Guatemala

The modern republic of Guatemala occupies but a small part of what was the Spanish dominion of that name from the early sixteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth. The colonial Kingdom of Guatemala included several diverse provinces that were often remote from and resentful toward the commercial and bureaucratic elites of the capital. The 1773 destruction by earthquake of the capital city, Antigua Guatemala, and the establishment of a new capital some twenty-five miles away coincided with the emergence of new economic and political forces that would characterize independent Guatemala.

The fragmentation that occurred with independence in 1821 left the state of Guatemala with boundaries approximating the present-day republic, bounded on the west by Mexico, on the south by the Pacific Ocean, on the east by El Salvador and Honduras, and on the north by Mexico, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea.

From a population of less than a million at the time of independence, Guatemala grew at the rate of about 1.3 percent annually during the nineteenth century, and then at rates between 2 and 3 percent annually during the twentieth century. By 2007 its population was more than 12.5 million. Guatemala has always been ethnically diverse, with a substantial indigenous majority, especially Mayas, who have generally been reported at about 60 percent of the total population during the second half of the twentieth century. Spanish is the first language for 56 percent of the population, an indigenous language is the first language for 44 percent. Careful demographic research has suggested that the indigenous population has been undercounted in modern Guatemalan censuses and that in the twentieth century the Indian population grew somewhat more rapidly than the mestizo (Ladino) population.

Guatemala is third in area (42,042 square miles) among the five Central American states, but it has always been the most populous. It has a population density of about 297 inhabitants per square mile with an annual population growth rate of 2.3 percent. In 2002 43 percent of the population was under age fifteen. The literacy rate was about 70 percent, urban population was 42 percent, and annual per capita gross national income was about $2,400.

INDEPENDENCE TO 1850

Guatemala remained loyal to the Spanish crown throughout the difficult years of the Napoleonic wars and their aftermath. The Spanish Constitution of 1812, which allowed more political participation by the creoles of Guatemala City, paved the way for independence. The repressive ruler Captain General José de Bustamante y Guerra (1811–1818) sought to insulate the Kingdom of Guatemala from the war for independence in neighboring Mexico, but a pro-independence sentiment became more open after the restoration of the constitution in 1820. The fiery Pedro Molina led those favoring independence, and when news arrived of the Mexican Plan of Iguala (a plan engineered by Agustín Iturbide for the independence of New Spain), a council of notables in Guatemala City declared the independence of the kingdom on September 15, 1821. Guatemalan conservatives then succeeded in incorporating Guatemala and the other Central American states within Agustín de Iturbide's Mexican Empire in January 1822. When that empire fell little more than a year later, a Central American congress meeting in Guatemala declared its independence and established the United Provinces of Central America. In this turbulent period, however, the province of El Salvador had separated itself from Guatemala, and the state of Chiapas decided to remain with Mexico, leaving the state of Guatemala with approximately its present territorial configuration. (There would be a number of subsequent minor adjustments to its boundaries, most notably the loss of Soconusco to Mexico.)

As the most populous province, Guatemala played a leading role in the Central American federation. It became embroiled in a bitter civil war (1827–1829) when the federal president, Manuel José Arce, a Salvadoran, intervened in the Guatemalan state government, removing its liberal governor, Juan Barrundia, and replacing him with the conservative Mariano Aycinena. When Aycinena usurped the power of the federal government in 1827, Arce resigned and was succeeded by vice president Mariano Beltranena, a Guatemalan and a kinsman of Aycinena. The civil war especially pitted Guatemala against El Salvador, but in the end liberal forces under Honduran General Francisco Morazán triumphed and dealt vindictively with the conservative Guatemalans, exiling most of the leading figures. Barrundia reclaimed the governorship of Guatemala. He was succeeded by Dr. Mariano Gálvez (1831–1838), who, more than any other individual, established the liberal agenda for nineteenth-century Guatemala.

Morazán moved the federal capital to San Salvador in 1834. Under Gálvez, the state of Guatemala launched major liberal reforms consistent with Morazán's policy against the conservative Creole elite of the Guatemalan capital that had inherited much of the economic and social power of the Spanish colony. Strong anticlerical measures reduced the power of the clergy, and the state auctioned off much of the church's land to encourage more rapid export-led economic development. Cochinea, a crimson dye produced mainly around Antigua and Amatitlán, was the leading export, as the British demand for imports for its growing textile industry tied the Guatemalan economy closely to Belize and England. Gálvez also encouraged immigration, and his friendly policy toward northern Europeans, including a massive land grant for an English colonization scheme, caused opponents to charge that he was more sympathetic to foreign than to national interests. Political and judicial reform, notably the adoption of the Livingston civil and penal codes in 1834, in a misguided attempt to replace the traditional Spanish legal system with a modern, English-based system, brought further opposition from lawyers and others. These reforms had created widespread opposition among both the Guatemala City elite and country people by 1836, when a serious cholera epidemic swept the country.

