Guatemala

Maya Civilization Maya civilization arose in the highlands of Guatemala centuries before the birth of Christ, forming thriving city-states and a trading network that stretched over a wide area. Many Maya leaders and people later migrated northward, into the Petén and Yucatán regions, where the civilization developed during the Classic period, between ad 300 and 900. During this period the Maya built impressive ceremonial cities at Tikal, Uaxactún, Quiriguá, Mirador, and at many other sites in northern Guatemala, as well as in Honduras and Mexico. These sites featured large temple pyramids and plazas, richly decorated with sculpture and carving. The Maya also developed sophisticated scientific knowledge, a complex calendar, and a hieroglyphic writing system. After the collapse of Classic Maya civilization about ad 900, the Maya established new cities further north in the Yucatán Peninsula, which was the center of the Maya world during the Post-Classic period (AD 900 to 1521). Those Maya who remained in the Guatemalan highlands never achieved the scientific or architectural magnificence of the Classic or Post-Classic city-states, but their civilization survived longer. When the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century, several populous nations of Maya descent, notably the Quiché, the Cakchiquel, and the Zutujil, occupied the Guatemalan highlands. Colonial Period After Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec Empire in Mexico in 1519, he sent his lieutenant, Pedro de Alvarado, to invade Guatemala in 1524. Alvarado led a small Spanish force and thousands of indigenous Mexican allies. Alvarado found the native Guatemalans engaged in civil war and already suffering from diseases introduced by Europeans, which were spreading over the Americas even more rapidly than Spain's armies. He formed an alliance with the Cakchiquels to defeat the Quiché. Alvarado then faced a four-year rebellion of the Cakchiquels, which he suppressed by 1528, and established Spanish rule over the region. Several Spanish conquerors competed for control of the Central American isthmus until the Spanish monarchy united the entire region as an audiencia (Superior Court) in 1542. Territorial adjustments followed, but by 1570 the audiencia, also called the Kingdom of Guatemala, had jurisdiction from what is now Chiapas State in Mexico to Costa Rica. The kingdom was officially part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the large colonial territory based in Mexico. But a captain general, appointed by the Spanish king, ruled the kingdom from its capital at Santiago de Guatemala (today known as Antigua Guatemala). Guatemala became the center of government, commerce, and religion in the region, as well as the major province of the kingdom. Devastating earthquakes struck the city in 1773, causing officials to move the capital to present-day Guatemala City in 1776. Colonial Guatemala produced relatively little of value for the Spanish empire, except for a little cacao, until the 18th century. At that time the monarchy, seeking to raise more money from its colonies, instituted measures known as the Bourbon Reforms to stimulate greater export production. In Central America, this especially affected El Salvador, which began producing large amounts of indigo for dye. El Salvador belonged to the province of Guatemala until 1786, when Spanish administrative reforms established it as a separate unit of the kingdom. Chiapas, Honduras, and Nicaragua were also made separate units, while Guatemala remained a province. This reform defined the future independent states of Central America. Guatemala City remained the capital of the kingdom, but the loss of indigo-rich El Salvador was a blow to the power of the Guatemalan merchant elite. The provinces gained even more autonomy from 1810 to 1814, while Spain was occupied by French troops during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1812 an interim Spanish government adopted a liberal constitution that granted the colonists greater participation in government and representation in Spain. During this time, independence movements began in many of Spain's American colonies. Independence Captain-General José de Bustamante ruled the Kingdom of Guatemala from 1811 to 1818 and repressed all moves toward independence, maintaining the region's loyalty to Spain. After the French were defeated in Spain in 1814, King Ferdinand VII was restored to the throne and tried to reassert absolute royal power. In 1820, however, a revolt in Spain restored the constitution of 1812. Spirited local election campaigns followed in Central America, opening a period of intense political rivalry between emerging liberal and conservative factions of the elite. Guatemala gained independence from Spain without the wars that ravaged much of Latin America. In 1821 Mexico proclaimed itself an independent empire, led by General Agustín de Iturbide. On September 15, 1821, a council of notables in Guatemala City declared independence from Spain and formed a government that assumed