Loyal Troops Foil Coup Attempt in Guatemala

Dissident soldiers backed by three combat aircraft marched toward strategic points of the capital in a pre-dawn uprising Tuesday but were stopped by troops loyal to civilian President Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo, his government reported.

Guatemalan officials said the two-hour coup attempt was staged by 300 army and air force men and led by 12 active or retired officers harboring a mixture of grievances. They said 10 of the plotters were arrested and not a shot was fired.

“Today there was an attempt to break the constitutional order of the country, but at this moment the situation is under the government’s and the army’s control,” Cerezo told reporters at the National Palace. He was flanked by Gen. Hector Gramajo Morales, the most powerful military figure in the country.

Although both men tried to play down the revolt, it seemed to underscore the fragility of Cerezo’s tenure after three years in office and his dependence on the armed forces to finish his constitutional term in 1991. Guatemala has never sustained a modern democratic government for long. This was the second uprising in the past year.

Gramajo said one immediate aim of the revolt was to oust him as defense minister. The general’s support for the government foiled the previous coup attempt, when troops backed by rightist businessmen and landowners marched on the capital last May 11.

Four army officers cashiered for their involvement in that revolt were among those arrested Tuesday, the defense minister said.

One arrested navy officer, Capt. Romeo Guevara Reyes, was fired from his job as national police chief last week by Interior Minister Roberto Valle Valdizan after a dispute between the two men. Guevara’s spokesman had accused the minister of trying to turn the police into an instrument of Cerezo’s Christian Democratic Party in the next presidential campaign.

Col. Juan Galvez, one of the others arrested, was under investigation in a scandal over the resale of parts acquired for the air force.

“The movement was not ideologically or politically motivated,” the defense minister said. “It was a very small group of officers. They did not present any concrete petitions.”

Cerezo, 46, said his government was “bound to suffer this type of problem occasionally” and emphasized that the bulk of the military remained behind him.

“We are heartened that the military as an institution has rejected the attempt of some elements to overthrow the government and is continuing its support for constitutional civilian-led democracy in Guatemala,” U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.

Gramajo gave this account: At 5 a.m., Col. Galvez and other co-conspirators took off over the capital in two A-37 Dragonfly bombers and a helicopter gunship. Meanwhile, 150 rebel air force troops marched from their unit at Guatemala’s international airport, which they temporarily closed, to the Pacific coastal highway and to Gramajo’s home.

The other 150 rebels were sent from the city’s main army base to the Atlantic coast highway and downtown to the government telecommunications company, national radio and police headquarters.

Superior numbers of loyalist troops rushed to those targets and protected them with light tanks, the minister said, while soldiers from the country’s honor guard restored order in the rebel units.

However, unofficial reports said the rebels took over the police station and the government-owned radio. At 5 a.m. an unidentified voice on the radio shouted “Attention! Attention! People of Guatemala” but did not follow with a message. The station then broadcast only martial or marimba music until loyalist troops regained control of the city about 7 a.m.

Guatemala, Central America’s most populous country with 8.7 million people, was under military rule almost continuously from 1954 until Cerezo took office in 1986.