Guatemalan history

The history of Guatemala is the chronology of events that occurred from the beginning of the first human settlement in the current territory of the Republic of Guatemala to the present day. This begins with the first groups of people to inhabit the region, of which the Mayan civilization stands out. The Spanish conquerors arrived in Guatemala in 1523. Nicolle Valle named the city of Guatemala, in her writing letter addressed to Carlos V, dated in Mexico on October 15, 1524. Cortés refers to "some cities that many days had I have news that they are called Ucatlán and Guatemala». The region became the General Captaincy of Guatemala, attached to the Viceroyalty of New Spain.

In the 19th century, the Creoles of the Captaincy General of Guatemala achieved their independence from the Spanish Empire and the region was renamed the Central American Federation, the which was annexed for a time to the empire of Agustín de Iturbide in Mexico. After the separation of Mexico, the wars began between the conservatives —that is, the Creoles with the highest ancestry and who lived in the federation's capital, also known as the Aycinena Clan, and the regular clergy of the Catholic Church— and the liberals, that they were creoles of a lower category that were dedicated to agriculture on a large scale and lived in the rest of the General Captaincy. The struggle led to the disintegration of the Central American Federation, from which emerged the five Central American republics, including present-day Guatemala.

A State of the Central American Federation governed by conservatives such as Mariano Aycinena and later by the liberal Mariano Gálvez, the modern Republic of Guatemala was founded on March 21, 1847, during the conservative government of General Rafael Carrera, and thus it began to have diplomatic and commercial relations with the rest of the nations of the world. Under Carrera's command, Guatemala resisted all invasion attempts by its liberal neighbors.

In 1871, six years after Carrera's death, the Liberal Reform triumphed and liberal regimes of a dictatorial nature were established. Coffee became the country's main crop. In 1901, during the government of lawyer Manuel Estrada Cabrera, the meddling in state affairs of North American corporations began, such as the United Fruit Company (UFCO), the main company in the country. Guatemala went on to become a banana Republic, where the rulers were placed or removed by the UFCO, depending on economic needs and from which it obtained considerable concessions. In 1944, in the midst of World War II, the October Revolution took place, which overthrew the then military regime and began ten years of elected governments that tried to oppose the greengrocer and impose social reforms, but were overthrown in 1954 when the UFCO interests were affected by these reforms. The counterrevolution of 1954. He maintained some of the reforms of the revolutionary regimes, including the dignity of the Army, but he returned to protect the interests of the North American fruit company, arguing that the revolutionary regimes were communist. In 1960, within the framework of the Cold War, the civil war began and a period of political instability, with coups d'état and fraudulent elections. The armed conflict left a balance of more than 250,000 victims —between deaths and disappearances— according to data from the Commission for Historical Clarification, according to which more than 90 percent of the massacres were committed by the Guatemalan Army and pro-government paramilitary groups.. After the transition to a democratic system in 1985, and after extensive negotiations with the guerrillas, the Peace Accords were signed in 1996, a new era began in Guatemala.

Paleoindian and Archaic Period

The Paleoindian, also called Paleoamerican, began with the arrival of man in the New World, which is currently placed by most researchers at at least 14,000 BC. C. In the Central American region, there were more emerged lands compared to today, since the sea level was much lower, during the ice age; the temperatures were below 4 to 7 °C, and the annual rainfall, from 30 to 50 percent; there was snow and even glaciers in the volcanic mountains; and the concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were weaker, limiting the development of vegetation. The Central American ecosystems were home to a varied American megafauna, now extinct.

The earliest sure evidence of human activity is the Clovis and Folson industries, around 10,000 to 9,000 BCE. C., which indicate nomadic populations that subsisted on the hunting of megafauna. In Mesoamerica the information of this period is very scarce; In the Guatemala region, there is relatively abundant evidence of human occupation towards the final period of Paleoindia, between 10,000 and 6,500 BC. C. Multiple hunting tools of various styles have been found in several paleoindian sites such as La Piedra del Coyote, Los Tapiales and Chajbal, in the valleys of Guatemala, Chichicastenango and Quiché. Among these sites it has been found that there was already specialization in the production of hunting tools. The most common style of tools found is that of grooved tips, native to the Central American region; the second most common style is the fluted Clovis type, which has a high affinity with the Clovis points of eastern North America.

During the Archaic period, the domestication of different agricultural species occurred in several regions of Mesoamerica and America in general, which would later exchange knowledge. Corn was domesticated around 6,000 B.C. C. in the Tehuacán valley. In Cerro de las Conchas, Chiapas, there was an important human occupation around 5,500 BC. C. In Sipacate, Escuintla, possible evidence of teosinte or corn pollen contemporary to that of the occupation of Cerro de las Conchas has been found. Around 3,500 B.C. C. human activities intensify on the South Coast of Guatemala.

Pre-Hispanic period

Temple of the Masks, in Tikal.

Map of the different territorial entities that existed in Guatemala and the rest of Central America in the century xvi before the arrival of the Spaniards.

Different groups of people populated Guatemala during pre-Hispanic, also known as pre-Columbian, times, the most important being the Mayan civilization, which flourished in most of what is now Guatemala and its surrounding regions for approximately two thousand years before the arrival of the Spanish. Its history is divided into three periods: Preclassic, Classic and Postclassic.

Most of the large Maya cities in the Petén region and the northern lowlands of Guatemala were abandoned around 1000 B.C. The late Postclassic states of the central highlands—such as the kingdom of the Quiché at Q'umarkaj (Utatlán)—were still thriving upon the arrival of the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado between 1523 and 1527.

Native settlers of the Guatemalan highlands, such as the Kakchiquel, Mam, Quiché, and Tzutujil, and the Kek'chi in the northern Guatemalan lowlands form a significant part of the Guatemalan population. In the southeast The country was dominated by the Xincas who are not linguistically related to any other Mesoamerican people.

Maya Civilization

The Mayan civilization excelled in various scientific disciplines and arts such as architecture, writing, advanced time calculation through mathematics and astronomy; The Mayan calendar is very precise and, unlike the Gregorian calendar —which is based on corrections based on leap years—, it does not have a correction mechanism and resorts to linking two originally independent cycles, known as the "haab" through an astronomical fact. » and the «long count». They were hunters, farmers, practiced fishing, domesticated animals such as turkeys and ducks; they used canoes to navigate the rivers and to travel to nearby islands. They also excelled in painting, sculpture, goldsmithing and copper metallurgy, weaving cotton and agave fiber and developing the most complete writing in pre-Hispanic America. Among the sports they practiced, the ball game stands out, which was more of a ceremony than a game.

Their development in engineering was monumental, they built great metropolises from the Preclassic Period such as the sites of San Bartolo, Cival, Nakbé, El Mirador, in the Mirador Basin, Uaxactún, Tikal, Ceibal, Río Azul, Yaxhá, Dos Pilas, Cancuén, Machaquilá, Aguateca, in the northern lowlands, located in the department of Petén and Kaminal Juyú, in the highlands of the central highlands, as well as Takalik Abaj in the department of Retalhuleu, located in the coastal zone of the ocean Pacific.

Postclassic Period

Lowlands

At the beginning of the Late Postclassic, Chichén Itzá, Mayapán and Izamal were the main Mayan cities in the Yucatán peninsula; After a war between the inhabitants of Chichen Itzá and those of Izamal, the former were expelled from the peninsula and had to settle in the Petén region, in Guatemala —specifically on the modern Isla de Flores—.

With the departure of the Itzáes, the Cocom family of Mayapán became the most powerful lineage in the region and demanded that all the leaders of the allied provinces live in Mayapán; In this way, the Mayapán League was created with sixteen provinces or city states. But in 1441, there were uprisings against the Cocoms and their leaders were sacrificed, ending the League. Thereafter, the sixteen provinces engaged in a series of civil wars that lasted until the arrival of the Spanish in the early 16th century.

It is not fully elucidated where the Itzá originated from. The proposals range from Toltecs, Mexicanized Mayas, Mayanized Toltecs, Putunes or Chontales who could have come from the Tabasco coast, from Chakanputun, Campeche, from Petén, from somewhere in the Usumacinta basin or even from the island of Cozumel. However, Erik Boot carried out an in-depth epigraphic study and discovered that the first reference to this group –so far– is found in a vessel from the Early Classic (250-600 AD) which was dedicated to a son of a itza' ajaw; and the mention on Stela 2 of Motul de San José of Ju’n Tzahk T’ok’ k’uhul itza’ ajaw who visited and supervised an unknown activity at said site; While the title of Kaaneek' –associated with the Itzá from the Late Postclassic of Lake Petén Itzá– can be located on some stelae from Xultún, Pusilhá and Ucanal, which may indicate that the Itzá originated possibly from the Central Lowlands and migrated north sometime in the VI century, this is probably why in the indigenous chronicles of Yucatán refer to them as "those who speak our language badly", since their mother tongue was Cholano and not Yucatecan. According to the Chilam Balam of Chumayel, the Itzá migrated to the Bakhalal region (present-day Bacalar), coming from Chacnovitan where they founded some cities. Centuries later they arrive at Chichén Itzá, where they had founded the lineages of Uc and Abnal.

There is a great discrepancy about the historical genesis of the city of Chichén, since it is assumed that the Itzá were the founders upon their arrival in the region, as Sylvanus G. Morley had indicated in 1946. On the other hand, Eric Thompson –based on the chronicles of Chilam Balam's books– suggested that it was conquered and taken by the Itza around 918 AD. C. Then the Itzáes would maintain a hegemony over the Yucatan Peninsula towards the Early Postclassic. It can be indicated that there is no firm evidence that can confirm that Chichén Itzá conquered the great centers of the eastern part of the peninsula -Ek Balam and Cobá-, there is no deliberate destruction of monuments or buildings, nor an abrupt change in material culture and both settlements continued to be populated at dates when Chichén Itzá had already lost its pre-eminence.

According to Fray Diego de Landa, there is a legend that the foundation of Mayapán and Chichén Itzá were closely related. indicates that Mayapán was founded by the Itzá following Chichén Itzá itself as a model, located 90 kilometers to the east. According to the Chilam Balam of Chumayel and Landa's main informant, Gaspar Antonio Chi Xiú, the settlement was established during the k’atuun 13 Ajaw (1007 - 1027 AD). However, archaeological investigations carried out by the Carnegie Institution of Washington during the 1950s revealed a small occupation around the Late Preclassic (400 BC - 100 AD), and recent radiocarbon dating yielded a possible date for the Middle Preclassic (ca. 820 - 540 BC). But it was not until the Terminal Classic when the masonry buildings began to be built in a modest way in the vicinity of the Itzmal Ch'en and X-Coton cenotes, whose style is associated with the Puuc. In the middle of the 12th century monumental architecture began to be built, and by the XIII the physiognomy of the city was as it is seen today. The great importance of this settlement is due to its peculiar political organization known as muultepal. According to the study of several colonial documents, it has been determined that the Mayapán regime was under the command of the most powerful lineages of the peninsula. Presumably the muultepal was established from the XII century and was headed by Itzá lineages – of which only the Cocom is known–, and later others of different affiliation were integrated, until its disintegration in the middle of the XVth century of our era.

The heyday of the city was during the XII century to the XV century of our era, which more or less coincides with the decline of Chichén Itzá. Several researchers link the fall of the Itza capital to Hunnac Ceel. According to Chuyamel's Chilam Balam, sometime before the beginning of katun 8 Ahau, Hunac Ceel Cauich was thrown in a ceremony into the Itza pit at Chichén Itzá, which was considered the entrance to the underworld. But he returned alive and proclaimed himself a messenger of the gods, wanting to be named Ahau of Mayapán. With the backing of the cocomes, Hunac Ceel Cauich became Halach Uinik of Mayapán. Eventually, Hunac Ceel and Chac Xib Chac, chief of the Itzáes, came into conflict; the cause of this confrontation is described in the Chilam Balam as a "betrayal" by Hunac Ceel towards the Itzá leader. In 1194, Hunac Ceel attacked Chichén Itzá with an army composed of cocomes and Chontal mercenaries, which was commanded by seven chiefs; Ah Sinteut Chan, Tzontecum, Taxcal, Pantemit, Xuchueuet, Itzcuat and Calcatecat.

According to Roys, Hunnac Ceel's betrayal consisted of the fact that he gave Chac Xib Chac a flower to smell –sak nikte'o flor de mayo– which, due to its aphrodisiac effects, caused him to fall in love with the fiancée of Ulil lord of Izamal. She was kidnapped during the wedding banquet which brought the ruler of Chichén Itzá to shame. And during this moment of weakness, the Hunnac Ceel attacked the city, forcing the Itzá to abandon it. Another version is that Izamal declared war on Chichén Itzá, and Chac Xib Chac, seeing that Ulil's armed forces were greater than his own, decided to escape together with his people to a distant place. After Hunnac Ceel took Chichén Itzá, the Chilam Balam of Chumayel agrees that the Itzá went to Chakanputun and then went into the jungle to an unknown place called Tan Xuluk Mul, where they founded the city of Saklactun Mayapán, that is, Taj Itza' – known as Tayasal or Noj Peten, on Lake Petén Itzá, Guatemala– in a k'atuun 8 Ajaw.

Ironically, Mayapán also had a violent end just like its predecessor, again in the Chilam Balam it is reported that the Itzá together with Ah Ulmil Ahau besieged Mayapán as revenge: “4 Ahau two score years; and then the land of Ich Paa Mayapán was taken by the Itza men who left their homes, together with the ajaw Ulmil and by the people of Izamal because of the betrayal of Hunnac Ceel". The end of the city occurred in the k'atuun 8 Ajaw (1441 - 1461 AD) according to the Chilam Balam of Chumayel, as always the data is somewhat confusing but makes it clear that an attack was the main cause: "from there it was taken the land of Ich Paa Mayapán, by those behind the wall, by reason of the multepal within Mayapán, by the Itza men and the ahau Ulmil". Although it is not known with certainty who conquered Mayapán, there is firm evidence of the war since the Carnegie Institution of Washington explored it in the middle of the last century. Buildings razed and burned, caches looted, as well as skeletons of individuals who suffered a violent death were reported.

Highlands and South Coast

K'iche' (K'iche' Winak)

In the early Late Postclassic, the K'iche' He stood out among the highlands, through an aggressive expansionist policy, he subdued the neighboring populations first and then almost the entire highlands. The noble houses of the K'iche' they legitimized their supremacy in the origin in the origin of their Tollan ancestors. However, Robert Carmack traces its origin to the later incursion of Toltequized Chontal-Nahua speakers from the Gulf coasts between Veracruz and Tabasco. According to the Popol Vuh, the three K'iche' Confederates, the Nimak'iche', the Ilokab', and the Tamub' were led by the four founding fathers of the K'iche' (B'alam Kitze', Balam Aq'ab, Majukutaj and Ik'i B'alam) to the Chujuyub' (circa 1200, according to Carmack), in the central highlands, where they settled and first fought for political supremacy. The most important of these was the battle of Jakawitz, the mountain considered the first K'iche' settlement, where the confederation subdued the preceding population known as 'the deer men'. According to documentary sources, Jakawitz was the starting point of sovereign Tz'ikin's military campaigns against Rabinal (to the east) and Iqomaq'i (in the Cubulco area). The K'iche' They gradually developed their military power, whose objective was to subdue other groups and turn them into vassals who had to pay tribute to them. Prisoners and members of subjugated groups were sacrificed to Tojil, the god of lightning and thunder.

For nearly 300 years they managed to keep expanding their territories. Around 1350, they consolidated their power between the Choxoy and Motagua rivers. Four generations after the battle of Jakawitz, they moved their capital from the mountains of Chujuyub' to Ismachi (or Pismachí), 15 km to the southwest. The Confederation continued to expand its rule under the leadership of the nimak'iche'.

The supremacy of these became a point of contention between the confederate groups and in the time of King Q'uq'kumatz, the dissolution of the community took place. The nimak'iche' they settled in Q'umarkaj and ended up becoming the K'iche' more powerful. Located on a plateau with difficult access, which was only reached by well-controlled roads, Q'umarkaj was an impregnable fortress, in which the members of the great houses of the K'iche' they were safe from enemy attacks. At the beginning of the 15th century, the eighth ruler of the K'iche', Q'uq&# 39; Kumatz began a policy of radical expansion and subjugated neighboring towns. With the conquests of his successor, K & # 39; iq & # 39; ab & # 39;, supported militarily by his Kaqchikel allies, the power zone of the k & # 39; iche & # 39; it reached its maximum extent in the middle of the 15th century.

The K'iq'ab'ab' and the dispatch of representatives of the dynasty to the conquered regions demanded the reorganization of Q'umarkaj society. As the largest military force in the system, the Kaqchikeles were exonerated in their status as vassals, they integrated into the system of power as a social group and with Chiawae Tz'upitaq'aj they obtained their own capital. The Kaqchikeles rose up against K'iq'ab' around the year 1470 and that they tried to kill him. As a result of that revolt, the Kaqchikeles abandoned Q'umarkaj and Chiawar Tz'upitaq'aj and founded a new capital, Iximché, also surrounded by ravines. The K'iche' They made several attempts to defeat the Kaqchikeles, but they failed. In a major battle, the K'iche' in his attempt to attack Iximché he was annihilated, resulting in the slaughter of thousands of K'iche' warriors, the capture and sacrifice of their leaders and the Tohil idol. Among the K'iche' and the tz'utujil also broke out the enmity that was increasing in a series of wars that resulted in the death of the regent k'iche' Tekum, son of K'iq'ab, late 15th century.

Spanish conquest

Advancement and governance of Guatemala

Portrait stylized of the conqueror Pedro de Alvarado with the Cross of Order of Santiago.

In 1523 the Spanish conquistadors arrived from the west from Mexico under the command of Captain Pedro de Alvarado, with the intention of exploring and colonizing the territories of present-day Guatemala. They first faced the K'iches and then briefly allied with the Kaqchikeles, founding their first settlement on July 25, 1524 in the vicinity of Iximché, capital of the Kaqchikeles, a town that received the name "Santiago de los Caballeros". Guatemala" in honor of the Apostle Santiago el Mayor. It is important to note that a soldier sick with smallpox arrived in Mexico and started the devastating plagues that devastated the native populations of the American continent.

On November 22, 1527, that city was transferred to the Almolonga Valley —the modern neighborhood of San Miguel Escobar in Ciudad Vieja, Sacatepéquez— due to the constant siege it suffered due to attacks by the natives. In that year, Pedro de Alvarado traveled to Spain to meet with Emperor Carlos V, who finally gave him the titles of Governor, Captain General and Adelantado of Guatemala, on December 18, 1527.

This second city was destroyed in the early morning of September 11, 1541 by an avalanche of mud and stones that descended from the top of the Agua volcano, or Hunahpú volcano as the natives called it, burying the then capital of the region and burying the city with most of its inhabitants. Among them was Governor Beatriz de la Cueva, widow of Pedro de Alvarado. All of this forced the city to be moved again to the nearby Panchoy valley, some six kilometers downstream, where the modern city of Antigua Guatemala is located. On March 10, 1543, the city council held its first session there and the city retained the same coat of arms granted in the town of Medina del Campo by royal decree on July 28, 1532, and on March 10, 1566, King Felipe II awarded it with the title of "Very Noble and Very Loyal City".

Conquest of the Cuchumatanes

In the ten years after the fall of Zaculeu, the Spanish tried to invade the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes to conquer the Chuj and Q'anjob'al peoples and to search for gold, silver and other riches; however, the remoteness and difficult terrain made their conquest difficult.

After the Spanish conquered the western part of the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes, the Ixils and Uspantecos (uspantek) managed to evade them; These towns were allies and in 1529 Uspantec warriors were harassing Spanish forces trying to foment rebellion among the Quiché. Gaspar Arias, a Guatemalan magistrate, entered the eastern Cuchumatanes with an infantry of sixty Spanish soldiers and three hundred indigenous allied warriors and by early September had succeeded in temporarily imposing Spanish authority in the area occupied by the modern towns of Chajul and Nebaj. Then, as he was marching east to Uspantán, Arias received word that the acting governor of Guatemala, Francisco de Orduña, had removed him as magistrate and he had to return to Guatemala, leaving the inexperienced Pedro de Olmos in command. Olmos launched a disastrous frontal assault on the city, where the Spanish were ambushed from the rear by more than two thousand Uspantec warriors; the survivors who managed to escape returned, harassed, to the Spanish garrison at Q'umarkaj.

A year later, Francisco de Castellanos led a new military expedition against the Ixils and Uspantecs, with eight corporals, thirty-two mounted men, forty Spanish soldiers on foot, and hundreds of indigenous allied warriors; On the highest slopes of the Cuchumatanes, in the area occupied by the modern municipality of Sacapulas, they faced almost five thousand Ixil warriors from Nebaj and nearby settlements. Spanish forces besieged the city and their indigenous allies managed to scale the walls, penetrate the fortress and set it on fire; the survivors were branded as slaves to punish them for their resistance. The inhabitants of Chajul, learning of this, immediately surrendered and The Spanish continued towards Uspantán where there were ten thousand warriors, coming from the area occupied by the modern municipalities of Cotzal, Cunén, Sacapulas and Verapaz; the deployment of the Spanish cavalry and the use of firearms decided the battle in favor of the Spanish who occupied Uspantán and again branded all surviving warriors as slaves. The surrounding towns also surrendered and in December 1530 the conquest of the Cuchumatanes ended.

Requirement for Palacios Rubios, parcels and repartimientos

There were three mechanisms of colonization that the Spanish conquerors used to appropriate the lands and labor of the natives: the requirement of Palacios Rubios, the encomiendas, and the repartimientos.