The government's well-intentioned efforts to control the cholera epidemic aroused the rural population, already aggrieved by the liberal reforms and encouraged by an irate clergy. Under the leadership of José Rafael Carrera, a Ladino from Guatemala City who had settled in Mataquescuintla after the civil war, isolated armed uprisings united into a powerful guerrilla insurgency that brought down the Gálvez government on February 1, 1838. Divisions between the liberals hastened the downfall of Gálvez, and when the successor government—strongly influenced by the more radical liberals José Francisco Barrundia and Pedro Molina—failed to meet the expectations of Carrera and his peasant guerrillas, it, too, fell. Carrera imposed a conservative government under Mariano Rivera Paz, who ruled most of the time between 1839 and 1844 and presided over a strong conservative reaction against the liberalism that had followed independence.

Carrera, meanwhile, supported by much of the conservative clergy, built a strong army. He was the real master of the country from 1839 until his death in 1865. While generally insisting on conservative policy, during the 1840s he trusted neither the liberal nor the conservative elites of the capital and tried to rule by using politicians from both factions. He became president of the State of Guatemala in December 1844, and in March 1847, strongly influenced by both conservative states' rights interests and British interests (represented by diplomat Frederick Chatfield), he established the Republic of Guatemala. The other states soon followed in declaring their absolute independence from the now defunct Central American federation.

Liberal ascendancy in the legislature, however, combined with growing popular resistance, forced Carrera from office and into exile in Chiapas in August 1848. Unable to provide effective government or to quell the rural insurgency, the liberals soon turned power over to the military under Colonel Mariano Paredes. Carrera then returned to highland Guatemala with a military force composed mainly of Indians. He quickly regained control of the country and on August 3, 1849, became commander in chief of the Guatemalan army. He consolidated his power in Guatemala with the unequivocal support of the conservatives while pursuing an aggressive policy against other Central American liberals, an effort that culminated in his stunning military victory over the National Army—composed of liberals from all of the states, but among whom José Francisco Barrundia was highly influential—at La Arada on February 2, 1851. On November 6, 1851, Carrera resumed the presidency and on October 21, 1854, formally became president for life, a virtual monarch with few restrictions on his power.

1850 TO 1900

Although strongly conservative and characterized by the active participation of the clergy in the government and legislature, after 1850 Guatemala adopted more liberal economic policies as it accelerated its dependence on agricultural exports and began to pay more attention to infrastructure development. Coffee replaced cochineal as the principal export, and by the end of the conservative era it amounted to 50 percent of all Guatemalan exports. Until his death in 1865, however, Carrera prevented large-scale alienation of Indian lands for the coffee expansion.

Carrera also had a heavy hand in the affairs of his Central American neighbors, intervening directly in Honduras and El Salvador to maintain governments friendly to Guatemalan interests. In 1856–1857 Guatemala sent the largest number of troops to the National War, a campaign in which Guatemala and the other Central American states combined forces to oust the North American freebooter William Walker from Nicaragua. In 1863, in Carrera's final military adventure, Guatemala put down the rising Gerardo Barrios and restored more conservative rule to El Salvador. By 1865 Guatemala had achieved considerable stability and prosperity, but military repression and dictatorial rule had become characteristic of its government.

General Vicente Cerna (1865–1871) succeeded Carrera. He continued Carrera's conservative rule but was less concerned about protecting Indian land and labor from exploitation by coffee and other producers. Thus, the Cerna administration was a transition—especially in economic and social terms—to the period known as la Reforma Liberal that began in 1871.

Liberal opposition to the conservative dictatorship had been largely driven into exile under Carrera except for the presence of Miguel García Granados in the weak Guatemalan legislature. García Granados came from a prominent capital family, so the government tolerated his eloquent liberal oratory, but he could not rally much support in the otherwise repressive environment of Carrera's Guatemala. After Carrera's death, however, more violent opposition began to emerge, especially from Serapio Cruz, who had expected to succeed Carrera, and from coffee planters and liberals in the populous highlands of western Guatemala. After the death of Cruz in 1870, Justo Rufino Barrios emerged as the military leader of the rebellion and Miguel García Granados finally joined it to form a provisional government in March 1871. The rebels defeated Cerna's army at San Lucas Sacatepéquez on 29 June 29, 1871, and marched into the capital on the following day. García Granados became president, but his close ties to the elite of the capital led to a break with Barrios and other highlanders who wanted more sweeping reforms. In the election of 1873 Barrios won the presidency and became the first of a series of strong liberal dictators.

