(A version of this article will appear in The Indypendent (New York City IMC)

An increasing number of land invasions by destitute campesinos in Guatemala are testing the limits of the country's 1996 peace treaty that ended Central America's longest and bloodiest civil war.

Dozens of plantations or "fincas" have been invaded by landless Mayas over the past few months. In April alone, hundreds of peasants affiliated with the National Indigenous and Farmers' Coordinating Organization (CONIC) seized 16 fincas. The 80,000-member organization accuses the government of failing to increase land access, one of the treaty's goals. "There is hunger in the countryside," says Juan Tiney of CONIC. "People are running out of patience and they are left with no option but to invade."

Guatemala has one of Latin America's highest levels of inequality. By some accounts, two percent of the population controls 70 percent of Guatemalan farmland. Of the 58 percent of the population who live in extreme poverty, four-fifths are Maya - the same people that bore the brunt of the 36-year-long war that killed over 200,000. (Editor: The civil war's origins extend back to 1954 with a US-engineered military coup which overthrew the elected government of Jacobo Arbenz. Arbenz, who had strong support from peasant movements, expropriated 234,000 acres of uncultivated land owned by United Fruit (United Brands). Then US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA chief Allen Dulles had ties to this multinational corporation.)

The peace treaty did not specify targets or timetables for land redistribution, calling instead for increasing land access through the creation of a Land Fund designed to extend credit to peasants for the purchase of land and "promote the establishment of a transparent land market." The treaty also set up a national property registry to ascertain the legality of titles and resolve conflicting claims.

However, like many of the other reforms promised by the treaty, the land issue has seen little progress. Critics charge that the Land Fund is underfunded and rife with corruption. In March, several top officials of the fund resigned amid revelations of crooked land deals.

Other critics question the market model underpinning the Land Fund. Daniel Pascual of the Council of Peasant Organizations argues that it will never ensure land access and calls instead for a fundamental restructuring of land ownership. As one international observer has noted, "The mechanisms established by the government are so inadequate that it will take hundreds of years for the half million peasants estimated to be potential beneficiaries of the reform actually to receive benefits."

Many campesinos have decided not to wait that long. Timed to coincide with Dia De La Raza (Columbus Day, in the U.S.), the land takeovers began in earnest last October, when thousands of campesinos blocked roads and invaded fincas throughout the country. In some of the takeovers, many of which have ended in forcible evictions, the peasants claim to be the rightful owners of the land.

The land invasions come at a time when Guatemala faces a scourge not witnessed in the Americas in recent memory: famine. Over the past year, 126 children reportedly have died of hunger. Another 60,000 children suffer from acute malnourishment, according to The United Nations World Food Program. Though the famine is concentrated in the eastern part of the country afflicted by successive droughts, the high level of rural unemployment has exacerbated the problem. The collapse of the price of coffee, Guatemala's leading export crop, has only added to the misery.

Guatemala's business community has condemned the invasions. Demanding respect for property rights, the head of the private Agricultural Chamber warns that the invasions threaten the country's governability. The head of Anacafe, the coffee growers' association, charges that the invasions "blatantly violate the law" and "have great repercussions for the entire country."

Repercussions have been felt throughout the country. On April 19, the Union of Labor and Popular Action, an umbrella of labor groups, announced its support for the land takeovers, and backed up its words a few days later by blocking traffic in Guatemala City with the use of burning tires. And on April 23, campesinos occupied offices of the Land Fund in the department of Peten and city of Coban.

Violence and intimidation are also on the rise. One campesino activist was shot and killed in the department of Izabal, which some witnesses attributed to a paramilitary group. Others, including Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini Imeri of San Marcos, who supported the March takeover of a finca in Malacatan, report receiving death threats.

"What they really want is to terrorize us, to make us afraid," says Bishop Ramazzini. "The conflicts in this diocese are just a few of the conflicts over land throughout the country, and landowners are worried that what's happening here could be the spark that will set off a big fire. So they want to stop it here."

Juan Ordonez, a former Baltimore activist, is a lawyer in New York City.