Back الحرب الأهلية الغواتيمالية Arabic Guerra Civil de Guatemala Catalan Guatemalská občanská válka Czech Guatemaltekischer Bürgerkrieg German Gvatemala Enlanda Milito Esperanto Guerra civil de Guatemala Spanish Guatemala kodusõda Estonian Guatemalako Gerra Zibila Basque Guatemalan sisällissota Finnish Guerre civile guatémaltèque French

Guatemalan Civil War

Guatemalan Civil War
Part of the Central American crisis and Cold War

Ixil people carrying their loved ones' remains after an exhumation in the Ixil Triangle in February 2012.
Date13 November 1960 – 29 December 1996
(36 years, 1 month, 2 weeks and 2 days)
Location
Guatemala
Result Peace accord signed in 1996
Territorial
changes

Guatemala border

Belligerents

Government of Guatemala and Guatemalan military
Government-led paramilitary organizations

Supported by:
Argentina (1976–1983)
 United States (1962–1996)[1]

Logistics:

URNG (from 1982)

  • PGT (until 1998)
  • MR-13 (1960–1971)
  • FAR (1960–1971)
  • EGP (1971–1996)
  • ORPA (1979–1996)
Supported by:
 Cuba[6]
FMLN
 Nicaragua (1979–1990)[6][7]
Commanders and leaders
Strength
  • Military:
  • 51,600 (1985)[9]
  • 45,000 (1994)[10]
  • Paramilitary:
  • 300,000 (1982)[a]
  • 500,000 (1985)[9]
  • 32,000 (1986)[11]
  • URNG:
  • 6,000 (1982)[a]
  • 1,500–3,000 (1994)[10]
Casualties and losses
Between 140,000–200,000 dead and missing (estimated)[12][13][14]

The Guatemalan Civil War was a civil war in Guatemala fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. The government forces have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of Guatemala during the civil war and for widespread human rights violations against civilians.[15] The context of the struggle was based on longstanding issues of unfair land distribution. Wealthy Guatemalans, mainly European-descended, and foreign companies such as the American United Fruit Company had dominated control over much of the land, and paid almost zero taxes in return – leading to conflicts with the rural indigenous poor who worked the land under miserable terms.

Democratic elections during the Guatemalan Revolution in 1944 and 1951 had brought popular leftist governments to power, who sought to ameliorate working conditions and implement land distribution. A United States-backed coup d'état in 1954 installed the military regime of Carlos Castillo Armas to prevent reform, who was followed by a series of right-wing military dictators.

The Civil War started on 13 November 1960, when a group of left-wing junior military officers led a failed revolt against the government of General Ydigoras Fuentes. The surviving officers created a rebel movement known as MR-13. In 1970, Colonel Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio became the first of a series of military dictators representing the Institutional Democratic Party or PID. The PID dominated Guatemalan politics for twelve years through electoral frauds favoring two of Colonel Carlos Arana's protégés (General Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García in 1974 and General Romeo Lucas García in 1978). The PID lost its grip on Guatemalan politics when General Efraín Ríos Montt, together with a group of junior army officers, seized power in a military coup on 23 March 1982. In the 1970s social discontent continued among the large populations of indigenous people and peasants. Many organized into insurgent groups and began to resist the government forces.[16]

During the 1980s, the Guatemalan military assured almost absolute government power for five years; it had successfully infiltrated and eliminated enemies in every socio-political institution of the nation, including the political, social, and intellectual classes.[17] In the final stage of the civil war, the military developed a parallel, semi-visible, low profile but high-effect, control of Guatemala's national life.[18]

It is estimated that 140,000 to 200,000 people were killed or forcefully "disappeared" during the conflict, including 40,000 to 50,000 disappearances. While fighting took place between government forces and rebel groups, much of the violence was a large coordinated campaign of one-sided violence by the Guatemalan state against the civilian population from the mid-1960s onward. The military intelligence services coordinated killings and "disappearances" of opponents of the state.

In rural areas, where the insurgency maintained its strongholds, the government repression led to large massacres of the peasantry, including entire villages. These took place first in the departments of Izabal and Zacapa (1966–68), and in the predominantly Mayan western highlands from 1978 onward. In the early 1980s, the widespread killing of the Mayan people was considered a genocide. Other victims of the repression included activists, suspected government opponents, returning refugees, critical academics, students, left-leaning politicians, trade unionists, religious workers, journalists, and street children.[16] The "Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico" has estimated that government forces committed 93% of human right abuses in the conflict, with 3% committed by the guerrillas.[19]

