By Serge F. Kovaleski
                  Washington Post Foreign Service
                  Monday, May 17, 1999; Page A11

                  GUATEMALA CITY, May 16 –– Guatemalans went to the polls today for
                  the first time since the country's civil war ended in 1996 to vote in a national
                  referendum on sweeping constitutional changes. The election, however, was
                  overshadowed by the slaying of a prominent left-wing politician and other
                  apparent instances of ideologically motivated violence and intimidation that
                  have evoked memories of Guatemala's brutal past.

                  "Unfortunately, we are being reminded that our history is very close behind
                  and that we have a tendency to go backward instead of forward," Ramon
                  Cabrera, a 39-year-old entrepreneur, said after voting in this capital city.
                  "Change is not coming easily to Guatemala."

                  The 47 reforms Guatemalans voted on were proposed in the 1996 peace
                  accord that ended 36 years of civil war. If the referendum failed, observers
                  said, the peace process would be seriously affected.

                  The leftist politician, Roberto Belarino Gonzalez, 40, assistant secretary
                  general for the opposition Democratic Front for the New Guatemala, was
                  shot to death Thursday morning by four heavily armed men in a speeding
                  pickup truck. Human rights observers said the murder stemmed from the
                  fact that Gonzalez's party formed a coalition last month with former
                  guerrillas and other smaller leftist groups and picked a moderate former
                  government official as its presidential candidate for the November election.

                  By late this afternoon, turnout among the more than 4 million registered
                  voters was reported to be low, and U.N. officials predicted that fewer than
                  20 percent of those eligible to cast ballots would do so. There were also
                  concerns that some voters did not understand the package of 47
                  constitutional changes, which were approved by the National Congress in
                  October. The reforms were designed to address some of the social and
                  institutional problems that were underlying causes of the civil war. An
                  estimated 200,000 people, most of them civilians, died in the conflict.

                  The changes, which have been hotly debated during the past several weeks,
                  include official recognition of Guatemala's majority indigenous population,
                  including their languages, traditional dress, legal rights and religious beliefs.
                  The proposals also call for limiting the functions of the army and establishing
                  the national police as the only force to provide daily security for citizens.

                  In addition, Guatemalans voted on whether the Presidential High Command,
                  an elite military unit in charge of the president's security, should be
                  disbanded. Human rights groups and other observers have accused the unit
                  of committing many abuses and conducting covert intelligence operations.
                  This year, a Guatemalan truth commission issued an extensive report that
                  blamed the army and associated paramilitary groups for more than 90
                  percent of the massacres, tortures, disappearances and assassinations
                  during the war.

                  Recent polls by two major newspapers, Siglo Veintiuno and El Periodico,
                  predicted the referendum would be close. In Siglo Veintiuno, 86 of 100
                  people interviewed in the capital said they would vote, with 44 of the 86
                  planning to cast "no" ballots.

                  But in returns late tonight, the reforms appeared to be going down to defeat.
                  The Associated Press reported that with ballots from the 1,234 polling
                  places in the capital counted -- among the more than 6,000 throughout the
                  country -- there were 433,796 "no" votes, compared to 131,579 "yes" votes.
                  Turnout was low, at just over 20 percent. No returns were immediately
                  available from outlying areas, where support for the referendum may have
                  been higher.

                  On Dec. 29, 1996, the government and a coalition of guerrilla groups signed
                  the peace accords that ended the war and laid out a series of proposals for
                  Guatemala's most significant social, economic and institutional changes in
                  more than 50 years. But turning these agreements into laws or constitutional
                  articles has not been easy.

                  Efforts were almost derailed several times in Congress, as right-wing
                  parties such as the Guatemalan Republican Front strongly criticized the
                  changes before eventually voting for amended versions. Twelve of the
                  reforms on the ballot were based on the peace accords, and the overall
                  package was divided into four categories: Social Rights and the Nation, the
                  Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch and the Judicial Branch and the
                  Administration of Justice.

                  "This is decisive. There is no fallback. If the referendum is defeated,
                  particularly the army and the indigenous parts, the peace process in effect
                  stops dead in its tracks," said George R. Vickers, executive director of the
                  Washington Office on Latin America. "It will create a very negative
                  dynamic within the country and you will get a lot of political recriminations."

                  The most controversial changes are those specifying that Guatemala is a
                  multilingual and multicultural nation with official recognition of 24 indigenous
                  languages in addition to Spanish. The changes also would allow indigenous
                  authorities to resolve local disputes according to their traditions, as long as
                  all parties agree to submit to them.

                  But many of those opposed to the reforms covering indigenous Guatemalans
                  -- who account for more than 50 percent of the population of 11 million --
                  said they feared the country would become even more splintered.

                  "Instead of trying to unify Guatemala, they [Congress] are going to separate
                  it," said Miriam de Cordon, a housewife from an exclusive Guatemala City
                  neighborhood. "If the people do not have to learn Spanish they will not. The
                  country is going to end up like Kosovo."

                  Other critics have complained that Congress was trying to ram through a
                  package of dramatic reforms decided behind closed doors, rather than with
                  the participation of a broad sector of society.

                  Manfredo Maroquin, director of the political think tank Citizen Action, said
                  of tonight's early results in Guatemala City: "It is not a rejection of the
                  content [of the reforms] but it is a rejection of the political class. There
                  needs to be more transparency. They need to come up with the reforms in
                  front of the people and not behind their backs."

                  As for Gonzalez's assassination, some voters said they believed it was
                  meant to intimidate people who planned to vote in favor of the changes. His
                  slaying came just over a year after Roman Catholic Bishop Juan Jose
                  Gerardi, a beloved human rights crusader, was bludgeoned to death
                  following the release of a church report blaming the army for most of the
                  atrocities committed during the war. The crime has not been solved, and
                  human rights groups have criticized the government for not seriously
                  investigating evidence that some military men may have been involved.

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