Guatemalans Sign Refugee Deal

The Guatemalan government and leftist guerrillas signed a deal Friday in Oslo on resettling refugees, a milestone on the road to ending a conflict in which more than 100,000 people have died.

The two sides, meeting since Monday, signed the 12-page deal in the same mansion and on the same table where Israeli and Palestine Liberation Organization delegations secretly initialed their historic peace accord on limited Palestinian autonomy last August.

Friday’s deal maps out how to resettle about 60,000 Guatemalans in Mexico, most living in refugee camps, and perhaps a million people forced to flee their homes inside Guatemala by the 33-year conflict.

Both sides aim to sign a complete peace accord in late 1994 to end the last guerrilla conflict in Central America. The two sides also said they had made progress on the other main theme of the talks--setting up a commission to examine responsibility for human rights abuses during the war.

Richard Nuccio, a U.S. policy adviser helping with the talks, said the United States had promised to turn millions of dollars in military aid into a fund to improve living conditions in Guatemala once the peace treaty is reached.

“The United States will be expected to announce, within the month, the establishment of a peace fund of about $60 million to help rebuild Guatemala when the final peace agreement has been signed,” he said. The fund will include $56 million originally designated as military aid to the Guatemalan government, he said.