Guatemalan History, Human Rights Abuses and US Aid

It’s impossible to understand life in Guatemala without understanding its history and horrific human rights record. Guatemala only recently emerged from a 36 year civil war, which left over 180,000 dead and over 600 villages destroyed. Almost every adult I meet lost a loved one in the war. Please know that some of the stories recounted in this post were really hard for people to share, really hard for me to hear and may be really hard for you to read. Still, I think it’s important for us to understand and acknowledge the horrors and the active hand that our government had in them.

Like many Latin American countries, Guatemala Economic Inequality. Colonialism enshrined economic inequality along ladino/indigenous lines. Even after Guatemala gained independence in 1823, the whiter, wealthier people remained in power. As an independent state, Guatemala was governed by a series of caudillos, or military strongmen. At the same time, the United Fruit Company was gaining influence in Guatemala, buying up huge tracks of land, building a proprietary railroad and press-ganging peasants into work on their banana plantations.

In 1944 a group of young professionals, students and military officers overthrew the tyrannical and inept President Jorge Ubico. A new constitution, which granted indigenous people suffrage for the first time, was instituted. Juan José Arévalo, a teacher, was elected president. His so-called “spiritual socialism” increased spending on healthcare and education, abolished vagrancy laws and implemented labor laws. This was a radical shift, giving indigenous Guatemalans real rights and economic opportunities for the first time.

In 1950 Arévalo was succeeded by Jácobo Arbenz, a member of the military junta that replaced Jorge Ubico. Arbenz continued Arévalo’s reforms, as well as making more radical changes. He envisioned an economically independent Guatemala and sought to shrink the influence of the United Fruit Company by breaking up their monopoly and demanding past due taxes. He also sought agrarian reform, redistributing idle and state-owned land to landless peasants. Unfortunately, most of that land was owned by the United Fruit Company, which was very upset. The United States government was glad to intervene in their interests and in 1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave the CIA the go ahead to overthrow the Guatemalan government. The CIA assembled a mercenary army in neighboring Honduras. When they marched on the capital the outmatched Arbenz resigned and Guatemala’s brief foray into freedom was brought to an abrupt end.

For the next thirty years the armed forces ran the government, ruling with equal parts iron fist and fiscal ineptitude. All the reforms and advances of the Arévalo and Arbenz regimes were quickly reversed. During this period there was one military president after another, with power shifting in coups, assassinations and sham elections. In 1963 open elections were called and Arévalo planned to return and run for president. Facing the specter of another socialist government, President John F. Kennedy gave the go ahead for a second coup.

During this period four major guerilla groups, with various communist ideologies and approaches to armed conflict, gained ground, demanding the return of civilian rule and the redistribution of wealth. In turn, the Guatemalan government, backed by massive amounts of US aid and arms, launched a counter insurgency against the supposed communists. During this period the US was deeply involved in Central American affairs, backing right-wing regimes in Honduras and El Salvador, arming the Contras to destabilize the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua and blockading Cuba, among other things.

In the early seventies political violence was concentrated in Guatemala City. Students and professors, community and labor organizers, professionals, activists and anyone else educated who could be construed as opposition were at risk. People were kidnapped, with a knock on the door in the dead of night, or snatched from a public place in broad daylight. They were taken to detention centers, where they were held without food or water, tortured, raped if they were women. Many of them were then disappeared, killed and buried in unmarked mass graves, or drugged and dropped in the ocean from helicopters. From 1970 to 1973, under President Colonel Arana Osorio, an estimated 15,000 people were killed.

In the late seventies and early eighties political violence intensified and shifted to the rural areas. The army adopted a scorched earth policy, seeking to erode the guerillas’ support by attacking those they sought to help and eliminating their hiding places in the countryside. The military would march into villages and round up all of the residents. They would gather the villagers in the town square and force them to prove their allegiance to the army. They would want to know who was helping the guerillas, and would force communities to scapegoat some of their members. They would take all the military-age men and boys. They would take the villagers’ crops, livestock and other possessions. If they were dissatisfied, they would assert their dominance with wanton violence. They would kill children, cut open pregnant women’s bellies and killing their unborn babies, burn people alive, force family members to kill one another in front of the entire village and gang-rape women, often with their weapons. In many cases they razed entire villages, setting fire to the homes and fields, sometime even contaminating nearby creeks by dumping dead bodies in them. In some cases they massacred entire villages, burying hundreds of bodies in unmarked mass graves.

From 1978 to 1982, under President Brigadier General Fernando Lucas García an estimated 35,000 people were killed. In 1983, under President General Efraín Ríos Montt, it’s estimated that more than 10,000 people were killed. Millions more were displaced, moved to model villages or forced to flee to Mexico as refugees. The United Nations has recognized the government’s actions as genocide, a concerted attempt to exterminate the indigenous population. In 1985 Guatemala held its first free elections in thirty years. While a civilian was elected and levels of violence fell, it did not end the armed conflict, as factions of the armed forces, right-wing death squads and guerilla groups continued fighting. In 1996, after thirty six-years of civil war, which left over 180,000 dead and over 600 villages destroyed, peace accords were finally signed.

While the country has returned to civilian rule, reminders of the civil war are everywhere. There are the relics you can see, the burnt-out villages, the unmarked burials, the bodies missing arms and legs. Even worse are the scars you can’t see, the families still mourning murdered loved ones, the fear of the omnipresent military, the indigenous culture lost forever. While there was a truth commission, which implicated the military in 80% of all murders during the war, virtually no one responsible has been prosecuted. While economic growth has returned, inequality remains. While state sponsored violence has ceased, law and order is sorely lacking, and violence is still a part of everyday life in Guatemala. In the upcoming elections liberal candidates are facing off against former military officers, including Efraín Ríos Montt. While the liberal candidates promise social programs as the path to prosperity and lasting peace, the more conservative candidates promise law and order as the path to prosperity and peace, with strong overtones of past policies.

This photo was taken at a recent protest. Each person pictured was killed during the civil war. Many of their bodies were never found, buried in unmarked graves. Their families are still protesting, seeking answers about the thousands of desaparecidos and demanding justice for the tens of thousands more who were murdered, tortured, raped and displaced.