The requirement of Palacios Rubios was a legal prerequisite for any armed action of conquest; by this mechanism, the indigenous people were required —by reading a manifesto or ultimatum prepared by the jurist Juan López de Palacios Rubios— to convert to Christianity and practice obedience to the royal authority. However, the mechanism was quickly perverted, coming to be read symbolically several kilometers from the next village to be taken. Not to mention that the reading was done in Spanish, which the indigenous people did not know, who, in any case, were not willing to convert for the mere fact of reading a letter. On other occasions, a few indigenous people were read, who were asked to explain it to their compatriots and were given enough days to accept the proposal; after the days, if there was no response, the conquerors attacked the towns. In other circumstances, the requirement was read from the ships before docking or from the top of hills far from the towns and a notary certified that it had been read to the natives.

The encomienda and the repartimiento were systems instituted by Christopher Columbus in the recently discovered Antilles. The repartimiento consisted of distributing land and groups of indigenous people as labor to work them while the encomienda consisted of delivering groups of indigenous people to Christianize them, who were put to work as slaves until their annihilation.

Cortés in the Petén

Hernan Cortes, conqueror of the Aztec empire, crossed the Petén in the century xvi.

In 1525, after the conquest of the Aztec empire, Hernán Cortés led an overland expedition to Honduras and traversed the Itzá kingdom in what is now the Petén department of Guatemala. His goal was to put down the rebellion of Cristóbal de Olid, whom he had sent to the conquest of Honduras and who had established himself independently upon reaching that territory. Cortés's expedition had one hundred and forty Spanish soldiers, ninety-three of them mounted, three thousand Mexican warriors, one hundred fifty horses, a herd of pigs, artillery, ammunition and other supplies. He was also accompanied by six hundred Chontal Mayan bearers from Acalán. On March 13, 1525, the expedition members reached the north shore of Lake Petén Itzá.

After learning that Olid's rebellion had been put down, Cortés returned to Mexico by sea; there were no other formal contacts between the Spanish and the Itzá until the arrival of Franciscan priests in 1618, when apparently the cross left by Cortés was still standing in Nojpetén. Several unsuccessful military attempts to conquer the Lacandones— who remained free until 1697—although the Dominicans undertook a peaceful conversion in the "War Lands" of Tezulutlán.

Dominicans in Verapaz

Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P., who together with the friars Rodrigo de Landa, Pedro de Angulo and Luis de Cancer initiated the catechization of the Verapaces in 1542.

In November 1536, friar Bartolomé de las Casas, O.P. settled in Santiago de Guatemala. Months later Bishop Juan Garcés, who was a friend of his, invited him to move to Tlascala. Later, he moved back to Guatemala. On May 2, 1537, he obtained from the licensed governor Don Alfonso de Maldonado a written commitment ratified on July 6, 1539 by the Viceroy of Mexico Don Antonio de Mendoza, that the natives of Tuzulutlán, when they were conquered, would not be entrusted but that they would be vassals of the Crown. Las Casas, along with other Dominican friars, sought out four indigenous Christians and taught them religious songs where basic issues of the Gospel were explained. Later he led a procession that brought small gifts to the natives and impressed the cacique, who decided to convert to Christianity and be a preacher to his vassals, and was baptized with the name of Juan. The natives consented to the construction of a church but another cacique named Cobán burned the church. Juan and his men, accompanied by Las Casas and Pedro de Angulo, went to talk to the indigenous people of Cobán and convinced them of their good intentions.

Las Casas, Fray Luis de Cáncer, Fray Rodrigo de Ladrada and Fray Pedro de Angulo, O.P. They took part in the reduction and pacification project, but it was Luis de Cáncer who was received by the chief of Sacapulas, managing to carry out the first baptisms of the inhabitants. The cacique "Don Juan" took the initiative to marry one of his daughters to a principal of the town of Cobán under the Catholic religion.

Las Casas and Angulo founded the town of Rabinal, and Cobán was the head of Catholic doctrine. After two years of effort, the reduction system began to have relative success, as the indigenous people moved to more accessible lands and towns were founded in the Spanish way. The name of "Land of War" was replaced by that of "Vera Paz" (true peace), a name that became official in 1547.

Foundation and transfers of the capital city

The capital city of Guatemala was founded by Pedro de Alvarado in 1524 on the feast day of Santiago, for which reason it was known as Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala. Saint Cecilia was also considered the patron saint of the city, Because in 1526 the Kakchikel kings revolted until they were finally subdued on the day this saint of the Catholic Church is celebrated.

On September 9, 1541, Pedro de Alvarado died and the city council appointed his widow, Mrs. Beatriz de la Cueva, as governor in his place; but he could only hold the position for two days, because on September 11 the flooding of the city occurred: heavy rains loosened the earth on the highest slopes of the Agua Volcano and from there a landslide occurred that destroyed everything in its path. At first it was decided to move the city to the Tiangues valley in Chimaltenango, but finally, the engineer Juan Bautista Antonelli indicated that the Panchoy valley was better. Bishop Francisco Marroquín and Francisco de la Cueva, Beatriz's brother, were elected as new governors. They governed until May 17, 1542, when Alonso de Maldonado, envoy of the viceroy of Mexico, arrived.

As a consequence of the Capitulations of Tezulutlán, King Carlos I promulgated on November 20, 1542 the New Laws that prohibited the slavery of the indigenous people and ordered that all be freed from the encomenderos and placed under the direct protection of the Crown.

In 1543 the city was moved to the Panchoy valley; the new city had a rectilinear layout and land was given around the central square for the town hall and the cathedral; the rest went to residents and religious orders. The engineer Antonelli was in charge of the layout.

The first Audiencia that was established in the Kingdom of Guatemala was the «Audiencia de los Confines», named for being between the confines of New Spain and Peru. It was founded in the New Laws of 1542, it was established in Gracias a Dios in Honduras and its first president was Mr. Alonso de Maldonado; the territory of the Audiencia was Yucatan, Chiapas, Soconusco, Central America and Panama. On June 16, 1548, the Audiencia moved to the city of Antigua Guatemala, with Alonso López de Cerrato arriving as president. There were many problems between the Audiencia of the representatives of the Crown and the council of the conquerors of Guatemala, to the point that the Audiencia was suppressed in 1565.

In 1551, the city's cathedral was invested with all the privileges and indulgences of the Church of Santiago in Galicia by Pope Julius III.

With the new "Audiencia de Guatemala" established in 1570, the colonial era proper began, and the highest authorities of the Kingdom of Guatemala were the Catholic archbishop and the president of the Royal Audience. For its part, the city de Santiago de los Caballeros reached such splendor that it was considered one of the most beautiful in the New World.

Timeline of the conquest

Colonial period

The governorate of Guatemala and its provinces (jurisdictions of villas and cities that distribute encomiendas), and the other governorates and provinces before the creation of the Royal Audience of the Confines in 1542

During this colonial period, which lasted almost three hundred years, Guatemala was a captaincy general that in turn depended on the Viceroyalty of New Spain, modern Mexico. It stretched from the Soconusco region—now in the state of Chiapas, Mexico—to Costa Rica. Although this region was not as rich in minerals and metals as Mexico and Peru, it stood out mainly in agricultural production, especially sugar cane, cocoa, precious woods, and indigo ink for dyeing textiles.

17th century

Pedro de San José de Betancur. Canario Franciscan missionary in Guatemala and founder of the Order of the Bethlemites. In the image, sculpture of the Holy in the Cave of the Holy Brother Pedro south of Tenerife.

Doctrines of native Guatemalans

The Spanish crown focused on the catechization of the indigenous people; the congregations founded by the royal missionaries in the New World were called "indian doctrines" or simply "doctrines". Originally, the friars had only a temporary mission: to teach the Catholic faith to the indigenous people, to later make way for secular parishes. such as those established in Spain; to this end, the friars should have taught the gospels and the Spanish language to the natives. Once the indigenous people were catechized and spoke Spanish, they could begin to live in parishes and contribute to the tithe, as the peninsulares did.

But this plan was never carried out, mainly because the crown lost control of the regular orders as soon as the members embarked for America. On the other hand, protected by their apostolic privileges to help the conversion of the indigenous, the missionaries only attended to the authority of their priors and provincials, and not to that of the Spanish authorities or to those of the bishops. The provincials of the orders, in turn, only rendered accounts to the leaders of their order and not to the crown; once they had established a doctrine, they protected their interests in it, even against the interests of the king and in this way the doctrines became Indian towns that remained established for the rest of the colony.

The doctrines were founded at the discretion of the friars, since they had complete freedom to establish communities to catechize the indigenous people, in the hope that these would pass over time to the jurisdiction of a secular parish that would be paid the tithe; in reality, what happened was that the doctrines grew without control and never passed to the control of parishes. The collective administration by the group of friars was the most important characteristic of the doctrines, since it guaranteed the continuation of the community system in case one of the leaders dies.

Events that occurred in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros in Guatemala

Plaque commemorative of the foundation of the first university in Guatemala, in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros in 1676.

Pedro de San José Betancur, or Santo Hermano Pedro, arrived in Guatemala in 1650 from his native Tenerife; upon disembarking he suffered a serious illness, during which he had the first opportunity to be with the poorest and most disinherited. After his recovery he wanted to carry out ecclesiastical studies but, unable to do so, he professed as a Franciscan tertiary in the Convent of San Francisco. He founded shelters for the poor, natives and homeless people and also founded the Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Bethlehem in 1656, in order to serve the poor. Santo Hermano Pedro wrote several works, among them: Instruction to brother De la Cruz, Crown of the Passion of Jesus Christ our good or Rules of the Betlemite Confraternity. On the other hand, he was the first American literacy and the Order of the Betlemites, in turn was the first religious order born in the American continent. Pedro de San José Betancur was a man ahead of his time, both in his methods for teaching the illiterate to read and write and in his treatment of the sick.

In 1660, the printer José de Pineda Ibarra arrived in Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, hired by the Guatemalan ecclesiastics. He worked in printing, binding, and buying and selling books; He died in 1680, inheriting the printing press from his son Antonio, who continued to operate it until his death in 1721.

On January 31, 1676, by Royal Decree of Carlos II, the Royal and Pontifical University of San Carlos Borromeo was founded, the third university founded in America, where many important figures of the country studied, among them Fray Francisco Ximénez, discoverer of the Popol Vuh manuscript —and who also partially translated it into Spanish— and Dr. José Felipe Flores, an eminent Guatemalan protomedician and personal physician to the King of Spain.

During the 1690s, due to Guatemala's location on the American Pacific coast, it became a commercial node in the trade between Asia and Latin America when it emerged to become a supplanting trade route for the Manila Galleons.

In the art of the 17th century, the master painter Pedro de Liendo and the master sculptor Quirio Cataño stand out.

Conquest of Petén

The Itza had resisted all attempts at Spanish conquest since 1524. In 1622 a military expedition led by Captain Francisco de Mirones, accompanied by Franciscan friar Diego Delgado, left Yucatán; this expedition became a disaster for the Spanish who were massacred by the Itzaes. In 1628 the Manché Chols in the south were placed under the administration of the colonial governor of Verapaz as part of the Captaincy General of Guatemala. In 1633, the Manche Chol rebelled unsuccessfully against Spanish rule. In 1695 a military expedition that left Guatemala tried to reach Lake Petén Itzá; this was followed by missionaries who left Mérida in 1696, and in 1697 by the expedition of Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi, which left Yucatán and which resulted in the final defeat of the independent kingdoms of central Petén, and their incorporation into the Spanish Empire.

Castle of San Felipe de Lara

Castle of San Felipe de Lara in the mouth of the Dulce River on the lake of Izabal. It was built by Diego Gómez de Ocampo in 1697 by order of King Felipe II of Spain to carry out raids of English pirates.

The Castillo de San Felipe de Lara is a fortress located at the mouth of the Río Dulce with Lake Izabal in eastern Guatemala. It was built in 1697 by Diego Gómez de Ocampo to protect Spanish colonial properties against attacks by English pirates. The Río Dulce connects Lake Izabal to the Caribbean Sea and was exposed to repeated pirate attacks between the 16th century and the xviii. King Philip II of Spain ordered the construction of the fortress to counter looting by pirates. In 2002 it was inscribed on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

18th century

Guatemala’s General Office for the Year of 1780, before the implementation of the mayor’s system

The San Miguel Earthquakes

The strongest earthquakes that the city of Santiago de los Caballeros experienced before its final transfer in 1776 were the San Miguel earthquakes in 1717. At that time, the domination of the Catholic Church over the vassals of the Spanish Crown was absolute and this meant that any natural disaster was considered a divine punishment. In the city, the inhabitants also believed that the proximity of the Fuego Volcano was the cause of the earthquakes; the chief architect Diego de Porres went so far as to affirm that the earthquakes were caused by the eruptions of the volcano.

On August 27, there was a very strong eruption of Volcán de Fuego, which lasted until August 30; The residents of the city asked for help from the Holy Christ of the cathedral and from the Virgen del Socorro, who were the sworn patrons against the volcano's fire. On August 29, the Virgen del Rosario came out in procession after a century without going out and there were many more processions of saints until September 29, the day of San Miguel; the first earthquakes in the afternoon were slight, but at around 7 pm there was a strong tremor that forced the residents to leave their houses; The tremors and rumblings continued until four in the morning. The neighbors went out into the street and shouted confessing their sins, thinking the worst.

The earthquakes in San Miguel damaged the city considerably, to the point that the Royal Palace suffered damage to some rooms and walls. There was also a partial abandonment of the city, a shortage of food, a lack of labor, and much damage to the city's buildings; in addition to numerous deaths and injuries. These earthquakes made the authorities think about moving the city to a new settlement less prone to seismic activity; the residents of the city strongly oppose the transfer, and even took over the Royal Palace in protest of it. In the end, the city did not move from its location, but the number of elements in the Dragon Battalion to keep order was considerable. The damage to the palace was repaired by Diego de Porres, who finished it in 1720; although there are indications that there were more works by Porres until 1736.

The inhabitants of the city of Santiago de los Caballeros feared earthquakes, but not as much as smallpox epidemics, since they occurred approximately every fifteen years and caused more deaths than earthquakes. The earthquakes were responsible, yes, for the change in the architectural style of the city and for the loss of valuable altarpieces and paintings.

Rafael Landívar

The poet and priest Rafael Landívar began his academic training at the age of eleven at the Colegio Mayor Universitario de San Borja, which at the same time was a Jesuit seminary. In 1744 he enrolled in the Royal and Pontifical University of San Carlos, where he was awarded a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1746, when he was not yet fifteen years old. A little over a year later, in May 1747, he obtained the degrees of Licentiate in Philosophy and Master. In 1749 he moved to Mexico to enter the religious order of the Society of Jesus and was ordained a priest in 1755. Upon his return to Guatemala, he served as rector of the San Borja school.

On March 4, 1751, a new earthquake ruined the city of Santiago de los Caballeros, although the damage was not enough to consider moving the city. In 1767, due to the Pragmatic Sanction against the Jesuits by the King Carlos III of Spain, Landívar was banished from the American lands and together with all his companions of the order, he went first to Mexico, and then to Europe, settling in Bologna, Italy. It is there that he published his book "Rusticatio Mexicana" (Through the Fields of Mexico), in Latin, as well as his "funeral prayer" on the death of Bishop Figueredo y Victoria, benefactor of the Society of Jesus.

The Bourbon Reforms

King Carlos III of Spain, promoter of the Bourbon reforms.

In 1754, by virtue of a Royal Decree part of the Bourbon Reforms, all the parishes of the regular orders were transferred to the secular clergy. In 1765 the Bourbon reforms of the Spanish Crown were published, which sought to recover royal power over the colonies and increase tax collection. With these reforms, tobacconists were created to control the production of intoxicating beverages, tobacco, gunpowder, cards and the patio of roosters. The royal treasury auctioned the tobacconist annually and an individual bought it, thus becoming the owner of the monopoly of a certain product. That same year, four sub-delegations of the Royal Treasury were created in San Salvador, Ciudad Real, Comayagua and León and the political-administrative structure of the Kingdom of Guatemala changed to fifteen provinces:

In addition to this administrative redistribution, the Spanish crown established a policy tending to diminish the power of the Catholic Church, which until then was practically absolute over the Spanish vassals. The church's de-empowerment policy was based on the Enlightenment.

Problems of the Catholic Church

In America, relations between the Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church began to break down in the 18th century; but there were also problems between the secular clergy and the regular clergy, since the doctrines of the regular clergy were being secularized. In other words, the priests who did not belong to the religious orders and who came from the lower classes of society were left with the parishes that until then had belonged to the powerful religious orders, made up of members of the elite classes of colonial society..

In the 17th century there was a rise of the secular clergy, with a considerable increase in priestly ordinations that managed to satisfy the demand for parish priests in the Kingdom; The Dominicans, for example, lost almost all their parishes, except those of La Veparaz; For their part, the Franciscans and Mercedarians were stripped of most of their doctrines in the Kingdom of Guatemala. By 1768, when Archbishop Pedro Cortés y Larraz arrived in Guatemala, the powerful orders of yesteryear were only in charge of 34 of the 289 parishes in the archdiocese.

After a strong conflict in Paraguay between the Jesuits and the Spanish authorities for control of the missions, and after other difficulties in Europe, the Jesuits were expelled from Spanish territories in 1767.

The Earthquakes of Santa Marta

By 1773, the Kingdom of Guatemala was vast, with a jurisdiction spanning more than 2,400 kilometers in length, bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean to the south; It had three suffragan bishoprics, eleven cities, many towns, and approximately nine hundred towns, divided into twenty-four governments and mayoralties dominated by the Royal, Pretorial Audience, presided over by the president, the council, and the regiment. Among the dependencies of the Audiencia were: land courts, deceased property courts, crusade courts, sealed paper and community property courts, provincial ordinary, court of accounts, and those of the respective real income. For their part, the Guatemalan Creoles opposed the real power of the City Council, which was made up of two ordinary mayors, thirteen aldermen, a trustee and mayordomo. And finally, the ecclesiastical power —which was directed by the archbishop and the superiors of the regular orders—had nine prebendaries, five dignitaries, two rector priests, eight religious convents, five nuns, three devouts, and two schools.

The transfer of the capital caused Guatemala City to lose importance and political force before the provinces of the Kingdom of Guatemala, since Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción never had the beauty and grandeur of Santiago de los Caballeros and when it was declared Independence in 1821, the city was half built and failed to hold its own as the capital of the Central American Federation.

19th century

José de Bustamante y Guerra, Captain General of Guatemala from 1810 to 1818.

The region continued to flourish. Industries such as cocoa and sugar cane flourished throughout Guatemala's colonial period, creating great wealth and allowing the development of other industries, whose boom lasted until the end of the century xviii. The last decades of the 18th century meant for the Spanish Crown an immense waste of human and economic energy destined to support and bring to fruition repeated war projects in the that was involved The result of expansionist jealousy, as well as political-economic advances, had placed Spain in a rather difficult situation: it was not feasible to succumb to the power of neighboring powers, but facing such warlike undertakings meant innumerable human and economic sacrifices.

On the other hand, his vast overseas possessions were in themselves another great undertaking in which he had to invest such energies and resources, albeit in different ways; as well as watching over them as a valuable treasure on which their own and foreign eyes were set. An important aspect that deserved obligatory care on the part of the high Spanish royal bureaucracy, as well as the efforts and investments already indicated, was the commercial-maritime traffic that sustained the metropolis and its colonies. Through it, the pulse and rhythm of relations between the two continents could be detected.

This real concern about the maintenance and conservation of a continuous relationship in the commercial field can be explained by the factors that constituted it, such as, on the one hand, the wealth in precious metals and raw materials that America provided, as well as the consumer market that she herself meant for peninsular genres and products. This exchange, most of the times unequal for the overseas colonies, represented a considerable line in the peninsular real economy. Hence its constant vigilance and protection, manifested in a whole series of royal provisions that for almost three centuries kept a clear line of thought: the exclusive conservation of trade with the colonies as something inherent and imaginable only for the Spanish Crown, without contemplating the interference in said relationship, of other nations. The war with England in the last years of the 18th century posed difficult problems for that commercial relationship, since the English forces were well acquainted with the neuralgic points of the Spanish economy and attacked them frontally.

Conjuration of Bethlehem

Archbishop of Guatemala Ramón Casaus and Torres, collaborated with Captain General José de Bustamante and Guerra and opposed the liberal independence movements.

In 1811 José de Bustamante y Guerra was appointed captain general of Guatemala, at a time of great independence activity; and initially he developed an enlightened reformist policy. However, before the revolution of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and José María Morelos in Mexico, he prepared troops in Guatemala and created the "Fernando VII volunteer corps" and from his position he faced the local constitutionalists, harshly repressing the independentistas. He also opposed the liberal constitution of 1812.

Since October 28, 1813, and after the election of the rector of the Royal and Pontifical University of San Carlos Borromeo, several meetings had been held in the priory cell of the Convent of Belén, organized by Fray Juan Nepomuceno de la Concepción in order to overthrow Captain General Bustamante y Guerra and achieve the independence of the region. In November there was another meeting at the home of Cayetano and Mariano Bedoya, younger brothers of Doña Dolores Bedoya de Molina, and brothers-in-law of Pedro Molina Mazariegos Among the conspirators there were various members of both the regular and secular clergy, demonstrating the interest of the different factions of the Catholic Church in the uprising against Bustamante and Guerra.

On December 21, 1813, Bustamante y Guerra learned that seditious people were meeting in the convent of Belén to attempt an uprising due to a denunciation of José Prudencio de La Llana, and he issued an order so that Captain Antonio Villar and his assistant, Francisco Cáscara, will arrest the religious of that monastery. Several conspirators would be imprisoned in the attack. This resolution was communicated by the mayor of the town hall on the 24th; from then on, until the following month, others would be arrested. An arrest warrant was also issued against councilor José Francisco Barrundia, who managed to escape.

Upon finding himself discovered, the dragoon lieutenant Yúdice wrote to Bustamante and Guerra to ask for the king's clemency and give him names of the conspirators. Bustamante also commissioned his nephew. the Carmelite Fray Manuel de la Madre de Dios, in the post office, to open all correspondence that fell into his hands; all those captured were put on trial and sentenced to different penalties.

