Search results
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]
- Guatemala
- Peace accord signed in 1996
- Background: The U.S.-Backed Coup Against Jacobo Árbenz
- The 1960s
- The 1970s
- The Terror Campaigns of The 1980s
- The Gradual End to The Civil War
- Legacy
- Sources
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
During the 1940s, a leftist government came into power in Guatemala, and Jacobo Árbenz, a populist military officer with support from communist groups, was elected to the presidency in 1951. He made agrarian reform a major policy agenda, which clashed with the interests of the U.S.-owned United Fruit Company, the largest landowner in Guatemala. The...
The civil war officially began on November 13, 1960, when a group of military officers attempted a coup against the corrupt General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes, who rose to power after Castillo Armas was killed. In 1961, students and leftists protested the government’s participation in training Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs invasion, and were met wi...
Instead of loosening its grip in response to the guerillas’ retreat, the military nominated the architect of the cruel 1966 counterinsurgency campaign, Colonel Carlos Arana Osorio. As noted by Guatemala scholar Susanne Jonas, he had the nickname of the "butcher of Zacapa." Arana declared a state of siege, seized power in the countryside from electe...
In January 1980, indigenous activists went to the capital to protest the killing of peasants in their community, occupying the Spanish Embassy to try and publicize the violence in Guatemala to the world. The police responded by burning 39 people alive—both protesters and hostages—when they barricaded them inside the embassy and ignited Molotov cock...
By 1990, the Guatemalan government began to feel international pressure to address the widespread human rights violations of the war, from Amnesty International, Americas Watch, the Washington Office on Latin America, and groups founded by exiled Guatemalans. In late 1989, Congress appointed an ombudsman for human rights, Ramiro de León Carpio, and...
Even after the peace agreement, there were violent reprisals for Guatemalans attempting to bring to light the extent of the military’s crimes. A former foreign minister has called Guatemala a “kingdom of impunity,” referring to the obstacles to holding the perpetrators accountable. In April 1998, Bishop Juan Gerardi presented a Catholic Church repo...
Ball, Patrick, Paul Kobrak, and Herbert Spirer. State Violence in Guatemala, 1960-1996: A Quantitative Reflection. Washington, D.C.: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1999. https...Burt, Jo-Marie and Paulo Estrada. “The Legacy of Ríos Montt, Guatemala’s Most Notorious War Criminal.” International Justice Monitor, 3 April 2018. https://www.ijmonitor.org/2018/04/the-legacy-of-r...Jonas, Susanne. Of Centaurs and Doves: Guatemala’s Peace Process. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000.McClintock, Michael. Instruments of statecraft: U.S. guerrilla warfare, counterinsurgency, and counter-terrorism, 1940–1990. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992. http://www.statecraft.org/.Learn about the causes, events, and consequences of the 36-year civil war that killed over 200,000 people and displaced one million in Guatemala. Explore the role of the U.S., the military, and the guerillas in this bloody conflict.
- Rebecca Bodenheimer
Mar 7, 2011 · Learn about the key events and factors that shaped the 36-year-long civil war in Guatemala, which ended with peace accords in 1996. The war resulted in over 200,000 deaths, mostly of indigenous Mayans, and was influenced by U.S. intervention and military repression.
Civil war years. Castillo Armas emerged from the resulting military junta as provisional president, and a plebiscite made his status official. He extirpated communist influence, quashed agrarian reform, and broke labour and peasant unions with considerable violence, but he himself was brought down by an assassin’s bullet in July 1957. For the ...
Guatemalan civil war, 1960 to 1996 Castillo Armas emerged from the resulting military junta as provisional president, and a plebiscite made his status official. He extirpated communist influence, quashed agrarian reform, and broke labour and peasant unions with considerable violence, but he himself was brought down by an assassin’s bullet in ...
Sep 3, 2018 · Sept. 3, 2018 3 AM PT. Reporting from Ixtupil, Guatemala — During the 1980s, as much of Central America became a bloody Cold War battleground, the conflict in Guatemala stood out as...
Dec 29, 2021 · Guatemalans still seek justice, 25 years after civil war’s end. Survivors decry new amnesty bill that would free perpetrators of crimes against humanity during 1960-1996 civil war.