Barrios emphasized economic growth and courted foreign investment to begin the development of railroads and modern ports while greatly expanding the coffee industry. He began the modernization of Guatemala City and Quetzaltenango and represented the coming to power in Guatemala of the liberal-positivist philosophy that would remain dominant until at least 1944. Barrios promoted strongly anticlerical legislation, suppressed the tithe, abolished the regular orders, expropriated church property, and vastly reduced the number of priests in the country; he also established religious liberty, civil marriage and divorce, and state collection of vital statistics. He launched a public education system at all levels and took theUniversity of San Carlos out of the control of the Church, making it the state university and establishing other secondary and normal schools. His educational reforms, however, benefited primarily the upper and middle sectors of Guatemala City and Quetzaltenango. Most rural Guatemalans continued to have little access to education and often now lost their village priests, who formerly had provided some education to parishioners. His restructuring of the university emphasized professional and technical education at the expense of the humanities and liberal arts, another reflection of positivist thinking.

Coffee exports soared as Barrios encouraged the encroachment of Ladino planters on Indian communal lands and made their labor more accessible to planters. He improved the transportation infrastructure for overseas trade and facilitated the formation of banks and other financial institutions to provide credit for economic development and modernization. New ministries of agriculture, development, and education reflected his emphasis on economic growth as well as the increased role of the state. He attracted foreign immigration and investment as German and U.S. influence increased significantly. His administration also codified the laws and promulgated a new constitution in 1879, under which he won reelection in 1880.

In foreign affairs Barrios played an important role in the neighboring states of El Salvador and Honduras, and he settled differences with Mexico at the cost of giving up Guatemalan claims to Soconusco and other parts of Chiapas. He renewed the Guatemalan claim to Belize, however, repudiating the Wyke-Aycinena treaty of 1859 with Great Britain. He also tried to revive the unionist spirit of Francisco Morazán and to reestablish the Central American federation by means of Guatemalan military power. That effort, however, ended abruptly in 1885, when Salvadoran forces defeated the Guatemalan army at Chalchuapa, where Barrios died in battle.

Barrios established a new coffee elite, whose economic base was centered in the western highlands around Quetzaltenango, reducing the power of the Guatemala City merchant elite that had dominated the country since the late colonial period. At the same time, he greatly accelerated exploitation of the indigenous population and moved Guatemala more rapidly into an export-led economy dependent on foreign markets and investment. Although Barrios was celebrated in Guatemalan history as the reformer who ended the long conservative dictatorships of Rafael Carrera and Vicente Cerna, his own dictatorial rule and strengthening of the military established a pattern for subsequent liberal governments that made repression a characteristic of government in Guatemala extending into the twenty-first century. Barrios's personal wealth increased enormously during his rule, especially in comparison with earlier Guatemalan presidents. In this, too, he set a pattern that many of his successors would emulate.

General Manuel Lisandro Barillas (1885–1892), a political favorite from Quetzaltenango, succeeded Barrios and continued most of his development policies. Barrios's nephew, José María Reyna Barrios, succeeded to the presidency in 1892. When he was assassinated in 1898, another Quetzaltenango liberal, Manuel Estrada Cabrera, came to power and remained in office until 1920, his twenty-two-year rule being the longest uninterrupted presidency in Guatemalan history.

1900 TO 1950

Under Estrada Cabrera the liberal emphasis on economic development surged forward, while the political idealism of earlier liberals all but disappeared. Coffee exports continued to expand, but the most notable economic development was the rise of the United Fruit Company (UFCO), which developed the banana industry in Guatemala's lowlands. Its subsidiary, the International Railways of Central America, completed the railway from Guatemala City to the Caribbean, as well as other lines, and developed Puerto Barrios as Guatemala's leading port. UFCO, with its transport subsidiaries, thus achieved the dominant position not only in banana production but also in Guatemala's internal and external transportation systems. While UFCO gave Guatemala much of the material progress that liberals had advocated since the 1820s, its enormous economic strength, its abuses of its power, its virtual monopoly over Guatemalan overseas transport, and its obviously foreign character made many Guatemalans resentful throughout the first half of the twentieth century.

Despite great economic advancement, the harsh repression, uneven economic gains, and corrupt government under Estrada Cabrera exposed his regime to rising opposition. His mental deterioration after 1918 contributed to the success of a plot that forced him from office in April 1920. The new Unionist Party took power under the presidency of a leading businessman, Carlos Herrera, but in 1921 that government fell and Liberal Party generals José María Orellana (1921–1926) and Lázaro Chacón (1926–1930) ruled Guatemala for the remainder of the decade.

Despite their military appearance, the governments of the 1920s were more open and democratic than the Estrada Cabrera dictatorship that preceded them. For the most part, political participation was limited to rivalry among different segments of the elite, but labor unions and leftist parties, although not free from some repression, began to organize and gain some adherents. There was also continued economic growth, although most rural Guatemalans saw little of it, and as coffee and other agricultural exports expanded along with a more rapidly rising population, there began to be shortages of land for food production in some areas. The coffee elite retained strong control through alliance with the military, and fear of the major revolution taking place in adjacent Mexico kept them on guard against any genuine transfer of political power from the elite to the middle or working classes.

