Part 13 (1/2)
The Black Frost The world's coffee trade . . . may have been permanently altered by the frost.
Few of the Parana coffee bushes will recover, and many will not be replaced.
The farmers have been frost-bitten too often in the past. They are planning to grow wheat and particularly soya beans. grow wheat and particularly soya beans.
-The Economist, July 26, 1975
Brazilian coffee farmers thought they had suffered through every kind of drought or frost, but 1975 brought snow to Parana for the first time, and the ripples from this freak weather system would affect the global coffee industry for years. Hitting on July 17 and 18, it was by far the worst frost of the century, virtually destroying the Parana coffee lands, while it inflicted terrible damage in So Paulo and elsewhere.
Viewed from the air, the area looked burned over; thus the event was named the Black Frost.105 One and a half billion trees, well over half of Brazil's total growth, were killed. Most of the harvest was already complete, but world production had lagged consumption in eight of the previous ten years, with Brazil's surplus making up the difference. Since new coffee plants required four years to come into production, it was likely that there would be a tight market for several years. In the frost's wake, coffee futures soared, and all producing countries halted exports in antic.i.p.ation of ever-higher prices. Brazil too held on to its 24 million-bag surplus. Coffee roasters, who had expected a surplus to bring down prices, were caught with low inventories. Within two weeks, the retail price of ground coffee rose by 20 cents a pound. One and a half billion trees, well over half of Brazil's total growth, were killed. Most of the harvest was already complete, but world production had lagged consumption in eight of the previous ten years, with Brazil's surplus making up the difference. Since new coffee plants required four years to come into production, it was likely that there would be a tight market for several years. In the frost's wake, coffee futures soared, and all producing countries halted exports in antic.i.p.ation of ever-higher prices. Brazil too held on to its 24 million-bag surplus. Coffee roasters, who had expected a surplus to bring down prices, were caught with low inventories. Within two weeks, the retail price of ground coffee rose by 20 cents a pound.
Several other factors combined to limit coffee production in 1975 and 1976. In Angola, tribal, regional, and political rivalries broke out in a violent civil war. In disarray itself after the fall of its military dictators.h.i.+p, Portugal declared Angola independent in November 1975. The quarter million European settlers-many of them coffee farmers-fled the country, while the equivalent of 3 million bags of coffee rotted on the trees. When Cuban troops arrived to help the Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola, the U.S. government rushed arms to the opposition, the Front for the National Liberation of Angola. For another two decades, the cold war would be played out in Angola, and its once-thriving coffee industry died. Jungle creepers climbed the coffee trees, and swimming pools once used by the Portuguese coffee elite lay empty and cracked.
Elsewhere, civil war raged in Ethiopia, interfering with the harvest, while dictator Idi Amin's activities in Uganda were beginning to affect that country's coffee crop. A dock workers' strike stalled Kenyan exports. In Guatemala, a devastating earthquake early in 1976 missed the coffee regions but destroyed bridges and caused landslides that would delay s.h.i.+pments. Floods swept Colombia. Coffee leaf rust surfaced in Nicaragua. Speculators took advantage of the situation, contributing to the size of the price hike.
The United States agreed to join another International Coffee Agreement (the previous one expired in 1973) in hopes that it would help to stabilize prices. A quota system would kick in when prices lowered substantially. The 1976 ICA therefore was a formality, although it did encourage producers to export their coffees, because when quotas were set, they would be based largely on the amount each country had exported in recent years.
In March 1976 green coffee prices reached $1 a pound, a 100 percent hike in less than a year. Prices continued to rise. Consumers and retail chains began to h.o.a.rd coffee in antic.i.p.ation of even higher prices, driving up the price faster.
As coffee sales declined and market-share battles intensified, Hills Brothers, the only remaining major family-owned roaster, sold out to a Brazilian agricultural conglomerate. Billionaire Jorge Wolney Atalla arranged for the $38.5 million purchase of the ailing American roaster. Atalla and his brothers, the largest coffee growers in the world, owned their own freeze-dried soluble plant, an exporting agency, two Brazilian coffee roasting firms, and Copersucar, a huge sugar cooperative that also produced alcohol for use as a fuel. Atalla announced his intention to produce an all-Brazilian blend (primarily using his own beans) and to double Hills Brothers' U.S. market share by 1980.
