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Rios Montt also seems to be utterly incorruptible and outraged at those who are not. At a recent meeting with civilian political leaders, he erupted when one of them demanded that a party be excluded from such sessions because its members were crooked. Rios Montt marched to the door and held it open. He said darkly: "If we are talking about crooks, then most of you would have to leave."
The President will need more than honesty, however, to solve Guatemala's critical problems. Rios Montt has made a good start in combating corruption, particularly in halting public works projects from which the Lucas Garcia regime was pocketing lucrative kickbacks. One such project was a national highway scheme, whose costs have mysteriously doubled to $3 billion. New auditors have discovered that modest toll stations along the road were budgeted at $3.8 million, much of which was to be skimmed off. Construction costs for new public hospitals were also kited: metal drinking cups, for instance, were going to cost $50 each.
A worldwide drop in the price of such principal exports as coffee, cotton and sugar has made Guatemala's economy a shambles. The balance of payments deficit this year is expected to reach $700 million, and next year's deficit will probably be as much. The growth rate is a negative 7%. Net foreign currency reserves, which stood at $718 million only three years ago, have almost vanished.
The new President's response to such problems, his visitors complain, is often excessively visionary. So, at times, is his response to the continuing guerrilla problem, although he has had at least one unique success. Members of a pro-guerrilla group called the Committee for Peasant Unity (C.U.C.) seized the Brazilian embassy last month in Guatemala City. The army responded by ringing the embassy with troops, just as it had done when Indian peasants occupied the Spanish embassy in January 1980. A showdown after that seizure resulted in 39 deaths.
This time, however, Rios Montt held the army back with an order straight from the Bible: "A soft answer turneth away wrath" (Proverbs 15: 1). In response, the C.U.C. protesters called off their siege, requesting merely a press conference and an airplane to Mexico. Rios Montt saw them off at the airport and handed each one money to tide him over in exile.
So far the junta has had less success with insurgents in the countryside. Guerrillas are active in at least seven of Guatemala's departments, partly because the army's mobility has been seriously hampered by a lack of spare parts. In order to move a company of soldiers into El Quiché department some weeks ago, the army was forced to request help from a private flying club.
To make up for the army's absence, Rios Montt is setting up village civil defense forces armed with shotguns, rifles and even muskets. To discourage recruits, guerrillas are killing not only civil defense force members but their families as well. Murders continue on both sides; so far this year nearly 1,700 people have died, many of them women and children.