With the signing of the peace treaty that ended Gua-temala’s civil war on December 29, 1996, Guatemala’s Mayan majority hoped that its years of chronic poverty and political disenfranchisement were drawing to a close.

Calling for reparations and an official statement of remorse from the government, the treaty promised to put the Mayan people—thousands of whom had died in the country’s 36-year civil war—on an equal footing with the traditionally dominant, ethnically Spanish ladino minority. Five years later, however, most of the treaty’s provisions remain unfulfilled.

The civil war took an estimated 200,000 lives, most of them Mayan. The fighting left over a quarter million orphaned and widowed and displaced over one million people. Over 150,000 Mayans fled to Mexico. These numbers, out of a total population of only 11 million, led foreign observers to declare Guatemala’s civil war to be Latin America’s worst.

The national army massacred thousands of Mayan peasants as part of its campaign against left-wing insurgent groups, the most prominent of which was the URNG (Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity). The URNG and other groups actively recruited in Mayan villages, where the largely impoverished residents made easy converts to radical leftist ideology. Investigations have confirmed that an apprehensive army deliberately targeted Mayans, killing them and destroying their villages. A report by the Catholic Archbishop’s Office of Human Rights found that the government was responsible for over 80 percent of the killings. Widespread racism among the ladinos, who control the government, economy, and military, also explains the high death toll.

Some hope for the Mayans lies in the fact that the plight of indigenous peoples, particularly in Guatemala, has gained international attention recently. Mayan activist Rigoberta Menchu publicized the violent repression in her 1983 autobiography, I, Rigoberta Menchu. In 1992, the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the New World, the Nobel committee made a strong political statement by awarding Menchu the Nobel Peace Prize. While some called the controversial selection a triumph of political correctness and others accused Menchu of having ties to guerrilla organizations, no one could deny that she had put the Mayan cause on the map.

Despite the adoption of the 1996 treaty and the increased visibility of the Mayan cause, real advancement for the Mayan population of Guatemala has been nonexistent. One reason is that the government has not worked faithfully to implement the peace accords. The accords set up a Commission for Historical Clarification, which released a report in February 1999 offering 83 suggested reforms ranging from establishing a national holiday honoring war victims to compensating the families of the dead. However, virtually none of the suggestions have been adopted thus far by the government of Alvaro Arzu or by that of his successor, President Alfonso Portillo, who took over in January 2000.

Financial troubles have been partly to blame. When the treaty was signed, the government knew that implementation would cost the equivalent of several billion US dollars. Even the US$2.6 million of assistance actually set aside to be distributed to families who lost relatives in the war has disappeared from government accounts. Although the United States and other countries provided over US$3 billion of aid to help the government foot the bill for peace, external funding has proven politically damaging to advocates of reform by creating the impression among Guatemalans that the accord is being imposed from abroad.

The controversies surrounding Menchu have not helped either. In his 1999 book, Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans, Middlebury College anthropologist David Stoll revealed that Menchu falsified several parts of her autobiography. Menchu reacted angrily to the allegations and has since distanced herself from the notion that the book is an entirely accurate account of her life.

Other incidents have similarly brought disrepute to Menchu. In 1994, a bank accidentally deposited a European Commission contribution worth US$81,594 to Menchu’s foundation twice, but when the bank realized the error and asked for the money back 18 months later, the foundation claimed to have spent it. The embarrassing case went to court. In 1998 Menchu also opposed a tax reform that would have made the system more progressive, putting her in an awkward alliance with conservative business interests in opposition to the impoverished masses she usually claims to represent.

The worst mistake Menchu made was her handling of Guatemala’s 1999 referendum on the adoption of constitutional amendments that would have essentially granted Mayans equal citizenship. While she did some campaigning in favor of the amendments, she was conspicuously absent from the vote itself, attending a series of conferences abroad instead. Many of Menchu’s followers were disappointed that international acclaim seemed to be more important to her than real accomplishment at home. In any event, the referendum was defeated handily, with fewer than 20 percent of eligible voters casting their ballots. The scandals surrounding Menchu have weakened the indigenous-rights movement by tarnishing Menchu’s reputation and taking attention away from the actual suffering of the Mayan people.

An even larger obstacle in the way of equity for Mayans has been the inability of Guatemala to remedy persistent social problems. One reality that has remained is widespread violence and abuse of human rights. The UN mission in Guatemala chronicled 4,800 human rights abuses in 1999, up from 1,200 in 1998. Many Guatemalans remain fearful of speaking their minds because the specter of political murder still looms as large as it did five years ago.

Ladino domination of the government and economy is another reality that has carried over from the past. A scant two percent of the population owns 70 percent of the land, making Guatemala’s distribution of wealth the most unequal in Latin America. With half of the population earning less than the US$3-per-day minimum wage and one-third of the people illiterate, most Guatemalans barely survive.

To improve living standards, the government must fundamentally reform the economy, but Portillo largely does the bidding of the elite business interests by blocking reforms. His political party was founded by Efrain Rios Montt, a general who oversaw the slaughter of thousands of Mayans during his 17-month rule at the height of the civil war in the 1980s. Many still perceive Portillo as the puppet of Montt, who has been ruled ineligible for the presidency but still enjoys continued prominence. This situation does not bode well for progressive policies toward the Mayans any time in the foreseeable future.