Machiavellian Market Manipulations As 1977 brought $3-plus a pound, boycott movements sprang up around the country. Supermarket chains joined the campaign, urging consumers not to buy coffee. The MacNeil/Lehrer Report MacNeil/Lehrer Report devoted a show to the crisis. ”It's a bit ironic,” observed Jim Lehrer, ”that a nation that started on its road to independence with a tea boycott should be kicking off its third century with a coffee boycott.” Conservative writer William Safire penned ”Brazil's Coffee Rip-Off” in the devoted a show to the crisis. ”It's a bit ironic,” observed Jim Lehrer, ”that a nation that started on its road to independence with a tea boycott should be kicking off its third century with a coffee boycott.” Conservative writer William Safire penned ”Brazil's Coffee Rip-Off” in the New York Times New York Times, a.s.serting that ”the doubling of coffee prices has little to do with market forces”-Brazil's military junta knew that ”dopey Americans will pay anything for their coffee fix.”
Disturbed by the storm he saw brewing, Jorge Wolney Atalla took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal so that Hills Brothers could explain the price hike as a result of the frost and other natural and political disasters. Atalla invited three dozen U.S. consumer advocates and supermarket managers to come to Brazil as guests of Hills Brothers, to see the frost destruction. They also visited the four largest government storehouses to see that they were nearly empty. His efforts could not stem the tide of righteous indignation. so that Hills Brothers could explain the price hike as a result of the frost and other natural and political disasters. Atalla invited three dozen U.S. consumer advocates and supermarket managers to come to Brazil as guests of Hills Brothers, to see the frost destruction. They also visited the four largest government storehouses to see that they were nearly empty. His efforts could not stem the tide of righteous indignation.
Once again, as in 1912 and 1950, a shrill political crusader led the charge of price manipulation. This time it was New York's Fred Richmond, the chair of the Domestic Marketing, Consumer Relations, and Nutrition Subcommittee of the Committee on Agriculture. Richmond expressed outrage when Brazil and Colombia repeatedly raised their export tax levies to take advantage of rising prices.
In February 1977 Richmond co-chaired joint hearings. ”Coffee consumers in the United States and other nations are in the grip of one of the most Machiavellian market manipulations in modern memory,” Richmond thundered in his opening remarks. He accused Brazil of conducting ”a deliberate, pervasive campaign to inflate and artificially maintain coffee prices at record levels.”
Elinor Guggenheimer, New York City's Commissioner of Consumer Affairs, presented some of the 3,000 letters she had received from consumers.
”This is the first time I've ever written to protest anything,” one housewife wrote regarding ”all the greedy coffee growers, companies, and dealers.” A veteran recalled ”during World War II when a cup of coffee was the difference between misery and pleasure.” He couldn't bring himself to abstain entirely, but he promised to cut his consumption.
Jane Byrne, Chicago commissioner of consumer affairs (and future mayor), lamented the plight of the Brazilian laborers she had met on Wolney Atalla's plantation. ”They work for $2 a day; they are allowed to plant a little bit of corn in their backyards. Everything else which they make out of their $2 a day goes right back into the company store and goes for rent on the house.” Michael Jacobson, the head of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, testified in favor of a permanent permanent boycott, or at least a severe cut in consumption, since he believed coffee could be harmful to health. boycott, or at least a severe cut in consumption, since he believed coffee could be harmful to health.
Following this parade of critics, the State Department's Julius Katz a.s.serted that the Brazilian and Colombian export taxes had no effect on coffee's cost to consumers. Rather, the export tax took a bite out of the price the farmer received. As prices rose, it was natural for the governments to increase their share in order to fund new plantings and the use of fertilizers and pesticides. Even so, the return to the Brazilian farmer had tripled. Katz ignored the plight of the laborers, however, since their wages remained minimal. Katz admitted that there was no coffee shortage, but ”markets operate on the basis of antic.i.p.ation.” With Brazil gradually depleting its surplus stocks, another frost or unforeseen disaster could easily cause a real shortage.
Even at higher prices, coffee cost about 6 cents a cup when brewed at home. Soft drinks, which pushed past coffee in 1976 to become America's most widely consumed beverage, cost much more. What was it about coffee prices that invariably aroused U.S. citizens? It is difficult not to conclude that a xenophobic distrust of Latin Americans and Africans lay behind the uproar. The hearings ended without lowering coffee prices or accomplis.h.i.+ng anything. Prices continued to climb, exceeding $4 a pound by May 1977.