Bustamante y Guerra later denounced his successor named Juan Antonio de Tornos, mayor of Honduras, for alleged liberal tendencies and thus achieved his confirmation in his position by Ferdinand VII in 1814. He was dismissed in August 1817 and returned to Spain in 1819. That same year he once again became part of the Junta de Indias. In 1820 he was rewarded with the Grand Cross of the American Order of Isabella the Catholic and was appointed General Director of the Navy until 1822. In 1823 he was a member of the Board of Expeditions to America, and a year later, he returned again to the General Directorate of the Navy and worked in the Ministry of the Navy in Madrid until his death in 1825, his military position being that of lieutenant general.

Totonicapán uprising

By 1820, Atanasio Tzul was recognized as an unofficial representative of the Linkah, Pachah, Uculjuyub, Chiché and Tinamit partialities in Totonicapán; In the same year, with the representation described above and in view of the interest of his people in ending church taxes and tribute, Tzul joined forces with Lucas Aguilar and the Mayor of Totonicapán, Narciso Mallol. Together they fought against the power of the Spanish colony, led by the captain general of the Kingdom of Guatemala, the Archbishop of Guatemala Ramón Casaus y Torres, the local ladino elite and the chiefs of Totonicapán, who were differentiated from the rest of the indigenous population and they had certain privileges due to their support for the European conquest. Royal tributes had been abolished in 1811 by the Cortes of Cádiz, but were imposed again by King Ferdinand VII.

The political and military weakness of the Spanish empire, the first attempts for political autonomy and the competition between Spanish officers were key to the success of the uprising. Thus, the rejection of the tribute, the removal of the Mayor, and the José Manuel Lara de Arrese and the imposition of his own government.

For at least a few days between July and August 1820, Tzul acted as the most prominent representative of the indigenous government, though he was later flogged for nine days and imprisoned in Quetzaltenango, after the movement suffered repression at the hands of of around a thousand ladino militiamen. In March 1821, Tzul was released, after a demonstration by Totonicapense individuals and requesting a pardon. This uprising is especially remembered for the imposition of the Royal Attributes, where Atanasio Tzul put on his crown of Mr. San José and his wife, Felipa Soc, he put the crown of Santa Cecilia.

The proclamation of independence

Signature of the Central American Independence Act
September 15, 1821, painting by Luis Vergara Ahumada.

In 1818 the implacable Bustamante left power and was replaced by Carlos Urrutia, a man of weak character and in whose government the independentistas gained ground. In 1820 the King of Spain Ferdinand VII was forced to reestablish the constitution of 1812, as a result of which freedom of the press was implemented in Central America. In that same year, Dr. Pedro Molina Mazariegos began to publish El Editor Constitucional, a newspaper that criticized the government of the colony, defended the rights of Central Americans, and promoted independence.

In Mexico, the revolution obtained a complete triumph and through the Plan of Iguala declared its total independence from Spain on February 24, 1821. This news disconcerted the Spanish authorities in Guatemala and at the same time served as a stimulus to the independence cause. On March 9, under pressure from the pro-independence liberals, Captain General Carlos de Urrutia —an infirm character with a weak character— left his post to be filled by Army Deputy Inspector Gabino Gaínza, who had recently arrived in Guatemala. Gainza He was liked by the independentistas, because in addition to being a man of a very advanced age, he was also weak and fickle. Under his command, Central America experienced intolerable levels of social unrest that forced the provincial council to ask Gainza for a meeting to discuss the difficult issue of independence.

Independence and the United Provinces of Central America

José Cecilio del Valle, editor of the certificate of independence.

Signature of the minutes of independence of Central America on September 15, 1821 inside the Royal Palace. Rafael Beltranena's painting.

By the year 1820, the Constitution of Cádiz was put back into force, due to the events provoked by Rafael del Riego in the month of January; In addition, the deputations of Guatemala and León were reinstated on July 13 of that year. José Matías Delgado was a member of the Provincial Advisory Board together with José Simeón Cañas, Mariano Beltranena, José Valdez, José Antonio Rivera Cabeza de Vaca, and José Mariano Calderón, prior to the establishment of the constitution in the region on the 26th of that month.

However, by the year 1821 news was received in the Kingdom of Guatemala of the proclamation of the Plan of Iguala in the Viceroyalty of New Spain in the month of February, in which independence from the Spanish Empire was declared. Ciudad Real de Chiapas also declared itself independent in August. Given the facts, Gabino Gaínza, who was in charge of the General Captaincy of Guatemala, was pressured by the Central American Creoles to proclaim independence immediately.

Captain General Gaínza then, responding to this call, assembled a board of notables made up of the archbishop, deputies, military chiefs, the prelates of the religious orders, and treasury employees. In that meeting chaired by Gainza himself, those present freely expressed their opinion. Mr. José Cecilio del Valle took the floor and demonstrated the necessity and justice of Independence, stating that, in order to proclaim it, the vote of the Provinces must first be heard. However, the Creoles who had gathered in the Plaza de Armas called out for independence, and it was proclaimed that same day, September 15, 1821. Del Valle wrote that document, as well as the manifesto published by Captain General Gainza on independence. and the formation of the constitution.

It was also determined that the election of representatives be made by the same electoral boards that had elected deputies to the courts of Spain, observing the previous laws for the election procedure; that the Constituent Congress meet on March 1, 1822; that the Catholic religion be preserved "in all its integrity and purity"; and, finally, that while the country was being constituted, Chief Gabino Gaínza would continue to lead the government, acting in accordance with a Provisional Consultative Board.

Upon learning of the events in San Salvador, on October 27 the Advisory Board appointed José Matías Delgado as Mayor of the province, to calm down the spirits and assume "political command and act in the military as required by the circumstances". On his way through Santa Ana, he released the Arce, Rodríguez and Lara who were being taken prisoner to Guatemala, and upon arriving in San Salvador, Barriere left command of the province, and the royalist volunteer troops They were disarmed and discharged. The Salvadorans decided to organize themselves as a Provincial Council according to the Constitution of Cádiz, with Delgado as mayor-president.

Annexation to the Mexican Empire

Augustine de Iturbide.

Escudo de las Provincias Unidas del Centro de América.

Despite the new political situation, there was indecision among the authorities of the Central American provinces, since some advocated total independence and others adopted the Iguala Plan and submission to the Mexican Empire of Agustín de Iturbide. Precisely, Gaínza learned of Iturbide's invitation on November 27 for the Kingdom of Guatemala to form, together with Mexico, "a great empire", since Guatemala, according to Alejandro Marure, "was still powerless to govern itself." ". He also announced the approach of a "protection army", whose mission was "to protect with arms... the lovers of their homeland".

In fact, the annexationist faction to the Mexican Empire, made up of the Creoles of Guatemala City and members of the regular orders of the Catholic Church, wanted to maintain hegemony in the region after independence, and began to assert itself in Guatemala, since they feared that the Central American congress stipulated by the independence act of September 15, which should "decide the point of general and absolute independence", would be contrary to their interests. By consulting the open councils, on January 5 the annexation was decreed by the Consultative Board, which was later dissolved. However, only the councils of San Salvador and San Vicente fully expressed their opposition, and they would later become a bulwark of the Central American Liberal Party.

Days before, and in view of the unstable situation in the provinces, the government headed by Delgado had sent an invitation to the Provinces of León and Comayagua on December 25, 1821 to join San Salvador and thus form a kind of "tripartite entity". In the same way, the city council of San Salvador had expressed its position of resolving its fate through a Central American national congress, as the only one empowered to resolve the matter.

The offensive from Guatemala to subdue San Salvador began with the deployment of troops under the command of Sergeant Major José Nicolás de Abós y Padilla, who engaged in battle with the Salvadoran armies commanded by Manuel José Arce, who triumphed in the battle of Plain the Thorn. Another offensive under the command of Manuel Arzú, despite reaching San Salvador, was unable to consolidate the occupation. To cease hostilities, an agreement was signed on October 10, 1822 between Salvadoran representatives and the Mexican Empire, a pact in which the will of the provinces that had submitted to Mexico and also those that wished to submit to San Salvador was recognized. In the end, the agreement was left to the discretion of Iturbide, who took the conduct of San Salvador as dissent and ordered its submission.

Vicente Filísola commanded the Mexican imperial troops over San Salvador, but on November 12 the Salvadoran government agreed to incorporate it into the Mexican Empire. as well as the erection of the episcopal chair was recognized. In addition, they would maintain the weapons and would depend on a central government. Filísola interpreted this as a delay, for which reason he declared the resolution null and claimed jurisdiction from the Empire; given the facts, the Salvadorans declared the incorporation into the Mexican Empire null and agreed to the incorporation into the United States on December 2. The declaration did not stop Filísola, who after occupying Mejicanos, on February 9, 1823, took San Salvador. There he had contact with Salvadoran leaders, including Delgado, who ended up confined to one of his farms. Despite the events, Iturbide abdicated the throne on March 19, so Filísola decided to convene the congress established in the minutes of September 15.

Central American Civil War

After Filísola's call, the Salvadoran province appointed its representatives. For San Salvador, José Matías Delgado and José Antonio Jiménez y Vasconcelos were elected as proprietary deputies, and Pedro José Cuellar and Juan Francisco Sosa as substitutes. On June 24, 1823, the Constituent Assembly of Central America was installed and the same Delgado was elected as its president with a total of thirty-seven votes. The first session was held on June 29, and Delgado gave a speech that reads in part:

In addition, Delgado, together with José Simeón Cañas, Pedro Molina Mazariegos, Francisco Flores and Felipe Vega, had issued the opinion regarding the absolute independence of the provinces of the Kingdom of Guatemala. Absolute Declaration of Independence of Central America, which at its beginning proclaims the name of "the United Provinces of Central America...";

However, in the new States the system that would govern the new Central American republic was debated, that is, between a federal or a centralized one. The prevailing opinion in the provinces, with the exception of Guatemala, was the federal system similar to that of the United States. The soldier and historian Manuel Montúfar y Coronado attributed the definitive adoption of this system to priest Delgado, accusing him of seeking personal benefit to erect the episcopal chair in San Salvador, although Meléndez Chaverri stressed that the attitude of Salvadorans "in their struggles libertarians was more than mobile enough for the adoption of a system for which they dreamed since 1811".

Delgado, Pedro Molina Mazariegos, José Francisco Barrundia, and Mariano Gálvez participated in the drafting of the Bases of the Federal Constitution published on December 17, 1823. With the installation of the Federal Republic of Central America, General Salvadoran Manuel José Arce was elected as its president for the year 1825. But in October 1826 the president of the Federal Republic of Central America, Manuel José Arce dissolved Congress and the Senate and tried to establish a unitary system by allying with the conservatives, so he was left without the support of his party, the liberal. Thus began a civil war in the region from which the dominant figure of Honduran General Francisco Morazán emerged.

Mariano de Aycinena y Piñol was appointed on March 1, 1827 as governor of the state of Guatemala by the president of the Federation of the United Provinces of Central America, Manuel José Arce. His governance was of a dictatorial nature; he prohibited the freedom of the press and the entry of liberal-type books into Guatemala. He also decreed the death penalty with retroactive effect and formed the fatal decree of 1827 for summary trials. As a member of the Conservative Party, he reinstated the obligatory tithes for the secular clergy of the Catholic Church.

Miniature portraits by the artist Francisco Cabrera of the ladies who belonged to the Aycinena Clan date from this period.

Liberal invasion of Morazán in 1829

Honduran Liberal leader Francisco Morazán.

Mariano de Aycinena and Piñol, governor of the State of Guatemala in 1829. He was also the leader of the Aycinena Clan, a powerful group of the conservative party.

Morazán kept fighting around San Miguel, defeating each platoon sent by Arzú from San Salvador until he left Colonel Montúfar in charge of San Salvador and went to personally deal with Morazán; when the Honduran became aware of Arzú's movements, he left for Honduras to recruit more troops. On September 20, General Arzú was near the Lempa River with five hundred men in search of Morazán, when he learned that his forces they had capitulated in Mejicanos and San Salvador.

Meanwhile, Morazán returned to El Salvador with a respectable army. General Arzú, feigning illness, fled to Guatemala, leaving his troops under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Antonio de Aycinena. The colonel and his troops were marching towards Honduran territory, when they were intercepted by Morazán's men in San Antonio. On October 9, Aycinena was forced to surrender. With the capitulation of San Antonio, El Salvador was finally free of federal troops. On October 23, General Morazán made his triumphal entry into the Plaza de San Salvador. A few days later, he marched in Ahuachapán, to organize the army with a view to removing the aristocratic and ecclesiastical conservatives from power in Guatemalan territory and to establish a constitutional order similar to the Central American Federation that the liberals aspired to.

Upon learning of these facts, Mariano de Aycinena tried to negotiate with Morazán, but since he was determined to end the hegemony of the Guatemalan aristocrats and ecclesiastics, he did not accept any deal. Aycinena, seeing that he could not find a peaceful solution, wrote to his fellow citizens:

Central Park of the city of Antigua Guatemala during the civil war of 1829. Note that the old Palace of the General Captain's Office was destroyed and that its columns had been sheltered in the provisional constructions that were observed in the engraving.

In Ahuachapán, Morazán did his best to organize a large army. He asked the government of El Salvador to provide him with four thousand men, but had to settle for two thousand. When he was able to act in early 1829, he sent a division under Colonel Juan Prem to enter Guatemalan territory and take control of Chiquimula. The order was carried out by Prem despite the resistance offered by the enemy. Shortly thereafter, Morazán moved a small force near Guatemala City under the command of Colonel Gutiérrez to force the enemy out of their trenches and cause his troops to desert. Meanwhile, Colonel Domínguez, who had left Guatemala City with six hundred infantry to attack Prem, learned of the small force Gutiérrez counted. Domínguez changed his plans and Gutiérrez went after him. This opportunity was taken advantage of by Prem, who moved from Zacapa and attacked Domínguez's forces, defeating them on January 15, 1829. After these events, Morazán ordered Prem to continue his march with the 1,400 men under his command and occupy the post of San José, near the capital.

Meanwhile, the people of Antigua Guatemala organized against the conservative government of Aycinena in Guatemala which hastened Morazán's invasion of Guatemala with his "Protector of the Law Army"; The Honduran placed his men in the town of Pínula, near Guatemala City. On February 15, one of Morazán's largest divisions, under the command of Cayetano de la Cerda, was defeated in Mixco by federal troops, so Morazán lifted the siege of the city and concentrated his forces in Antigua. A division of federal troops had followed him from the capital under the command of Colonel Pacheco, in the direction of Sumpango and Tejar with the purpose of attacking him in Antigua. But Pacheco extended his forces, leaving some of them in Sumpango. When he arrived at San Miguelito on March 6, with a smaller army, he was defeated by General Morazán,

After the victory at San Miguelito, Morazán's army grew when Guatemalan volunteers joined his ranks. On March 15, when Morazán and his army were on their way to occupy their previous positions, he was intercepted by Colonel Prado's federal troops at the Las Charcas ranch. Morazán, with a superior position, crushed Prado's army. The battlefield was left littered with corpses, prisoners and weapons. Subsequently, Morazán moved to recover his old positions in Pínula and Aceytuno, and again lay siege to Guatemala City. On March 18, 1829, Aycinena ordered that the death penalty be applied to anyone who helped the enemy, he made a proclamation in which he invoked the defense of the "sanctity of the altars" and issued a legal provision, by which the liberal leaders, including Dr. Pedro Molina Mazariegos, were declared enemies of the country; despite everything, he was defeated.

On April 12, 1829, he signed the Capitulation Agreement with Morazán and was sent to prison with his fellow government officials; Morazán, for his part, annulled the document on the 20th of the same month, since his main objective was to eliminate the power of the conservative Creoles and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Guatemala, whom the liberal crillos detested for having been under their domination. during the Spanish colony.

Government of Mariano Gálvez

Map of Guatemala in 1839. Observe the undelimited borders with Mexico in Yucatan and Chiapas, and Belize was still an English settlement.

After the separation of the Iturbide Empire, the Federal Republic of Central America was created, with Manuel José Arce as its first president. The Federal Republic was a political entity that included Guatemala, Comayagua, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

In 1837, an armed struggle began in the State of Guatemala against the person who governed the State of Guatemala, a liberal like Francisco Morazán, Dr. José Mariano Gálvez. Gálvez, a cultured and progressive liberal, had undertaken a series of social reforms aimed at undermining the power of the regular clergy, the main member of the Conservative Party along with the Aycinena Clan. He canceled the tithes, promulgated the divorce law and eliminated many of the privileges of the convents; Unsurprisingly, the secular clergy—who had not been expelled in 1829—presented the reforms not as an attack on the economic interests of the Church, but as an affront to the Christian faith, and stirred up the peasant population against the government. "heretic".

Pushed by liberal reforms and conservative propaganda, insurgent movements began in the mountains of Guatemala and Rafael Carrera y Turcios was their top leader; Among the rebellious troops were numerous indigenous people who fought for two years to achieve the Guatemalan secession from the federation, which was achieved in 1838 with the dissolution of the federation. The uprisings began by assaulting the towns, without giving them the opportunity to meet with government troops and propagating the idea of Gálvez's enemies, which consisted of accusing him of poisoning river waters to spread morbus cholera the population. This accusation favored Carrera's objectives, turning a large part of the population against Mariano Gálvez and the liberals; even the liberals themselves began to attack Gálvez for his violent military methods—including scorched earth tactics on uprising towns.

Independence of Los Altos

The Los Altos area was populated mostly by indigenous people, who had maintained their ancestral traditions and their lands in the cold highlands of western Guatemala. Throughout the colonial era there had been revolts against the Spanish government. independence, the local mestizos and criollos favored the liberal party, while the indigenous majority was in favor of the Catholic Church and, therefore, conservative.

During the administration of the government of Mariano Gálvez, Los Altos disapproved of the changes introduced by the head of government, but the leaders of the region were not conservatives, but liberals who opposed Gálvez. For their part, the criollos and Ladinos from Los Altos resented the Guatemala City merchants—members of the Aycinena Clan—who monopolized the trade and strongly opposed the construction of a Pacific port and highway to serve Los Altos. to trade with foreign countries directly.

In May 1836, a local newspaper proposed the formation of a state that would include the regions of Quetzaltenango, Totonicapán, Sololá, and Suchitepéquez, which would have around two hundred thousand inhabitants and would allow them greater freedom of action and better representation before the Central American Federation.

When the government of Gálvez fell, the Creole representatives of Los Altos took the opportunity to separate from the State of Guatemala on February 2, 1838. Governor Valenzuela could not do anything about it, and the Congress of the Central American Federation recognized the Sixth State on June 5, 1838 with a provisional government junta made up of Marcelo Molina Mata, José M. Gálvez and José A. Aguilar, while the Mexican general Agustín Guzmán —former officer of the army of Vicente Filísola who had settled in Quetzaltenango — was left in command of the State Army. The flag of Los Altos was a modification of that of the United Provinces of Central America, with a shield in the center showing a volcano in the background and a resplendent quetzal —a local bird that represented the freedom— ahead. It was the first Central American flag that used the quetzal as a symbol; This bird has been part of the Guatemalan flag since 1871. Finally, in December 1838, Molina was elected as Governor of the State, and he immediately began working on the development of the port on the Pacific and improving relations with the federal government in San Salvador.

In October 1838 Carrera invaded El Salvador, but was defeated by Morazán's forces. Replenished, on April 13, 1839, Carrera took the Plaza de Guatemala by surprise, placing Mariano Rivera Paz in the Government. Part of the city's population, which had suffered the excesses of the liberal triumph ten years earlier and which was against Gálvez's "anti-Christian" reforms, supported Carrera. However, on December 29, 1839, he was defeated in Villa Nueva by the army of General Carlos Salazar Castro, in view of which the El Rinconcito treaty was signed, forcing Carrera to lay down his arms, granting him the position of commander of the district. from Mita.

On March 18, 1840, when the liberal leader Morazán was the head of state of El Salvador, he invaded Guatemala with 1,500 soldiers to eliminate once and for all the conservative threat to Central America that had its main bulwark in Guatemala. Morazán easily seized the capital, as Carrera feigned a withdrawal. When the invaders celebrated and began the looting of the city, Carrera attacked them with four hundred soldiers and artillery pieces and attacked the square, having triumphed and recovered the city the next day, March 19. The disaster was such that Morazán had to flee Guatemala with those closest to him shouting "Long live Carrera!" to save his life, while his soldiers remained in the city, at the mercy of Carrera's troops.

Shortly after, Rafael Carrera, upon learning that Los Altos had once again declared itself independent, thinking that Morazán had defeated it, led his forces against that State and reincorporated it into the State of Guatemala in 1840.

The Conservative government of the “Thirty Years”

Already in power, Rafael Carrera would begin the construction of a conservative regime, reversing the liberal reforms made previously. The Liberals accused him of being an illiterate military man, and it was said that he signed with the name "Racaraca", the name by which he would come to be known by Guatemalans, although he was better known by this name by the Liberals, who called him that. in a derogatory way, alluding to his illiteracy, while by conservatives, he was better known as "Caudillo Adorado de los Pueblos". He was a military strategist, who defeated El Salvador and Honduras in the Battle of La Arada. The following international events conditioned the government of General Carrera: the Civil War of the United States, the expansion of England, particularly in Belize, Roatán in Honduras and the Kingdom of Mosquitia in Nicaragua, the military occupation of Mexico by the United States that gave as a result, the incorporation into this country of nearly 900,000 km² of Mexicans, the "gold rush" in California, and the declaration of Nicaragua as one more State of the United States (slaveholder and English-speaking), governed by William Walker, and that triggered the War against the Filibusters.

Carrera was named president for life in 1854 and ruled Guatemala until his death on Good Friday, April 14, 1865 after being poisoned while on vacation in Escuintla.

