The document discusses the history of Guatemala from the 2012 election of President Otto Pérez Molina through the colonial and post-colonial periods. It covers the civil war, violence, and human rights abuses as well as efforts to rebuild and establish peace agreements. It also provides background on the Maya civilization and how the Spanish conquest and colonial system oppressed indigenous peoples and consolidated wealth and power among elites.

1. GUATEMALA
SEARCH FOR JUSTICE

2. 2
POST-CIVIL WAR POLITICS
• 2012 – General Otto Pérez Molina is
elected new President
• General active during bloody Civil
War wants to overturn ban on US
military aid to Guatemala
• Accused of massacres, kidnapping
and many other human rights
abuses during Civil War

3. 3
POST-CIVIL WAR POLITICS
• The pressure from the military to obtain
financial support from the US continues
• Guatemalans are hoping Molina will
control the rise of drug-related violence
sweeping the country
• Repression continues

4. 4
UNDERSTANDING THE PRESENT
Bourgeoisie became instrument of
international capitalism
Moneylenders, merchants who monopolized
power had not interest in developing local
manufacturers.
Landlords were not trying to resolve agrarian
question

5. 5
UNDERSTANDING THE PRESENT
• Coffee became the most important crop
• Bananas and sugar came later
• Barrios confiscated land and resold it
under a ―revived‖ repartimiento system
• Died in battle trying to restore the Five-
Nation Federation (Federal Republic of
Central America) (1885)

6. 6
UNDERSTANDING THE PRESENT
• By 1950’s Latin America supplied 4/5 of
the coffee the world consumed
• Even today, plantations have their private
police force and a repressive system
• It is more profitable to consume coffee
than produce it

7. 7
UNDERSTANDING THE PRESENT
• Barrios succeeded by many other other
authoritarian president-dictators.
• 1945-1951 -- Juan José Arévalo, a
spiritual socialist decides to address
some of the social problems
• Launched literacy campaign, established
social security, created cooperatives, built
schools, hospitals and attempted agrarian
reform

8. 8
UNDERSTANDING THE PRESENT
1951-1954 - Jacobo Árbenz, Arévalos’
Defense Minister was elected
1952 Agrarian Reform Law - tried to
develop a peasant and agricultural
capitalist economy

9. 9
UNDERSTANDING THE PRESENT
• US agribusiness (United Fruit
Company), landowners and Catholic
Church tried to overthrow Arévalo 25
times
• 1951-1954 - Jacobo Árbenz, Arévalos’
Defense Minister was elected
• Arbenz pushed 1952 Agrarian Reform
Law and tried to develop a peasant and
agricultural capitalist economy

10. 10
UNDERSTANDING THE PRESENT
• Law kept landowners from undervaluing
their land in order not to pay taxes.
• By 1954 over 100,000 families benefited
from the law
• United Fruit Company was only using a
mere 8% of its lands
• Expropriated owners were paid indemnity
in bonds

11. 11
VIOLENCE AND TURMOIL (1960-1996)
• United Fruit Company fought back to
protect interests
• CIA masterminded operation to depose
democratic government
• The overthrow of Árbenz struck a blow to
Guatemalan democracy
• It created instability and tension that
culminated in Civil War

12. 12
VIOLENCE AND TURMOIL
• Castillo Armas, a graduate of Ft.
Leavenworth, invaded his own
country with US assistance.
• It galvanized several groups (Armed
Rebel Forces (FAR), Guatemalan
Labor Party (PGT).
• 36-year civil war killed 200,000 and
displaced about a million people

13. 13
VIOLENCE AND TURMOIL (1960-1996)
• 1960’s conflict was localized but
quickly spread to other splinter
groups
• Guerrilla Army of the Poor
(EGP), and the Revolutionary
Organization of People in Arms
(ORPA).