Riding the Bull Market to Millions Though speculators may not have caused the price hike, some of them certainly profited from it. One veteran who preferred to remain anonymous- call him Mike-began trading in 1973, when the coffee market had just become viable again. As a ”local,” he traded for whatever brokerage firm hired him, but he also bought and sold futures on his own account. ”I don't know anything about coffee,” he confessed. ”I just know how to trade it. It wouldn't matter if I was trading lettuce. I can listen to the tone of the voices in the ring and tell what's going on.”Il In 1975 Mike took advantage of the frost, then rode the price rises and shortfalls over the next few years. He jumped nimbly in and out of the market, sometimes taking a position only for a few minutes or even seconds. ”I would just try to catch a move.” During the late 1970s, Mike made over $1 million a year.
”Every day before the opening bell, I would get b.u.t.terflies. Then once it started, I would just automatically go. If my mother were standing next to me and I had to step on her to get an order off, I'd do it.” The intense compet.i.tion, the gesturing to bid or sell, and the screaming to be heard, made it an exhausting occupation. ”It's a young man's job, and it's not an occupation for a deep thinker. A Phi Beta Kappa would study it too hard and not perform in time.” The street-smart kid who could keep a level head under stress thrived.
”I used to put pebbles in my mouth, like that Greek guy, and practice shouting quotes and bids. The loudest guy does the most business.” No one left the floor, even to go to the bathroom, during the 10:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. trading hours. With a group of men-women were a rarity-screaming and sweating in close proximity, viruses thrived.
At night, Mike would drink with buyers and brokers. ”We talked coffee all night.” Every three months, he rubbed shoulders at conventions-in Boca Raton, Florida, for the National Coffee a.s.sociation, Bermuda with the Green Coffee a.s.sociation, Pebble Beach, California, at the Pacific Coast Coffee a.s.sociation, London for the European Coffee a.s.sociation. ”All these guys did very well, indeed. It was the high life.”
Hot Coffee (Stolen) and High Yield (Awful) As coffee prices spiraled in 1977, beans turned to gold for coffee thieves around the world. In San Francisco, a truck with $50,000 worth of coffee disappeared. Four men were arrested for stealing seventeen tons in Miami. A rash of coffee hijackings off the New York City streets accounted for well over $1 million.
In Brazil, coffee export earnings reached $4 billion, enough to match its whopping oil import bill, but rising prices caused problems there too. Greedy farmers broke fixed-price contracts with brokers. Smuggling out of countries with high export taxes, or low state-controlled prices to growers, increased dramatically, particularly from Colombia and Brazil. As one coffee expert observed, ”Smuggling occurs almost everywhere. . . . If custom officials do not go along with the bribes, smugglers have been known to dispose of custom officials by beatings, intimidation and death.”
In one swindle, four men sold $8.7 million worth of mythical Dominican Republic beans to Cuba, intending to sink the s.h.i.+p en route. The scam was uncovered when the crew failed to scuttle the freighter, which arrived empty. In another case, New York's Citibank lost $28 million in loans to a Colombian coffee broker who turned out to be in business with the Citibank agriloan officer.
The higher coffee prices did did filter down to smallholders (those with tiny coffee plots) in many countries, including some in Brazil, where the number of large filter down to smallholders (those with tiny coffee plots) in many countries, including some in Brazil, where the number of large fazendas fazendas was declining. Those who benefited from the high prices realized that it was unlikely to last. ”Coffee gives you a jacket,” an old Brazilian aphorism has it, ”and takes your s.h.i.+rt.” was declining. Those who benefited from the high prices realized that it was unlikely to last. ”Coffee gives you a jacket,” an old Brazilian aphorism has it, ”and takes your s.h.i.+rt.”
In Mexico's Chiapas, some Indians could temporarily afford meat with their rice and beans. In the Papua New Guinea Highlands, while most white planters had abandoned their plantations, natives found that their tiny plots, averaging five hundred trees, provided a handsome income in their terms. Colombian smallholders were unhappy, though, since they received less than a third of the international price, due to high export taxes. Some growers burned their coffee in protest, threatening to grow marijuana instead.
