The breathtaking political changes of 1993, which brought a well-respected governmental human rights advocate into the presidency of Guatemala, have one year later degenerated into turmoil and dashed hopes, with little to show for the promise that the new government appeared to bring. The reforms begun in the initial months of the government of former human rights ombudsman Ramiro de León Carpio now appear endangered by a lack of high-level support. At the same time, elements of the military and right-wing groups appear bent on destabilizing the government through such high-profile human rights violations as the assassination on April 1, 1994, of Epaminondas GonzálezDubón, the president of the Constitutional Court, and the March mob assaults against North American women rumored to be stealing Guatemalan children.