March 11, 1999
Clinton Offers His Apologies To Guatemala
By JOHN M. BRODER
GUATEMALA, March 10--President Clinton apologized today for United States support of right-wing governments in Guatemala that killed tens of thousands of rebels and Mayan Indians in a 36-year civil war.
''For the United States,'' Mr. Clinton said, ''it is important that I state clearly that support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake.''
Mr. Clinton promised American support for reconciliation in Guatemala as well as throughout Central America.
He made the apology in his opening statement to an informal gathering of leaders from many sectors of Guatemalan society, including Indians, women, Government officials and representatives of a truth commission that issued a report last month on the war. The commission found that the United States gave money and training to Guatemalan forces that committed acts of genocide against Mayans and other extreme human rights abuses in the conflict, which began in 1960.
The involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the campaign of terror against Mayan and leftist insurgents had long been an open secret. But the report of the Historical Clarification Commission confirmed the C.I.A.'s participation in a war that killed more than 200,000 people.
The report said that American training of Guatemalan military officers in counterinsurgency played a significant role in the torture, kidnapping and execution of thousands of civilians.
American officials had previously endorsed the findings of the panel. But no President had directly confronted the United States' role in the atrocities.
Mr. Clinton today praised Guatemala as a society that is coming to terms with its past and is moving forward.
The United States will no longer take part in campaigns of repression, Mr. Clinton said. ''We must and will, instead, continue to support the peace and reconciliation process in Guatemala,'' Mr. Clinton said on the third day of a four-day journey through Central America.
Earlier today, in El Salvador, the President told regional legislative leaders that it was time to put the bitter ideological struggles of the past behind them and begin to address their gaping social and economic inequalities.
In an address to the National Assembly of El Salvador today, Mr. Clinton obliquely acknowledged the United States' role in the wars that bloodied the region. But in that address, he stopped short of apologizing for American support for murderous military regimes that fostered long reigns of repression.
American backing for right-wing Governments in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua and covert actions against leftist guerrillas created ''bitter divisions'' in the United States, Mr. Clinton said. But with every nation in Central America now under democratic rule, he said, the United States will try provide the financial and moral assistance to enhance political and economic development.
''We are determined to remember the past,'' Mr. Clinton said, ''but never repeat it.''
He promised to address the unequal treatment of some illegal immigrants from Central America to the United States.
But even as he made the pledge, the Administration began steps to deport 5,000 Salvadorans and Guatemalans who entered the United States illegally after Hurricane Mitch in October.
''We must enforce our laws,'' Mr. Clinton said, referring to an issue that has angered Governments in the region. ''But we will do so with justice and with fairness.''
He specifically pledged to try to change the rules under which El Salvadorans and Guatemalans who entered the United States in the 1980's have to prove that they face political retribution if they are returned to their home countries.
Under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act of 1997, Cubans and Nicaraguans who entered the United States illegally fleeing left-wing governments are granted a presumption of political hardship and given amnesty from deportation.
But El Salvadorans and Guatemalans who fled authoritarian governments have to overcome steep hurdles to avoid being returned under the law, which Republicans sponsored.
Mr. Clinton told the Assembly in San Salvador that he would try to enforce the law in a way that would extend equal treatment to all political refugees from the region. ''The law should reflect what they suffered rather than who caused the suffering,'' Mr. Clinton said. ''This is wrong, and we should change it.''
The Assembly, which includes members of guerrilla groups that battled the Government throughout the 80's, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, applauded Mr. Clinton.
Assembly President Juan Duch Martinez said in his introduction for Mr. Clinton that it was no longer war but a lack of jobs that drove so many Central Americans to migrate to the United States. Mr. Martinez said he hoped that members of Congress would ''hear the requests of all of our brothers and sisters in illegal immigrant status.''
''This is supported by everyone in El Salvador,'' Mr. Duch said.
Mr. Clinton said that old ideological battlefields had been transformed into a marketplace of competing ideas. The challenge now, he said, is to move beyond the ''bitter divide between left and right'' and to begin to address the ''embittering divide between poverty and wealth.''
To that end, the Administration is proposing a series of laws to liberalize trade to help the region recover from the hurricane damage. The measures, subject to Congressional approval, would exempt from duties textiles and apparel assembled in Central America from fabric woven in the United States. The bill would also lift all tariffs on handmade and folklore articles exported from Central America.
In addition, the measure would reduce tariffs on other goods from Central America to conform to the duties on Mexican products under the North American Free Trade Agreement.