The U.S. coffee industry responded, as it had to previous periods of high coffee prices, with subst.i.tutes and coffee-stretching claims. Nestle introduced Sunrise, an instant coffee ”mellowed with chicory,” imported from its European plants, where the 46 percent chicory mix had long been a standard. General Foods came out with Mellow Roast, a coffee and cereal mixture that was easy enough to produce, since the firm simply added Postum to its regular roast. Procter & Gamble developed Folgers Flaked Coffee, specially cut into slivers with roller mill groovings, thus allowing overextraction in automatic drip machines. Procter & Gamble sold it in full-size cans that held only thirteen ounces, boasting that the flaked product made the same amount of coffee as a regular pound. Under its Brazilian management, Hills Brothers developed a ”jet zone” roasting process in which beans were subjected to blasts of intense heat that expanded the cellular structure, resulting in a puffy product with more air, allowing Hills Brothers to pack its its thirteen ounces in a pound-size can of the new High Yield blend. General Foods followed with a similar high-yield product called Master Blend. thirteen ounces in a pound-size can of the new High Yield blend. General Foods followed with a similar high-yield product called Master Blend.
Prices eventually leveled off in the summer of 1977, then fell sharply in August after a successful Brazilian harvest with no major frost. Determined to hold coffee prices up, Brazil refused to sell below $3.20 a pound, even as world prices tumbled below $2. Brazil sold little coffee, instead entering the world market to buy beans as far away as Madagascar in an effort to boost prices. Colombia, characterizing Brazil's stance as ”suicidal,” sold freely, afraid that North Americans would permanently lose their taste for coffee unless the price came down. Colombia was troubled by raging inflation fueled by too many dollars flowing into the country-not only from coffee, but from contraband in cocaine, marijuana, emeralds, and cattle. In November, Brazil finally succ.u.mbed, resuming sales at a 45 percent discount to the ”official” price of $3.20 in order to save face, while arranging special deals with Maxwell House and Folgers for deeper discounts.
Although prices were coming down, they stayed over $3 a pound at retail. General Foods laid off workers from its four roasting plants because of declining demand, posting a 37 percent decline in earnings in the September quarter while taking a $17.5 million write-down on overpriced coffee inventories. On the whole, coffee sales were off 20 percent from preboycott levels.
Specialty Reaches the Heartland One of the unforeseen consequences of the 1975 Black Frost and its aftermath was the boost it gave to specialty coffees. As prices rose, the percentage gap between inferior and quality coffees narrowed. Across the country, consumers began to realize that for only a little more money they could buy coffee that really tasted good. What's more, shopping for coffee in a clean, aromatic specialty store was fun fun. Customers could chat with the knowledgeable, enthusiastic owner-roaster, who delighted in telling them what all those different names, origins, and roasts meant, and who suggested different blends. And the shops offered exotic devices for sale-French Melior pots, porcelain Melittas, grinders from Germany and Italy.
By 1980 specialty coffee was entrenched in the big cities on the East and West coasts of the United States and was reaching into suburban and rural areas. In Waitsfield, Vermont, Doug and Jamie Balne roasted coffee in their Green Mountain Coffee Shop. In Oregon, Gary Talboy started the Coffee Bean. Elsewhere in Oregon, Michael Sivetz bought an old church in Corvallis, installed a roaster, and opened a retail shop. A chemical engineer, Sivetz invented a ”fluid bed” roaster that tossed the beans in blasts of hot air, rather like a giant popcorn machine, and he became one of the loudest voices crying for a return to coffee quality.
In Orlando, Florida, Phil Jones opened a Barnie's (his real first name), ordering his beans preroasted from Joel Schapira in New York. In Long Grove, a Chicago suburb, contractor Ed Kvetko bought a little coffee shop. Within a few years he changed the name to Gloria Jean's Coffee Beans (named after his new wife), adding a few more stores. Julius and JoAnne Shaw opened the Coffee Beanery in Flus.h.i.+ng, Michigan. Phyllis Jordan founded PJ's Coffee & Tea in New Orleans. Erna Knutsen having blazed the way, Jordan and Shaw represented the new female coffee entrepreneurs.106 Dominated by the huge roasters, the National Coffee a.s.sociation ignored the tiny new entrants who sold their whole beans out of bags or barrels. So the neophyte enthusiasts began to congregate twice a year at the National Fancy Food & Confection Show hosted by the National a.s.sociation for the Specialty Food Trade. Every year their numbers swelled. Gourmet roasters from the Atlantic to the Pacific began to get to know one another. Maybe the California crowd roasted their beans darker than the New Yorker would have preferred, but they shared the same dedication to quality.