jurisdiction over the entire kingdom, keeping the acting captain-general, Gabino de Gainza, as the chief executive. Yet individual municipalities throughout the region, from Chiapas to Costa Rica, also assumed the right to act on their own, and several declared independence not only from Spain, but from Mexico and Guatemala as well. The government in Guatemala, dominated by the Honduran lawyer and scholar José Cecilio del Valle, quickly moved to incorporate the kingdom into Iturbide's Mexican Empire in January 1822. Resistance from the provinces soon erupted into civil war, but before the issue was decided, Iturbide's government collapsed. A Central American convention declared Central America independent on July 1, 1823, and formed the United Provinces of Central America, a federation that included Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. Dissension plagued the federation. Member states strongly resented the Guatemalan commercial and bureaucratic elite, which had wielded power over them throughout the colonial era. In addition, the elite class was divided into liberal and conservative factions, which fought over government power, economic policies, and the role of the Roman Catholic Church in society. The first federal president, Manuel José Arce of El Salvador, resigned in 1827 after only two years in office, as civil war broke out between the opposing factions. By 1827 Guatemalan conservatives had seized control of both the Guatemalan state and federal governments, but in 1829 liberal forces commanded by Honduran General Francisco Morazán took Guatemala City. Under Morazán's presidency (1830-1840) the federation launched liberal reforms and moved the national capital from Guatemala City to San Salvador. Morazán and other liberals advocated capitalism and republican government and wanted to limit the power of the clergy, while conservatives supported a strong church, traditional landowners, and highly autonomous states. Morazán instituted liberal policies that were pushed even further at the state level by Guatemalan Governor Mariano Gálvez. These measures took land from the church, indigenous people, and rural communities and turned it over to private owners and foreign investors for commercial agriculture. Liberal officials also made major changes in the educational systems, encouraged foreign immigration, and introduced trial by jury and other judicial innovations, replacing traditional Spanish legal practices. These actions alienated large sectors of the Guatemalan clergy, legal profession, and rural peasants, who were angered by the loss of their land and attacks on their priests. When a cholera epidemic spread misery throughout Guatemala in 1837, spontaneous revolts began to occur. Rafael Carrera, a former army officer who had fought in the 1827-1829 civil war, led the peasants in a successful guerrilla war. Carrera held staunch conservative views, supporting the church and advocating states' rights against federal authority. He toppled Gálvez, the governor of Guatemala, in 1838. Then, as the federation began to disintegrate, he defeated its president, Morazán, in March 1840, effectively ending the United Provinces. From then until his death in 1865, Carrera dominated Guatemala, ruling almost as a dictator. Under Carrera's highly conservative rule, Guatemala formally declared itself a sovereign republic in 1847. The Catholic clergy regained much of its power, and foreign influence declined. By imposing stability and order on the country, the regime brought modest economic growth and began developing the country's roads and other infrastructure. First cochineal, a dye derived from insects, and later coffee became major exports, tying Guatemala's economy closely to Great Britain and its Central American trading center at Belize. Carrera's military power also influenced events in neighboring states. Carrera intervened several times in the internal politics of El Salvador and Honduras, and in 1857 Guatemalan troops played a major part in ousting a U.S. adventurer, William Walker, from power in Nicaragua. Revolution of 1871 Carrera's handpicked successor, General Vicente Cerna, continued conservative rule until 1871, when a liberal revolution headed by Miguel García Granados and Justo Rufino Barrios defeated Cerna's army. This ushered in a period of liberal rule in Guatemala, led by a series of strong dictators, that continued until 1944. Under these liberal leaders, Guatemala's economy grew substantially, largely from exports of coffee and other crops. This development was accompanied by major social and political changes; the gap between wealthy growers and rural laborers grew larger, and laws were passed to create a more secular state. After García Granados served briefly as president, Barrios was elected in 1873. He became Guatemala's first liberal dictator and the model for those who followed him, driven by a philosophy that emphasized order, science, and progress. Ruling until 1885, Barrios focused on economic growth rather than political liberalism, encouraging foreign