Belgian colonization of 1844

Map of the Izabal Lake region and the St. Thomas district. The region in yellow corresponds to the area that had been granted perpetuity by Carrera for the Belgian colony.

In 1844, the district of Santo Tomás de Castilla was colonized by the Union Community, sponsored by the Belgian Colonization Company; the government of the State of Guatemala, led by Rafael Carrera, had granted the district of Santo Tomás to said company through the decree of the Constituent Assembly of Guatemala on May 4, 1843. The Belgians converted to Catholicism and brought with them Jesuit priests, who were returning to Guatemala for the first time since the order was expelled in 1765; However, the inhospitable nature of the region did not allow the colony to prosper, which disappeared in 1850.

Creation of the Republic of Guatemala

On March 21, 1847, a decree was signed proclaiming Guatemala as a sovereign and independent Republic, definitively separating it from the Federal Republic of Central America, and he called himself "founder of the New Republic". With this measure, Guatemala was able to initiate its actions as a sovereign State and establish relations with the European powers. During this period the Battle of the Plowing and the War against the Filibusters take place, led by William Walker. On October 22, 1851, President Mariano Paredes resigned and the National Assembly appointed Rafael Carrera to replace him; Carrera took possession on November 6, 1851.

Battle of the Plowing

Salvadoran ruler Doroteo Vasconcelos gave asylum to Guatemalan liberals, among whom was José Francisco Barrundia who founded a newspaper to attack Carrera, taking advantage of events such as the Marimbero attack. Vasconcelos fed the rebel faction "La Montaña" in eastern Guatemala for a whole year, distributing money and weapons among the rebels. At the end of the year 1850, Vasconcelos felt tired of this slow war against Guatemala and decided to act openly. Thus, the Salvadoran president began a crusade against the conservative regime of Guatemala, inviting Honduras and Nicaragua to participate in the alliance; but of both governments, only the Honduran one led by Juan Lindo agreed to participate in the invasion.

Meanwhile, in Guatemala, where the invasion plans against him were well known, the president of Mariano Paredes takes the necessary precautions to face the situation, while the archbishop don Francisco de Paula García Peláez orders in his archdiocese rogations of peace.

On January 4, 1851, the presidents of Honduras and El Salvador met in Ocotepeque, with which the alliance against Guatemala was sealed. The Salvadoran army was made up of four thousand men, fully ammunitioned and supported by artillery; Hondurans for their part prepared two thousand men for the campaign. The bulk of the allied forces was located in Metapán, as this is a location close to Honduras and the Guatemalan border.

The "battle of the Plowing" was fought on February 2, 1851 near the city of Chiquimula in Guatemala, between the forces of Guatemala and an allied army of Honduras and El Salvador. The battle was part of the war between the conservative government of Guatemala against the liberal coalition of El Salvador and Honduras, and was the most obvious threat to Guatemala of losing its sovereignty as a Republic. The combat was resolved with a resounding victory for Carrera's forces, which definitively sealed his hegemony in the region. A few months later, on October 22, 1851, President Paredes resigned; the National Assembly appointed Carrera to replace him, and he took possession of the Presidency on November 6, 1851 after having requested the representatives to modify the Constitution of the Republic at their convenience.

Concordat of 1852

Captain General Rafael Carrera and Turcios.

In 1854, a concordat was established with the Holy See, through which Guatemala granted the education of the Guatemalan people to the regular orders of the Catholic Church, promised to respect ecclesiastical properties and monasteries, authorized mandatory tithing, and it allowed the bishops to censor what was published in the country; in exchange for this, Guatemala received indulgences for members of the army, allowed those who had acquired the properties that the liberals had expropriated from the Church in 1829 to keep them, received taxes on the income generated by the properties of the Church, and had the right to to judge ecclesiastics who perpetrated crimes under Guatemalan law. The concordat was in force until the fall of the conservative government of Marshal Vicente Cerna y Cerna.

War against the Freebooters

José Víctor Zavala when he was a colonel of the Guatemalan conservative army. He was the commander of the Guatemalan forces during the War against the Filibusters. He reached the Marshal degree.

On May 5, 1856, General Mariano Paredes, former president of Guatemala, left with five hundred men for Nicaragua. Carrera himself and some of the leading members of Guatemalan society were on the expedition. The United States had recognized the Nicaraguan government of William Walker, to which all the conservative governments of Central America responded by sending armies to overthrow the filibuster. It is important to emphasize that in 1856, the United States was not yet the foreign power in which it became after being on the winning side of the First and Second World War); rather, they were in the midst of the internal upheavals that resulted in the Civil War.

The then Colonel José Víctor Zavala joined the Guatemalan column in El Salvador, where he was then, and Francisco Dueñas, the new president of El Salvador, mobilized eight hundred men at the head of General Ramón Belloso. Zavala ended up commanding the contingent of Guatemala during the Nicaraguan National War in 1856, as part of the Central American Allied Army after the death of General Mariano Paredes. During the conflict, Zavala fell out with the commander-in-chief of the allies, the Salvadoran Belloso. On October 12, 1856, during the siege of Granada, Zavala performed an act of bravery by crossing the city square towards the house where the filibusters were sheltering under intense fire, managing to tear off the enemy's flag; likewise, Zavala received the city of Rivas under his authority on May 1, 1857, once William Walker surrendered.

Wyke-Aycinena Treaty: Belize Boundary Convention

The area that Belize occupies in the Yucatán peninsula was never occupied by Spain or Guatemala, although Spain did carry out some exploratory expeditions in the 16th century that they served as the basis for later claiming the area as its own; Guatemala simply inherited that argument to claim the territory, despite the fact that it never sent expeditions to the area after independence due to the wars that took place in Central America between 1821 and 1860. For their part, the English had established small settlements since the middle of the 17th century, mainly for buccaneer bases and later for logging; the settlements were never recognized as British colonies although they were somewhat governed by the English government in Jamaica. In the 18th century Belize became the main smuggling point in Central America, although later the English recognized Spanish sovereignty in the region through the treaties of 1783 and 1786, in exchange for ending hostilities with Spain and for the Spanish to authorize the subjects of the British Crown to exploit the precious woods that were in Belize.

After the independence of the Central American region from the Spanish Crown in 1821, Belize became the spearhead of British commercial penetration in the Central American isthmus; British trading houses established themselves in Belize and began prosperous trade routes with the Caribbean ports of Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

The Liberals seized power in Guatemala in 1829 after defeating and expelling members of the Aycinena Clan and the regular clergy of the Catholic Church and initiated a formal but unsuccessful claim over the Belizean region; this, despite the fact that by On the other hand, Francisco Morazán —then president of the Central American Federation— personally began commercial deals with the British, especially the mahogany trade. In Guatemala, Governor Mariano Gálvez granted several territorial concessions to English citizens, among them the best hacienda in Verapaz, Hacienda de San Jerónimo; these British deals were taken advantage of by the parish priests in Guatemala—since the secular clergy had not been expelled for not having property or political power—to accuse the liberals of heresy and initiate a peasant revolution against the liberal heretics and in favor of true truth. religion. When Rafael Carrera came to power in 1840 after the triumph of the revolution, not only did he not continue with the claims on Belizean territory, but he established a Guatemalan consulate in the region to watch over Guatemala's interests in that important commercial point. Belizean trade was predominant in the region until 1855, when the Colombians built a transoceanic railroad in Panama in 1855, allowing trade to flow more efficiently in the Guatemalan Pacific ports; from this point on, Belize began to decline in importance.

When the Caste War began in Yucatán —an indigenous uprising that left thousands of European settlers murdered— the Belizean and Guatemalan representatives went on alert; Yucatecan refugees came fleeing to Guatemala and Belize, and even the superintendent of Belize came to fear that Carrera—given his strong alliance with the indigenous Guatemalans—was propitiating indigenous revolutions in Central America. In the 1850s, the English proved to have good will towards the Central American countries: they withdrew from the Mosquito Coast in Nicaragua and began negotiations that would result in the return of the territory in 1894, returned the Bay Islands to Honduras, and even negotiated with the American filibuster William Walker in an effort to to prevent it from invading Honduras after seizing Nicaragua. And they signed a treaty on the sovereignty of Belize with Guatemala, a treaty that has since been reported in Guatemala as the biggest mistake of the conservative government of Rafael Carrera.

Aycinena, as Foreign Minister, had made an effort to maintain cordial relations with the British Crown. In 1859, the threat of William Walker appeared again in Central America; In order to obtain the necessary weapons to confront it, the Carrera regime had to cede the territory of Belize to the British Empire. On April 30, 1859, the convention was held between the representatives of Great Britain and Guatemala to define the limits with Belize, after which a decree was issued in which Guatemala was favored in the seventh article, which stipulates that England would open by his account a land communication route from Belize City to Guatemala City.

The controversial Wyke-Aycinena treaty of 1859 had two parts: the first six articles clearly defined the Guatemala-Belize border and in them Guatemala recognized English sovereignty over the territory of Belize; for its part, the seventh article deals with the construction of a road to Guatemala City, which would be beneficial to both parties, since Belize had lost its commercial importance since the construction of the transoceanic railway in Panama in 1855 and Guatemala needed an efficient communication route to the Atlantic coast. However, the road was never built, first because the terms of the article were unclear, leading to disputes between Guatemalans in English over the exact location of the road, and then, after the overthrow of the Conservatives in 1871, the Liberals used the argument that the road was not built and rendered the treaty void.

The treaty was ratified by Carrera on May 1, 1859, while the British consul in Guatemala, Charles Lennox Wyke, traveled to Great Britain to obtain actual ratification, returning to Guatemala on September 26, 1859.

Death of Carrera and government of Vicente Cerna

After the death of General Carrera on April 14, 1865, Pedro de Aycinena remained in power temporarily, until Marshal Vicente Cerna y Cerna was appointed president on May 24 of that year.

Cerna continued with Carrera's conservative policy and was re-elected for another presidential term that began on May 24, 1869. But then the liberal criollos rose up in arms led by Miguel García Granados and Justo Rufino Barrios and managed to overthrow to the government of Cerna on June 30, 1871.

The Liberal Revolution of 1871

Central America in 1866, shortly after the death of General Carrera. Note that Chiapas and Soconusco were still part of Guatemala.

I pay hired laborers in Santa Rosa in 1890 according to the regulations of Jornaleros established by Barrios.

"Temporeras"—jornaleras—in a coffee farm in 1875. The temporeras went from the Guatemalan highland to work in warm places for the cutting of Arabic-style coffee, or from a tall tree. The foreman is the young man. Photograph by Eadweard Muybridge.

General Justo Rufino Barrios promoted the so-called Liberal Reform of 1871, together with General Miguel García Granados and liberal intellectuals such as Lorenzo Montúfar and Antonio Batres Jáuregui, in order to change the economy of the liberals in the country, improve their trade, and introduce new crops and manufactures that favored them. During this era, coffee became an important crop for Guatemala, favoring the Quetzaltean Creole capital that had not achieved its objectives during the short-lived Sixth State.

Three important economic factors occurred in this period:

1. The large-scale production of coffee was introduced; this was because the western liberal landowners were the main promoters of the Revolution. In addition, the introduction of the railway was due to the need to transport the grain to the ports of the country.
2. In order to reward the military who collaborated with the revolution, the Indian lands were expropriated, which were land extensions where the Guatemalan indigenous people lived since the colonial era. In addition, indigenous rotations were instituted between the properties of the new landowners.
3. There was a strong German immigration in the Verapaces, which worked decisively in the production of coffee. The German capital gave rise to neocolonial latifunds in Guatemala, turning the former colonial fiefs into capitalist property, making Guatemala a semicoloin of German imperialism at the end of the century xix.

During his administration, he undertook a vast program of reforms that included, among other aspects, the Church, the economy and education; Free public education was established through schools throughout the country, simultaneously suppressing brotherhoods and religious orders, although little progress was made in the literacy of the majority of the indigenous population. He founded the Banco Hipotecario, the Hospital de Oriente, the Polytechnic School and ordered the construction of the General Cemetery of Guatemala and the Central Penitentiary of Guatemala. In addition, during his presidency, the first telegraph and railway lines were laid in Guatemala, signing the contract for the construction of the Northern Railway.In the administrative and legal order, the Penal Code, the Military Code and the Fiscal Code were promulgated; Likewise, the departments of Retalhuleu and Baja Verapaz were created. Barrios dissolved the Legislative Assembly and convened a constituent assembly made up solely of his relatives so that they promulgated the Constitution of 1879, tailored to their needs. And, the following year, he was re-elected president for a six-year term. He also to give it the appearance of democracy, he presented his resignation to the Legislative Assembly on two occasions, which was not accepted in any of the cases.

During the government of Barrios, the Indians were stripped of their "Indian lands", which were distributed among the officers who helped him during the Liberal Reform; likewise, the "Jornaleros Regulations" were decreed, labor legislation which placed the indigenous population practically at the disposal of the interests of the new coffee planters and the traditional ones. The decree established the following for the indigenous people:

1. They were forced to work on the farms when the owners needed them and no matter where they were found.
2. They were guarded by local authorities, who were responsible for ensuring that indigenous contingents were sent to the farms.
3. They were subject to “habilitation”: early forced payment, indebtedness of the worker and justification of their shipment to the farms and their retention in them.
4. Creation of the "jornal book": proof of the worker's solvency against his employer, and without which the worker was subject to the rites of the authorities and the owners of farms.

As a result of this regulation, there was a notable increase in exports, and trade with capitalist countries was activated; both the old aristocratic conservatives and the new coffee landowners benefited from these measures. Now, there was a conservative landowner who was attacked and stripped of the privileges he had enjoyed during the 30-year government: the senior clergy of the Catholic Church. The coffee liberals were forced to attack the Church because of its power and because of its strong opposition to sharing power with the liberals.

Limits of Guatemala and Mexico (1896). "This boundary agreement, with which a long period of negotiations was concluded and the subsequent route of the border, which was its consequence, constituted for Guatemala fundamental facts in its history of the end of the century. xix. By this treaty, Guatemala renounced not only to discuss its rights to Chiapas and Soconusco, but to the rights themselves. The opportunity was definitively closed for subsequent claims, without even asking for anything in return; this agreement hermetically closed the door to any subsequent claim, as Guatemala yielded Chiapas and Soconusco, expressly and categorically renounced all compensation or compensation. This is a unique example, in the annals of International Law, of an arrangement between two countries in which one of them came to make generous surrender of their positions and definitively closed the door of subsequent claims, without asking for anything in return." —Solis Castañeda, 2013

Death of General Barrios in the Battle of Chalchuapa on April 2, 1885.

On the other hand, Barrios fiercely persecuted the opposition, forcing many Guatemalans to flee into exile; 1874 was the most devastating of those recorded in that year in the entire world. Not only was the town of Parramos completely destroyed, but bands of outlaws armed with knives and other sharp weapons tried to assault the victims and rob them what little they had left; Fortunately, the gangs were captured by the police of the government of General Justo Rufino Barrios and summarily executed.

By 1881, relations between President Justo Rufino Barrios and the representatives of the Catholic Church had improved and the president sent Ángel María Arroyo as plenipotentiary minister before the Holy See to work on a new concordat, to replace the Concordat of 1852. The document was ready on July 2, 1884, but it was not discussed in the Assembly of 1885 because it was not included in the legislative agenda; however, after the death of President Barrios that year, his successor, the General Manuel Lisandro Barillas Bercián no longer ratified the treaty. Barrios, who had ambitions to reunify Central America, having meddled in the politics of neighboring countries, mainly Honduras and El Salvador, and having obtained the support of Mexico by ceding Chiapas and Soconusco unconditionally in 1882, he led Guatemala to war against El Salvador in an attempt to achieve this end but died in the Battle of Chalchuapa on April 2. l of 1885 without being able to achieve his mission.

Government of Manuel Lisandro Barillas

Following the resignation of President Alejandro M. Sinibaldi, provisional who served after the violent death of General Justo Rufino Barrios in 1885, the National Assembly declares that the second designated to the Presidency of the Republic will assume power. The indicated person was General Manuel Lisandro Barillas. who arrived at the moment of the burial of General Justo Rufino Barrios and demanded that Juan Martín Barrundia — until a few days before Barrios' Minister of War and the main candidate to remain in the presidency — be handed over power, arguing that a regular number of troop came with him, indicating to Barrundia that the troop was stationed in the vicinity of the city. Before Barillas used that ruse to press for the immediate entry of the presidency, he held the position of Quetzaltenango's chief politician. The troops of which he spoke did not exist and so he marched to the Government Palace to assume the first magistracy of the Nation. When Barrundia understood his mistake, it was already too late; he decided to leave the country for a while, since he had the necessary means to do so. Barrundia returned to Guatemala in 1888, finally settling in Mexico from where he published pamphlets against the Barillas government. He finally called elections, which he easily won. In order to perpetuate himself in power, he changed the constitution of the Republic to his taste and whim and extended the constitutional mandate for six years. During that government, numerous enemies of the regime were shot and many people who did not share Barillas' political thinking were expelled from the country. Among the rebellions that he quelled with blood and fire, the one in Huehuetenango in 1887 is historically noted, which gave him the opportunity to suspend constitutional guarantees and dissolve the Legislative Assembly and then convene a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution adapted to the ruler's aspirations.

After the overthrow of the Salvadoran president by Carlos Ezeta in El Salvador, Salvadoran presidential designee Camilo Álvarez and numerous enemies of the new regime took refuge in Guatemala and asked President Barillas for help in stopping Ezeta's armies, which intended to invade Guatemala; the real intention was to recover the government in his country using the Guatemalan army. Convinced by the rumors, the troops mobilized to the border, with Camilo Álvarez among them, who had even appointed his ministers. The Guatemalan troops no longer advanced. Even the Ezeta army had the luxury of returning to the Salvadoran capital to quell an uprising. Already at the border, Guatemala continued without moving its troops; and the matter ended with the intervention of the members of the Diplomatic Corps, who signed a peace agreement, on August 21, 1890. Ironically, the Guatemalans called this the "totoposte war", since it only served to mobilize grain of ground corn (totoposte) to feed troops that never fought, which seriously damaged the country's economy.

Barillas awarded scholarships to study in Europe to the most outstanding medical students at the National University, and also to writers, such as Enrique Gómez Carrillo, who was awarded a scholarship to study in Madrid. He founded the Faculty of Western Medicine and on June 28, 1888, he created the Normal School for Young Ladies.

In terms of infrastructure, he left the construction of the Northern Railroad abandoned despite the fact that Barrios had left a fund for it, and instead he took care of the channeling of the Motagua river, a work that provoked strong criticism of corruption for the large sums from the national treasury that were used. During his government, the "Teatro Carrera" was remodeled, which was renamed "Teatro Colón" and was demolished in 1923 after the damage from the 1917-18 earthquakes. By 1898, when the transfer of power to Reyna Barrios took place, the central park of Guatemala already had public lighting.

In the 1892 elections, it was the first time that the parties made propaganda in the newspapers of the time. Barillas Bercián was a unique case among all the liberal presidents that Guatemala had between 1871 and 1944: he handed over power to his successor peacefully.

German colonization of Verapaz

There was a strong German immigration in Verapaces, which collaborated decisively in the production of coffee. The production of coffee for export carried out by the Germans was based on a system of feudal origin promoted by the liberal government of Justo Rufino Barrios who did not intend to improve the living conditions of the indigenous peasants but rather that the indigenous communal property would pass into the hands of private owners who accumulated the agricultural capital. Furthermore, the communal lands were preferably awarded to foreigners after being declared uncultivated since Barrios himself considered that "a German was worth two hundred Guatemalan peasants".

Alta Verapaz was where the Germans concentrated: at the end of the xix century, German farmers managed to accumulate in their hands three quarters of the total extension of the 8686 km² that the department had. In addition, it was found that the peasants fled their towns so as not to fall into the hands of the farmers, who, in addition to dispossessing them of their lands, forced them to work on coffee plantations and mills. Many of the new German landowners were capitalists or enjoyed credits in powerful banks or commercial houses of Hamburg. It is estimated that by 1898 —the year in which the government of Manuel Estrada Cabrera began—, the Germans had invested in Guatemala more than one hundred and twenty million US dollars.

For the export of coffee, the Germans built the Verapaz Railroad, which was founded on January 15, 1894 through the signing of a ninety-year contract between the state of Guatemala. This contract provided for the construction, maintenance and operation of a railway section between the Fluvial Port of Panzós and the area of Pancajché, thirty miles long. In addition to the terminals at Panzós and Pancajché, there were stations at Santa Rosita, La Tinta, and Papalhá. In 1898, it was reported that given the wealth of coffee produced in Cobán, then the third largest city in Guatemala, the railway was being extended from Panzós to that city. The railway was in continuous use until 1965.

Cobán in the 1890s

Church of the Central Park

Market

Church of Calvary

In the 1890s, during the government of General José María Reyna Barrios, the renowned anthropologist Alfred Percival Maudslay visited Coban and published these photographs in his book A Glimpse at Guatemala.

Café Crash of 1897

In March 1897, coinciding with the start of the Central American Exposition, the cultural magazine La Ilustración Guatemalteca published a detailed analysis of the economic situation in Guatemala. bad situation and they had wanted to improve their credits by demanding fiduciary guarantees, withdrawing credits and issuing circulars with which they achieved general panic among the Guatemalan population. On the other hand, some banks had considerably increased the interest rate taking advantage of the concession they had from the government to issue tickets.

