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Power Short-Circuited: Social Movement Organisation under Cartel Rule in Rural Guatemala

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2017

Abstract

This article unpacks the effect that the presence of diffuse licit and illicit power structures has on states and citizens in the modern world. It does so by investigating how a drug cartel undermined social movement organisation around electricity provision in the San Marcos province of Guatemala. The cartel's presence contributed directly to the demise of movement activity and impeded the effective development of movement strategies in the face of menacing – albeit veiled – threats. In addition, the state's inability or unwillingness to prevent the violent assassination of movement leaders undermined the legitimacy of the central state in the eyes of movement leaders. This also contributed to the reproduction of the ‘unrule of law’ on the ground through the movement's subsequent rejection of formal state institutions.

Spanish abstract

Este artículo desentraña el efecto que la presencia de difusas estructuras de poder lícitas e ilícitas tiene sobre estados y ciudadanos en el mundo moderno. Lo hace así al investigar cómo un cártel de drogas minó la organización del movimiento social alrededor del servicio de electricidad en el departamento de San Marcos en Guatemala. La presencia del cártel contribuyó directamente en la extinción de la actividad del movimiento e impidió el desarrollo efectivo de sus estrategias de movilización debido a las intimidaciones recibidas. Además, la incapacidad o resistencia del estado a evitar los asesinatos violentos de líderes del movimiento minaron la legitimidad del estado central ante los ojos de los dirigentes sociales. Lo anterior también contribuyó a la reproducción del ‘no-estado de derecho’ (‘unrule of law’) desde la base social a través del subsecuente rechazo del movimiento a instituciones estatales formales.

Portuguese abstract

Este artigo desvenda os efeitos que a presença difusa de estruturas de poderes lícitos e ilícitos tem em Estados e cidadãos no mundo moderno. Isso é feito a partir da investigação de como um cartel de drogas minou a organização de movimentos sociais na questão do fornecimento de eletricidade na província de São Marcos, Guatemala. A presença do cartel contribuiu diretamente para o desaparecimento das atividades dos movimentos sociais e impediu o desenvolvimento efetivo das estratégias dos movimentos devido a ameaças, ainda que obscuras. Ademais, a inabilidade estatal ou indisposição em prevenir o violento assassinato de líderes dos movimentos minou a legitimidade do Estado central aos olhos dos líderes dos movimentos. Isto também contribuiu para a reprodução de um ‘Estado de (não) direito’ (‘unrule of law’) nas bases sociais, através de subsequente rejeição do movimento às instituições estatais formais.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

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4 I conducted this fieldwork in the period between May and Sept. 2010. The distribution of respondents is as follows: Tacaná, interviews with five central coordinators; Malacatán, interviews with 24 regional coordinators; Tecún Umán, group interview with eight municipal coordinators; Chayen, group interview with six community coordinators. In addition, I interviewed two local representatives of the government's Presidential Committee for Human Rights (Comisión Presidencial Coordinadora de la Política del Ejecutivo en Materia de Derechos Humanos, COPREDEH).

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26 Ibid., p. 48.

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32 Argueta, ‘Private Security in Guatemala’.

33 Asociación de Investigación y Estudios Sociales (ASIES), ‘Mapas de pobreza y desigualdad de Guatemala’ (Guatemala City: ASIES, 2005), available at: http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/repository/povmap/methods/Mapas_de_la_Pobreza_2002.pdf (accessed 21 Dec. 2016).

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35 Ibid., pp. 162–3.

36 Davis, ‘Irregular Armed Forces’, p. 402.

37 Interview, Feliciano Velásquez, Guatemala City, 26 May 2010. Other respondents provide similar accounts of communities that organised activities and attracted international funding to finance local connections to the national electricity network.

38 Unión FENOSA subsequently created the distribution companies DEOCSA and DEORSA.

39 Several respondents showed me their electricity bills to back up these claims. According to a company spokesperson, however, electricity distribution could not be profitable without these price increases and network failure occurred because people made illegal connections and refused maintenance workers access to their communities. See Herrero, Irene Yagüe, ‘La distribución de la electricidad. ¿Un polvorín a punto de estallar? La Revista [Guatemala], 2: 80 (2010), p. 8Google Scholar.