investment and expansion of the coffee industry. He represented the coffee-growing interests of the western highlands, and he chose members of leading families from Quetzaltenango to fill important government and military posts, replacing powerful officials from Guatemala City. Coffee exports soared, bringing Guatemala money to build roads, ports, and railroads. Guatemala City and Quetzaltenango became modern cities, with paved streets and impressive new buildings, sewage systems, and parks. However, coffee plantations took communal land from native people, whom the government viewed principally as inexpensive labor for expanding coffee production. Rural residents were forced to work on government projects, and many who lost their land migrated to cities, becoming poorly paid laborers. A middle class also began to form in the expanding cities. Barrios sharply limited the power of the Roman Catholic Church, passing laws that abolished the tithe, confiscated church property, and greatly reduced the number of clergy in the country. He welcomed Protestant missionaries, established civil marriage and divorce, and made the University of San Carlos into a secular national university. He also established a system of public schools, but this mainly benefited middle- and upper-class citizens in the cities. Illiteracy remained very high among rural Guatemalans, who often lost their only source of education when local priests were forced to leave. In foreign relations, Barrios settled boundary disputes with Mexico, which had aided his revolution, by granting to Mexico most of the land it claimed in Chiapas. He also renewed conflict with Great Britain over its claim of sovereignty over Belize. Barrios revived Francisco Morazán's dream of a Central American union, which had failed 45 years earlier. Barrios tried to reunite the region's independent nations as a single federation by military force. This provoked war with El Salvador, and in 1885 Barrios was killed and the Guatemalan forces were defeated during a battle at Chalchuapa, El Salvador. Liberal policies and the growth of coffee exports continued under Barrios's successors: General Manuel Lisandro Barillas, who was president from 1885 to 1892, and Barrios's nephew, José Reina Barrios, elected president in 1892. When Reina Barrios was assassinated in 1898, another liberal leader from Quetzaltenango, Manuel Estrada Cabrera, became president. Estrada Cabrera remained in power for 22 years, one of the longest reigns of any Central American leader. His rule was marked by expansion of the export economy, corruption, and political repression. Under Estrada Cabrera bananas became an important export crop in Guatemala, controlled mostly by the United Fruit Company (UFCO), which was owned by U.S. interests. United Fruit developed banana plantations in the lowlands on both coasts of Guatemala and built a railway from Puerto Barrios, Guatemala's principal banana port on the Caribbean, to Guatemala City. It also built rail lines linking the coffee-producing regions to ports on both coasts and to Mexico and El Salvador. Guatemalan liberals had wanted such transportation, ports, and other facilities for decades, but with these benefits came greater foreign control over Guatemala's economy. Many Guatemalans resented United Fruit, as well as the German immigrants who had begun to dominate the coffee industry. Expanding exports benefited the small elite and growing middle class in Guatemala City, but the majority of Guatemala's people gained little from coffee and bananas. Meanwhile, Estrada Cabrera built a fortune for himself from public funds, while using the army and a secret police force to eliminate any dissent. By 1918 opposition to his rule was growing in the capital city, among business leaders, military officers, intellectuals, and some students. Several assassination plots failed, but in April 1920 he was removed from office by the army and the national assembly, which charged that he was mentally incompetent. A new Unionist Party, under the presidency of businessman Carlos Herrera, took over the government, but within a year army generals affiliated with the Liberal Party once more ruled Guatemala. For the next decade, under Generals José M. Orellana (1921-1926) and Lázaro Chacón (1926-1930), Guatemala enjoyed some political freedom as the export-led economy continued to grow. Labor unions began to organize in the capital, and the press exercised more freedom than it had since the 1830s. But the coffee elite continued to dominate the country, with the support of the army. They feared a violent revolution against them, similar to the Mexican Revolution that had begun in 1910, so they continued to repress radical political movements and serious efforts by the working class to gain a role in politics. The Great Depression, the worldwide economic collapse of the 1930s, brought severe economic decline to Guatemala. Coffee exports dropped from $34 million in 1927 to $9.3 million in 1932, and banana exports also declined, though not as dramatically. Amid the worsening