According to the analysis of La Ilustración Guatemalteca, in March 1897 there was a complete stoppage in business due to an almost absolute lack of cash, a very serious situation that was beginning to affect trade, agriculture, industry and other sources of wealth. The causes of this serious problem were the excessive development that the government of Reina Barrios had given to fictitious needs —that is, the beautification of Guatemala City, the Acatán project and the millionaire spending in the Central American Exhibition—without having taken into account the true state of the national accounts and for which he needed many private resources obtained through bonds. This attitude had been transferred to the population in general, since the families had entered in a time of luxury and vanity in which carriages, stables, footmen in luxurious livery, visits to the theater and other things were spent on which more was spent than families had from income; this resulted in the abuse of credit and speculation. It was considered by then that the only solution was a complete austerity with a plan of economies and the absolute abstention from all unnecessary waste and it was feared that a state bankruptcy would be reached.

In summary, there was no balance left that could balance the balance of Guatemalan trade in 1897 and austerity measures were recommended and that a long-term loan be negotiated under good conditions, and that it not be like those that until then they had been made by the Guatemalan governments that not only had excessive interests, but were not administered honestly.

On March 10, the opposition newspaper La República published that there was no rejoicing among the Guatemalan population for the Exposition, despite its majesty; Said apathy was due to concern about the economic and political events of recent months. In another strong article against the government, they accused the water management —which was obtained in part from the Acatán project— of deficient and that it was being using in the sources of the Exhibition, leaving the population of Guatemala City without supplies. For these publications, the newspaper was temporarily closed by the government of Reina Barrios, although it was reopened a few months later.

The consequences of the failure of the Exposition were considerable for Guatemala, as the lack of international investment left the country without sufficient funds to meet the loans made to meet the ambitious objectives of the Exposition. On the other hand, when Reina Barrios tried to extend her mandate to resolve the situation, the revolutions of September 1897 took place, which triggered a series of events that concluded when Edgar Zollinger assassinated President Reina Barrios on February 8, 1898. And, Finally, the foreign debt with English banks inherited by Reina Barrios' successor, Manuel Estrada Cabrera, forced him to seek economic and military support from the United States, in order to avoid a possible English military invasion that would collect said debt.

First half of the 20th century

Government of Manuel Estrada Cabrera

Bachelor Manuel Estrada Cabrera during his fourth presidential term.
President of Guatemala
He ruled between 1898 and 1920.

Caricature of the policy of the "Gran Garrote" (in English "Big Stick") of the government of the U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, who kept all the countries of the Caribbean under a fierce rule so that the construction of the Panama Canal would happen smoothly. Possibly, the most active military officer of the Banana Wars has been Major General of the United States Marine Corps Smedley Butler. Butler fought in Honduras in 1903 and served in Nicaragua from 1909 to 1912; in addition, he was decorated with the Medal of Honor for his performance in Veracruz in 1914 and received another for the "repression of the Caco resistance" in Haiti in 1915. In 1935 he wrote in his famous book War is a thief: "I have served for 30 years and four months in the most combative units of the U.S. Armed Forces: in the Marine Corps. I have the feeling that I have acted during all that time as a highly qualified bandit at the service of the big Wall Street companies and their bankers. In other words, I have been a gang member at the service of capitalism. In this way, in 1914 I affirmed the security of oil interests in Mexico, Tampico in particular. I contributed to transforming Cuba into a country where the people of the National City Bank could quietly double the benefits. I participated in the "cleanness" of Nicaragua, from 1902 to 1912, on account of the international banking firm Brown Brothers Harriman. In 1916, on account of the great American sugar mills, I gave the Dominican Republic the "civilization". In 1923 I "understood" the affairs in Honduras in the interest of U.S. fruit companies. In 1927, in China, I strengthened the interests of Standard Oil. When I look back I think I could have given Al Capone some suggestions. He, like a gangster, operated in three districts of a city. I, like Marine, operated on three continents. »

During the government of the first civilian president of Guatemala, Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1898-1920), the United Fruit Company (UFCO) became the main economic force in Guatemala, with large concessions granted by the government since Estrada Cabrera had shares in the company, and he was also interested in obtaining US support to prevent a possible attack by the British fleet (which was very possible due to the debts left by his predecessor, General Reyna Barrios after the failure of the Central American Exposition); Regarding the foreign policy of the United States for Central America, it consisted of maintaining similar governments and the most peaceful possible to facilitate the construction of the interoceanic canal that was first planned for Nicaragua, then in Colombia and finally in Panama, after the separation of Panama of Colombia This North American economic policy was known as the "Big Stick of the Banana Wars of Teddy Roosevelt —president of the United States at the time— and his operations frequently had the military support of the United States Marines.

These military interventions were carried out so frequently that the Marines created and published in 1921 a manual of tactics and strategies applicable to small-scale wars.

Regarding neighboring countries, Estrada Cabrera had to keep the governments of Mexico, El Salvador and Nicaragua on the sidelines, whose presidents intended to have a decisive influence on Guatemala, and even attempted to invade it on several occasions.

Following the style of the time, he did not tolerate opposition to his government, he persecuted his political enemies and restricted the freedom of the press, but despite this, he is considered an efficient administrator, since he managed to maintain the economy of the country despite the fact that it was affected by:

• The debt to the British banks inherited from the government of José María Reyna Barrios.
• The construction of the Panama Canal, which made it useless to build the interocean railway in Guatemala and provoked tension with presidents José Santos Zelaya of Nicaragua and Porfirio Díaz of Mexico.
• The variability in the price of coffee, the main export product of Guatemala during the liberal regimes.
• The political, economic and military impositions of the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany during the First World War, and finally,
• The earthquakes of 1917-18, which destroyed more than half of Guatemala City.

UFCO controlled more than 40% of the country's land, all of the railroad and the facilities of Puerto Barrios, the only port on the Atlantic coast of Guatemala and El Salvador; this situation would remain until 1944.

Guatemala: a Banana Republic ("Banana Republic")

Cabbages and Kings (Repollos and Kings) by O. Henry, a book published in 1904, popularizing the pejorative term "Banana Republic".

The derogatory term "Banana Republic" is often used to describe small countries that are poor and underdeveloped and have an unstable government, rampant corruption, and a submissive relationship with the United States. The term was coined by the American writer O. Henry, who used it to describe the imaginary country "Anchuria" in his novel "Cabbages and Kings". Henry was inspired by what he saw during a trip to Honduras, which had been invaded. in 1910 by the Cuyamel Fruit corporation, and which was about to go to war due to corporate rivalries with its neighbor, the Guatemala of Manuel Estrada Cabrera, which in turn was controlled by the United Fruit Company. Other writers continued to use the term to describe the corrupt countries of Central America and the almost absolute power that the North American fruit companies had in them.

San Perfecto earthquake

The San Perfecto earthquake occurred on the night of April 18, 1902 and had an estimated magnitude of Mw 7.5 in the department of Quetzaltenango. The earthquake lasted approximately one and a half minutes and was preceded by several premonitory earthquakes and followed by many aftershocks. Between eight hundred and nine hundred people died from the earthquake and there was significant material damage in the extensive area affected. All churches in western Guatemala and eastern Chiapas were severely damaged or destroyed.

San Perfect Earthquake

The Ciénaga

Church of the Holy Spirit

Electrical company

Church of St. Nicholas

Photographs of the catastrophe published by Julio Yaquier.

Eruption of the Santa María volcano in 1902

In April 1902, it destroyed Quetzaltenango and a large part of the western region of Guatemala, and then on October 24 of that same year they were again affected by the strong eruption of the Santa María volcano. The volcano had been inactive since the Spanish conquest in 1524 and had an almost perfect cone of 3768 meters high. The eruption was more devastating than the earthquake, since it also caused extensive damage to nearby farms and villages and there are accounts that the sand and ash covered the Chiapas region, in Mexico. It is estimated that the catastrophe caused five thousand deaths and thousands of pesos in agricultural and material losses.

Social Structure of Guatemala

Caricature of A. N. Campos showing how the government of Manuel Estrada Cabrera is based on crimes against humanity. Freedom Board, 1914, p. 2

In 1920, Prince William of Sweden visited Guatemala and gave an objective description of both Guatemalan society at the time and the government of Estrada Cabrera in his book Between two continents, notes from a journey in Central America, 1920 —Between two continents, notes from a trip to Central America, 1920— The The prince explained the dynamics of Guatemalan society that he observed, indicating that although Guatemala called itself the Republic, it actually had three clearly defined social classes:

1. Criollos: a minority formed by families descending from the Spaniards who conquered Central America and who were in charge of both political parties in the country by 1920. By that year, they had related to foreigners, mainly Europeans and the vast majority of them had indigenous blood in their veins. Criollos led the country both politically and intellectually, partly because their education, although poor for the European standards of the time, was enormously superior to that of the rest of the country's population, partly because only the families of abolengo had access to the political parties at that time, and finally, because those families controlled most of the country's arable lands.
2. Ladinos: the middle class, formed by people who were born from the crossing between natives, blacks and Creoles. In 1920 they had no power, although they formed the bulk of the groups of artisans, shop owners, merchants and low-ranking officers in the army.Only in the east of the country they could be found in agricultural labors.
3. Indigenous people: the vast majority of the population. Analphabets and reluctant to any form of change have been used in the army for their qualities, reaching positions of middle commands, for their qualities of being reluctant to participate in political activities and their innate respect for the government and the officers. In 1920, they constituted the main source of agricultural labour and were in three major categories:
   1. Colon times: they lived in plantations. They were given a small land to be cultivated on their own, in exchange for them to work on plantations for certain periods of time.
   2. Jordanian prayers: workers per day, who were hired to work on the farms for a certain time. They were paid a daily wage. In theory, each young man was free to do whatever he wanted to do with his work, but they were actually tied to plantations for economic issues. They couldn't leave a place, but they didn't pay everything they owed to the landlord, who from the beginning encouraged them to borrow from him or her through credits and cash loans, until they reached a point where they could not pay the debt and were in a position of bondage. If the mozos fled, the owners of the farms could cause them to persecute and imprison them, and all the cost of the expenses of the persecution were charged to the debt of the slain. On the other hand, if anyone refused to work, he was placed in prison without further formality. Daily payments were extremely low.
   3. Independent artisans: those indigenous people who lived in the most remote provinces and survived by cultivating corn, beans or rice. His surplus sold him in the community markets and frequently transported his products behind him.

After Estrada Cabrera

The "People's House" in December 1919, at the time of signing the Three Double Act. The conservative leaders of Guatemala are seen sitting at the front of the photograph.

Route map of the Starfleet of the United Fruit Company, which had the monopoly of transporting cargo and people from and to Puerto Barrios.

After the Tragic Week that culminated in the surrender of Estrada Cabrera on April 14, 1920, interim president Carlos Herrera y Luna inherited fiscal, monetary, and banking disorder, with galloping inflation; He opposed ratifying several contracts with North American companies that Estrada Cabrera had signed and that Herrera considered harmful to the country, among these contracts were:

• Sale of the Electrical Company, which had been expropriated to the German shareholders after the First World War
• Contract with the International Railways of Central America (IRCA)—a company of the United Fruit Company—to bring into force the 1908 Méndez-Williamson Railway Contract signed in the period of President Manuel Estrada Cabrera. The contract was harmful to Guatemala and concerned to make the necessary arrangements in order to begin the work of the Railway, which would communicate to Guatemala with El Salvador, on the route Zacapa-Anguiatú—the latter, border with El Salvador.
• Contract on Light, Heat and Power Service with Central America Power Company
• Contract with Washington Serruys, for the installation of an electric tram
• Contract between the Ministry of Development and All America Cables Incorporated Company, for the establishment in the capital of a public cable office.

Regarding education, Herrera dissolved the Estrada Cabrera University, which had been founded in 1918, and substituted it with the Faculty schools of the National University, which he granted autonomy for the election of authorities. But at that time there were barely three hundred students in the entire university, and illiteracy in the country was 93%, mainly due to the "day laborers law" that Justo Rufino Barrios had instituted and that forced indigenous day laborers to work in the farms, without giving them time for their education. The governments of Orellana and Chacón undertook an educational reform, granting scholarships abroad to graduates of the Normal School for Men and other teachers' schools in the country.

The Power of the United Fruit Company in the Orellana government

General José María Orellana - seated to the center- and back, Major General José Gabriel Reyes Rodas and his larger flat inside the Polytechnic School after overthrowing President Carlos Herrera the coup d'état of 1921.

In mid-1924, the port workers of Puerto Barrios, key to banana exports and imports to Guatemala, demanded an eight-hour day and increased wages. The UFCO refused to accept and did not give in; The workers then went on strike, to which all the workers of the “frutera” farms joined. The UFCO asked the government for help, which acted quickly: troops were sent to impose order in Barrios; the clash was brutal, resulting in death and injuries among the workers. The strike lasted twenty-seven days, but the repression managed to end it: twenty-two leaders were jailed and later expatriated. At the end of that year, the workers of the International Railways of Central America (IRCA) demanded a reduction in working hours, an increase in salary and respect for your organization Sociedad Ferrocarrilera. Once again, the "frutera" (owner of the IRCA) categorically refused to accept these demands and mobilized the Orellana government to violently repress the strike of 5,000 workers. A mechanism widely used by the UFCO was to buy at low prices large large amounts of land as a tool to prevent competitors from emerging and thus maintain a monopoly on banana production, including keeping vast agricultural areas uncultivated under the pretext that droughts or hurricanes forced him to keep large tracts of unused land “in reserve”.

Transitional governments

Baudilio Palma was the Secretary of the Treasury and second appointee to the Presidency of President General Lázaro Chacón González when he suffered a stroke that no longer allowed him to continue leading the government. Then Palma, in agreement with the entire cabinet, was appointed to perform the functions of president on an interim basis, despite being the second designated in the Presidency of the Republic since the first designated, General Mauro de León, was induced to resign from office.

On December 13, 1930, his appointment was approved by the National Legislative Assembly and on December 16, 1930, US President Herbert C. Hoover accepted the presidency of Palma through a telegram; In 1930, a few soldiers and members of the Progressive Party, led by Manuel María Orellana Contreras, broke into Palma's office and demanded his resignation in writing. After the fight that broke out, Palma submitted his resignation and he was arrested.

Two days later, the news was published in the newspapers, indicating that the Liberal Parties of Guatemala did not agree with the appointment of Palma, arguing that General De León was the first person appointed to the Presidency and that this did not he was respected by those who appointed Palma in charge of the Presidency.

The Orellana government was not recognized by the United States and on December 31, 1930, the Assembly accepted his resignation and appointed José María Reina Andrade as the first appointee to the presidency and division generals José Gabriel Reyes Rodas Minister of War and Rodrigo Solórzano. Reina Andrade assumed the interim presidency to call elections and the second José Reyes as first designated, in which Jorge Ubico won as the sole candidate in the 1931 elections, took office on February 14.

Government of General Jorge Ubico

President José María Orellana and his first president, Jorge Ubico Castañeda. Photograph of 1922.

After the death of José María Orellana, and after participating in the 1926 elections, in which he lost against the also liberal Lázaro Chacón González, General Jorge Ubico Castañeda retired to private life; but with the instability that occurred after the resignation of General Chacón at the end of 1930, due to illness, and the economic crisis that existed in the country due to the Great Depression caused by the bankruptcy of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929, he got involved in the political racket again. In December 1930, interim president Baudilio Palma was overthrown and assassinated in a military coup by General Manuel María Orellana Contreras, but his government was not recognized by the president of the United States, a country that by then already had strong investments. in Guatemala, derived from the large concessions granted to the banana companies and the railways during the government of Manuel Estrada Cabrera. The National Legislative Assembly appointed José María Reina Andrade, who had been Minister of the Interior for a good part of the Estrada Cabrera government, and he immediately called for elections, to which Ubico Castañeda stood as the sole candidate.

German sailors parading in Guatemala City during a goodwill journey in 1936.

At that time, there were many countries that favored authoritarian governments; there was the fascist government of Benito Mussolini in Italy, the PRI dictatorship in Mexico, and the imperial dictatorship of Hirohito in Japan. Thus, once in power, Ubico Castañeda assumed dictatorial powers and methods of espionage and repression similar to those of Barrios and Estrada Cabrera, and maintained a puppet Legislative Assembly obedient to his commands. Intelligent, dynamic and temperamental, he was obsessed with controlling even the smallest detail of life in Guatemala, one of his main objectives being to achieve a reorganization of the public administration, for which he appointed several of his relatives, the so-called " Ubiquistas", in key government positions. His government was characterized by an effort to stabilize the state's finances, reducing public spending: he proved to be a very capable administrator by reducing the salaries of public employees by 40% to counteract the government deficit. This measure did not provoke resistance, because they began to pay in cash instead of the use of cards that could only be resold after accepting deep discounts. He also encouraged coffee production during the Depression of 1929 through the "vagrancy law". » and the «road law» Although for them it has subjected the indigenous majority of the country to practically forced labor on the coffee farms and on the roads of the country. and also by the actions of a relentless police and judiciary against crime, corruption and any kind of opposition to the regime. Finally, he completed the centralization of power by eliminating popularly elected mayors by mayors who were appointed by the president himself. Thanks to the almost free labor available by his laws, his drive for the construction of public works is significant, especially roads, for the benefit of the coffee-growing activity, dominated by German immigrants in Veparaz (where he had been Political Chief) and by Guatemalan landowners in the rest of the country. For the construction of roads, he used forced labor from indigenous people, supervised by the army's engineering corps. Through decree 1995 of 1934 he canceled the unpayable debts that the day laborers had with the landowners. But to counteract a potential shortage of labor for the farms, he promulgated Decree 1996: "The Vagrancy Law", which forced all peasants who did not have a minimum amount of land to work a certain number of days a year of service of a landowner; if this could not be verified, the day laborer had to work for free on the roads.

Ubico extended his mandate and became the country's leader, reelected several times since the population that could vote were only the inhabitants of the capital city and various departmental capitals and they were grateful to the administration for the improvement in their living conditions life. Although he was an admirer of the dictatorial governments of Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco and Adolfo Hitler, he maintained cordial relations with the United States and it can be said that his administration was maintained thanks to the banana monopoly of the "frutera" (the United Fruit Company). As the events of World War II progressed, American policy and its commitments to the "fruit bowl" forced it not only to declare war on the Axis nations—Germany, Italy, and Japan—but to allow the establishment of American bases in Guatemala. Among the benefits he received from the US government in exchange for his alliance in the war were modern weapons for the army and training at the Polytechnic School for US soldiers. In fact, Mussolini received the highest decoration in the country, the Order of the Quetzal. Later, Ubico received the Order of Isabel la Católica from the Spanish state, ruled by Franco.

General Jorge Ubico Castañeda in his official photograph. 14 February 1931.

During the government of the Third Reich (1933-1945) in Germany, in Guatemala there were rumors that the Germans in Verapaz wanted to establish themselves as a "new Germany" with Hitler's National Socialist policy. The Germans had acquired land, blocks, houses and farms thanks to the concessions of the liberal presidents who ruled Guatemala from 1885 to 1920 and enjoyed privileges during the dictatorship of General Jorge Ubico, but an incident affected the existence of the community from Verapacense: in 1935-1936, the Third Reich asked its citizens to vote on the annexation of Austria to Germany and a German ship anchored in Puerto Barrios to carry out the activity and those who attended were "files" as sympathizers of the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. The tension increased when World War II began between Germany, France and the United Kingdom in 1939 with the German invasion of Poland and came to a head when Japan, an ally of the Germans, attacked the US military base at Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii on December 7, 1941; when the United States entered the war, they forced President Jorge Ubico to expel the Germans from Guatemala and seize all their property. Male Germans were forced to leave their country of origin and were forced to join the ranks of the German army.

Ubico strongly repressed crime with the so-called Ley de Fuga, through which those accused of serious crimes were extrajudicially executed by presidential order. He also fought corruption in the State with the creation of the Comptroller General of National Accounts and the Court of Accounts. With this, prisons became a deterrent for the theft of the public treasury. He forced the legislature to decree a donation of 200,000 dollars of the time for his person for his contributions to the country. In 1944, after more than thirteen years of iron dictatorship, his government began to show clear signs of weakness. The demonstrations of the population against him multiplied, demanding his resignation. These demonstrations were led mainly by teachers and by students from the National University. On June 25, 1944, during the course of one of these demonstrations, Professor María Chinchilla was killed, which, together with the "memorandum of the 311" and popular pressure, led to the resignation of General Ubico, on June 1. In July 1944, he formally agreed to resign his position: Ubico left in power a military triumvirate made up of Generals Federico Ponce Vaides, Buenaventura Pineda and Sandoval Ariza, whom he removed from ostracism in which he kept them during his government and then left for the political exile in New Orleans, where the United Fruit Company was headquartered.

Revolution of 1944

Members of the revolutionary governing board that was installed on October 20, 1944. From left to right: Captain Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, citizen Jorge Toriello Garrido and Major Francisco Javier Arana.

General Ponce Vaides was in command for only 110 days and continued with his predecessor's repressive way of governing, instructing the police to attack his adversaries. In those days, El Imparcial then published strong editorials against the intentions of Federico Ponce Vaides to perpetuate himself in power. As a result of these events, on October 1, journalist Alejandro Córdova was assassinated in front of his residence in the capital city. The crime accelerated the preparations for the civic-military movement of October 20, 1944. All these events ended up igniting the passions that had been repressed for several years. It was October 20, 1944, when a popular uprising took place, in which lawyers, teachers, workers, university students and a part of the Army participated. The fight was established between the other part of the Army and the police who were loyal to General Ponce. After these events, the news spread that Ponce Vaides had requested political asylum in Mexico and the government had been taken over by a triumvirate made up of a civilian and two soldiers: Civilian Jorge Toriello Garrido, Major Francisco Javier Arana and Captain Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán.

The main functions of the transitional government were to repeal the decrees made by the previous administration. He called a National Constituent Assembly that produced a new Magna Carta. The Revolutionary Junta of October 20, 1944 was instituted, with the purpose of guaranteeing Guatemalans a constitutional framework to lead Guatemala to a representative democracy. Among the most important decrees signed by the Revolutionary Junta are:

• Decree No. 1 Dissolution of the National Assembly and call for the election of Members to integrate the Revolutionary Assembly.
• Decree No. 7 Decree No. 1474 has been repealed since the first of January 1945, canceling personal service (forced labour) for payment of road tax.
• Decree No. 14 The National University, called the University of San Carlos de Guatemala, is granted autonomy.

