with the government refusing to accept the URNG's terms, Cerezo asked the United States of America for more military aid to further the counter insurgency efforts of the armed forces. On 28 October, Congress passed a general political amnesty. Amidst rumors of plots and possible assassination attempts against Cerezo, many also began to consider him as powerless and ineffective. After a farcical attempt by two colonels to take power on 11 May 1988, on 19 May an Air force unit made a series of demands of the government, including breaking ties with pro-USSR countries and stopping any contacts with the URNG, as well as more money for better equipment and the removal of many local politicians. Cerezo admitted that he had had to submit to some of the military's demands in order to avoid a coup taking place. In August there was a three-week general strike in protest against the liberalization of petrol and other sources of fuel. 1989 saw a worsening of the political situation, with 1,600 assassinations and 800 kidnappings or disappearances in the first half of the year. These were attributed to the political violence and the covert war between suspected extrajudicial right-wing forces and the URNG. On 9 May another attempted coup failed, and though the perpetrators were sentenced to long terms in jail that November, they were released on appeal the following January. On 1 August, DCG Secretary General Danilo Barillas was assassinated, but on 25 August Cerezo came back with a new promise to renovate the public administration by consolidating democracy within the 500 days he had left as president. Guatemala has remained a democracy ever since. In May 1990, an important agreement was signed in Madrid with the URNG in which they promised not to disturb the forthcoming elections. With this success behind him, Cerezo felt able to give a positive recapitulation of his presidency, and he was able to hand power over to his successor Jorge Serrano in the first democratic transition of power since 1951. The DCG performed poorly in the presidential elections, with its candidate, Alfonso Cabrera Hidalgo, not getting past the first round. Despite this, they still managed to win 27 seats in the National Congress. That same year, as part of a thaw in Soviet–Guatemalan diplomatic relations, Cerezo invited the noted Russian linguist and epigrapher Yuri Knorozov to Guatemala to present him with a medal. Knorozov had been