economic conditions, another Liberal general, Jorge Ubico Castañeda, took office as president in February 1931. Ubico remained in power until 1944, and became known both for improving the country's infrastructure and imposing repressive military rule. Alarmed by a Communist-led rural revolt in El Salvador in 1932, Ubico purged leftists in politics and labor, branding all opponents as Communists and executing or exiling many of them. His allies were wealthy coffee planters and the United Fruit Company. Ubico cultivated popularity among poor rural citizens by visiting the countryside and distributing gifts and favors. In 1934 he abolished debt peonage, a system of forced labor, but replaced it with a similar vagrancy law, assuring planters a supply of cheap rural workers. The poor also were forced to work on Ubico's extensive program of public projects, which included roads, public buildings, and other facilities. His large network of roads and telegraph lines helped to link parts of the country that had been isolated. He reduced local autonomy, especially in indigenous communities, as he centralized power in Guatemala City and in his departmental chiefs. Ubico maintained good relations with both U.S. and German business interests in Guatemala, and he openly admired the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany. But he recognized that Guatemala's geographic position made its relations with the United States critical, and when the United States entered World War II in 1941, Guatemala became the first Latin American country to follow the United States in declaring war on Germany. Ubico quickly collaborated with U.S. officials in interning and seizing the property of many German Guatemalans who were accused of Nazi sympathies. Ubico faced growing opposition in the 1940s from university students and middle-class political groups, who demanded democratic reforms. Street demonstrations and violence spread, and in July 1944 Ubico, in ill health, was forced to step down. General Jorge Ponce Vaides became president, but on October 20, 1944, a group of military officers and civilians forced him to resign and formed a junta to govern until new elections could be held. The Ten Years of Spring, 1944-1954 Ubico's ouster began a decade of dramatic social, economic, and political change in Guatemala, referred to as the Guatemalan revolution or "Ten Years of Spring." Juan José Arévalo, a philosophy professor and critic of Ubico, returned from exile in Argentina and was elected president in December 1944. A new constitution was adopted in March 1945, which proclaimed a social-democratic revolution. Under this constitution, the government would give more attention to the grievances of middle- and lower-class Guatemalans and would begin to restrict the privileges and power of the elite class and foreign capitalists. The constitution gave more Guatemalans a voice in the political system, granting women the right to vote. It also provided for freedom of speech and the press and allowed previously banned labor unions and political parties to organize. Arévalo was anti-Communist but favored what he called "spiritual socialism," a sense of cooperation and concern for the common welfare. During his five-year term, an advanced system of social security was established, and a labor code was passed to protect workers' rights and benefits. He encouraged the growth of urban labor unions and popular participation in politics, and began reforms in health care and education. He also promoted new industry and agriculture. Guatemala became a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and the Organization of American States in 1948. Although Arévalo enjoyed wide popularity among the Guatemalan people, the traditional elite classes opposed him. There were more than 20 military attempts to overthrow him during his term. Planter and business interests feared the social and economic reforms he advocated. United Fruit and other foreign companies opposed his pro-labor policies and encouraged the U.S. government to believe that Guatemala was moving too far left. At this time, the United States was involved in its Cold War struggles with the Soviet Union, and anti-Communist sentiment in the United States was intense. The conservative Roman Catholic hierarchy also opposed Arévalo, after the 1945 constitution renewed traditional liberal measures restricting political and economic activities by the clergy. In 1951 Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, who had helped lead the 1944 revolt, succeeded Arévalo as president and turned the revolution more sharply to the left. Arbenz's most revolutionary act was the land reform law of June 1952, which attempted to take unused agricultural land from large property owners and give it to landless rural workers. The law was carefully written to avoid angering the powerful coffee planters, but it was aimed directly at the United Fruit Company's huge banana plantations. In 1953 the program approved the taking of 91,000 hectares (225,000 acres) of United Fruit lands, offering