Guatemala’s New President Urges Unity : Central America: Rights advocate De Leon has wide grass-roots support. But he must be wary of the army.

Twelve days ago, he was under house arrest, forced to escape police by sneaking out a back door and over a rooftop. Today he is president of Guatemala, facing a country in crisis and a delicate relationship with Guatemala’s powerful armed forces.

Ramiro de Leon Carpio, Guatemala’s human rights ombudsman since 1988, was sworn in as president Sunday after a special election in Congress. He replaced President Jorge Serrano, ousted in a bloodless military coup Tuesday.

“We face a challenge before the world, and before ourselves, to correct our errors and press on to a better destiny,” De Leon, 51, said in his inauguration speech. “I am calling at this historic moment for national unity, without revenge or vengeance.”

De Leon is a charismatic, ambitious prosecutor who is praised by many Guatemalans as a champion of human rights--in a country where such advocacy can get you killed. A brutal military counterinsurgency campaign in the 1970s and ‘80s helped give Guatemala one of the worst human rights records in the hemisphere. Tens of thousands of Indians were slain.

His role as congressionally appointed ombudsman frequently pitted De Leon against Defense Minister Jose Domingo Garcia Samayoa and the rest of the military High Command, whose security forces through the years have been blamed for most of the atrocities.

De Leon’s election raised questions about whether the army would tolerate him as president. But so far, there are no indications the military will interfere with De Leon’s presidency.

If De Leon were to move too forcefully against the army, either through human rights prosecutions or reforms aimed at restructuring the military, he could face retaliation. At the same time, the grass-roots organizations and labor and peasant groups who support him now expect to find a champion for their causes in the National Palace.

“Ramiro was not the candidate of the large parties, the business sector or the military,” said Gabriel Aguilera, head of the Socialist Democratic Party and a member of the consensus committee that nominated presidential candidates. “(De Leon’s election) is Congress responding to the streets.”

For the last week, the grass-roots groups have been staging noisy demonstrations, often led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, to protest the army’s participation in determining who was president and to demand a larger voice in the selection process. These groups’ expectations have been raised by De Leon’s election.

De Leon does not belong to a political party, a condition set by the broad coalition of business executives, politicians and labor leaders who joined forces to have Serrano removed and replaced by a respected independent.

“He will have to rely more on pressure groups than on politicians to govern,” former Defense Minister Hector Alejandro Gramajo said in an interview. “And it is difficult to pass laws without politicians.”

Some Guatemalans who are familiar with the military say that if the generals stay out of public political matters for the time being, it would only be because they are too busy dealing with internal rifts that formed during the last 12 days of turmoil, when the military leadership was divided over the role it took.

“The military really suffered from this experience,” said a business executive who participated in talks to oust Serrano. “There was no mobilization of troops . . . but there was discomfort within the army. I think we came very close, just by a few hours” to a violent military backlash.

Serrano’s downfall began May 25 when he seized absolute power, suspended the constitution and dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court. Serrano placed De Leon under house arrest and tried to fire him.

De Leon escaped, in a tale that is fast becoming part of coup folklore, and then held what his supporters referred to as clandestine press conferences. He attacked Serrano’s actions and became one of the most outspoken defenders of constitutional rule to emerge in Guatemala’s crisis.

Through the crisis, De Leon was careful not to criticize the army, and his statements have been increasingly conciliatory where the armed forces are concerned.

As ombudsman--essentially, a government prosecutor who handles human rights cases--De Leon oversaw the investigations into two of Guatemala’s most publicized human rights cases: the June, 1990, slaying of American innkeeper Michael Devine, and the September, 1990, death of Mirna Mack Chang, a Guatemalan anthropologist.

Both cases resulted in the first convictions of ranking government security officers in Guatemalan history.