Leader Ousted in Guatemala : Latin America: The army ends the nation’s crisis by forcing out embattled president who seized total power. Reinstated Congress will name a civilian ruler.

President Jorge Serrano was forced from office Tuesday under intense pressure from military commanders and civilian business leaders, one week after he suspended democratic rule and dissolved government institutions.

Ending an explosive political crisis that had isolated Guatemala and spawned a furor here and abroad, the army ousted Serrano and said it was turning the government over to civilian leaders.

“This is a victory for all the civilian sectors of this country,” veteran Congressman Jorge Skinner Klee said. “Allowing Serrano to get away with this . . . would have weakened the whole Latin American system.”

Serrano’s decision to seize absolute power and rule by decree last Tuesday triggered economic sanctions from the United States and Europe and united a broad and disparate domestic opposition. His departure appeared to put Guatemala back on the road to constitutional rule but left undetermined who would govern the country.

The announcement that Serrano had stepped down was made by Defense Minister Jose Domingo Garcia Samayoa at a news conference in the National Palace. It followed a whirlwind of nonstop bargaining sessions in which business executives, politicians and constitutional experts consulted with military commanders on how to remove Serrano legally.

In an extraordinary sequence of events that unfolded as Serrano was being deposed, prominent Guatemalans, summoned by a national radio broadcast, paraded to the palace one by one to join in talks with the military.

Army chiefs decided that Serrano had to leave office after they became convinced his actions spelled international isolation and economic disaster for Guatemala, according to sources involved in the talks. Serrano, 48, was escorted from the palace by a military guard shortly before noon.

Vice President Gustavo Espina Salguero assumed office temporarily, until the Congress that Serrano dissolved last week can be reconvened. Espina has presented his resignation, which the Congress eventually will accept.

The Congress will then name a new interim president, said Epaminondas Gonzalez Dubon, president of the Constitutional Court, the body placed in charge of orchestrating the succession of power. The interim president will fill out Serrano’s five-year term, which ends in 1996.

According to two sources involved in arranging the succession, the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal and the army will draw up a short list from which the Congress will choose the interim president.

The Congress must also name a new Supreme Court, which Serrano also dissolved, and must purge its own ranks of corrupt lawmakers, officials said. Among those likely to be removed is congressional President Jose Lobo Dubon, widely accused of having profited illicitly from his government position.

Garcia Samayoa, the defense minister, said the army had overseen Serrano’s removal “assuming its historic role . . . in defense of the constitution” and “responding to the clamor of the people.”

He said Serrano “opted to abandon his position” after the constitutional court ruled his actions illegal.

Asked about Serrano’s whereabouts and reports that he had already abandoned Guatemala, the general said: “No one has left the country. We have guaranteed his security.”

Some lawmakers said they would consider an amnesty for Serrano, a born-again Christian and Stanford graduate, although other Guatemalans insisted he ought to stand trial for violating the constitution. Serrano’s measures also included shutting down newspapers and television stations in the capital.

The prominent role that the army assumed in Tuesday’s events was seen as dangerous by some. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu, a Guatemalan-born Mayan Indian, and a group of university representatives arrived late at the palace meetings and said they were being excluded. “We are not going to give approval to a coup with a civilian facade,” Menchu said.

With intense political negotiations under way inside, hundreds of Guatemalans rallied outside the National Palace and chanted for Serrano’s removal and the return to democracy. They tossed confetti and exploded firecrackers.

Even among soldiers and government employees inside the building, there was a sense of relief, anticipation and, in some cases, joy.

“We have a task ahead of us to return this country to democratic rule,” said Ramiro de Leon Carpio, the human rights ombudsman Serrano had placed under house arrest when he staged his takeover.

As they were on the day of the power grab, all radio and television stations were ordered to join a national simultaneous broadcast of marimba music that continued throughout the day. In the evening, after the official announcements were made, television that had been silenced by Serrano’s censors broadcast continuous footage of the palace activities under the title “National Jubilation.”

Serrano had tried to salvage his presidency up to the last minute. At around 3 a.m., he began summoning members of the Congress that he had dissolved to his residence behind the palace. Despite offers of bribes and even threats, according to several of the legislators, Serrano could not gather a quorum.

He offered the congressmen a six-point plan that included amnesty for him and the vice president, a three-month recess for Congress and ratification of the Supreme Court he had appointed.

The congressmen were offered 150,000 quetzales ($27,000 or so) apiece in exchange for supporting Serrano’s plan, according to Congressman Juan Francisco Reyes Lopez and two other legislators interviewed. Two sources involved in the negotiations to remove Serrano said he refused to formally resign and had not done so by late afternoon.

Opposition to Serrano had grown steadily in the last several days. Church leaders, union activists, Guatemalan journalists and indigenous groups joined the business elite and many politicians in attacking his actions.

On Sunday, the military appeared to be withdrawing its support after a meeting with a delegation from the Organization of American States. The OAS had been studying harsh punishment for Guatemala and was expected to act Thursday.

Once the army support began to waver, it seemed clear that Serrano’s political demise was only a matter of time.

Adding to the pressure, according to people involved in the bargaining sessions, U.S. officials--who had already suspended their aid to this country--made it clear to members of Guatemala’s business elite that Washington would probably cancel the favored trade status the nation enjoys. That prospect panicked many business executives, who said such a sanction would cost Guatemala millions of dollars and thousands of jobs.

Serrano’s seizure of absolute power interrupted seven years of relative democratic rule in Guatemala. Civilians came to power in 1986 after more than three decades of brutal military rule, a time when the army killed tens of thousands of Indians and others in counterinsurgency campaigns.

Serrano said he imposed one-man rule because the country was slipping into chaos after two weeks of protest over austerity measures he instituted and because of widespread corruption in the Congress and courts. While few doubted the corruption, many said the executive branch was equally guilty.

“Democracy here is very fragile,” said Hugo Gordillo, a union activist who joined the celebrations at the palace. “But we don’t want to live democracy’s deficiencies. We want to live its benefits.”