mountainous jungle area that is considered to be one of the guerrillas' major strongholds. The rugged terrain favors the insurgents, who are surprisingly well equipped. At one fortification discovered in the earlier sweep, the soldiers found networks of tunnels and supplies of M16 rifles...
...divided into four main Marxist factions, and supplied with at least some weapons and training by Cuba. The guerrillas are under a unified command, but also operate independently. The Marxist organizations have been growing and organizing clandestinely on a scale that finally came as a shock to authorities. Guatemalan army analysts now estimate the guerrilla strength at 3,000 active fighters, plus as many as 30,000 untrained reserves and supporters. The strategy of the guerrillas is to isolate Guatemala City and to seize portions of outlying Guatemalan departments. The eventual aim of the insurgents is to win some form...
...information uncovered by the raids led to a dramatic change of attitude within the Guatemalan army. Once content to rely mainly on passive defensive tactics, the military is now launching sweeps through the countryside under the command of a colorful, French-trained army chief of staff, Brigadier General Benedicto Lucas Garcia, who is also the brother of the Guatemalan President. A flamboyant commander who likes to hop aboard a blue-and-white helicopter to visit the front lines, "Benny," as he is called, has brought to the antiguerrilla fight some modern tactics: the use of large numbers of mobile troops...
General Lucas seems confident that the guerrillas can be beaten, but more than a few obstacles stand in the commander's way. By the conventional wisdom of counterinsurgency, where a 10-to-1 superiority of conventional forces is necessary to defeat guerrilla groups, the 14,000-member Guatemalan army will not be large enough to do the job. Lucas talks of expanding his forces to 50,000, a costly chore. The army is also short of such critical items as helicopters and spare parts. Substantial help is unlikely to come from the U.S., despite the Reagan Administration...
...warfare is also casting a shadow over Guatemala's presidential election, which is scheduled for March 7. The army and the government have agreed on their candidate: conservative Brigadier General Anibál Guevara, a former Defense Minister. His main opponents are Alejandro Maldonado, a lawyer and former Guatemalan Ambassador to the United Nations, and Mario Sandóval Alarcón, an outspoken right-winger who sports a pearl-handled revolver and has threatened that if elected his government would kill 1,000 "Communists" a week...