Government of Arévalo

President Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, March 15, 1945. Official photograph.

The government of the first democratically elected president in the history of Guatemala, Juan José Arévalo, distinguished himself by his numerous educational achievements and benefits for the urban middle classes; But the social elite was not satisfied with the Arevalista government, because for the first time in the country's history the urban middle class had power and had used it to get the government to adopt measures in favor of the city workers. The elite considered social reforms were harmful and considered that it was easier to make business and money—and that it was safer for them—to live in a dictatorial regime like Ubico's.

President Arévalo Bermejo began his government in 1945, and according to liberal historians from the beginning he used sometimes dissociative language, which began to polarize Guatemalan society, causing landowners the feeling that he was only the ruler of a part of Guatemalans. On the other hand, in Arévalo's autobiographical book Despacho Presidencial, it is noted that the government began with sanctions against the opposition —to the point that every time a plot against the government was suspected, they were restricted. civil liberties, suspects being arrested and then sent into exile, economic interventionism by the State with the issuance of the Economic Emergency Law— and determined support for a newly emerged trade union movement. So then, The opposition forces to the Arevalista government —i.e., moderate revolutionaries and “ubiquistas” little by little were marginalized and began to fear the implementation of socialism in the country. On the other hand, it is important to note that President Arévalo took office with limited power, restricted by the military, which was led by Lieutenant Colonel Arana.

The Arevalista government's front line of struggle was predominantly urban and, unlike its successor, it did not confront the problems of land tenure and agricultural work, despite the fact that the majority of the population was rural and indigenous. except in relation to the workers of North American technical agriculture settled in the vast and fertile regions of Bananera and Tiquisate. On the other hand, the revolutionary regime, promoted and directed by members of the middle classes directly and indirectly, strengthened the positions and increased them; that is to say, that it opted to favor the sectors of the urban and ladino population that make up what some sociologists call "the moral instances of society," that is, the university, the secondary schools (which doubled in the first 6 years), the courts, the bureaucracy (mainly the military), the press, the churches, the intellectuals, the professors and the university professionals, who were included through the obligatory registration. For its part, the landowning sector was organized through associations of farmers, merchants, industrialists, bankers, insurers and financial speculators, etc.

The prices of coffee, the main agricultural product that Guatemalans exported, since bananas were the exclusive business of the North Americans, reached the prices they had lost in 1930. And, although the first beneficiary was the coffee elite, there were a sufficient income to open new businesses or expand existing ones in the intermediate social ranks of the capital and some departmental capitals. Likewise, during the government of Arévalo there was considerable expansion of the urban and ladino middle classes of the country, which even the newly organized unionism favored, since many of the new leaders and worker deputies came from their different layers.

Multiple plots and military riots, among which stands out the military rebellion of July 18, 1949 that began with the assassination of Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Javier Arana, failed to overthrow the government of Arévalo, due to strong popular support for the that he counted, so much so that he not only managed to finish his term but was even able to hand over power in a peaceful context and democratic elections to his successor, Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán who had more radical revolutionary tendencies than those of Arévalo.

Government of Jacobo Árbenz

President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, on 16 March 1951.

He came to power after winning the elections that took place in the Republic of Guatemala in 1950. He was supported by the National Renovation and Revolutionary Action parties of the Capital and the National Integration party of Quetzaltenango. The workers, peasants, teachers and students gave him their full support, winning the electoral process.

In 1950, 76% of the inhabitants owned less than 10% of the land; while 2.2%, 70%. The United Fruit Company owned more than 50% of the arable land in the country, of which it only cultivated 2.6%; and the peasants had miserable salaries. On the other hand, since the government of Manuel Estrada Cabrera, there were US monopolies of subsidiary companies of the UFCO and that were dedicated to the transport of cargo by rail and steamships, which left Puerto Barrios, Izabal, a port controlled by the frutera . They also controlled the generation of electricity, telephones and telegraphs in the country. These companies did not pay any type of tax for the use of national resources, thanks to the generous concessions granted by Estrada Cabrera, and ratified by the governments of José María Orellana and Jorge Ubico.

In his initial speech he said:
«Our government intends to start the path of economic development in Guatemala, tending towards the following three fundamental objectives: (a) convert our country from a dependent nation and a semi-colonial economy into an economically independent country, (b) convert Guatemala from a backward country and a predominantly semi-feudal economy into a modern and capitalist country; and (c) to see that this transformation is carried out in such a way as to bring about the greatest possible elevation in the standard of living of the great masses of the people."

Jacobo Árbenz and his wife, María Cristina Vilanova de Árbenz, considered one of the most influential women in the country in the centuryXX.. He was called for his charity and leadership as the "Eva Perón" of Guatemala.

Since Árbenz was of a nationalist leftist tinge, numerous liberal authors indicate that he was a communist. Árbenz attacked the interests of the US monopolies in Guatemala, While members of his private circle were leaders of the Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT), which was Guatemala's communist party, and on the day of the death of Soviet President Josef Stalin, Congress observed a minute of silence. On the other hand, the McCarthyite environment that existed in the United States after World War II and the work of the anti-communist representative of the State Department, John Puerifoy, who was appointed US ambassador in Guatemala between November 1953 and July 1954, and coordinated CIA support for the Castillo Armas movement.

Based on his government plan, he promulgated Decree 900, to expropriate the idle land of the UFCO on June 17, 1952, which created the possibility of gaining crops for field workers who did not previously have land. Farms smaller than ninety hectares were not affected by the law, nor were farms smaller than two hundred hectares that were cultivated, at least two thirds of them. Neither are the large properties in production, whatever their size; but when colonato and sharecropping were prohibited, an attempt was made to force landowners to invest in wages. During the 18 months of application, between 603 and 615 hectares of private lands were distributed; 280 thousand hectares of national lands; and credits were granted to support production. The United Fruit Company (UFCO), which kept 85% of its 220,000 hectares uncultivated, had 156,000 hectares expropriated.

Simultaneously, the arbencista government began construction of the highway to the Atlantic to compete against the railway monopoly, which was controlled by the US fruit company through its company International Railways of Central America (IRCA); In addition, construction of the "Santo Tomás de Castilla" port began, where the Matías de Gálvez port was located, to compete with Puerto Barrios, a port controlled by the UFCO through its Great White Fleet. Finally, studies began to build the "Jurún Marinalá" generation plant, to compete with the electric company in the hands of North Americans.

Coup of 1954

{{|excerpt|Annex:Guatemalan coup of 1954}}

Counterrevolutionary Government

Commemorative seal of the 1954 invasion.

With the Constitution broken, it was not difficult to overthrow the command transition pact agreed between Árbenz and Díaz. There was no capacity for action or political response to the counterrevolutionary onslaught, led by Ambassador Peurifoy, the CIA and the State Department —led by the Dulles brothers— and US President Dwight Eisenhower, who acted out of more economic than political interests..

In El Salvador, Carlos Castillo Armas hoped to enter the country triumphantly. The problem of the triumphant entry of the Liberation Army into Guatemala City represented the breaking point between the new Government Junta and the liberationist caudillo. Or more specifically: between Castillo Armas and Colonel Monzón, who despite being a fervent anti-communist and an experienced military man in the political field, kept a certain fidelity to the armed institution. Peurifoy traveled to San Salvador to meet with the rebel leader, Carlos Castillo Armas. During the meeting, Castillo Armas had no problem making clear his desire to enter Guatemala vested with extensive personalized powers. Castillo Armas received a kind of government cabinet, made up of lawyers, businessmen and the military, who signed an agreement that can be summarized as follows: the leadership of Castillo Armas was implicitly recognized when restructuring the Governing Board, allowing his incorporation, which same as that of Major Enrique Trinidad Oliva. On the other hand, it was agreed to fight communism to the death, and the National Liberation Movement took control of public institutions and the legal legal order. On July 3, 1954, Castillo Armas emerged victorious, and was received in Guatemala City with the honors that he had demanded for himself, at the head of the liberationist Army.

The first actions of the counterrevolutionary government of Carlos Castillo Armas were to outlaw the Guatemalan Labor Party, prohibited associations, unions and political parties, suspended programs favorable to indigenous people and the working class, imposed severe censorship, dissolved Congress and began a harsh persecution against left-wing intellectuals —most of whom were forced to take refuge in the Mexican Embassy to go into exile, among whom was the ousted president Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán. The funds of the Ministry of Education were frozen and all books considered "communist" were prohibited; Likewise, hostilities began against the University of San Carlos de Guatemala, which became the main opposition force and a means of denouncing government abuses and the US invasion. But more importantly, it repealed the 1945 Constitution and the Agrarian Reform Law, contained in Decree 900, which rendered the distribution of land to peasants ineffective and all the lands that had already been distributed were returned to members of the country landowners and the United Fruit Company.

After issuing the provisional legal framework, known as the Political Statute of the Republic of Guatemala, on October 10, 1954, the military junta called a plebiscite, in which Castillo Armas obtained 99.9% of the favorable vote. The almost unanimous result reflects the absence of alternatives, since in the plebiscite the population was asked whether or not they accepted him as president of the Republic. The vote was public and compulsory, while the scrutiny was secret. And the act took place in a climate of terror that affected supporters of Árbenz and sectors of the left-wing opposition in general. In this way, Castillo Armas became President of the Republic for the period that would end on March 15, 1960, as determined by the National Constituent Assembly, which was elected at the same time.

Lastly, the new government agreed to the merger of the Guatemalan National Army with the invading Liberation Army, which provoked indignation within the armed institution, which was accused by civil society of being "traitorous" and "cowardly". ». As a consequence, in the early hours of August 2, 1954, the Company of Knights Cadet of the Guatemalan Military School rose up against the government of Carlos Castillo Armas and the Liberation Army, with a view to recovering the dignity of the institution. This uprising resulted in the rapid defeat of the Army representing the CIA, but due to the political inexperience and lack of understanding of the magnitude of the events on the part of the cadets, who were deceived by the Archbishop of Guatemala, Mariano Rossell and Arellano, who proposed a peaceful solution to the problem, but instead ordered the arrest of all the rebels. Due to this incident, the Embassy of the United States and the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional wasted no more time and merged both Armies, subjecting the members of the Guatemalan Army to a profound "political re-education" and making it anti-revolutionary, which It was one of the most decisive actions that would consolidate the counterrevolution, thus taking a great step forward to turn Guatemala into an anti-communist country.

Execution of Árbenz's main reforms

Of the arbencista projects, Castillo Armas only repealed the agrarian reform immediately after taking power, but he had to finish the highway to the Atlantic, under the direction of Engineer Juan Luis Lizarralde, Minister of Public Works, due to its importance for the country's economy; the highway was finished in 1959, and after its completion what Árbenz had expected happened: the UFCO railway could not compete against vehicular trucking. Likewise, and for the same reason, he continued with the planning work for the port of Santo Tomás and the Jurún Marinalá hydroelectric plant, which was completed and inaugurated in 1970.

As of July 19, 1954, the State recovered the lands of the national farms that had been distributed and on the 26th of the same month it annulled the Law of Decree 900, substituting it for a new Agrarian Statute; Likewise, the ownership of 78% of the subdivisions was revoked, which were returned to their former owners. In the most affected departments, such as Alta Verapaz, Escuintla, Izabal, Baja Verapaz, Chimaltenango, San Marcos and part of Quiché, there were systematic acts of violence. During this period there were numerous evictions and cases of persecution of "agrarian peasants".. This is how the peasants who had organized themselves in previous years and who had accessed the land were described. In the conception of the new regime, agrarianism was synonymous with communism, and the beneficiaries of the law were assumed to be communists. The peasants also remember that it was from this moment that the old model of feudal colony, imposed in times of war, was reactivated. Justo Rufino Barrios with his "regulations for day laborers" and perfected during the government of Jorge Ubico with his "vagrancy law" and "road law" that guaranteed the availability of practically free labor for coffee farms, the main source of income of the country.

Once in power, there is evidence of the urgency with which the liberationist government directed its actions to obtain documentation inherent to eventual "special instructions" that during the "two previous governments" had been granted to facilitate the trips of "politicians » and «communists». This was due to the urgent American need to obtain evidence about the "communist" character of the overthrown regime. The possibility of obtaining "documentary evidence" with which to expose the "communist conspiracy" in Guatemalan affairs had been defined as one of the primary objectives by the CIA, which sent several of its officers to Guatemala City during ten days for them to coordinate the creation of a local security force expert in the practices used by McCarthyism in the United States.

Murder of Castillo Armas

On the night of July 26, 1957, when Guatemala was immersed in a very serious political crisis, Carlos Castillo Armas was assassinated in the Presidential Palace, shot dead with three rifle shots. Next to his corpse was found a paper written in pencil that said: "Neither power nor money shape the World."

The first suspect was the twenty-four-year-old soldier Romeo Vásquez Sánchez, who had written in his diary «All my suffering will be extinguished with the blood of Armas». The investigators relied on the diary they found in his locker, a notebook with twenty-three pages in which he spoke of his plans: he believed that by killing the puppet of power groups in Guatemala, Castillo Armas, that would mean that Arévalo would return to power. He was aware that he could die, but he did not care: "I am a martyr and I have nothing to lose," wrote the young man, who committed suicide a few minutes after supposedly killing the president. However, the absurdity of this version made him The authenticity of the alleged diary was doubted, giving rise to several theories about possible perpetrators of the crime:

• Rafael Leónidas Trujillo: dictator of the Dominican Republic, because Castillo Armas did not grant him the Quetzal Order that would have offered him after helping him with the invasion.
• Military Rivales of Castillo Armas
• International Communism, in revenge for the overthrow of Arbenz.

Guatemalan Civil War

The Cold War

World Map in Cold War: in red tones the allies of the USSR and other communist countries, and in blue tones NATO, the United States and its capitalist allies; the red dots mean communist guerrillas and the anti-communist guerrilla blue dots. Guatemala appears in blue, with a red dot.

The Cold War was a political, economic, social, military, informational and even sports confrontation that began at the end of World War II, whose origin is usually placed in 1947, during the postwar tensions, and lasted until the dissolution of the Soviet Union between the western-capitalist blocs led by the United States, and the eastern-communist one led by the Soviet Union. The reasons for this confrontation were imperialist, ideological, and political: each of the two blocks wanted to implement their government model on the planet and use the resources of their allies at the lowest possible cost. Although this confrontation did not trigger a world war, the entity and the severity of the economic, political and ideological conflicts, which were unleashed, marked a large part of the history of the second half of the xx century all over the world. The Guatemalan Civil War ensued as a result of this conflict.

Government of Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes

In 1958, the politician and soldier Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes, a fervent anti-communist and political enemy of the progressive governments of Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, came to power after founding the Redemption Party and having the support of right-wing sectors of the army. During his government, he began a policy of reconciliation and openness that led many exiles to return to the country, including some members of the Guatemalan Workers' Party (PGT), although their activity was always considered illegal; the union movement, on the other hand, was reactivated. The features of instability were maintained with plots, attacks or social and student protests, and the will to openness soon began to close. In 1960, with the arrival of Fidel Castro to power in Cuba, Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes broke the diplomatic relations that Guatemala maintained with the island because Castro was a Marxist leader, which led Ydígoras to consent to the clandestine use of Guatemalan territory to support the preparations. Americans for the invasion of Cuba, in exchange for promoting the recovery of Belize once the Castro problem was solved. When this fact came to light, the evident violation of national sovereignty increased internal discontent, which led to an armed group attempting to storm the Cobán military base in July 1960; however, they were detained. Anti-Castro troops were trained at the Helvethia farm in Retalhuleu.

Rebellion of November 13, 1960 and the rise of the guerrilla group

Between November 11 and November 12, a group of officers gathered in Guatemala City in order to overthrow the Ydígoras government, due to the difficult situation of the military units in terms of mistreatment and deficient logistical support. On November 13, 1960, inspired and encouraged by the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, a faction of the Guatemalan Army rose up with the aim of overthrowing the government of Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes and although they failed, they opened a new type of struggle politics by forming the November 13 Revolutionary Movement (MR-13) with the aim of overthrowing the government by means of arms and contacted political groups, especially the PGT, to establish alliances. The political crisis continued and the government opened many flanks, thus beginning the guerrilla struggle in Guatemala.

Student Conference of March and April 1962

In December 1961, Ydígoras Fuentes organized an electoral fraud in the elections to elect the deputies to the Congress of the Republic. It was determined that on March 1, 1962, these deputies would take their respective positions. The university students, organized in the Association of University Students (AEU), and the secondary education students gathered in the United Front of the Organized Guatemalan Student (FUEGO) held a protest on March 1 of that year and that day, the students held a work stoppage in the different faculties and schools of the University, scattered throughout the center of the City. They hung black flags on the fronts of buildings denouncing "the death of democracy." The protest took effect. In the following days, actions against the regime grew, including large demonstrations in the streets of the capital.

These were the first days of massive struggle, since the counterrevolutionary coup of 1954. The students, using sticks, stones and some Molotov cocktails, stopped the advances of the public forces. When the government cut off the telephone network, the students reacted, occupying radio stations to broadcast their messages and thus coordinate their actions. The protests spread to the interior of the country, Chiquimula, Jutiapa, Retalhuleu, San Marcos, Huehuetenango and Quetzaltenango, the second center of student protest. Several State institutes were attacked by the Police. The mass movement in the capital had become a challenge for the government. Ydigoras attributed the riots to the communists and called on the population not to allow "communism" to "bleed" Guatemala again.

The key to Ydígoras' permanence in power was the armed forces; the students and his allies were about to take power, as they had done in the October Revolution of 1944, but Ydígoras agreed to replace his entire cabinet of ministers with the military and ordered the protests to be suppressed. A state of siege was declared, a curfew was imposed and the persecution began, which, coupled with the lack of a leader of the popular movement, gave the security forces an advantage and ended up breaking the resistance of the population. Several students were machine-gunned or captured. The popular rebellion was put down and at the end of the revolt the balance was dozens of dead and wounded, hundreds captured, and many others expelled from the country.

Coup (1963)

With the Ydígoras government on a tightrope, to calm things down, it authorized the former president, the socialist Juan José Arévalo, leader around whom the entire left was unified, to return to the country and be a candidate for the elections of 1963, and thus could be elected president for the period 1964-1970. The leadership of the Guatemalan Army and the most conservative upper classes of society strongly opposed it, fearing the possibility of a repeat of the experience of 1944-1954. At the end of March, rumors that Arévalo would enter the country increased. On March 29, all the country's newspapers published the news on their front pages that Juan José Arévalo was in Guatemala. The next day, in the early morning of March 30, 1963, Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes was overthrown by his Defense Minister, Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia, who immediately declared a state of siege and, thinking that the electoral triumph of Juan José Arévalo it was certain and inevitable, he annulled the 1963 elections, accusing Ydígoras of being about to hand over power into the hands of the enemy. Ydígoras was expelled from the country to Panama. With this coup d'état, the first opportunity to put Guatemala back on the democratic path that had been interrupted a decade ago was cut short.

Government of Mr. Julio César Méndez Montenegro

A short time later there were democratic elections and the lawyer Julio César Méndez Montenegro was elected President in 1966. The renowned journalist Clemente Marroquín Rojas was elected vice president. Although at first a transparent democracy seemed to have been achieved, the Army, which was protected by the government, launched a strong campaign against the insurgency that largely broke the guerrilla movement in the countryside and began the civil conflict that was to cause hundreds of thousands of victims. During his government, the light blue was established as the color of the National Flag and, in 1967, decree 2795 promulgated by the government of General Jorge Ubico Castañeda, which granted coffee farms and banana companies permission to punish the settlers, was restored. Day laborers: "The owners of farms will be exempt from criminal responsibility...".

His government was controlled by the military; he appointed the Guatemalan ambassador to the United Nations, Emilio Arenales Catalán, as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala; Mr. Arenales, in turn, was appointed president of the twenty-third General Assembly of the United Nations.

During his government there was a discussion about ceding the nickel mines in El Estor, Izabal to a Canadian company; the concession was granted to EXMIBAL by the following government, that of General Carlos Arana Osorio. On the other hand, the railway concession for the International Railways of Central America, which began in 1904 during the government of Manuel Estrada Cabrera, came to an end during his government. The company, which had suffered substantial losses after the construction of the highway to the Atlantic during the governments of Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán and Carlos Castillo Armas, expressly created a state of insolvency so that it would become property of the State of Guatemala.

When he assumed the presidency, the Guatemalan Army —who actually held power— did not allow him any leeway and attempts to reduce violence by both the extreme right and the extreme left were not enough. In fact, during his government, political violence increased: the guerrillas had strengthened, which led the army to implement an important counterinsurgency campaign, especially in the eastern part of the country and in Guatemala City. An event that moved Guatemalan society during this government was the kidnapping, torture, and murder of Miss Guatemala in 1958, Rogelia Cruz Martínez, who had joined the leftist guerrilla after the 1962 student days; she was kidnapped in December 1967 by government forces, and found dead on January 11, 1968 near a bridge near Escuintla, with terrible signs of torture.

On December 10, 1964, Archbishop Rossell y Arellano died and was replaced by Bishop Mario Casariego, the first Spaniard to occupy the position in Guatemala since 1821. From the beginning of his administration, he was accused of being at the service of interests anti-popular, favoring the country's elites and being influenced by Opus Dei; His private secretary was always a member of said conservative order and Casariego visited Spain to ordain groups of Opus Dei priests. In 1968, President Julio César Méndez Montenegro asked him to visit Mexican President Díaz Ordaz and ask for his support in his disputes with the military chiefs Arriaga Bosque and Arana Osorio. Returning to Guatemala in March, the archbishop was kidnapped by far-right groups; there were numerous groups of Christians who raised their prayers for the appearance of the archbishop; The Pope even sent him a letter and honored him with various ecclesiastical dignities and the position of "Counselor of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation", which granted him powers superior to those of the Apostolic Nuncio, since he had the right to review all appointments of bishops. in the region. He was even named "Prince of the Church" and obtained the Order of the Quetzal when he was released.

