New Constitution

"You have always been a political mercenary!" cried Deputy Oscar Najera Farfan to Deputy Jose Garcia Bauer in Guatemala's Constituent Assembly. "At least I am not the night chamber pot of politics!" retorted Garcia Bauer. "O piece of excrement, follow me out of this room!" thundered Najera Farfan. In the tussle that followed, Najera Farfan landed a solid right hook to Garcia Bauer's ear before other deputies pulled them apart.

But if the temper of the final debate on Guatemala's new constitution was hardly above the barroom level, the charter itself, proclaimed last week by President Carlos Castillo Armas, was a model of good intentions. Major changes: P: Churches and religious orders, denied legal status since Guatemala's anticlerical laws of the 1870s, get back full lawful rights, including the right to own property. P: The Communist and other totalitarian parties are banned, along with all Communist activity by individuals or groups. P: The National University is guaranteed 2% of the national budget. P: The exiling of citizens, hitherto a favored political punishment, is forbidden (though a temporary clause permits Castillo Armas to override the ban for the time being in order to keep out henchmen of deposed President Jacobo Arbenz).

The new constitution will not go into effect until March. That circumstance last week saved Castillo Armas from having to use his special clause right away, when the government discovered what it said was a plot run by Guatemalans associated with Arbenz. With the eyebrow-raising explanation that "I will follow Communist methods in suppressing subversion--they taught us how to do it," the President jailed dozens of his opponents. Most were soon freed again, but four were exiled to El Salvador.

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