The Great Depression sharply arrested the modest progress of the 1920s. The value of coffee exports plummeted from $34 million in 1927 to $9.3 million in 1932. By 1931 there were serious economic and social problems arising from declining exports and insufficient attention to subsistence agriculture. President Chacón became gravely ill, and upon his death in December 1930 the Assembly designated a civilian, Baudilio Palma, to succeed him. Palma served only four days, however, before a military coup replaced him with General Manuel Orellana on December 16. In an effort to restore at least a semblance of constitutional government, however, Orellana resigned on January 2, 1931, turning the office over to José María Reina Andrade, who had been one of Estrada Cabrera's ministers and was now serving as president of the Assembly. Reina Andrade served until a pro forma election could be held; the Liberal Party candidate General Jorge Ubico y Castañeda was overwhelmingly elected and took office on February 14, 1931.

Ubico built a strong political machine based not only on his military command but also on close alliance with the giant UFCO and with German coffee interests, at least until the outbreak of World War II, when he quickly abandoned his pro-German stance and made Guatemala the first Latin American country to join the United States in declaring war against Germany. He began this regime with a strong crackdown on communist and other leftist labor and political groups, assuring the elite that he was protecting them from the kind of revolution that was occurring in Mexico or the brief communist uprising that had occurred in El Salvador in January 1932. A ruthless purge of these opposition political parties rendered them impotent during Ubico's thirteen-year rule as their leaders suffered execution or exile. Ubico also strongly supported the system of ensuring the coffee planters an adequate supply of cheap Indian labor for their harvests. He abolished debt peonage in 1934, but replaced it with a system based on a vagrancy law that required the peasants to work on the coffee farms in a system resembling the colonial repartimiento. It also provided workers for Ubico's ambitious road-building program. He reduced Indian autonomy by a new system of municipal government that replaced the Indian mayors with presidential appointees.

THE GUATEMALAN REVOLUTION

Opposition to the dictatorship began to surface during World War II. A strong anti-Fascist U.S. propaganda program attacking antidemocratic regimes, although directed against the Axis powers, had the effect of undermining the Ubico dictatorship in Guatemala. In addition, Ubico's expropriation of German-owned property in collaboration with the United States, although applauded by many Guatemalans who benefited by acquiring those properties and who had found the German "gringos" overbearing, nevertheless cost Ubico the support of a significant part of the coffee elite and resulted in a decline in Guatemalan coffee production. Moreover, wartime inflation hit the middle class hard. It was from this class, especially in the capital, that the most vocal opposition came, as university students began to stage demonstrations against the regime.

Opposition from students and intellectuals and other middle-class interests in the capital began to appear in 1942. After some street violence, Ubico, in ill health, stepped down on July 1, 1944, and turned power over to a loyal military junta. The Congress subsequently elected the head of the junta, General Federico Ponce Vaides, as provisional president. When Ponce could not check the rising opposition, a band of civilians and middle-grade military officers forced the downfall of the regime on October 20, 1944. Major Francisco Arana, Captain Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, and a civilian, Jorge Toriello, formed a junta that presided over the country until the inauguration of the new president, elected in December 1944. In the meantime, a constituent assembly wrote a modern constitution that codified the ideals of the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944.

In the last years of Ubico's rule, in the more complex Guatemalan socioeconomic environment that the liberal economic growth had fostered, several new political parties representing disgruntled elite as well as middle-class and working-class interests formed underground. Most of these parties agreed on the candidacy of Juan José Arévalo, a young philosophy professor who had left Guatemala in protest against the Ubico dictatorship in 1934, soon after receiving his doctorate in Argentina. He had returned to Argentina and spent little of his adult life in Guatemala, but he had established a reputation as a learned man and one who had broken with Ubico. He won the 1944 presidential election in a landslide and began a six-year term dedicated to reforms that reflected both his Argentine experience and some obvious influence from the Mexican Revolution.

As had been the case in Mexico, the Guatemalan Revolution called for a return to the more idealistic liberalism of the early nineteenth century. It emphasized broader political participation, particularly of the middle and working classes, and was therefore friendly to renewed labor organization and a broad spectrum of political parties. It emphasized constitutional government, and the Constitution of 1945 was a twentieth-century charter that included many of the earlier liberal political guarantees while adding substantial social guarantees drawn from the Mexican Constitution of 1917. No reelection of the president and popular suffrage were important principles in reaction to the practice of continuismo under Estrada Cabrera and Ubico. Its strong support of labor required implementation of a modern labor code. There was also a hint of anticlericalism, bringing the opposition of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, which had begun to enjoy something of a rapprochement with the state under Ubico. The Church would become one of the most important opponents of the revolutionary governments of Arévalo and Arbenz.

Arévalo idealistically described his ideology as "spiritual socialism." Opponents railed against the revolutionary government as communist, but more accurately it was an attempt to encourage enlightened capitalism in Guatemala with adequate provision for social justice and a healthier distribution of wealth. Its duration under Arévalo (1945–1950) and his successor, Jacobo Arbenz (1951–1954), nevertheless represented a revolution in the sense of challenging the exclusive power of the coffee and military elites that had ruled since 1871. The phrase "Ten Years of Spring" has become common among those who have written on the period to reflect the emphasis on popular participation and social benefits in comparison with the periods both before and after.

