Guatemala Court Orders Back Pay Stoppage

[Judi Lynn]

Guatemala Court Orders Back Pay Stoppage

By Associated Press

January 9, 2004, 7:37 AM EST


GUATEMALA CITY -- A Guatemalan court ordered the government to stop providing back pay to members of civilian defense patrols for their services in the 36-year civil war -- a decision that could set off massive demonstrations in the Central American country.

The former paramilitary fighters staged a series of violent protests for more than a year to demand that President Alfonso Portillo's administration pay them for working with the army in the 1960-96 war against leftist, largely Mayan guerrillas. The war killed 200,000 people.

Last year, Portillo's government agreed to pay the former members of civil patrols $660 each in three installments -- one in 2003 and two more this year.

The highest court on Thursday declared the initiative providing back-pay to thousands of paramilitary fighters unconstitutional, saying the payments were never approved by congress or the voters and Portillo had no right to approve them.

(snip) Guatemala's authoritarian governments of the 1980s forced thousands of people to join "civil patrols," whose members were ordered to spy on their neighbors and report suspected guerrilla sympathizers.
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