 As a leader of the communist Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo ("Guatemalan Workers' Party"), he promoted universal access to quality education as a means to improve the quality of life of Guatemalan people.In San Juan del Obispo, the village near Antigua Guatemala where he was born, he founded a small library in which he taught literacy to his former neighbors.On May 15, 1984, while he was driving to work in the of Guatemala City, a group of armed plainclothes men forced him into an unmarked car.