40 ASIES sets this line at Q4,318 per person per year: ASIES, ‘Mapas de pobreza y desigualdad de Guatemala’, p. 13.

41 Interview communal movement leader, Chayen, 8 Aug. 2010.

42 Ibid.; interview departmental movement leader, Tacaná, 14 Aug. 2010.

43 Interviews communal movement leaders, Tacaná, 14 Aug. 2010.

44 Expediente 344–2006, Constitutional Court, 30 May 2006.

45 This ruling is reminiscent of a tendency identified by Sieder, namely that the unresponsiveness of the Guatemalan judiciary, combined with the lack of sufficient resources and judicial expertise of domestic NGOs, creates an unfavourable climate for successful litigation over issues of human rights and socio-economic interests: Sieder, ‘Legal Cultures in the (Un)Rule of Law’, p. 164. Although Sieder discusses these consequences for indigenous movement formation in particular, the FRENA case shows that these dynamics also extend to consumer movements, where the indigenous element is secondary to other concerns.

46 Official data on non-payment are not available. But newspapers cite figures ranging from 35,000 to 60,000 households. Gabriel Herrera, ‘San Marcos: Vecinos y empresa se quejan. Ejército actuaría en conflicto por distribución eléctrica’, La Hora (22 July 2009). Yagüe Herrero, ‘La distribución de la electricidad’.

47 Interviews departmental leaders, Tacaná, 14 Aug. 2010.

48 Movement leaders reject the suggestion that the insurgent legacy played a role in social mobilisation around the electricity protests. The scholarly literature on the San Marcos-based guerrilla Organización Revolucionario del Pueblo en Armas (Revolutionary Organisation of Armed People – ORPA) supports this assertion, as ORPA suspended linkages with civil society in the mid-1980s to protect civilians against (para-) military retaliation. Kruijt, Dirk, Guerrillas (London: Zed Books, 2008), p. 97Google Scholar; Schirmer, Jennifer, ‘Whose Testimony? Whose Truth? Where are the Armed Actors in the Stoll–Menchu Controversy?’, Human Rights Quarterly, 25: 1 (2003), p. 69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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53 Given its location next to the Mexican border, the province was especially well located for drugs trafficking efforts. Dardón and Calderón, ‘Case Study on the Network of Juan Alberto Ortiz Lopez’.

54 UNODC, ‘Transnational Organized Crime’, p. 24.

55 Espach, Ralph, Quiñonez, Javier Meléndez, Haering, Daniel and Girón, Miguel L. Castillo, Organizaciones criminales y tráfico ilícito en las comunidades fronterizas de Guatemala (Alexandria, VA: CNA Analysis and Solutions, 2011)Google Scholar.

56 Interview municipal movement leader, Malacatán, 2 Aug. 2010; interview municipal movement leader, Ayutla, 4 Aug. 2010.

57 Dardón and Calderón, ‘Case Study on the Network of Juan Alberto Ortiz Lopez’, p. 228.

58 Interview municipal movement leader, Malacatán, 2 Aug. 2010.

59 Ibid.

60 UNODC, ‘Transnational Organized Crime’, p. 22. Also see Arjona, Ana, ‘Wartime Institutions: A Research Agenda’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 58: 8 (2014), p. 1361CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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64 Interview municipal movement leader, Malacatán, 2 Aug. 2010; interview communal movement leader, Chayen, 8 Aug. 2010; interview departmental movement leader, Tacaná, 14 Aug. 2010.

65 This does not necessarily mean that elites explicitly spell out an agreement to cooperate in repression, but rather that the movement perceives itself to be targeted from all possible angles and thereby feels that it is left with little room for action. McAdam, Doug, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency 1930–1970 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Tarrow, Sidney, Power in Movement (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brockett, Charles, Political Movements and Violence in Central America (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lichbach, ‘Deterrence or Escalation?’.