Labor especially benefited from the revolution. The assembly abolished the vagrancy law of 1934. The new labor code provided a broad range of progressive rights to workers and their unions, but tangible benefits were much greater for urban than for rural workers. Marxists were in the vanguard of urban labor unions. Although Arévalo tolerated them, he made it clear that he was not their leader as he resisted Marxist attempts to establish a formal Communist Party. Arévalo, in fact, was one of a number of noncommunist social democratic leaders in the Caribbean region after World War II who represented what was often called the "democratic Left" in attempting to bring the emerging middle classes into more active participation in government and to provide a better distribution of wealth in their countries. Other notable members of this generation included José Figueres of Costa Rica, Juan Bosch of the Dominican Republic, and Rómulo Betancourt of Venezuela.

THE ARBENZ PRESIDENCY

A struggle over succession in the election of 1950 moved Guatemala more sharply to the left and led ultimately to the downfall of the revolution. Rivals for the presidency were the two military leaders of the 1944 revolt, Francisco Arana and Jacobo Arbenz. The more conservative Arana commanded the army and had protected the revolution by putting down a score of attempted coups. Arbenz, more to the left, was minister of defense and closer to Arévalo. When Arévalo and Arbenz suspected Arana of plotting a coup of his own, the assassination of Arana at Amatitlán in July 1949 paved the way for Arbenz's easy victory in the 1950 election. But Arana's murder also triggered the most serious military coup attempt of Arévalo's administration. The growth of organized labor played a significant role here as a general strike in support of the government contributed to the coup's failure. In the election, Arbenz defeated General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes, Ubico's minister of public works, who felt forced to flee the country in the face of rising violence during the election campaign.

Arbenz's election shifted the revolution markedly toward the left, especially with his strong rhetoric against UFCO and his talk of land reform. UFCO had responded to the threat with an active public relations campaign that marshaled U.S. public and government opposition to the Arbenz administration. Arbenz, much influenced by his wife, María Christina Vilanova de Arbenz, played into the hands of those opposing him by allowing communists openly to organize a party and by establishing a close relationship with the Marxist labor unions. The Guatemalan communist newspaper, Octubre, added fuel to the fire with its blatantly pro-Soviet and Marxist reporting. All this coincided with the election to the U.S. presidency of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who appointed the zealous anticommunist John Foster Dulles as secretary of state.

Arbenz's agrarian reform act of June 27, 1952, Decree 900, laid the foundation for a program of expropriation of large landholdings that seemed to be aimed especially at UFCO, although it focused primarily on distributing public lands. Virtually no land in the highlands was touched by the act. Only 15 percent of the 650,000 acres owned by UFCO was marked for expropriation, but there was immediately a major dispute over Guatemalan compensation for this land, the government offering little more than $600,000 and the company claiming a value of almost $16 million.

The United States launched a diplomatic offensive against the Arbenz government in 1953, followed by a covert scheme of the Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow the regime in 1954 through its support of a small Guatemalan exile force commanded by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas. Opposition to Arbenz within Guatemala was on the rise, although he still enjoyed wide popularity among urban labor and some elements of the middle class, despite his resort to widespread repression of opponents after 1953. Success of the CIA scheme, however, depended on the refusal of the Guatemalan army to defend the Arbenz regime. The army thus remained the arbiter of Guatemalan politics, as it had been since the 1840s, but in this case it was strongly supported by the agricultural and commercial elite and the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

THE 1960S

The overthrow of Arbenz marked the beginning of one of the darkest periods in Guatemalan history, as a strong reaction against the revolutionary reforms under the presidency of Castillo Armas (1954–1957) resulted in the suppression of the labor movement and the repeal or non-enforcement of much of the social reform legislation, including agrarian reform. With strong U.S. backing, Castillo Armas and his National Democratic Movement (MDN) set the tone for the next thirty years of military rule. The communists and other leftists, to some degree united in the Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT), were outlawed and went underground. Divisions among the military, however, hindered the stability that might have been expected. After Castillo Armas was assassinated in July 1957, intense rivalry among the various military factions was accompanied by considerable corruption. Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes finally emerged triumphant with hisNational Redemption Party in the election of 1958. Ydígoras served until 1963.

Ydígoras attempted to restore the traditional Liberal Party oligarchy—greatly expanded with new agricultural and industrial enterprises resulting from large-scale U.S. investment encouraged by the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations—while paying lip service to the middle-class and working-class interests stimulated by the Arévalo and Arbenz policies. He cooperated in the establishment of the Central American Common Market (CACM), which served the Guatemalan economy well. Less repressive than Castillo Armas, Ydígoras ran into difficulty when the Cuban Revolution alarmed right-wing Guatemalans. Ydígoras personally led the troops in putting down a Cuban-supported revolt in November 1960, but remnants of those insurgents escaped into the hills of eastern Guatemala, organized the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), and launched a guerrilla war that continued into the 1990s. This activity, together with Ydígoras's apparent willingness to allow Arévalo's candidacy in the approaching 1963 presidential election, led to his overthrow by Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia, who ruled the country from 1963 to 1966.

