Chapter 2: Guatemala- General Information
Socio-Economic Characteristics
The economy is oriented toward export agriculture and structured around the demands of the world market based on a model that concentrates most arable land in the hands of a minority of the population and distributes a tiny percentage of such lands among the immense majority of rural small landholders.
A U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) study published in 1982 points out that small landholdings, or the peasant stratum, accounts for 28 per cent of arable lands and represents 95.6 per cent of property holdings. Medium-sized farms, or the stratum of intermediate farmers represents 12 per cent of the land area and 1.72 per cent of properties. At the other extreme, large-scale agricultural operations or the stratum of rich producers and large landholders account for 68 per cent of the arable surface area and represent only 2.56 per cent of property-owners (USAID: 1982). Graph 1 illustrates the contrast between large and small landholders.
Graph 1
Distribution
of Land in Guatemala
Source: CIIDH, (USAID: 1982)
Large properties have the most fertile and suitable soil for agricultural production and, although they account for the highest amount of surface area, only 32 per cent of these lands are under cultivation. At the same time, small landholdings, located on less fertile and rapidly deteriorating lands, are exploited at a rate of 85% (IIES: 1988). As a result, the phenomena of poverty and extreme poverty affect almost 90 per cent of the country’s population, a situation that is more acute in the rural areas where economic disparities are more pronounced. Usually, the huge socio-cultural diversity in the country is used to explain the resulting inequality in the agricultural structure.
The Economically Active Population (EAP) comprises 35.47 per cent of the total population, equivalent to 2.952 million people. Of the total, 83 per cent are men and only 17 per cent are women (World Bank: 1994). Consistent with its structural characteristics, Guatemala is a primarily agricultural country, as indicated by the fact that 73.6 per cent of the EAP is inserted into the primary sector as farmers or unskilled labor.
In this context, the majority of the population, but particularly the peasant and indigenous masses -- a permanent reservoir of manual labor -- do not have access to infrastructure, health, and education.
Only 37 per cent of the population has access to electricity; 62 per cent have access to a water source, not always fit for human consumption; 60 per cent has access to a sewage system. Nearly 70 per cent of inhabited buildings are constructed of adobe, wood, waddle and daub, or cane, and roofed with clay tiles, palm leaves, or straw (World Bank: 1994).
Further, the highway system is limited and most of the 3,450 kilometers of paved roads are located in the central region and along the southern and Atlantic Coasts where the large export plantations, and the port infrastructure, are located. Only 7 per cent of these roads are in good condition. There is one telephone for every forty-three inhabitants (World Bank: 1994).
The situation also is precarious in the areas of health and education. There are thirty-three hospitals in the entire country, with one doctor for every 5,078 inhabitants, and one hospital bed for every 779 (von Hoegen: 1988). The illiteracy rate is 45 per cent of the population over the age of fifteen, but this figure ascends to 80 per cent among indigenous populations where the family struggle for survival precludes children from regularly attending school. In general, women are more affected than the men in this regard (AVANCSO: 1988).
The precarious conditions in which the majority of population survives, as well as the lack of services and fulfillment of basic needs, are the true indicators of the socioeconomic conditions in the country. The poverty and extreme poverty that characterize rural areas in particular are the product of profound, historically-rooted disparities between those who possess most of the fertile lands and those who are landless or eke out a precarious existence with what they are able produce on their small plots.
Economic disparities, and the political domination impeding their solution, have polarized the Guatemalan countryside. One of the most significant results of this, which has marked Guatemalan history, is the internal armed conflict that emerged in 1960 and, in its various phases, has caused the death of many thousands of Guatemalans, the displacement of many more, and the physical destruction of hundreds of communities, largely attributable to State counterinsurgency policies.
Several important issues are analyzed in this study regarding the causes and effects of political polarization, the use of violence as a form of social control by the Guatemalan government, and some of its attendant consequences during the period from July 1980 to June 1984.