Guatemalan Party of Labour - Fourth Congress

Fourth Congress

PGT held its fourth congress on December 20–22, 1969. The congress, held in complete clandestinity, adopted the policy of 'Revolutionary People's War'. At this time its base of operations was concentrated to Guatemala City and the southern coast of the country. The party carried out some armed attacks. The party had a brief rapprochement with FAR, that broke down due to political differences.

The party suffered heavily from government repression. On September 26, 1972 state forces captured Bernardo Alvarado, PGT general secretary, Mario Silva Jonama, Central Committee Secretary of PGT, Carlos René Valle y Valle, Carlos Alvarado Jerez, Hugo Barrios Klee and Miguel Angel Hernández, PGT Central Committee members, Fantina Rodríguez, party member, and the domestic worker Natividad Franco Santos, in a raid in Guatemala City. The following day the president Carlos Arana ordered their execution and that the bodies of the executed be dumped into the sea.

On December 21, 1974 the body of the party general secretary, Huberto Alvarado Arellano, was found. He had been subjected to torture and killed. In total, during the period of 1972-1983, two PGT general secretaries and nineteen Central Committee members were 'disappeared' and killed.

In spite of the harsh repression, PGT was able to consolidate its political strength. By the midst of the 1970s, it had reactivated its Northern, Central, Western and Eastern Regional Committees. After Alvarado's death, Ricardo Rosales (whose nom de guerre in PGT was Carlos González) was appointed interim general secretary. He was given the task to organize a 5th party congress. Moreover, the party reactivated the dormant Military Commission of the Central Committee. The party gained political presence in the trade union movement through the Federación Autónoma Sindical de Guatemala (FASGUA) and JPT was one of the forces working with the Association of University Students (AEU).