The Mayan civilization flourished throughout much of Guatemala and
the surrounding region long before the Spanish arrived, but it was
already in decline when the Mayans were defeated by Pedro de
Alvarado in 1523-24. The first colonial capital, Ciudad Vieja, was
ruined by floods and an earthquake in 1542. Survivors founded
Antigua, the second capital, in 1543. Antigua was destroyed by two
earthquakes in 1773. The remnants of its Spanish colonial
architecture have been preserved as a national monument. The third
capital, Guatemala City, was founded in 1776.
Guatemala gained independence from Spain on September 15, 1821; it
briefly became part of the Mexican Empire, and then for a period
belonged to a federation called the United Provinces of Central
America. From the mid-19th century until the mid-1980s, the country
passed through a series of dictatorships, insurgencies (particularly
beginning in the 1960s), coups, and stretches of military rule with
only occasional periods of representative government.
1944 to 1986
In 1944, Gen. Jorge Ubico's dictatorship was overthrown by the
"October Revolutionaries," a group of dissident military officers,
students, and liberal professionals. A civilian President, Juan Jose
Arevalo, was elected in 1945 and held the presidency until 1951.
Social reforms initiated by Arevalo were continued by his successor,
Col. Jacobo Arbenz. Arbenz permitted the communist Guatemalan Labor
Party to gain legal status in 1952. The army refused to defend the
Arbenz government when a U.S.-backed group led by Col. Carlos
Castillo Armas invaded the country from Honduras in 1954 and quickly
took over the government. Gen. Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes took power in
1958 following the murder of Colonel Castillo Armas.
In response to the increasingly autocratic rule of Ydigoras Fuentes,
a group of junior military officers revolted in 1960. When they
failed, several went into hiding and established close ties with
Cuba. This group became the nucleus of the forces that were in armed
insurrection against the government for the next 36 years. Four
principal left-wing guerrilla groups--the Guerrilla Army of the Poor
(EGP), the Revolutionary Organization of Armed People (ORPA), the
Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), and the Guatemalan Labor Party
(PGT)--conducted economic sabotage and targeted government
installations and members of government security forces in armed
attacks. These organizations combined to form the Guatemalan
National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) in 1982.
Shortly after President Julio Cesar Mendez Montenegro took office in
1966, the army launched a major counterinsurgency campaign that
largely broke up the guerrilla movement in the countryside. The
guerrillas then concentrated their attacks in Guatemala City, where
they assassinated many leading figures, including U.S. Ambassador
John Gordon Mein in 1968. Between 1966 and 1982, there was a series
of military or military-dominated governments.
On March 23, 1982, army troops commanded by junior officers staged a
coup to prevent the assumption of power by Gen. Angel Anibal
Guevara, the hand-picked candidate of outgoing President and Gen.
Romeo Lucas Garcia. They denounced Guevara's electoral victory as
fraudulent. The coup leaders asked retired Gen. Efrain Rios Montt to
negotiate the departure of Lucas and Guevara.
Rios Montt was at this time a lay pastor in the evangelical
protestant "Church of the Word." He formed a three-member military
junta that annulled the 1965 constitution, dissolved Congress,
suspended political parties, and canceled the electoral law. After a
few months, Rios Montt dismissed his junta colleagues and assumed
the de facto title of "President of the Republic."
Guerrilla forces and their leftist allies denounced Rios Montt. Rios
Montt sought to defeat the guerrillas with military actions and
economic reforms; in his words, "rifles and beans." The government
began to form local civilian defense patrols (PACs). Participation
was in theory voluntary, but in reality, many Guatemalans,
especially in the heavily indigenous northwest, had no choice but to
join either the PACs or the guerrillas. Rios Montt's conscript army
and PACs recaptured essentially all guerrilla territory--guerrilla
activity lessened and was largely limited to hit-and-run operations.
However, Rios Montt won this partial victory at an enormous cost in
civilian deaths, in what was probably the most violent period of the
36-year internal conflict, resulting in about 200,000 deaths of
mostly unarmed indigenous civilians.
On August 8, 1983, Rios Montt was deposed by his own Minister of
Defense, Gen. Oscar Humberto Mejia Victores, who succeeded him as de
facto President of Guatemala. Rios Montt survived to found a
political party (the Guatemalan Republic Front) and to be elected
President of Congress in 1995 and 2000. Awareness in the United
States of the conflict in Guatemala, and its ethnic dimension,
increased with the 1983 publication of the book I, Rigoberta Menchu,
An Indian Woman in Guatemala.
