E/CN.4/2005/18/Add.2 page 8 languages. The Educational Campaign against Discrimination Act, which was adopted by Congress in 2002 (Decree No. 81-2002), requires the Ministry of Education to set up programmes to eliminate ethnic and racial discrimination. The aim of the National Languages Act adopted by Congress in 2003 (Decree No. 19-2003) is to grant official status to the Mayan, Garifuna and Xinca languages and to promote respect for them and their development. 11. Under the Agreement on Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states that all the languages spoken in Guatemala must be treated with respect and requires the State to take steps to protect those languages and promote their development and use, a commission was set up in 1997 to grant official status to indigenous languages. It identified four regional languages spoken by over 300,000 people, 16 community-based languages spoken by less than 300,000 people and two special languages.7 After this, the Academy of Mayan Languages was set up to guarantee the development and use of most of these languages. The law establishing the Academy was adopted by Congress on 18 October 1990 (Decree No. 65-90). 12. It is important to highlight, in addition to the Government’s efforts to strengthen social cohesion, the national campaign for an inter-ethnic dialogue under the slogan “Our diversity is our strength”, which was launched on 29 June 2004 at the initiative of the Mesoamerican Regional Research Centre (CIRMA) to encourage intercultural interaction between the different ethnic groups in Guatemala. The campaign will run from 2004 to 2006, and includes cultural events in the country’s biggest cities, interactive exhibitions, university debates and lectures. During his visit to Quezaltenango, the Special Rapporteur attended the launch of the campaign, giving a talk on intercultural dialogue as a tool for building multiculturalism. His intention was to demonstrate, by clarifying the concepts of “diversity” and “dialogue and peace”, the need to combine the campaign against racial discrimination with the promotion of an egalitarian, interactive and democratic form of multiculturalism based on the recognition and promotion of, and respect for, the characteristics of cultural and religious identities and the promotion of interaction and the construction of a pluralist national identity. 13. Moreover, the Special Rapporteur was told about the Government’s commitment to an administrative reform process that will enable the authorities to provide multilingual services for citizens. Efforts are being made to change the attitude of civil servants towards indigenous groups. Furthermore, competent individuals will continue to be recruited from these groups in order to ensure that indigenous people are represented within the civil service. 14. The Special Rapporteur was kept fully informed about progress in the reform of the judicial system.8 Since 1998, a course on interculturalism has been introduced in the curriculum for training justices of the peace. To ensure that the justice system reaches every region in the different languages used in the country, 607 bilingual employees who speak the languages of the Maya and Garifuna were trained between 2002 and 2003 and assigned to 21 departments. They consist of 98 judges, 369 legal officials, 43 bilingual interpreters and 97 administrative employees. A judicial commission on indigenous matters and a subcommission set up to monitor and support the strengthening of the justice system have undertaken a study on the issue of multiculturalism in the justice system. Several workshops have been organized to raise awareness of multiculturalism among officials in the justice system and representatives of