From tank!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ames!sun-barr!rutgers!cmcl2!phri!ccnysci!LADBAC@UNMB.BITNET Thu Aug 31 12:57:58 CDT 1989
Article 134 of misc.headlines.unitex:
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>From: LADBAC@UNMB.BITNET (Dr. Barbara A. Kohl)
Newsgroups: misc.headlines.unitex
Subject: COUNTRY NOTES, GUATEMALA
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Date: 28 Aug 89 11:51:42 GMT
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GUATEMALA: FOUR STUDENTS ABDUCTED, 
BANK PRESIDENT ASSASSINATED

     On Aug. 24, president of the Mutual Support Group 
(GAM), Nineth de Garcia, told reporters that Ivan Ernesto 
Gonzalez and Carlos Conde, leaders of the University of San 
Carlos Students Association (AES), disappeared on Aug. 21, 
and that friends and relatives fear for their lives.  Next, 
De Garcia said that on Aug. 23 Silvia Maria Azurdia and 
Victor Hugo Rodriguez Jaramillo, a married student couple, 
were abducted from in front of their home in Guatemala City.  
Azurdia is a sociology student, and Rodriguez studies 
political science at the University of San Carlos.  Azurdia 
is the daughter of an influential Guatemalan broadcast 
journalist.   
     The GAM president also mentioned that an active GAM 
member, Maria Rumalga de Camey, was abducted Aug. 15 at the 
Olimpia ranch, Escuintla department.  On the same day, 
unidentified assailants threw a grenade at the GAM office in 
the capital.
     On Aug. 24, Ramiro Castillo, president of Guatemala's 
largest commercial bank, Banco Industrial, was killed in 
front of his home in eastern Guatemala City by six 
unidentified gunmen.  Two of his sons were injured, one 
seriously.  Police speculated that Castillo was the victim 
of an abduction-ransom scheme which went haywire.  (Basic 
data from Notimex, DPA, 08/24/89)

GUATEMALAN DEFENSE MINISTER: PRE-ELECTORAL DISPUTES
RESPONSIBLE FOR TENSIONS, VIOLENCE

     In statements before the National Reconciliation 
Commission on Aug. 23, Defense Ministry Gen. Hector 
Alejandro Gramajo said tensions were high in Guatemala 
because of disputes among candidates and their followers 
related to the upcoming elections.  Gramajo was referring to 
strikes by public employees, a wave of bombings and bomb 
scares, and a rash of telephoned death threats.
     Gramajo dismission the notion that the bombings were 
connected with the strikes.  However, he said, "radical 
groups" had taken advantage of the strikes which concluded 
last week "to enhance perceptions of destabilization 
affecting the country."
     The general acknowledged an increase in the traffic of 
arms and other military materiel in Guatemala.  Explosives 
brought into Guatemala, mainly through the border areas with 
Honduras and El Salvador, said Gramajo, are easily 
obtainable, "even in butcher shops."
     Interior Minister Roberto Valle Valdiza said that 
the large quantity of explosives circulating in Guatemala 
could be one of the results of the upcoming Nicaraguan 
contra demobilization.  (Basic data from Notimex, 08/23/89)

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