Peralta attempted to create a broader base of support for his Democratic Institutional Party (PID), which he compared to the corporate Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He also intensified the anticommunism campaign and became heavily involved in efforts to suppress the leftist guerrillas. Peralta's Constitution of 1965 provided a framework for cooperation between the PID and Mario Sandoval Alarcón's National Liberation Movement (MLN)—successor to Castillo Armas's MDN—on the right and the Revolutionary Party (PR)—successor to Arévalo's Revolutionary Action Party (PAR)—on the moderate left. Out of this arrangement came a relatively free election, although it was restricted to those three parties. Violence soared as right-wing death squads murdered labor and leftist leaders and the guerrillas stepped up their campaign against government forces.

Not long before the election, the PR candidate, Mario Méndez Montenegro, was probably assassinated (although his death appeared to be a suicide). His brother, Julio César Méndez Montenegro, succeeded him as the PR candidate and with strong reformist support won the election. Widespread popular demonstrations were expected if he were not allowed to take office. The PID accepted his presidency after Méndez gave secret assurance that the army leaders would retain their power, thereby precluding any real change. The repression thus continued, with strong U.S. counterinsurgency support in an effort to defeat the guerrillas, who were gaining adherents in the countryside although they controlled relatively little territory. A campaign of calculated terror led by Colonel Carlos Arana Osorio spread violence and lack of respect for human rights over the land as the army murdered thousands of people suspected of aiding the guerrillas. While Méndez enjoyed the distinction of completing his four-year term as the only civilian president of Guatemala between 1950 and 1985, he was unable to change the basic pattern of military rule and growing violations of human rights.

The FAR, led by Luis Turcios Lima until his death in a car accident in 1966, was the principal guerrilla group, but in 1965 it divided, with Marco Antonio Yon Sosa breaking away to form the November 13 Revolutionary Movement (MR-13). Yon Sosa died in a clash with Mexican troops in 1970, but both groups continued to harass the army. Some believed the army would not completely destroy the guerrillas because their presence justified continued high appropriations and other benefits for the military. In the 1970s two new guerrilla groups emerged: the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), which tended to replace the FAR, especially in the western highlands where it tried to mobilize the indigenous peoples, and the Organization of the People in Arms (OPRA).

1970–1985

Arana Osorio, the PID candidate in 1970, campaigned openly on an anticommunist platform that promised more repression. With the PR discredited, the Guatemalan Christian Democratic Democracy party (DCG) became the principal legal opposition to the military but was still too weak to have much of a chance; the PID easily won a controlled election in which fewer than half the registered voters participated. In the 1974 election General Kjell Laugerud continued PID domination of the country but faced a stiff challenge from a DCG-led coalition that nominated a conservative military officer, General Efraín Ríos Montt. Confronted with obvious and widespread electoral fraud, the DCG claimed to have won, but the official results gave Laugerud the victory. Laugerud, the son of a Norwegian immigrant, had been Arana's chief of staff. He moderated the repressive appearance of the previous administration somewhat, although it remained a military dictatorship. There was some increase in labor union organization and opposition political activity, allowing the Christian Democrats in particular to gain ground. A devastating earthquake in February 1976 created special problems for his administration, but he met the opposition's political activities with new repressive tactics.

In 1978 General Romeo Lucas García of the PID succeeded to the presidency in another fraudulent election in which voter abstention reached new heights (see Table 1). Although by the early 1970s the expanding population and increased agricultural export production were contributing to rising poverty in Guatemala, the economy also made impressive gains owing to diversification of agricultural export production and industrial expansion. In Guatemala City business continued to expand and the growing middle class enjoyed affluence despite serious inflation. The petroleum crisis of the 1970s was less damaging to Guatemala than to many other Latin American states because of the exploitation of small but significant oil reserves in the Petén.

The military elite had begun to enter the economy in a major way. Not only did the generals receive enormous salaries when they served as president, but they used their position to acquire private companies, large landholdings, and monopolistic concessions. They established their own bank (Banco del Ejército) as another institutional base for their economic interests. The corruption associated with this economic expansion and the wealth of these military officers reached obscene proportions in a country beset with staggering poverty among the majority of its population. Combined with the earthquake, the general downturn in the international economy had by the early 1980s caused falling prices for Guatemalan coffee, cotton, and sugar exports, while domestic inflation increased. Guatemala's trade deficit rose from $63 million in 1980 to $409 million in 1981.