66 Interview municipal movement leader, Malacatán, 2 Aug. 2010. Scholars report that financial ties do indeed exist between congressional delegates and Ortiz, and between the mayor of Malacatán and Ortiz. See Julie López (2012), ‘Giving the Green Light to Dirty Money: Guatemala’, InSight Crime (13 April 2012), available at: http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/giving-the-green-light-to-dirty-money-guatemala (accessed 21 Dec. 2016); Dardón and Calderón, ‘Case Study on the Network of Juan Alberto Ortiz Lopez’, pp. 232–3.

67 Interview municipal movement leader, Malacatán, 2 Aug. 2010.

68 ‘Se restablece paso en fronteras’, Prensa Libre, 19 Dec. 2009; ‘Piden capturas por conexiones ilegales de electricidad en San Marcos’, Prensa Libre, 21 Dec. 2009.

69 Governmental decrees 1–2010, 3–2010, 4–2010 and 6–2010 extended the state of alert to 22 June 2010.

70 See Yagüe Herrero, ‘La distribución de la electricidad’.

71 ‘Avanzan trabajos de reconexión de electricidad en San Marcos’, Prensa Libre, 23 Dec. 2009.

72 Interview municipal movement leader, Malacatán, 2 Aug. 2010.

73 Ibid.

74 The roots of this party lie in a coalition of guerrilla forces that operated in the country during its 36-year internal conflict. Allison, Michael, ‘The Transition from Armed Opposition to Electoral Opposition in Central America’, Latin American Politics and Society 48:4 (2006), pp. 137–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kruijt, Guerrillas.

75 Also see ‘Proponen reformas a la Ley General de Electricidad’, Prensa Libre, 6 March 2009.

76 Interview municipal movement leader, Malacatán, 2 Aug. 2010. For the URNG, the cooperation presented an opportunity to increase its electoral profile in a region where it had been steadily losing its electoral strength. Interview Carlos Mejía, URNG Secretary General in the Department San Marcos, Guatemala City, 26 May 2010.

77 Indeed, the impunity surrounding the murder in 2007 of three Salvadorean members of the Central American parliament had created such international reaction that the Guatemalan government saw itself obligated to accept the formation of a Comisión Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, CICIG). See Hudson, Andrew and Taylor, Alexandra, ‘The International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala: A New Model for International Criminal Justice Mechanisms’, Journal of International Criminal Justice 8 (2010), p. 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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80 Ibid.

81 Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, p. 14.

82 Interviews communal movement leaders, Chayen, 8 Aug. 2010. Also interview municipal movement leader, Malacatán, 2 Aug. 2010.

83 Ibid.; interview communal movement leader, Chayen, 8 Aug. 2010.

84 Argueta, ‘Private Security in Guatemala’, p. 328.

85 Borgh and Savenije, ‘De-securitising and Re-securitising Gang Policies’.

86 Davis, ‘Irregular Armed Forces’, pp. 399, 404.

87 Departmental Assembly, Tacaná, 14 Aug. 2010.

88 Ibid.

89 Interview local representative of COPREDEH, San Marcos, 29 May 2010.

90 Interview municipal movement leader, Malacatán, 2 Aug. 2010.

91 Interview local representative of COPREDEH, San Marcos, 29 May 2010.

92 Hudson and Taylor, ‘The International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala’, p. 4.

93 Briscoe, ‘The Historical Development of the Nexus’.

94 Arjona, ‘Wartime Institutions’; Jentzsch, Corinna, Kalyvas, Stathis N. and Schubiger, Livia Isabella, ‘Militias in Civil Wars’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 59: 5 (2015), pp. 755–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see, for this governance dynamic under cartel rule, Davis, ‘Irregular Armed Forces’, p. 401.

95 Organization of American States (OAS), ‘Scenarios for the Drug Problem in the Americas 2013–2025’ (Washington, DC: OAS, 2013) Available at: http://www.oas.org/documents/eng/press/Scenarios_Report.PDF (accessed 21 Dec. 2016).

96 Briscoe, ‘The Historical Development of the Nexus’, p. 45.