Violence is commonplace in much of Latin America, but few of the continent's countries can match Guatemala in that department. In 1968 Communist guerrillas in Guatemala City murdered two U.S. military advisers, then machine-gunned U.S. Ambassador John Gordon Mein to death in broad daylight. During the recent election campaign they killed at least nine security officers, a mayoral candidate, a newspaper editor and a retired police chief. On the eve of last week's elections, they kidnaped Foreign Minister Alberto Fuentes Mohr, 41, forcing the government to release a 24-year-old urban guerrilla leader. A few days later they seized a U.S. diplomat, Sean M. Holly, and threatened to kill him unless the authorities surrendered four more of their comrades within 48 hours.
Not all the violence came from the left. Rightist terrorists have been accused of killing a congressional candidate and two of his supporters as they hung up campaign posters, and of shooting off the nose of the president of Guatemala's electoral council.
Colonel-Assassin. It was small wonder, then, that when Guatemalans went to the polls last week, they were receptive to Colonel Carlos Arana Osorio and his strong "law and order" pitch. Arana, 51, is best known to Guatemalans as the commander of the Zacapa Brigade, which virtually wiped out one of Latin America's largest rural guerrilla movements between 1966 and 1968.
Arana called himself "the pacifier" but his enemies nicknamed him "the colonel-assassin" for his role in the bloody operation. At least 3,000 were killed in the resulting crossfire; according to some estimates, the victims included about 80 active guerrillas, 500 sympathizers and more than 2,400 innocent peasants.
The brigade's brutal record prompted the government of President Julio César Méndez Montenegro to send Arana off to diplomatic exile in Nicaragua. But when the colonel returned to Guatemala last year to campaign for the presidency, he quickly gained the support of many of his countrymen. "If the voters agree with this insecurity, this chaos," he declared, "then I am not their candidate." Winding up his campaign two weeks ago in Zacapa, where he waged his successful antiguerrilla action, he told an audience of 8,000: "You know what it was like here before. Now you are safe to go onto the streets and work. I promise you that, if I am elected, all Guatemala will be like Zacapa."
Guatemalans responded by giving Arana 235,000 votes. The ruling Revolutionary Party's Mario Fuentes Pierrucini drew 195,000, and 117,000 went to Moderate Leftist Jorge ("Big Lucas") Caballeros, who argued that the violence should be stopped "not with a stick but with bread and work." Arana's formal selection by the Congress is regarded as a foregone conclusion.