compensation that the company considered inadequate. More than 162,000 hectares (400,000 acres) of government-owned land was also distributed to rural residents. Meanwhile, Arbenz allowed the Communist Party to organize and included leftist labor leaders among his advisers. United Fruit's propaganda campaign against the Guatemalan revolution influenced the U.S. government, which was fighting Communist forces in Korea and trying to contain Communist influence in eastern Europe and Asia. When arms from eastern Europe began to arrive in Guatemala in May 1954, the United States launched a plan to overthrow Arbenz, with the help of the governments of Nicaragua and Honduras. A group of Guatemalan exiles, commanded by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, were armed and trained by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and U.S. Marine Corps officers. The group invaded Guatemala on June 18, supported by the CIA, which used radio broadcasts and leaflets dropped on the capital to create an illusion of a much stronger invasion force. The Guatemalan army refused to resist the invaders, and Arbenz was forced to resign on June 27. A military government replaced him and disbanded the legislature. The new government arrested prominent Communist leaders, and released some 600 political prisoners arrested under Arbenz. Castillo Armas became president. Military Control, 1954-1985 For the next 30 years military officers, beginning with Castillo Armas, dominated Guatemala. Many of the reforms begun during the revolution were reversed; land was returned to large property owners, Marxist parties were outlawed, and other political parties, labor groups, and rural organizations were banned or severely restricted. With strong U.S. military and economic assistance, the governments during this period were intensely anti-Communist and stifled free political activity. The military became a powerful elite class in society, with some officers gaining great wealth through corruption. With no peaceful way to seek political or social change, some Guatemalans turned to violence. Castillo Armas was assassinated on July 26, 1957. After a period of instability and disputed elections, the legislature named conservative General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes president in 1958. In November 1960 he faced a rebellion, one of many revolutionary movements that were supported by Fidel Castro after he took power in Cuba. The Guatemalan rebels, who were trying to restore the progressive reforms of the 1944-1954 period, were defeated, but some escaped into the mountains and organized the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), beginning the civil war against the Guatemalan government. Ydígoras allowed anti-Castro Cuban exiles, supported by the United States, to train in Guatemala for the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. Although Ydígoras was strongly anti-Communist, growing unrest in Guatemala worried right-wing military officers, and in March 1963 he was overthrown. General Enrique Peralta Azurdia took over the presidency, canceled elections, and held power until 1966. During his term right-wing terrorist groups known as death squads emerged, murdering labor leaders and political opponents, while leftist guerrillas increased their attacks on the government. From 1966 to 1970 Guatemala again had a civilian-led government, but it brought little change and more violence. A reform candidate, Julio César Méndez Montenegro, won the most votes in the 1966 election, but the military government allowed him to take office only after he secretly agreed to let the army keep its authority over the war against the guerrillas. The military and death squads used harsh tactics against guerrillas and any citizens suspected of aiding them. Beginning in 1970 army officers again controlled the presidency; these included Generals Carlos Arana Osorio (1970-1974), Kjell Laugerud García (1974-1978), and Fernando Romeo Lucas García (1978-1982), who won elections that were often marred by violence and fraud. During their administrations, thousands died in the continuing civil war. Guatemala also suffered a devastating hurricane in 1974 and a violent earthquake in 1976 that claimed more than 20,000 lives and left a million people homeless. The economy, however, experienced remarkable growth, stimulated by development of petroleum in the Petén and higher coffee prices. In 1982 another general, Angel Aníbal Guevara, was elected, but he was quickly deposed by a military coup. General Efraín Ríos Montt, a former presidential candidate of the moderate Christian Democratic Party, assumed control as a dictator. Ríos Montt, a minister in a California-based Protestant Pentecostal sect, tried to reduce government corruption. He also offered amnesty to the coalition of guerrilla groups, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG). But when the guerrillas rejected his terms, he launched a campaign against them that was more intensive and brutal than any previous effort. It was punctuated