14. 14
VIOLENCE AND TURMOIL (1960-1996)
• Three distinct groups involved:
insurgents fighting against the
military
military (in control of Guatemala s
political, social and economic life)
a series of dictatorial rulers who
wanted to maintain control

15. 15
VIOLENCE AND TURMOIL (1960-1996)
• Tactics were different but goals were
similar:
 end exclusion
 end discrimination
 end injustices oppressing the
poor Mayan majority
• Guerrilla leadership were largely
urbanized Ladinos

16. 16
VIOLENCE AND TURMOIL (1960-1996)
• 1966-1977 -- Rigged elections, right-
wing squads, killing and kidnapping
of journalists, students, peasant
leaders
• 1978-1982 -- Romeo Lucas García --
Violence continued
• 25,000 murdered and disappeared

17. 17
VIOLENCE AND TURMOIL (1960-1996)
• Foreign intervention was extremely
damaging to the process
• 1976 – massive earthquake
• Insurgents failed to sustain an
effective rebel force
• State spread terror to the countryside
until 1996

18. 18
VIOLENCE AND TURMOIL (1960-1996)
Ríos Montt s staunch anticommunism
secured his strong ties with US
Reagan overturned arms embargo imposed
by Carter
Ríos Montt founded political party
Guatemalan Republican Front (FGR)
He tried to run in 1990 and 2003. (never
tried for any crimes)

19. 19
VIOLENCE AND TURMOIL (1960-1996)
• 1982-1983 -- Efraín Ríos
Montt, member of a California-based
pentecostal/evangelical church
• Burnt entire villages (Operation
―Frijoles y Fusiles‖ ―Guns and
Beans‖)
• 600 villages destroyed
• 10,000 murdered

20. 20
REBUILDING AND HEALING
• International community begins to
observe events more closely
• 1992 – Rigoberta Menchú receives
Nobel Peace Prize for her book
I, Rigoberta Menchú
• 1996 Alvaro Arzú wins and signs
Peace Agreement ―Firm and Lasting
Peace‖

21. 21
REBUILDING AND HEALING
• Official recognition that Guatemala is a
multiethnic, multilingual and pluricultural
state
• Abolition of Civilian Defense Patrols
• Reduction of military budget to
demilitarize the country
• Reforms in judicial system

22. 22
TRYING TO BUILD A FUTURE
• 2003 – Guatemalans rejected Ríos
Montt’s candidacy
• 2003-2008 – Oscar Berger, Former
Mayor of Guatemala City, was
elected
• He tried to create a healthy
investment climate by curbing crime
and corruption

23. 23
TRYING TO BUILD A FUTURE
• Berger undertook large infrastructure
projects, reorganized the police
• He brought some people to justice
• Guatemala – still a nest of corruption
with government officials involved in
crime and murder

24. 24
TRYING TO BUILD A FUTURE
• 2000-2004 --Alfonso Portillo Cabrera
elected president (Ríos Montt
puppet)
• Doubled defense budget
• Evidence of increased drug
trafficking, illegal logging, and
massive crime wave

25. 25
TRYING TO BUILD A FUTURE
• Guatemala has held democratic
elections without interruptions
• Institutionalized violence typical of
the Civil War has ended
• The referendum to redefine
Guatemala as a
multiethnic, multilingual, pluricultural
society was again rejected in 1999

26. 26
TRYING TO BUILD A FUTURE
• 2008-2011 – Alvaro Colom president
and leader of the social-democratic
National Unity of Hope
• Many allegations of corruption and
conflicts of interest
• United Nations is involved in
normalizing a very corrupt judicial
system

27. 27
REBUILDING AND HEALING
• 17 years later, results are mixed
• Only a few have been prosecuted for
the violence
• 1999 - Bishop Juan Gerardi is killed
after issuing Guatemala, Never
Again!