Meanwhile, Lucas and the right-wing death squads launched a brutal policy of genocide against indigenous peoples suspected of supporting or joining the guerrillas, as Guatemala became notorious for its human rights violations. As the generals continued to seize large tracts of land, thousands of Indians fled to large refugee camps in Chiapas. All this focused unfavorable attention on Guatemala and damaged the important tourist trade. President Jimmy Carter sought to distance the United States from the Guatemalan military, ending official military aid altogether. Yet Carter's human rights policy only hardened the resolve of the Guatemalan officers to deal violently with the Left and even with moderate progressives such as the Christian Democrats. Guatemala simply made up for a partial cutoff of U.S. arms sales with arms and advisers from Israel. Terror and assassination took a horrifying toll among labor leaders and University of San Carlos students and faculty. Meanwhile, the general economic level of the population worsened. Following the 1982 rigged election of another PID general, Ángel Aníbal Guevara, several younger officers, supported by elements in both the extreme right-wing MLN and the DCG, engineered a coup that prevented him from taking office, ousting Lucas during the last days of his term and replacing him with a junta headed by General Ríos Montt. The elevation of Ríos Montt to the presidency reflected not only an end to the long domination by the PID but also the phenomenal rise of evangelical Protestantism in Guatemala, for General Ríos Montt was a minister of the California-based evangelical Church of the Word. Evangelical Protestantism had grown remarkably since about 1960, and an estimated 20 percent of Guatemala's population were Protestants by 1980. In contrast to the new Catholic evangelism in the country, often associated with "liberation theology" and the political Left, most of the Protestants were conservative and identified with pro-U.S. policies.

Ríos Montt's brief presidency served as a transition away from direct military rule. Superficially there was a noticeable effort to curb corruption and to encourage a higher degree of ethics in government. More impressive was the decline of death-squad activities and the restoration of security and peace in the central highlands. Political assassinations in the cities virtually ceased and the decline of tourism, to which the violence had contributed, was reversed for a time. Yet the economic and military strength of the powerful generals who had ruled the country since 1954 could not be easily turned back. Ríos Montt was in no sense sympathetic to leftist interests. He and the officers he represented were concerned with preserving the privileged position of the military and perceived that military abuses and corruption threatened the institution. In the countryside, Ríos Montt stepped up efforts to defeat the guerrillas. Massacres of Indian communities continued, as did the flow of refugees into Mexico. His government inaugurated a system of civil patrols, requiring Indians to serve, usually without firearms, as guardians against the guerrillas. Those who refused were killed. Ríos Montt also suspended the constitution, restricted labor unions, and prohibited the functioning of political parties in his effort to maintain order. In response, the leftists united in the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca, URNG), an umbrella organization for the Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT), FAR, EGP, and OPRA.

Ríos Montt's challenge to the military oligarchy, his constant moralistic preaching, the excessively large role of North American Protestants in his advisory councils, the imposition of a sales tax, and his meddling with powerful economic interests ensured that his regime was short-lived. In August 1983 another coup replaced him with defense minister General Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores. Cynicism, corruption, and anticommunismwere themost conspicuous characteristics of the Mejía government, with commitment to the same neoliberal policies on behalf of the elites that had characterized Guatemalan governments since 1954. However, concerned over their image and dismayed at their failure to manage the complex economic and social problems besetting the country, the military officers decided to turn the government over to civilians. International pressure from human rights activists, a sharp decline in tourism, falling coffee prices, and the military government's inability to solve Guatemala's severe economic problems all contributed to the army's decision to permit a free election and to turn over the presidency to a civilian.

Elections for a constitutional convention on July 1, 1984, again reflected widespread voter apathy, despite the participation of seventeen political parties. Under the resulting 1985 constitution, a free election was held and Guatemala was hailed for its "conversion" to civilian democracy after some three decades of military domination. A multitude of political parties ranging from extreme right to center vied for the presidency, while the left remained outside the legal political spectrum. A runoff between the top contenders resulted in the victory of a center-right and U.S.-backed Christian Democrat, Vinicio Cerezo. Popular participation in the election surged upward after years of declining voter turnout under the military regimes. A wave of optimism accompanied Cerezo's inauguration in January 1986, even though it was understood that he was strictly limited in his approach to the state's socioeconomic problems by the ultimate authority of the army.

1986–2007

Cerezo achieved some foreign policy successes as he established himself as a leader in the Central American peace process in alliance with Costa Rican president Óscar Arias. These efforts helped to end Nicaragua's civil war and bring about a free election there in 1990, opened talks between the governments and guerrillas in El Salvador and Guatemala, and laid the foundations for the Central American Parliament and a Central American summit conference to foster greater economic and political integration of the isthmus. Cerezo also moved toward resolution of Guatemala's long-smoldering dispute over sovereignty in neighboring Belize.

In domestic affairs, however, Cerezo ran into formidable obstacles. The new constitution emphasized open political dialogue and freedom of the press, yet the real power remained with the military. Furthermore, Cerezo not only failed to solve serious socioeconomic ills but saw them worsen considerably. During his administration labor and peasant participation in the political process remained weak. The deteriorating economy contributed to an increase in the level of violence, not only from the guerrillas but also from right-wing death squads, the military, personal vendettas, and rising common crime. Declining prices for Guatemalan exports, especially coffee, exacerbated the economic decline until a freeze in Brazil reversed the downward trend. The heavy foreign debt made balancing the budget impossible, especially when the government expanded the bureaucracy and appeared to tolerate widespread corruption and scandal.