by military atrocities against indigenous communities and other rural citizens. Indigenous men were forced to join Civil Defense Patrols to fight the guerrillas, while the government carried out a "scorched earth" policy, in which the army killed or drove into exile thousands of rural inhabitants and destroyed more than 400 indigenous villages. On August 8, 1983, the military ousted Ríos Montt and began a period of conciliation. Guatemala suffered from serious economic problems caused by declining tourism and a general international economic downturn. At the same time, Guatemalan military leaders faced international and domestic condemnation over atrocities committed by the army and other groups. The military decided to turn over limited power to civilians, and in December 1985 Marco Vinicio Cerezo, a Christian Democrat, won election as Guatemala's first civilian president in 15 years. Cerezo was unable to end the civil war and its accompanying human rights abuses, or to suppress the rising trade in illegal drugs. However, he played a major role in bringing about the Central American Peace Accord of 1987, which contributed to a settlement of the civil war in Guatemala and to conflicts in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Guatemala in the 1990s Although the military still exercised ultimate control, civilian leaders continued to govern Guatemala in the 1990s. By the middle of the decade, a wider spectrum of groups was allowed to participate in politics, and negotiations began to end the civil war. But human rights abuses by the military remained the center of internal division and international attention for Guatemala. In 1990 the United States cut off most of its military aid and all arms sales to Guatemala because of persistent human rights abuses. Despite the official suspension of more than $3 million in U.S. aid, it was later revealed that the CIA had continued to fund the Guatemalan army. The CIA delivered nearly $10 million in financial and military assistance shortly after aid was suspended, and American CIA agents in Guatemala worked to suppress reports of killings and torture by the Guatemalan military. In 1992 Rigoberta Menchú Túm, a Quiché woman from Guatemala, won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on behalf of human rights for the poor and indigenous people of the country. Her work raised international awareness of their struggle. Jorge Serrano Elías, a right-wing businessman and evangelical Protestant closely allied with Ríos Montt, became president in 1991. With the support of the army, Serrano seized dictatorial control of the government in May 1993, but a wave of protest forced him to resign. The Congress elected Ramiro de León Carpio, the country's human rights ombudsman, to succeed him. De León supported some reform measures to reduce corruption, but the military remained the major power in Guatemala's government. In legislative elections, a right-wing coalition of parties that included Ríos Montt's Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) triumphed in August 1994. However, peace negotiations with the guerrillas moved ahead slowly, aided by a United Nations mission, throughout 1995. In July 1995, for the first time in 40 years, leftist political groups were able to participate in politics. A leftist coalition of parties, the New Guatemala Democratic Front (FDNG), won 6 of the 80 congressional seats in elections in November 1995, putting it in third place between the center-right National Advancement Party (PAN), with 42 seats, and the right-wing Guatemalan Republican Front with 22. In January 1996 PAN candidate Alvaro Arzú Irigoyen, a former mayor of Guatemala City, narrowly defeated FRG candidate Alfonso Portillo to become president. Arzú worked tirelessly to reach a peace agreement with the guerrillas, becoming the first Guatemalan president to meet personally with their representatives. Arzú made significant progress in reducing human rights abuses, dismissing military leaders and police accused of human rights violations and corruption. His government also faced a rising crime rate, including a wave of kidnappings, as poverty rose. Although recent fiscal policies had improved many economic indicators, the standard of living for most Guatemalans had continued to decline. A peace accord between the government and guerrilla forces was finally signed on December 29, 1996, ending the 36-year conflict that had killed some 100,000 Guatemalans. During that time an estimated 40,000 more had disappeared and were believed dead, and up to 1 million people had been forced out of their homes or into exile. The peace agreements called for the guerrillas to lay down their arms, while the size of the army was to be reduced; a number of social programs were to be established, as well as a commission to investigate human rights violations. Under the accords, the government also recognized past abuse and discrimination against the country's indigenous people and pledged to respect the customs, languages, and religious beliefs of the Maya population.