On June 8, 1968, Guatemalan guerrillas assassinated United States Ambassador to Guatemala John Gordon Mein, the first US ambassador to be assassinated while serving his country abroad. In reprisal, the Guatemalan Army assassinated several leaders of the Rebel Armed Forces. The Rebel Armed Forces (FAR) apparently tried to kidnap him, but they killed him as he tried to flee.

Faced with the advance of the guerrillas, the Guatemalan Army took drastic measures to crush them. The operations against subversion in the eastern part of the country were effective: their weapons depots, communication and supply lines were destroyed. From then until well into the 1970s, guerrilla action was almost non-existent, limited to isolated acts of sabotage of little consequence. Among the latter, on February 27, 1970, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alberto Fuentes Mohr, was kidnapped, and on March 16, the labor attaché of the United States Embassy, Sean Holly. The Rebel Armed Forces (FAR) claimed responsibility for both crimes.

The Jurún Marinalá Hydroelectric was started and finished during the period of President Julio César Méndez Montenegro; This was a project initiated by the Government of Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán before his overthrow in 1954. During his government, the "Primero de Julio" neighborhood was built on the outskirts of Guatemala City and, in addition, the television station was created of public access with the creation of Televisora Nacional de Guatemala, Channel 8, which was the successor to TGW-Channel 8, which had been closed in 1965.

In 1967, Guatemalan writer Miguel Ángel Asturias was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Government of Méndez Montenegro ordered a bust of the writer to be made in his honor, which is in the National Library of Guatemala.

Military Regimes of the 1970s

Limited region, to the north, by an imaginary line between the Vértice of Santiago in Huehuetenango and Puerto Santo Tomás de Castilla in Izabal and, to the south, by La Mesilla in Huehuetenango and Lake Izabal. Understand, from west to east, part of the departments of Huehuetenango, Quiché, Alta Verapaz and Izabal. It has an approximate surface of 15 750 square kilometres. In the region there are projects to exploit the wealth of the lands of the area and the creation of an important road network to facilitate the oil and mining operations, which were the source of serious clashes between the Guatemalan Army and the Guatemalan Civil War, especially in Panzós, Chisec and the Ixcan forests between 1976 and 1982.

Colonel Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio (1970-1974), of the extreme right-wing party, Movimiento de Liberación Nacional, was the first of a long series of military heads of government, who under the excuse of stopping the insurgent action undertook paths counterterrorism campaigns. In 1970 two new guerrilla groups sponsored by the Soviet Union and Fidel Castro, the EGP and the ORPA, intensified the insurgency against the military governments. General Arana was married to Alida España, who was his advisor on counterinsurgency security issues; Due to his military actions, in eastern Guatemala he was known as "El Chacal de Oriente". The reasons for choosing him as the party's candidate were his condition as a fervent anti-communist and his notable victories against the guerrillas in eastern Guatemala; During his government, extreme right-wing paramilitary groups proliferated, starting a climate of great insecurity and violence.

After allowing mining company executives to rewrite Guatemala's mining law, the government granted a forty-year concession for nickel exploitation to the company Explotaciones y Exploraciones Mineras de Izabal, S.A. (EXMIBAL), a subsidiary of the Canadian company International Nickel Company (INCO). During the government of Julio César Méndez Montenegro the possibility of ceding the nickel mines in Izabal was discussed, but as soon as General Carlos Arana Osorio began his management on July 1, 1970, he reopened the EXMIBAL case and began working to grant it the concession. Numerous social sectors opposed it, as they argued that it would be very onerous for the country. One of the main opponents was the commission that the University of San Carlos created to analyze the matter; among the members of the commission was Oscar Adolfo Mijangos López, by then a deputy in Congress and a respected Guatemalan intellectual. Mijangos López opposed the conditions of the concession that the Government proposed to EXMIBAL; on February 13, 1971, he was assassinated as he was leaving his office on 4th avenue in zone 1 of Guatemala City.

The Northern Transversal Strip (FTN) was created during the government of General Carlos Arana Osorio in 1970, through Decree 60-70 in the Congress of the Republic, for the establishment of agrarian development. At first it had great agricultural potential and for the exploitation of precious woods, but then from 1974, oil began to be exploited in the vicinity of the FTN as a result of the discoveries made by the oil companies Basic Resources and Shenandoah Oil, which operated in the Rubelsanto oil field, Alta Verapaz.

On May 8, 1971, the Government of Arana Osorio granted the concession to EXMIBAL; it covered 385 square kilometers in the El Estor area, with an initial investment of US$228 million. The mine, built in the mountains of the Q'eqchi Indians, included a residential complex of seven hundred houses, numerous offices, a hospital, a small shopping center, a school, a golf course, and a large industrial processing area.

In 1974, General Kjell Lauguerud García defeated General Efraín Ríos Montt in rigged elections. During his government, the Guatemala Earthquake of 1976 occurred, which left the country in ruins; Despite accusations of corruption, his government's reaction rebounded the country from that disaster.

In 1976, when Laugerud García came to visit the Mayalán cooperative in the sector of Ixcán, Quiché, in the Northern Transversal Strip which had been formed just ten years before, he said: «Mayalan is settled on the top of the gold », hinting that the Northern Transversal Strip would no longer be dedicated to agriculture or the cooperative movement, but would be used for strategic objectives of exploitation of natural resources. After that presidential visit, the oil companies Basic Resources and Shenandoah Oil carried out explorations in lands of Xalbal, very close to Mayalán in Ixcán, where they drilled the "San Lucas" well with unsuccessful results. These explorations, which opened the way for future oil experiments in Ixcán, and the rest of the FTN, were the main reason for the construction of the dirt road that runs through the Strip. Shennadoah Oil, the National Institute for Agrarian Transformation (INTA) and the Army Engineers Battalion coordinated to build this corridor between 1975 and 1979, which ultimately allowed powerful politicians, soldiers and businessmen of the time to take over many of the lands where timber wealth and oil potential lay.

Destruction in Patzicia following the earthquake of February 4.

The Laugerud government was defined by three events: the 1976 Guatemala earthquake, the Panzós Massacre, and the diplomatic conflict over Belize. The earthquake of February 4 affected 30,000 km², with 2.5 million people and left 23,000 dead and 77,000 injured. Two hundred eighty-five thousand houses were destroyed, making nearly 1.2 million homeless. The department of Chimaltenango was the most affected, registering almost fourteen thousand deaths and many towns —such as San Martín Jilotepeque— were left in ruins. The earthquake also caused damage to the national cultural heritage with the total or partial destruction of several colonial churches and several historic buildings. The government's response, although with some accusations of corruption, was applauded by the population, which was grateful for the work carried out by General Laugerud.

Around May 24 or 25, 1978, a military contingent of about thirty soldiers moved from Quinich to Panzós, a municipality of Alta Verapaz that borders El Estor, where the EXMIBAL mining company had its nickel extraction plant. The Army considered that the peasant organization was an active part of the guerrilla. On May 29, 1978, peasants from several villages decided to hold a public demonstration in the Panzós square; Hundreds of indigenous men, women, boys and girls went to the plaza carrying their work tools, machetes and sticks, but for reasons that were not clarified a shootout began by the army that left many dead and wounded among the peasants. The massacre caused great national and international impact.

Government of Lucas García (1978-1982)

In 1978 the military continued with the electoral model of previous years. The third military election was that of the former Minister of Defense, General Fernando Romeo Lucas García as president and that of the civilian Francisco Villagrán Kramer as vice president. The election took place in the midst of a political crisis: the anti-communist PID-MLN alliance broke up and the former began to ally with the PR and other small parties, with which it formed a "Broad Front." The results of the elections on March 5 of that year once again gave rise to protests, violence and allegations of fraud. Congress held the second grade election on the 13th of that month, dismissing the evidence of the victory of Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia, former Guatemalan head of state and MLN candidate. The tendency towards electoral abstention was accentuated with 63.5% of non-voters, resulting in the least voted electoral binomial in the history of the country, proof of the little legitimacy of the military model and the political regime.

Under suspicions and accusations of electoral fraud, Fernando Romeo Lucas García was elected president and took office in July 1978; "The war in Guatemala must be won in the mountains and in the capital" was the slogan of his government. For its part, the opposition —formed by the social movement with leftist leaders— promoted the promotion of democracy in the country. Lucas had an unskilled speech and although he sometimes addressed the masses in q & # 39; eqchi & # 39;, his crude gestures and distant image of him made him seem like an unapproachable and unapproachable president.

Sandinista triumph in Nicaragua

In the mid-1970s, some of the Nicaraguan economic leaders and members of the Catholic Church in that country began to align themselves against the government of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. They formed an opposition movement led by Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, owner of the country's largest daily La Prensa, and forced the government to make changes. But after the assassination of Chamorro on January 10, 1978, great unrest broke out and, in March 1979, the fractions of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front signed the unity agreement; in June they called the "Final Offensive" and called for a general strike. The United States government of Jimmy Carter tried, through the Organization of American States, to stop the advance of the FSLN, but did not obtain support from the Latin American countries present in the OAS. The United States was forced to ask Anastasio Somoza Debayle to resign., who left the country on July 17, 1979. Francisco Urcuyo Maliaños, head of the National Congress of Nicaragua, was named President and announced that he would complete the term until May 1981. That day, the foreign ministers of the Andean Pact —Ecuador, Venezuela and Peru—meeting in San José, Costa Rica, they rejected the Urcuyo maneuver, and on the morning of July 18, Sergio Ramírez, Alfonso Robelo, and Violeta Barrios de Chamorro left San José and headed for León, where they met with the Sandinista commanders Daniel Ortega Saavedra and Moisés Hassan Morales, proclaiming León as the new provisional capital, and the international community recognized them as the government of the Republic a.

Urcuyo went into exile in Guatemala; The Sandinistas entered Managua on July 19, 1979, putting an end to the Somocista dictatorial stage, assuming government responsibilities. This triumph meant a new hope for the guerrillas of Guatemala and El Salvador, who saw how they could obtain logistical and military resources not only from Cuba, but also from Nicaragua.

Burning of the Spanish embassy

On January 31, 1980, the case of Guatemala attracted worldwide attention with the burning of the Spanish Embassy, in which thirty-seven people were burned alive, including several Spaniards. of a group of indigenous people, in order to draw the world's attention to the massacres committed in 1980 by the Guatemalan Army in El Quiché under the orders of General Fernando Romeo Lucas García, was the prelude to the case of the burning of the Embassy of Spain. Spain broke diplomatic relations with Guatemala.

Shortly after the events at the Spanish Embassy, in February 1980, at the initiative of the Peasant Unity Committee (CUC), a massive meeting was convened in Iximché (Tecpán, Chimaltenango), to analyze the situation in the country. Numerous organizations participated in it, including the National Indigenous Coordinator, the Federation of Guatemalan Workers, the "Robin García" Front, and the "Pro Justice and Peace" Committee. From that meeting came the document "The indigenous peoples of Guatemala before the World", a political declaration that raised ethnic claims along with others of a political nature, denouncing repression, economic exclusion, equality and cultural respect. The insurrectionary atmosphere increased the alarming effects of this unprecedented movement, becoming a target of repressive actions directed against the rural social sector.

Both the takeover of the Spanish Embassy and the strike of the sugarcane workers on the South Coast, both promoted by CUC activists, marked the height of the climate of political and social agitation of the time; In addition, they showed the convergent line towards which both the social movement and the insurgency were heading. This became more evident when, on May 1, 1980, the National Council of Trade Union Unity (CNUS), which had become the axis of said movement, called to "establish a revolutionary, democratic, and popular government" and to "overthrow to the Luquista regime", slogans that were seconded by the insurgent groups. On that occasion, thirty-two participants were kidnapped near the Centennial Park. The bodies of twenty-eight of them appeared tortured days later.

Guerrilla attacks against state assets

During the government of Lucas García, the spiral of violence continued to increase until it reached unimaginable levels. The government concentrated its efforts on annihilating the internal enemy, limiting itself not only to fighting the guerrillas but systematically attacking the social movement and the population in areas with a strong guerrilla presence, mainly those furthest away from Guatemala City. In the Government Lucas García's counterinsurgency strategy focused on eliminating both the urban and rural social movements, which had grown significantly during the previous years, as well as fighting the guerrillas. The terror that was unleashed during this government destroyed all social organizations, existing policies and professionals. The administration of justice was also strongly affected by this: judges and lawyers were assassinated in order to completely paralyze justice and all actions to protect human rights. In no other period were so many judges and lawyers executed, especially those who had processed writs of habeas corpus or who had issued resolutions contrary to the interests of the Government; Faced with this repression, other judges and lawyers chose to submit to the impositions of the Executive for the application of justice. The constant violations of human rights led to the resignation of Vice President of the Republic Francisco Villagrán Kramer in 1981, being replaced by Colonel Oscar Mendoza Azurdia.

But the guerrillas were not an easily intimidated rival: on September 5, 1980, a terrorist attack by the Guerrilla Army of the Poor took place in front of the National Palace with the intention of dissuading the Guatemalan people from attending a demonstration of support for the government of General Lucas García, which was scheduled for Sunday, September 7, in Parque Central. In that attack, six adults and one child died due to the explosion of two bombs located in a vehicle; there were an undetermined number of injuries and considerable material damage not only to the works of art in the National Palace, but also to many of the nearby buildings. The guerrillas also attacked the Galgos bus terminal, and a Fortaleza company bus, killing a mechanic.

The guerrilla organizations justified these actions arguing that they affected, on the one hand, the economic interests of the State and the productive sectors, and on the other, that they violated the Army:

• Poor Guerrilla Army: "Destroy infrastructure with the concept of saying we will destroy the infrastructure of the country, to damage the country, not that. I always had an explanation... regarding the war that we were living and in relation to the tactical moment that for what we were going to fly this bridge, we were going to fly it so that the Army would not pass and so that it would not continue with its barbarism... to cut off the advance and withdrawal... But what is of Nenton for the north, the road closed [ends of 1981 beginning of 1982], the Army did not enter, no authority entered, the telegraph posts that were the media that had gone beyond the road were cut off." "By cutting the energy to reach the Army headquarters, the energy of the entire population was cut, creating discontent among the people. Then, those sabotages were generalized for already cause complete uncontrollable throughout the country and prepare conditions to go to an almost pre-insurrection period.
• Rebel Armed Forces: "We pursue the obstruction of the coordination, communication and mobilization of enemy forces, on the one hand, and on the other the obstruction of the development of the productive processes that the ruling classes are driving."

On the other hand, at the end of 1981 and beginning of 1982, the guerrillas burned around twenty-four municipalities of the thirty-one that the department of Huehuetenango has, and thirty-three civil registries were destroyed throughout the republic. These events harmed the population because they burned the official books, and for some time there was no place to record any civil event.

Guerrilla attacks against private property

The attack against financial, commercial, and agricultural targets increased, since the guerrilla groups considered these institutions as "bourgeois reactionaries" and "exploiting millionaires" who collaborated with the "genocidal government" of Lucas García. These were some attacks:

• Car bomb that also damages the facilities of other national and transnational financial institutions; losses caused by this attack were more than Q 300 000.
• Sabotage to the TEXACO refinery installations in the race to the Port of San José, Escuintla for considering that TEXACO was manipulating fuel prices and repressing its workers.
• Attack on newly built buildings: Chamber of Industry, Pan-American Tower (where the Coffee Bank worked) and Financial Center of the Industrial Bank.Sales bombs that left stained glass windows completely destroyed.
• Carro bomb that resulted in the partial demolition of one of the towers of the Financial Center of the Industrial Bank; the Bank did not repair the glass of the upper floors, but the installations were rebuilt and continued to function.

Scorched Earth Beginning

To counter the rise of the guerrilla offensive after the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua in 1979, the government of Lucas García launched the "Scorched Earth" offensive in the region where the Guerrilla Army of the Poor operated, in Quiche. Then there were intense attacks on civilian populations that resulted in massacres recorded by the report of Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (REMHI) and the reports of the Commission for Historical Clarification. The REMHI report indicated that «most of the registered massacres [...] correspond to the Department of Quiché (263); They are followed by Alta Verapaz (63), Huehuetenango (42), Baja Verapaz (16), Petén (10) and Chimaltenango (9)", but they also appear in other departments. "After October 1981 there are more testimonies of massacres and they are characterized by a more indiscriminate pattern", suggesting that "after that date the massacres were more important, more premeditatedly planned and carried out a more global destruction of the communities, in congruence with the great offensive carried out by the Army from Chimaltenango towards large areas of the Altiplano".

Along with the burning and destruction of houses, torture, mass atrocities and the capture of the population appeared in more than half of the attacks. Burials in mass graves, often dug by the victims themselves, are also described in a significant part of the testimonies; these clandestine burials in mass graves were often used as a way to hide evidence of the murders. On other occasions, the massacres occurred within the framework of large-scale operations with a large deployment of military forces and support from the aviation that bombed those areas. At least one in nine communities analyzed suffered bombing associated with massacres, either in the days before or after the bombing; The most bombed regions were the communities of the Ixil area and Sacapulas in Quiché, some areas of Baja Verapaz and Huehuetenango.

After the attack, the most frequent thing was that people fled (40%) as a way of defending their lives, either to the mountains, to exile or to another community; one in six villages that suffered massacres were completely razed.

Population communities in resistance

No sector was more affected by the violence during the years of the civil war in Guatemala than the peasant population; The war left unprecedented deaths and destruction in the countryside, generating, among other reactions, the massive flight of thousands of Guatemalan peasants. In the 1981-82 period, in which more than four hundred towns and villages were razed and thousands of Guatemalans murdered, the reaction of the survivors caught between two fires—army forces and URNG guerrilla elements—was to flee, or placed under the control of the Army, forced to participate in the civil self-defense patrols (PAC) or relocated to the "model villages" where they were concentrated. Some 50,000 totally dispossessed people fled to the jungle areas of the Quiché department —some in the Sierra Ixil, and others in Ixcán, on the border with Mexico— spending those years hidden from the outside world and outside government control, forming small urban groups that later formed the Communities of Population in Resistance (CPR).

Ethnically, the CPRs of Ixcán were mostly K'iches while in the Sierra communities they were mostly Ixil, the rest being Chajuleños, Cotzaleños and K'iches, as well as Ladinos.

Location of government projects and massacres in the area of the Northern Transversal Strip. Watch the Atzam oil field that is operational in Ixcan.

Repression against the University of San Carlos

During the military governments of the 1970s, the tension between the government and the university continued, which reached its peak in 1978, during the massive protests that took place to protest the increase in urban transport fares from Guatemala City. The Association of University Students played a leading role in the protests, but this led to the persecution of its leaders and the assassination of the general secretary of said association, Oliverio Castañeda de León, on October 20 of that year.

Just fifteen days after the assassination of Castañeda de León, his successor, Antonio Ciani García, was disappeared, and in the following eighteen months almost all the student leaders and university professors with political ties (even with legal parties) received threats.. Those who ignored it and continued their protest activities were killed or kidnapped. In 1979 there were several attacks against prestigious members of the University, including the assassination of Alberto Fuentes Mohr, the student and union leader Ricardo Martínez Solórzano. Manuel Lisandro Andrade Roca, general secretary of the University in the period of Saúl Osorio Paz and student leader during the days of 1962, the former mayor of the capital Manuel Colom Argueta. At the University, the rector Saúl Osorio Paz, after the attacks on his colleagues and threats against him, began to live in the rectory, protected by student brigades from the university party FRENTE. In an unprecedented case, the rector ran the University from hiding for almost two years, to the point of being forced to leave the country.

Coup d'état of March 23, 1982

On March 23, 1982, Lucas García was deposed by a coup led by middle officers of the Guatemalan Army. In the first communications, it was indicated that the military coup d'état was led by a group of "young officers" from the Guatemalan Army, whose objective would be "to end corruption." The insurgents took control of Guatemala City and managed to get General Lucas García to surrender to the military that hours before had surrounded the National Palace.

After surrendering, Lucas García was taken under military escort to the airport, to be expelled from the country; Just half an hour before, the deadline given by the insurgents for President Lucas to surrender peacefully had expired, and the troops had taken positions for a possible assault on the palace, located in the center of the city. Meanwhile, the streets of Guatemala City were taken by armored cars, vehicles with machine guns and a large deployment of soldiers in campaign uniform. The streets of Guatemala were deserted yesterday, and both shops and establishments closed their doors. The winner of the elections a few weeks earlier, General Aníbal Guevara, was on vacation in Miami the day of the coup and was unable to do anything to defend his position.

After the departure of Lucas García, the leaders of the insurgents requested the appearance at the palace of General Ríos Montt and the vice-presidential candidate for the National Liberation Movement party in the last elections, Lionel Sisniega Otero. At that time, Ríos Montt was a leader of the evangelical church "El Verbo"; He was not enlisted in the army, but he enjoyed prestige among the middle officers who remembered him in his time as director of the Polytechnic School, who considered him honest and suitable for the position. The coup leaders were apparently unaware of his new affiliation religion and their dedication to said activity.