General Mejia allowed a managed return to democracy in Guatemala,
starting with a July 1, 1984 election for a Constituent Assembly to
draft a democratic constitution. On May 30, 1985, after 9 months of
debate, the Constituent Assembly finished drafting a new
constitution, which took effect immediately. Vinicio Cerezo, a
civilian politician and the presidential candidate of the Christian
Democracy Party, won the first election held under the new
constitution with almost 70% of the vote, and took office on January
14, 1986.
1986 to 2007
Upon its inauguration in January 1986, President Cerezo's civilian
government announced that its top priorities would be to end the
political violence and establish the rule of law. Reforms included
new laws of habeas corpus and amparo (court-ordered protection), the
creation of a legislative human rights committee, and the
establishment in 1987 of the Office of Human Rights Ombudsman.
Cerezo survived coup attempts in 1988 and 1989, and the final 2
years of Cerezo's government were also marked by a failing economy,
strikes, protest marches, and allegations of widespread corruption.
Presidential and congressional elections were held on November 11,
1990. After a runoff ballot, Jorge Serrano was inaugurated on
January 14, 1991, thus completing the first transition from one
democratically elected civilian government to another.
The Serrano administration's record was mixed. It had some success
in consolidating civilian control over the army, replacing a number
of senior officers and persuading the military to participate in
peace talks with the URNG. Serrano took the politically unpopular
step of recognizing the sovereignty of Belize. The Serrano
government reversed the economic slide it inherited, reducing
inflation and boosting real growth.
On May 25, 1993, Serrano illegally dissolved Congress and the
Supreme Court and tried to restrict civil freedoms, allegedly to
fight corruption. The "autogolpe" (or self-initiated coup) failed
due to unified, strong protests by most elements of Guatemalan
society, international pressure, and the army's enforcement of the
decisions of the Court of Constitutionality, which ruled against the
attempted takeover. Serrano fled the country.
On June 5, 1993, the Congress, pursuant to the 1985 constitution,
elected the Human Rights Ombudsman, Ramiro De Leon Carpio, to
complete Serrano's presidential term. De Leon, not a member of any
political party and lacking a political base but with strong popular
support, launched an ambitious anticorruption campaign to "purify"
Congress and the Supreme Court, demanding the resignations of all
members of the two bodies.
Despite considerable congressional resistance, presidential and
popular pressure led to a November 1993 agreement brokered by the
Catholic Church between the administration and Congress. This
package of constitutional reforms was approved by popular referendum
on January 30, 1994. In August 1994, a new Congress was elected to
complete the unexpired term.
Under De Leon, the peace process, now brokered by the United
Nations, took on new life. The government and the URNG signed
agreements on human rights (March 1994), resettlement of displaced
persons (June 1994), historical clarification (June 1994), and
indigenous rights (March 1995). They also made significant progress
on a socioeconomic and agrarian agreement. National elections for
president, the Congress, and municipal offices were held in November
1995. With almost 20 parties competing in the first round, the
presidential election came down to a January 7, 1996 runoff in which
National Advancement Party (PAN) candidate Alvaro Arzu defeated
Alfonso Portillo of the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) by just
over 2% of the vote. Under the Arzu administration, peace
negotiations were concluded, and the government signed peace accords
ending the 36-year internal conflict in December 1996. The human
rights situation also improved during Arzu's tenure, and steps were
taken to reduce the influence of the military in national affairs.
In a December 1999 presidential runoff, Alfonso Portillo (FRG) won
68% of the vote to 32% for Oscar Berger (PAN). Portillo's impressive
electoral triumph, with two-thirds of the vote in the second round,
gave him a claim to a mandate from the people to carry out his
reform program. In February 2004, Portillo fled to Mexico to escape
corruption charges.
Oscar Berger of the Grand National Alliance (GANA) party won the
November 9, 2003 presidential election, receiving 54.1% of the vote.
His opponent, Alvarado Colom Caballeros of the National Unity for
Hope (UNE) party, received 45.9% of the vote.
Álvaro Colom of the National Unity for Hope (UNE) party won the
November 4, 2007 presidential election against retired General Otto
Perez Molina with 52.8% of the vote versus 47.2%. |
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