Pretense to Civil War (1958-1960)
After being assassinated by a member of his personal guard, Armas was succeeded by General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes in 1958.  His term as Guatemalan president is most remembered for the gentlemen’s duel to which he challenged the Mexican president to end a feud about illegal fishing by Mexican boats on the Guatemalan Pacific coast.  In response to the autocratic rule of the Ydígoras era, junior military officers revolted in 1960. 

Their failed revolt left the military officers to flee into hiding, but the group later comprised the core of the first revolutionaries that fought the military in the civil war (2).  Ydígoras was eventually displaced from power by a coup led by his Defense Minister Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia (7).

Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996)
In 1962, the first official guerrilla group emerged as the start of the Guatemalan Civil War was coming to light.  Ex-military officers, students and communist party members joined together to form the Armed Rebel Forces (FAR).  Meanwhile, the U.S. continued to support the Guatemalan government sending weapons and providing counter-insurgency training for the national military (10). 

In 1966, under the pretense as a civilian president, Julio César Méndez Montenegro was elected.  Military efforts were fortified under Méndez’s reign between 1966 and 1970.  During this time, the paramilitary organizations “White Hand” (Mano Blanca) and the “Anticommunist Secret Army” (Ejército Secreto Anticomunista) were formed.  These groups, trained by the U.S. Army Special Forces were forerunners of the death squads used to wipe out guerrilla armies (7).  Using napalm and death squads, the FAR was almost annihilated, and more than 30,000 people were killed, most of which were reportedly civilians (10). 

Colonel Carlos Arana Osorio replaced Méndez president governing the war-torn country from 1970 to 1974.  In 1972, a new guerrilla force coming from Mexico emerged in the western highlands, the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), thus beginning the second wave of violence that resulted in 15,000 people killed within the first three years of his term (10). 

Between 1966 and 1982, there were a series of military or military-dominated governments.  In the midst of this era in 1979, all U.S. aid to the Guatemalan military was banned by President Jimmy Carter because of the vast human rights abuses (7).

In 1982, the primary guerrilla groups organized to form the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG).  These groups included: the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), the Revolutionary Organization of Armed People (ORPA), the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR) and the Guatemalan Party of Labor (PGT).  The URNG organized against the government, largely targeting economic structures, government programs and members of government security (2).

The Violent Years
In 1982, as the current president General Fernando Romeo Lucas García was exiting power, a number of army officers staged a coup to prevent the rise of the next hand-picked president, General Angel Aníbal Guevara.  The leaders of the coup instead appointed General José Efraín Ríos Montt to assume the presidency instead (2).

Montt was no exception to the military-controlled government that had dominated Guatemala for almost 32 years prior.  He disbanded the Congress, annulled the constitution, and gave himself the title of the “President of the Republic” (2).  Montt exerted his authority militarily, continuing massacres of thousands of civilians.  He was quoted in the New York Times on July 18, 1982 saying to a group of indigenous people, “If you are with us, we’ll feed you; if not, we’ll kill you” (2).  This was the same day as the Plan de Sánchez massacre in the Department of Baja Verapaz, where more than 250 people were brutalized and murdered by military forces because of suspicions of harboring or aiding guerrilla forces (26).

Eulalio Grave Ramírez testified at the Inter-American Court’s reparations judgment, giving an eye-witness account of that day in Plan de Sánchez in July 1982:

“They separated the girls who were 15 to 20 years old from this group and took them to Guillerma Grave Manuel’s house; they raped them; they broke their arms and legs, and then they killed them…The children were smashed against the floor, and then thrown into the flames together with their parents…At 8 pm, he was able to enter his own home and saw that his wife and three of his children were dead.  He found one of his daughters alive; she managed to escape because she was buried under the bodies of her two siblings” (26).

The Montt-controlled government also invaded local communities, forcing young boys and men to participate in civilian defense patrols (PACs).  Though the PACs were deemed voluntary, nonparticipation meant being targeted by the military as guerrillas and the distinct threat of death.  As a result of the military’s “scorched earth” tactics, more than 45,000 Guatemalans fled across the border to Mexico (7).  Though Montt vastly lessened guerrilla movement and impact, he did so with the loss of numerous unarmed, indigenous, civilian lives, thus deeming his term the most violent of the 36-year civil war (2).

During this time, the testimonial biography, I, Rigoberta Menchú, was published, telling the life story of Rigoberta Menchú Tum, a Quiché woman who witnessed the torture and death of her family members and began advocating for indigenous rights.  Her activism later won her the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992.  The biography captured interest internationally, drawing attention to the violence and violation of human rights (21).

Montt fell from power when he was overthrown by his own Defense Minister Gen. Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores who took the seat as de facto president of Guatemala.  Mejía reinstated a national constitution that was drafted by a democratically-elected convention.  Continuing the implementation of democracy, the new constitution, completed May 30, 1985, established democratic elections for the Guatemalan presidency.  Marco Vinicio Cerezo Árevalo won the first election held under the new constitution, taking office in January 1986 (2).

Cerezo’s presidency marked a turn in the civil war as his legislation led to court-ordered protection for the people, reforms within the legal system, and the creation of a human rights committee.  The role of the military was reduced from governing to solely providing internal security.  During the first to years of his term, there was decisive decrease in political violence and a notable difference in the stability of the economy.  The latter half of Cerezo’s tenure was marked by the government’s inability to address the problems of health care, illiteracy and a failing economy.  This led to the election of Jorge Antonio Serrano Elías in 1990 (2).

Though Serrano was able to rectify the economic inflation that plagued his predecessors, in attempts to fight corruption, he made the unpopular mistake of illegally dissolving Congress and the Supreme Court.  The military adhered to the Court of Constitutionality’s ruling against Serrano’s takeover and forced him to flee the country (2).

Serrano’s term was completed by Human Rights Ombudsman Ramiro de León Carpio from 1993 to 1996.  Seeking a pure government, he forced the resignation of all members of Congress and the Supreme Court.  Pressure from León and the general public forced Congress into a period of debate with the administration, resulting in constitutional reforms and the election of a new Congress in 1994 to complete the term (2).

Works Cited