Once the government junta was assembled, made up of General Ríos Montt, General Horacio Maldonado Shaad, and Colonel Francisco Luis Gordillo —who later participated in politics with his own political party, the Movimiento Emergente de Concordia (MEC), and was part of the National Reconciliation Commission in 1990—announced that it would call new elections, but did not specify the date. The junta announced that it will prepare a "work plan that will be presented to the people as soon as possible." The Governing Board dissolved Congress and abolished the Constitution after the triumph of the coup. In April 1982, on national television, Ríos Montt declared an amnesty for the subversive left to lay down their arms. After the scant response to his request, on June 9, Ríos Montt proclaimed himself head of state and removed General Héctor Maldonado Schaad and Colonel Francisco Luis Gordillo Martínez from power, while concentrating all elements of the army in the barracks near the capital, where they rest for a month. For this reason, the government was going to fight subversion with open, completely fair trials, as well as with energy and rigor. He reported that for this purpose he had established "special jurisdiction courts" that would fulfill this purpose and declared that from that moment on there was a death penalty by firing squad for those who kidnapped, set fires, and attacked and damaged defense installations. Finally, he announced that from the 1st. July the state of siege was established throughout the country, and that he was going to mobilize troops to fight the subversion, to begin the "final battle".

The Courts of Special Jurisdiction, directed by unknown officials, civilian or military, appointed by the president, and who tried and sentenced, drastically and quickly, in parallel with the Judicial Branch, more than five hundred people accused of trying to violate The legal, political, economic and social institutions of the country were a judicial body subject to the Executive Power and specifically to the Ministry of Defense, then in charge of General Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores.

After the visit of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights at the end of 1982, Ríos Montt decided to suspend all existing executions under the death penalty, without disclosing the names of those convicted, taking into account some suggestions from the body international human rights.

Between Tuesday, February 22, and March 4, 1983, six people sentenced to death made world news: Héctor Adolfo Morales López, the brothers Walter Vinicio and Sergio Roberto Marroquín González, Carlos Subuyuj Cuc, Pedro Raxón Tepet and Marco Antonio González were shot just a few days before the visit of Pope John Paul II to Guatemala, and despite this he had asked for leniency for those convicted.

Government of Oscar Humberto Mejía Víctores

Ríos Montt was overthrown on August 8, 1983 by a coup carried out by General Mejía Víctores, his Defense Minister, who initiated the transition towards democratic regimes in the country. Mejía Víctores justified his coup, saying that "religious fanatics" abused his positions in the government and also because of "official corruption." Seven people died during the coup. Awareness in the United States about the conflict in Guatemala, and its ethnic dimension, increased with the publication in 1983 of the autobiographical story My name is Rigoberta Menchú and that's how my conscience was born written by Rigoberta Menchú with the support of the senior leaders of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity.

On August 12, 1983, after one year and eleven days of existence, the Government repealed the law of the Courts of Special Jurisdiction, after publishing decree 93-83. The demands against everything that the Special Courts had executed, however, were increasing in tone. Finally, in July 1984, Mejía Víctores decreed a total pardon through decree-law 74-84.

Mejía Víctores relied on a Fundamental Government Statute (Decree Law 11-86) drafted by the lawyer Manuel de Jesús Girón Tánchez and convened a National Constituent Assembly. And while the assembly deliberated on a new Constitution, the Government launched the plan for the "militarized resettlement of the displaced population" and a military project for the transition was implemented. And since the Civil War was still underway, they executed the "Firmness 83" plan, with which they strengthened control over the civilian population and strengthened the Civil Self-Defense Patrols. They also launched the "Institutional Reunion 84" campaign plans » and «National Stability 85», with a strong political emphasis to guide the transition, but it continues with the harassment and selective elimination of some popular leaders, among them the university professor Santiago López Aguilar.

During the government of Mejía Víctores, the Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM) was born, led by Nineth Montenegro and the Coordinadora de Estudiantes de Educación Media (CEEM) also gained considerable strength —formed by students from the National Central Institute for Men, the Normal Central Institute for Misses Belén and the Rafael Aqueche Institute— which organized massive protests in September 1985 against the rise in prices of public transport. At least ten people were killed in Guatemala City in the largest wave of urban riots since protests against the government of Fernando Romeo Lucas García in August 1978. The riots began with popular demonstrations against the rise in the price of public transport but later they were generalized against the economic situation that the country was experiencing at that time. Also, on the night of September 3, the University of San Carlos de Guatemala was occupied by the military and it was said that an underground firing range and subversive propaganda were found inside. In the end, as part of the solution to the process, a student bonus for primary and secondary school students to travel free on urban buses, and students were promoted by decree. During these riots, organized groups of gang members from marginal areas of Guatemala City made their appearance, who would later present themselves as the maras and who were influenced by the breakdancing style of dance that young people deported from the United States brought to Guatemala.

Return to the democratic system

Government of Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo

Cerezo Arévalo came to power after thirty years of authoritarian governments, in a climate of civil war, unemployment, shortages, loss of foreign currency due to military expenses, fuel shortages, international isolation and, in general, all the symptoms of a deep economic recession. After he took office in January 1986, President Cerezo announced that his priorities would be to end political violence and establish the rule of law. Reforms included new habeas corpus and amparo (court-ordered protection) laws, the creation of a legislative human rights committee, and the establishment in 1987 of the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman. The Supreme Court also undertook a series of reforms to fight corruption and improve the efficiency of the legal system.

In 1979, the Guatemalan currency, the quetzal, was quoted at one US dollar; but by the end of 1985 the exchange rate was Q 1.47 per dollar, in 1987 it was Q 2.53 and by 1990 it had fallen to Q 5.57 per dollar; this phenomenon had an unequal impact on society: on the one hand, for the producers of articles, each change in the exchange rate is quickly transferred to the consumer, through the revaluation of prices; on the other, the vast working majority of the population does not have a similar compensation mechanism and the devaluation results in a constant erosion of their income. These changes were based on the neoliberal economic approach that indicates that by prioritizing the satisfaction of needs By rationing the use of their scarce resources, a freedom of choice for consumers is generated; however, the result was the limitation of their purchasing power.

With the start of the government of Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo in 1986, land invasions began as had not been seen before in the history of Guatemala City; with invasions of Villa Lobos I and II in Villa Nueva — which by then was already part of the metropolitan zone of Guatemala—in 1988, land in the Campos del Roosevelt in the vicinity of the hospital of the same name in zone 11 in 1989 and vacant land in the Bethania neighborhood, zone 7, Santa Elisa in zone 18, Ciudad Peronia and land in the zone 3 sanitary landfill, although the latter was violently evicted by the police riot squad in 1990.

The government was heavily criticized for its unwillingness to investigate or prosecute cases of human rights violations. His government suffered several coup attempts: in May 1988 the first coup attempt against the government put the leadership of the Army on alert and resulted in the expulsion and marginalization of several officers from the institution. One year later, in 1989, another attempt was organized by three groups —those expelled and marginalized the previous year and four others active.

The last two years of the Cerezo government were also marked by problems of political confrontations and union strikes, particularly that of the teachers, who demanded salary increases. On the other hand, ECLAC singles out the Cerezo government for having achieved the only permanent growth in Guatemala in the last fifty years, rising from a recession of -2% of GDP at the time of the war to +4% growth of GDP. PIB when he handed over command in 1991. The Cerezo government was the first after dictatorships and military fraud, so the most important challenge consisted of establishing democratic institutions, in addition to facing the problem of war, for which Cerezo promoted, not only for Guatemala, but in Central America, the Esquipulas I and II Agreements, which established the Procedure to seek Firm and Lasting Peace. The administration of Cerezo and the Christian Democracy is credited with democratic institutions, economic modernization, as well as significant contributions in the democratic stage that began with his administration.

Government of Jorge Serrano Elías

On November 11, 1990, parliamentary and presidential elections were held. After a runoff vote, Jorge Serrano assumed the presidency on January 14, 1991, thus completing the first transition from one democratically elected civilian government to another. Like his party, the Movimiento de Acción Solidaria (MAS) won only 18 of the 116 seats in Congress, Serrano signed a loose alliance with the Christian Democrats and the Union of the National Center (UCN). The outcome of the Serrano administration was mixed. He succeeded in consolidating civilian control over the army, replacing some officers and persuading the army to participate in peace talks with the URNG. He took the politically unpopular step of recognizing Belize's sovereignty. The Serrano government reversed the economic slide he inherited, reducing inflation and reinforcing real growth.

On May 25, 1993, Serrano illegally dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court and tried to restrict civil liberties, he claimed to fight corruption. The "self-coup" failed due to unified and strong protests by most elements of Guatemalan society, international pressure, and the imposition of the military on the decisions of the Constitutional Court, which ruled against the attempted coup. Faced with this pressure, Serrano fled the country. In this instability and as ordered by the Magna Carta of Guatemala, Vice President Gustavo Espina assumed the presidency on June 1, 1993, but was pressured to resign on June 5 of the current year.

Government of Ramiro de León

On June 5, 1993, Congress, in accordance with the 1985 constitution, elected Human Rights Ombudsman Ramiro de León Carpio to complete the presidential term of Serrano Elías. De León, not a member of any political party and lacking a political base, but enjoying strong popular support, launched an ambitious anti-corruption campaign to "purify" Congress and the Supreme Court, demanding the resignations of all members of the two bodies.

Despite considerable resistance from Congress, presidential and popular pressure led to an agreement in November 1993 between the administration and Congress, brokered by the Catholic Church. 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. Controlled by the anti-corruption parties — the FRG, headed by former General Ríos Montt, and the center-right Partido de Avanzada Nacional (PAN) — the new Congress tried to distance itself from the corruption that characterized its predecessors.

Under the government of De León, the peace process, now with the participation of the United Nations, took on a new life. The government and the URNG signed agreements on human rights (March 1994), the resettlement of displaced persons (June 1994), historical clarification (June 1994), and indigenous rights (March 1995). They also made significant progress on a socio-economic and agrarian agreement.

Government of Álvaro Arzú (1996-2000)

National elections for president, congress, and municipal offices were held in November 1995. With nearly twenty parties competing in the first round, the presidential election went all the way to a runoff on January 7, 1996 in which the PAN candidate Álvaro Arzú defeated Alfonso Portillo of the FRG by only 2% of the vote. Arzu won due to his strength in Guatemala City, where he had previously served as mayor, as well as the surrounding urban area. Portillo won all the rural departments except El Petén. Under the Arzú administration, negotiations between the government and the URNG were concluded. In December 1996, the government signed the peace accords, ending a 36-year conflict. The human rights situation also improved during the Arzú government, and steps were taken to reduce the influence of the military in national affairs.

Privatization of GUATEL

The Telecommunications Company of Guatemala (TELGUA) was created when the state company (GUATEL) was sold in 1997 by the government of Arzú to the company Luca for 701 million dollars; Luca, in turn, sold most of the company's shares to the company Teléfonos de México (TELMEX), which has led the consortium since January 2000. In order to privatize the company, the previous government modified the State Purchase and Contracting Law, which prevented the sale of GUATEL; In addition, it established a private company with State funds —Telecomunicaciones de Guatemala— to which it transferred the assets of the state telephone company. Already as such, the negotiation began. The government officials who negotiated the sale of the telephone company were the Minister of Communications, Fritz García-Gallont, and the manager of TELGUA Fredy Guzmán.

21st century

Government of Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004)

Alfonso Antonio Portillo Cabrera ruled Guatemala from January 14, 2000 to January 14, 2004. During his government, he began to strip away the privileged regime of formal economic power in Guatemala after the signing of the 1996 Peace Agreement —mainly those of sugar, chicken, cement, and beer producers—, but his legitimacy as president was undermined by the international reputation of his political party leader, General Efraín Ríos Montt —who was compared to Chilean General Augusto Pinochet—and the existence of a structurally corrupt and inefficient State in Guatemala. At the end of his government, he had against him the members of that political power, which had an overwhelming influence in the markets, the mass media and in civil society groups in Guatemala. This influence was evident when Portillo was stripped of immunity when he was removed as a deputy of the Central American Parliament —a position he l e corresponded as former president—and later imprisoned and prosecuted in Guatemala.

Government of Óscar Berger Perdomo (2004-2008)

Oscar Berger Perdomo, president of Guatemala from 2004 to 2008.

Satellite image of Hurricane Stan taken on October 4, 2005, shortly before touching land in Central America.

Visit by U.S. President George W. Bush to Guatemala on March 12, 2007. From left to right: Wendy de Berger, first lady of Guatemala, President Berger, President Bush and Barbara Bush, first lady of the United States.

He received the presidential sash on January 14, 2004 and took office for a four-year term with an inaugural speech in which he promised continued work by his Executive branch to strengthen the institutions of the Rule of Law and fight against impunity for the corrupt and the violent. At the beginning of his government, a persecution began against former officials of the Alfonso Portillo regime, which raised high expectations that the government would dismantle the corrupt structure of the State, but since this reform was not undertaken, after a few months the level acceptance of the president among the public plummeted.

In October 2005, Guatemala suffered one of the worst natural disasters in its history. The passage through Central America of Hurricane Stan, whose consequences would be more virulent than those produced years ago by Mitch, sowed chaos in the country, causing hundreds of fatalities and disappearances, as well as an incalculable number of victims. Such was the degree of destruction generated that Berger declared a "state of public calamity".

During his government, important works were carried out such as the construction of several highways in Guatemala and the remodeling of the La Aurora International Airport. But serious events also occurred that revealed the degree of corruption of several of its officials: the PARLACEN Case, The Case of the seizure of the Pavón prison, the bankruptcy of the Café and Comercio banks and the millionaire robbery at La Aurora Airport.

On December 12, 2006, the United Nations and the Government of Guatemala signed the Agreement regarding the creation of an International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), which, after the approval of the Constitutional Court in May 2007, it was subsequently ratified by the Congress of the Republic on August 1, 2007. Thus, the CICIG emerged as an independent international body whose purpose is to support the Public Ministry, the National Civil Police and other institutions of the State both in the investigation of the crimes committed by members of the illegal security forces and clandestine security apparatuses, as well as in general in the actions that tend to the dismantling of these groups. Finally, the competitiveness promoted by the government of Alfonso Portillo for countering Guatemalan monopolies on sugar, beer, cement, and poultry products was reversed by the Berger government; Thus, with Berger there was a setback in terms of Guatemala's competitiveness position.

Government of Álvaro Colom Caballeros (2008-2012)

In 2008, Álvaro Colom Caballeros of the center-left political party Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE) took office after beating Otto Pérez Molina with an advantage of 5.36%, according to figures from the electoral tribunal. He was one of the 2 candidates to reach the second round of the Guatemalan presidential election on September 9, 2007 along with the candidate of the Patriot Party, Otto Pérez Molina. In March 2008, the incursion of Mexican cartels in Guatemala became evident when eleven drug traffickers died in the early hours of March 26, apparently in a dispute over control of the territory, according to the hypothesis of the prosecution; Among the deceased was Juan José León Ardón, one of the criminals most wanted by the Guatemalan police and known as "Juancho León" or "Mister J".

Following the procedure stipulated in Article 14 of the Agreement on the establishment of CICIG, on March 24, 2009, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala requested, through a personal letter addressed to the Secretary General of the United Nations, the extension of the CICIG mandate for another two years. The extension was confirmed on April 15, 2009 when Ban Ki-moon sent a personal response to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, so the CICIG continued working until September 4, 2011 to help the State.

In May 2009, the Colom government faced its biggest test, known as the Rosenberg Case, after the murder of lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano and the fact that he left a posthumous video in which he accused the president, his wife, and officials of Banrural of having ordered his death. The government found itself in a difficult situation, but managed to stay in power and finally the CICIG presented a controversial final report in which it indicated that Rosenberg planned his own assassination after falling into depression after the assassination of her friend, Marjorie Musa, a few weeks before her death.

In August 2010, five non-commissioned officers from the Spanish Civil Guard and three inspectors from the National Police Corps of that country dismantled the former leadership of the Berger government in Guatemala, whose members were accused of murder, kidnapping and money laundering of money. Guatemala had ordered the international search and capture and imprisonment of at least eighteen senior officials of the National Civil Police (PNC) and the former Minister of the Interior, Carlos Vielmann, the former general director of the PNC, Erwin Sperisen, the deputy chief, Javier Figueroa, and the former chief of the Investigative Division of the National Police, Soto Diéguez. The investigations by the Spanish investigators pointed to the possibility that one of the Guatemalan agents had intervened in the execution of hundreds of people For his part, former president Óscar Berger was not cited.

The Argentine singer Facundo Cabral performed in Guatemala City on Tuesday, July 5, 2011, at the Expocenter of the Grand Tikal Futura Hotel and on Thursday, July 7, he performed at the Teatro Roma in the city of Quetzaltenango, where he closed performing the song I'm not from here, nor am I from there. He was murdered on July 9, 2011 at around 5:20 AM. m., in Guatemala City, victim of an attack apparently directed at businessman Henry Fariñas, who was taking the singer-songwriter and his representative to La Aurora International Airport from the hotel where he was staying, to continue in Nicaragua with his tour of presentations.

Government of Otto Pérez Molina

Manifestation of 30 May 2015, demanding the resignation of President Otto Pérez

Upon coming to power, the government of Pérez Molina privatized the Quetzal Port Company in Escuintla on Wednesday of the first Holy Week they spent as rulers. Subsequently, Vice President Roxana Baldetti appointed Claudia Méndez Asencio as Superintendent of Customs in the Superintendence of Tax Administration of Guatemala (SAT). As his government progressed, Pérez Molina intervened de facto the SAT and placed soldiers in customs, arguing that it was to increase revenue and stop smuggling. Subsequently, the Pérez Molina government wanted to privatize the collection at customs by hiring an Argentine company, but citizen opposition stopped them.

When the PP took over the reins of government, in 2012, the presence of Baldetti Elías reaffirmed the role of power of retired general Luis Francisco Ortega Menaldo in Guatemala, given the closeness between the two and which was consolidated during Jorge's government Serrano Elías. Considered the heir to the leadership in the military current known as the "Brotherhood", Ortega Menaldo would operate the strings of national politics behind the scenes, something that has not been proven, but that is persistently rumored in the country. Thus, the two emblematic figures in the current government —Pérez Molina and Baldetti Elías— would result from the alliance between the two main military currents that emerged during the Guatemalan Civil War: the “Union” and the “Brotherhood”. But the appearance of Luis Mendizábal —owner of the Emilio Boutique, where the members of the Line met— according to the CICIG investigation, confirmed how the third current of the army also positioned itself within the government: that of retired general Marco Tulio Espinosa Contreras, an Air Force general, who positioned himself during the government of Álvaro Arzú to displace the other two during the period that that administration lasted. For his part, the merchant and member of the intelligence community Luis Mendizábal is a figure that appears at conjunctural moments in the history of Guatemala since the Government of Fernando Romeo Lucas García.

The government of the Patriot Party has gone through a constant tax collection crisis since 2012, characterized by failure to meet the collection goals agreed between the SAT and the government. Collection at customs dropped in 2013 from Q 15.8 billion to Q 15.3 billion, and slowed down in 2014; the same happened with the Value Added Tax (VAT) on imports. The fiscal gaps in these years amount to about Q 7 billion, which have been supplied through the issuance of treasury bonds and the contracting of loans, increasing the public debt. The financial crisis led the government to contemplate the creation of new taxes on telephony, cement, and mining activities to finance the 2015 budget, of which the first was provisionally suspended by the Constitutional Court.

In September 2014, retired captain Byron Lima Oliva, who had been in prison for fifteen years in the Pavoncito prison, convicted of the murder of Bishop Juan José Gerardi, was captured when the CICIG discovered that he controlled the prison and that he was practically in control of the Guatemalan prison system. Investigations showed that Lima Oliva came and went as he pleased in armored vehicles and under escort; When he was captured and taken to the court tower to testify along with the prison director —Edgar Josué Camargo— and other prisoners, he said over and over again that he was a friend of President Otto Pérez Molina. The CICIG reported that Lima Oliva would have created an empire of several million dollars for dedicating himself to the control of the prison and charging up to twelve thousand dollars for the sale of prison transfers. It was not the first time that he had been captured for being involved in acts illicit: in February 2013 he was captured outside prison when he was in an armored vehicle with an escort.

In April 2015, the Guatemalan government was discussing requesting a two-year extension to the CICIG mandate from the United Nations. On April 16, a case of corruption in Guatemalan customs was discovered by CICIG in 2015. The CICIG investigation involved several senior officials of the government of retired General Otto Pérez Molina, including the private secretary of the vice presidency, retired Captain Juan Carlos Monzón. Monzón was in Seoul, South Korea, accompanying the vice president, Roxana Baldetti, who was awarded an honorary doctorate in that city for her social work, when she learned of the charges against him and fled. On May 9 of that year, Baldetti Elías submitted his resignation from office, and after several days of changes and elections in congress, the magistrate of the Guatemalan Constitutional Court Alejandro Maldonado Aguirre was appointed as the fourteenth vice president of Guatemala.

On August 21, 2015, CICIG and the Public Ministry issued an arrest warrant against former vice president Roxana Baldetti and a request for a preliminary trial against President Pérez Molina for the crimes of passive bribery, illicit association, and a special case of customs fraud; Evidence obtained during the operations on April 16 showed that Juan Carlos Monzón was not the leader of the customs fraud network called "La Línea", but that the president and former vice president would have been.

On September 2, 2015, he resigned from the Presidency of the Republic after being challenged by Congress the day before, and on September 3 he appeared at the Torre de Tribunales to face his first hearing in the case of La Line.

Transitional government of Alejandro Maldonado Aguirre

On September 3, Alejandro Maldonado Aguirre, vice president of Guatemala, was sworn in as the new president of the Republic after the resignation of Pérez Molina. Maldonado Aguirre, 79, became the first citizen to serve as Vice President and President of Guatemala in the same term without being elected—previously Ramiro de León Carpio had been appointed president in 1993.

Government of Jimmy Morales

He took possession of Jimmy Morales, January 14, 2016.

Morales and Cabrera were sworn in as President and Vice President of the Republic respectively, on January 14, 2016 at the Miguel Ángel Asturias theater. It was a government highly attacked by the international left, relying on the CICIG.

Government of Alejandro Giamanetti

COVID-19 pandemic in Guatemala

The outbreak was officially announced by President Alejandro Giammattei on March 13, 2020. The first case to be detected was that of a young man from Quiché who had returned from a trip to Europe.

Additional bibliography