Whole-bean coffees began to show up in selected supermarkets around the country. Starbucks offered its Blue Anchor brand in bulk supermarket bins throughout Was.h.i.+ngton state. Goodhost, a Canadian food supplier, pioneered whole beans in clear-plastic gravity-feed bins in the Seattle area.
In 1979, at A & P's Compa.s.s Foods, Paul Gallant's phone began to ring off the hook after A & P closed its stores in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Milwaukee. Supermarket chains demanded to know, ”Where can we get Eight O'Clock Coffee? Our customers want it.” With company permission, Gallant began to sell Eight O'Clock and Bokar on an exclusive basis to selected markets. ”In a brief period of time, these stores were doing more business in coffee than A & P was,” he recalled. ”Eight O'Clock Coffee was one of the triggers for the growth of the gourmet coffee movement. Our product was mostly Brazilian, but it was 100 percent arabica, which certainly made it better than most of the canned coffee out there.”
One Big Slaughterhouse Under many corrupt, repressive regimes, the high coffee prices of the late 1970s enriched government coffers and traditional oligarchies. In Uganda, Idi Amin took virtually all of the coffee profits. The semiliterate but shrewd Amin came to power in 1971, after helping to overthrow Milton Obote. He proceeded to ruin the economy, in part by driving out the Asian business community. A Muslim, Amin then turned on the Christian majority, killing as many as 300,000 people. By 1977 the copper and cotton industries had been virtually destroyed, leaving coffee as Uganda's only major export. Under Amin, coffee harvests declined by 35 percent, but with the postfrost price hike, the beans funded the dictator's luxurious lifestyle and paid his army goons.
In March 1977, the New York Times New York Times reported that the United States was paying $200 million a year for Ugandan coffee to support the corrupt regime, while 80 percent of Ugandans survived only on subsistence garden plots. By the end of the year, U.S. activists raised their voices. Freshman Ohio Congressman Donald Pease introduced a bill into the House of Representatives to force a boycott of Uganda's coffee, which accounted for about 6 percent of U.S. coffee imports, but a full third of Uganda's exports. General Foods, Procter & Gamble, Nestle, and other major roasters jointly issued a statement through the National Coffee a.s.sociation, calling the Ugandan ma.s.sacres ”abhorrent and morally repugnant,” but asking for a ”uniform national policy” for direction; in other words, they refused to implement a boycott until the government forced them to do so. Since the decline of Angolan production, Uganda, exporting mostly robusta, had become quite important to the major roasters of mediocre blends. reported that the United States was paying $200 million a year for Ugandan coffee to support the corrupt regime, while 80 percent of Ugandans survived only on subsistence garden plots. By the end of the year, U.S. activists raised their voices. Freshman Ohio Congressman Donald Pease introduced a bill into the House of Representatives to force a boycott of Uganda's coffee, which accounted for about 6 percent of U.S. coffee imports, but a full third of Uganda's exports. General Foods, Procter & Gamble, Nestle, and other major roasters jointly issued a statement through the National Coffee a.s.sociation, calling the Ugandan ma.s.sacres ”abhorrent and morally repugnant,” but asking for a ”uniform national policy” for direction; in other words, they refused to implement a boycott until the government forced them to do so. Since the decline of Angolan production, Uganda, exporting mostly robusta, had become quite important to the major roasters of mediocre blends.
In February 1978 a congressional subcommittee held hearings on the Ugandan situation. The congressmen heard horrendous firsthand testimony from several expatriate Ugandans. Remigius Kintu, the son of a coffee farmer, told the committee that the official duties of the Amin death squads were to ”terrorize, kill, rape, rob, and torture Ugandans.” Kintu spoke of prisoners forced to drink their guards' urine, of men made to crawl on broken gla.s.s with hands and legs cuffed, of the continual cries and groans rising from the Ugandan concentration camps. Amin, Kintu said, had turned Uganda into ”one big slaughterhouse.”