28. 28
THE MAYAS
 Yucatán Peninsula
 Guatemala
 Parts of Honduras
 Parts of El Salvador

29. 29
THE MAYAS
• Originally there were 28 different
groups with their own languages
• They shared a fairly homogenous
culture

30. 30
THE MAYA
AD 250--900
• Period of great development
• Erected ceremonial temples
• Construction achieved with slaves
• Used no metal tools, wheel or
animals

31. THE MAYAS 31
AD 250—900
• Expert astronomers and mathematicians
• Created concept of ―zero‖
• Established numerical system based on
the value of 20 (represented by points and
lines)
• Created calendar 1300 years before
Christian Gregorian calendar in 1582

32. 32
MAYAN WRITING
AD 250-900
• Hieroglyplic writing system
• Writing carved in the bark of trees
and in stones.
• Scribes documented deeds in murals
• Stories were told in carved stones

33. 33
MAYAN WRITING
Spaniards systematically destroyed
most of the artifacts of Mayan writing
16th century Spanish missionaries
translated the Popol Vuh or Book of
Wisdom

34. Pre-columbian cultures
34
Schematic sketch of
Tikal (Northern
Guatemala)

35. 35
THE MAYAS
• AD 250-600 established dynastically
ruled city-states.
• Sacrifices (dogs, humans) (not frequent)
• Deeply religious people
• Beliefs tied to nature (sun, rain, moon or
activities related to domestic life and
work, like the Maze deity).

36. 36
THE DECLINE OF THE MAYA
AD 900-Conquest
• Mayan civilization started to decline
• Food crisis (environment, droughts)
• Overpopulation
• Warfare
• Kings built grander temples and
bankrupted cities.
• Violent uprisings in different regions
of the empire.

37. 37
THE DECLINE OF THE MAYA
900—Conquest
• Villages divided by linguistic groups.
• Different groups traded, farmed and
fought like their ancestors.
• Dominant groups - Tz’utujil, K’iche,
Kaqchikel

38. 38
THE DECLINE OF THE MAYA
ARRIVAL OF THE SPANIARDS
• 1523 – Alvarado arrives sent by
Cortés
• Maya were weak, hungry and
divided
• The K’iches attempted to forge an
alliance with the Kaqchikels, who in
turn decided to side with the
Spaniards.

39. COLONIAL TIMES
• Spanish power consolidated by brute
force, genocide, and epidemics.
• Maya population estimated at 2
million by 1560 fell to half a million
and later plummeted to 130,000.
• Surviving Maya were subjected to
land grabs and repressive policies

40. COLONIAL TIMES
• Encomienda –A forced system of
labor that made it possible for a
few to hold large extensions of
land.
• Some priests began to denounce
ill treatment of indigenous
peoples (Fray Bartolome de las
Casas).

41. COLONIAL TIMES
• The Spanish crown wrote new laws
called repartimiento
• Arrangement gave local authorities
power to act as labor bosses and
lend up to 4% of their land to their
workers
• Spaniards consolidated their power
for the next 250 years

42. COLONIAL TIMES
• Established a sectarian, race-based
system that endures until today
• Catholic Church compensated work
with Spanish language and religious
instruction
• Economic systems today trace its
roots to the Spanish colonists

43. 43
THE MAYAS
• Ladinos – mixed Spanish-Maya, not
pure Maya.
• Anthropologists consider some
Ladinos are Mayas who have moved
up on the social scale
• Creole –Guatemalan-born/Spanish
heritage

44. 44
INDEPENDENCE, REFORMS, DICTATORS
• Mayans fought against Spanish
power
• 1821 rebellion to declare
independence
• 1823 – Guatemala formed the
Federal Republic of Central America
(federation included
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica
and El Salvador).

45. 45
REFORMS AND DICTATORS
• 1871 – Liberals take power
• 1873-1885 - Justo Rufino Barrios, a rich
coffee plantation owner, becomes a
ruthless dictator
• His rule described as a ―Second
Conquest‖
• Policies abused indigenous population.

46. 46
REFORMS, DICTATORS
• Barrios built roads, ports, railroads
• His agrarian and labor laws
dispossessed the Maya of their lands
and culture and forced them to work
on Ladino and foreign-owned fincas
• Only a minority consolidated wealth
and economic power

47. 47
REFORMS AND DICTATORS
• As Galeano puts it ―the latifundio was
consolidated as a means of plunder‖
• Rafael Carrera, a Ladino, gained
power by transforming episodic
revolts into generalized unrest
• 1844-1865 – Carrera ruled using
extreme violence