Guatemalan Leader Tightens Grip, Muzzles Press : Latin America: Troops block newspapers. Serrano refuses to back down from seizure of absolute power despite opposition.

GUATEMALA CITY — Tightening his grip on Guatemala, President Jorge Serrano on Wednesday shut down local newspapers and, despite mounting opposition, refused to back down from his decision to suspend the constitution and dissolve Congress.

In an interview, Serrano said he was forced to seize absolute power because corrupt legislators and judges--some, he claimed, bought by drug money--were blackmailing him, demanding bribes to go along with his policies and corroding his government’s efforts to build “real democracy.”

“When corruption penetrates the state and corrupts all the checks and balances, then the matter becomes desperate,” Serrano said in an interview with two U.S. newspapers.

In actions designed in part to appease an increasingly angry military, Serrano on Tuesday announced he was suspending the constitution, dissolving Congress and the Supreme Court and calling for a constituent assembly to draft the new constitution.

The attorney general and human rights ombudsman were removed from their posts, and the presidents of Congress and the Supreme Court were put under house arrest.

The Constitutional Court, the country’s highest judicial body, on Wednesday declared Serrano’s seizure of powers illegal. Asked about the court’s ruling, Serrano said: “The court has been dissolved.”

In Washington, the Clinton Administration put its $67-million aid program to Guatemala under review.

“All U.S. bilateral assistance and cooperation with Guatemala, including our participation in international lending, is now under review,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

Early Wednesday, government troops surrounded the offices and printing presses of Guatemala’s three principal newspapers, blocking entrances and seizing copies of the editions that were destined for newsstands.

The troops appeared after editors at El Grafico, Siglo Veintiuno and Prensa Libre newspapers had refused to obey government censors who sought to prevent publication of any criticism of Serrano’s power grab.

The troops who occupied offices of Siglo Veintiuno, Guatemala’s most independent newspaper by far, were armed with tear gas and attack dogs. Editors at the paper said they would not publish for at least four days to protest the state of emergency. Radio stations, meanwhile, were restricted to almost constant broadcast of traditional marimba music.

In the interview, Serrano defended press censorship, saying local newspapers and radio news programs had to be silenced because they had joined the opposition’s agenda of criticizing the government.

“What we need now is to stabilize the country,” he said. “If the press were allowed to (operate) the way it has been in the last few weeks, we would have had a revolution here in Guatemala, a very serious revolution.”

In the newspaper editions that would have been distributed Wednesday, copies of which were obtained by The Times, it became clear just how widespread the opposition is to Serrano’s presidential coup. Guatemalans ranging from the nation’s most important business leaders to union activists and lawyers took out paid, full-page advertisements to assail the move.

“As a military man I feel a profound deception,” a former defense minister, Gen. Hector Alejandro Gramajo, said. “We are going back to square one after so many efforts to achieve democracy. I am worried and I do not know what the army will do.”

Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, a dictator in the early 1980s who oversaw one of the most brutal chapters in Guatemalan history, also attacked Serrano’s move, labeling it an “open abuse and constitutional violation.” Thousands of Indian peasant were killed in military operations during Rios Montt’s rule.

Serrano conceded in the interview at his downtown residence that his actions were outside the law, but he insisted they were necessary. He dismissed criticism with a laugh, although he conceded he was worried his government was going to be isolated by international condemnation.

Serrano denied he was acting at the behest of the military. He said he informed the army’s high command of his intentions on Monday night, the eve of the coup. He said army commanders had expressed unease at recent street protests against economic measures and had provided the president with intelligence that indicated drug traffickers and leftist guerrillas were financing the protesters.

Analysts and diplomats said it was unlikely Serrano was acting without the support of the army.

“He has no political support to speak of,” said a diplomat. “The army must be supporting this.”