When Julius Katz from the State Department later temporized that ”embargoes should be entered into only under extraordinary circ.u.mstances,” Representative Stephen Solarz suggested that he and his State Department colleagues read the book While Six Million Died While Six Million Died, doc.u.menting U.S. inaction during the Holocaust.
”To me, American businessmen who would like to continue doing business with Idi Amin are merchants of death, more concerned with their bank balance than with human misery,” a Ugandan exile testified. ”Are American coffee companies prepared to do business with a genocidist like Amin or Hitler if the price is right?” asked Donald Pease.
Clearly, the answer was yes, especially for importers like Claude Saks. ”Our import statistics from Uganda were enormous,” he recalled, ”and this fact was picked up by a columnist at the Was.h.i.+ngton Post Was.h.i.+ngton Post. We were lambasted for supporting Idi Amin's fascist and inhumane regime.” Other papers picked up the story, and Saks soon received letters from the New York Archdiocese, Protestant churches, human rights groups, and citizens. Saks sought legal counsel on his ”publicity problem.” The lawyer advised him not to respond to the protest letters and articles and ”see if the storm would pa.s.s.”107 On Monday, May 15, Procter & Gamble learned that the House was on the verge of pa.s.sing a resolution condemning Amin and urging President Jimmy Carter to implement an embargo. The next day Procter & Gamble announced with a great flourish that Folgers would no longer buy any Ugandan coffee. Quickly, Nestle issued a statement that it had stopped buying Ugandan beans the previous month, and General Foods said that it had ceased purchasing directly from the Ugandan Coffee Board in December-though General Foods still bought Ugandan beans through brokers.
Late in July 1978 Congress finally voted to impose an embargo on Ugandan coffee, but no other countries joined the boycott. It weakened Amin's support, however. In April 1979 Julius Nyerere of Tanzania sent troops into Uganda to oust Amin and, after several interim rulers, Milton Obote came back to power. The boycott was lifted in May, and business returned to normal. Unfortunately for Uganda, Obote was almost as ruthless and corrupt as Amin, and the terror and killings continued for years without any international outcry.
Repression and Revolution in Central America In Nicaragua, a small group of Marxist intellectuals, the Sandinistas, led the fight against longtime president Anastasio Somoza Jr., with the entire country rallying behind them, eager to get rid of the dictator.108 In July 1979 Somoza fled and the Sandinistas took over, promising a better life for all, including coffee growers and laborers. The Sandinistas faced a difficult task, however, with 40,000 dead, a million homeless, and a wrecked economy as the legacy of the civil war. In July 1979 Somoza fled and the Sandinistas took over, promising a better life for all, including coffee growers and laborers. The Sandinistas faced a difficult task, however, with 40,000 dead, a million homeless, and a wrecked economy as the legacy of the civil war.
Three months after the revolution, the government established ENCAFE (Empresa Nicaraghense del Cafe) as the sole buyer and seller of Nicaraguan coffee. The new government seized the vast Somoza family holdings, which included 15 percent of the coffee fincas fincas, while dedicating itself to ”renovating” selected farms, supposedly by applying the most progressive agricultural techniques. At first, Nicaraguan coffee workers and farm owners were enthusiastic; over the next few years, however, it became clear that the urban Marxists didn't know much about coffee.
In El Salvador, the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) challenged the repressive regime of General Carlos Humberto Romero. In October 1979 a junta took over, with moderate Jose Napoleon Duarte eventually rising to become chief of state. The leftist rebels joined forces in 1980 to form the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN), dedicated to overthrowing the government by terror. At the same time, right-wing death squads roamed the countryside. The country descended into a bloodbath, with over 50,000 people killed by one side or the other in the next few years. The coffee-growing oligarchy loathed the rebels but were split politically, with some supporting the death squads, others seeking moderate reforms. The violence reduced the coffee harvest, as many laborers were killed or joined the rebels. Other Salvadorans fled the country, sending money back from the United States to help support those who remained.
In Guatemala, since the CIA-sponsored overthrow of Arbenz in 1954, a series of corrupt, repressive military regimes had battled increasingly active guerrilla bands. In 1978, with the rigged election of General Romeo Lucas Garcia, death-squad activity intensified, along with resistance in the countryside.