ABSTRACT
Throughout 1990, amid deepening economic crisis and increasing political violence, Guatemalans prepared for the November election. Once again, there was not one serious center-left option among the candidates, nor any discussion of Guatemala's staggering problems; and the tensions of the electoral process itself generated new violence. In short, the Guatemala of the 13 percent minority seems virtually certain to continue moving in the neoliberal direction. From this perspective, the overall social crisis is reduced to the specific problem of training an adequate work force for nontraditional exports and cheap labor industries. Gramajo's Theses on National Stability is the most sophisticated effort to present a coherent project on behalf of "modern" counterinsurgent forces. Behind a new diplomatic stance, the basic policy framework of neoliberalism and counterinsurgency did not change, nor did the ongoing, strategic, close relationship with the army. The counterinsurgency state has made reformism by itself unviable, by precluding partial solutions to the staggering problems of poverty and ethnic discrimination.
