For now Guatemalan officials are scrambling to find a way to satisfy Ms. Harbury, or at least persuade her to leave.

This removal also violated a 1970 United Nations accord intended to stem the looting of cultural property, Guatemalan officials said.

He was secretly detained and executed on orders of Guatemalan military officials.

One Guatemalan official said he expected them to last no more than two or three days.

Guatemalan officials insist that the Government has come clean on human rights.

The peasants barricaded themselves, along with the captive embassy staff and the visiting Guatemalan officials, in the ambassador's office on the second floor.

Guatemalan officials said today that they would have a response after they study the report.

By the late morning of May 29, Guatemalan officials placed all hospitals on high alert and declared a state of calamity.

The debate has prompted nationalistic outrage from high-ranking Guatemalan officials and peasant advocates, who have ominously declared that they will defend their rights.

"If we sign this statement, we are saying that our foreign policy is being set by the United States," a Guatemalan official said.