In 2009, Guatemalan courts sentenced former military commissioner Felipe Cusanero, the first person to be convicted of the crime of ordering forced disappearances. In 2013, the government conducted a trial of former president Efraín Ríos Montt on charges of genocide for the killing and disappearances of more than 1,700 indigenous Ixil Maya during his 1982–83 rule. The charges of genocide were based on the "Memoria del Silencio" report – prepared by the UN-appointed Commission for Historical Clarification. This was also the first time that the Guatemalan Court recognized the rape and abuse that Mayan women suffered. Out of the 1465 cases of rape that were reported, soldiers were responsible for 94.3 percent.[20] The Commission concluded that the government could have committed genocide in Quiché between 1981 and 1983.[8] Montt was the first former head of state to be tried for genocide by his own country's judicial system; he was found guilty and sentenced to 80 years in prison.[21] A few days later, however, the sentence was reversed by the country's high court. They called for a renewed trial because of alleged judicial anomalies. The trial began again on 23 July 2015, but the jury had not reached a verdict before Montt died in custody on 1 April 2018.[22]

  1. ^ Doyle, Kate; Osorio, Carlos (2013). "U.S. policy in Guatemala, 1966–1996". National Security Archive. National Security Archive Electronic. George Washington University. Archived from the original on 9 October 2014. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  2. ^ Hunter, Jane (1987). Israeli foreign policy: South Africa and Central America. Vol. Part II: Israel and Central America. Guatemala. pp. 111–137.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ^ Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin (1987). The Israeli Connection: Whom Israel Arms and why. Armenian Research Center collection. I.B.Tauris. p. 80. ISBN 978-1-85043-069-8.
  4. ^ Schirmer 1988, p. 172.
  5. ^ Peter Kornbluh (11 September 2003). The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability. New York: The New Press. pp. 587. ISBN 1-56584-586-2. See The Pinochet File
  6. ^ a b Coll, Alberto R. (Summer 1985). "Soviet Arms and Central American Turmoil". World Affairs. 148 (1): 7–17. JSTOR 20672043.
  7. ^ Defense Intelligence Agency (September 1981). "Military Intelligence Summary, Volume VIII Latin America (U)" (PDF). National Security Archive Electronic. George Washington University: National Security Archive. p. 3. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 November 2011. Retrieved 4 August 2012.
  8. ^ a b Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico: Agudización (1999). "Agudización de la Violencia y Militarización del Estado (1979–1985)". Guatemala: Memoria del Silencio (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 6 May 2013. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
  9. ^ a b Gallardo, María Eugenia; López, José Roberto (1986). Centroamérica (in Spanish). San José: IICA-FLACSO. p. 249. ISBN 978-9-29039-110-4.
  10. ^ a b Steadman, Stephen John; Rothchild, Donald S.; Cousens, Elizabeth M. (2002). Ending civil wars: the implementation of peace agreements. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. p. 165. ISBN 978-1-58826-083-3.
  11. ^ Sachs, Moshe Y. (1988). Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations: Americas. New York, NY: Worldmark Press. p. 156. ISBN 978-0-47162-406-6.
  12. ^ Briggs, Billy (2 February 2007). "Billy Briggs on the atrocities of Guatemala's civil war". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 21 December 2016. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
  13. ^ BBC (9 November 2011). "Timeline: Guatemala". BBC News. Archived from the original on 20 May 2014. Retrieved 3 October 2011.
  14. ^ CDI 1998.
  15. ^ Navarro, Mireya (26 February 1999). "Guatemalan Army Waged 'Genocide,' New Report Finds". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 27 February 2017. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  16. ^ a b Uppsala Conflict Data Program n.d.
  17. ^ CEUR (2009). "En pie de lucha: Organización y represión en la Universidad de San Carlos, Guatemala 1944 a 1996". Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Regionales, Universidad de San Carlos. Guatemala. Archived from the original on 11 March 2009. Retrieved 31 January 2015.
  18. ^ Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico: Conclusions 1999.
  19. ^ "Truth Commission: Guatemala". 1 February 1997. Archived from the original on 6 April 2018. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
  20. ^ Sanford, Victoria; Sofía Duyos Álvarez-Arenas; Kathleen Dill (2020). "Sexual Violence as a Weapon during the Guatemalan Genocide". In O'Toole, Laura L.; Jessica R. Schiffman; Rosemary Sullivan (eds.). Gender Violence (3rd ed.). JSTOR j.ctv1sjwnnk.
  21. ^ Castillo, Mariano (10 May 2013). "Guatemala's Rios Montt guilty of genocide". CNN. Atlanta, GA. Archived from the original on 8 July 2013. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
  22. ^ "Guatemala ex-ruler tried for genocide dies". BBC News. 1 April 2018. Archived from the original on 3 April 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2018.


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