Devaluation of the currency contributed to greater poverty during Cerezo's administration as inflation outran wages. Strikes and other work stoppages, especially in the public sector, seriously damaged government services. The Christian Democrats had appealed to middle-class and lower-class voters with promises of more social and economic benefits, but Cerezo's government carefully catered more to business interests, the military, and U.S. and international banking interests regarding the debt. Although it refused to turn over as much of the national resources to private ownership as U.S. advisers recommended, it privatized the national airline, Aviateca, and generally pursued conservative austerity programs in which the gap between rich and poor widened without reducing the debt significantly.

Ineligible for reelection (a legacy of the 1944 reaction to long dictatorships of the past), Cerezo left office in 1991. Popular rejection of his Christian Democratic administration was obvious when the DCG received but a small minority of the popular vote in the November 1990 election. In a runoff between two conservative candidates on January 6, 1991, Jorge Serrano Elías won in a landslide, defeating newspaper editor Jorge Carpio Nicolle by a two-to-one majority. Serrano, of the relatively unknown Solidarity Action Movement (MAS), gained many votes from those supporting Ríos Montt, who had been ruled ineligible because of the constitutional ban on candidates who had participated in a military revolt. A born-again Christian like Ríos Montt, Serrano became the first Protestant elected president in Latin American history. He promised to establish a social pact involving business, government, and labor. Voter apathy was again high, however, with 44 percent of the 3.2 million registered voters refusing to cast ballots in the November election and 54 percent abstaining in the runoff.

Serrano was careful not to antagonize the military, but as violence rose from both left and right, there was growing pessimism about his chances for success. In September 1991 a devastating earthquake, killing fifty-three and leaving thirty thousand homeless, aggravated the socioeconomic problems. Serrano, an industrial engineer, pursued neoliberal economic policies and was more acceptable to the conservative power structure than Cerezo, but was unable to cope with the rising opposition. In May 1993 he seized dictatorial power in what some called a "self-coup," disbanding the Congress and all political parties. Massive protests followed and the Congress refused to disband. When the army failed to back Serrano, he resigned on June 1. Congress chose Ramiro de León Carpio, the human rights ombudsman, as interim president. The military accepted this but insisted on their right to choose the minister of defense, making clear that the army still held ultimate authority in Guatemala. The military was suspected in the subsequent assassination of León Carpio's cousin, Jorge Carpio, the former presidential candidate.

Shifting political alliances brought new political coalitions in the 1990s that reduced the DCG and the Union of the National Center (UCN) to minor party status. Under the leadership of Álvaro Arzú, the neoliberal National Advancement Party (PAN) won the support of several center-right parties to form a congressional majority in 1995. Arzú had been popular as mayor of Guatemala City and was foreign minister under Serrano until he resigned in protest against Serrano's efforts to normalize relations with Belize. More extreme right-wing parties, meanwhile, joined with Ríos Montt and his Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG). Once again the courts denied Ríos Montt's eligibility to run for president, so Alfonso Portillo took his place as the FRG candidate in the November 1995 election. In a runoff the following January, Arzú narrowly defeated Portillo to become the new president. Voter abstention had again become serious as only about a third of the registered voters participated in this election.

Arzú's government followed strongly neoliberal policies with significant economic growth and the rejuvenation of the Central American Common Market, but his principal achievement was the conclusion of agreements with the guerrillas to end Guatemala's long civil war. The formal peace accord was signed in Guatemala City on December 29, 1996, although implementation of its provisions dragged on for years. The army accepted the accords along with dismissal of military officers accused of human rights violations. Yet the 1998 assassination of Bishop Juan Gerardi, who had published a detailed account of the atrocities committed during the thirty-six-year civil war and the failure of the government to stem the continued violence, highlighted the persistence of human rights abuses.

As Guatemala entered the twenty-first century violence and human rights abuses still haunted the country. Indigenous Guatemalans, however, had notably increased their representation in the government and had formed their own political party, the National Civic Political Forum of Mayan Unity and Fraternity (EPUM). It was the compassionate voice of an indigenous Quiché woman, Rigoberta Menchú, that brought the plight of the Guatemalan people to worldwide attention, increasing international pressure on the Guatemalan government to end the conflict by negotiating with the rebels. Menchú received the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize "in recognition of her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation." Menchú led efforts to prosecute those guilty of human-rights abuses and in 2007 she would declare her candidacy for the presidency of Guatemala.

In 1999 Portillo was again the candidate of the FRG and with Ríos Montt's backing defeated Guatemala City mayor Óscar Berger (PAN), winning 68 percent of the vote in the December 26 runoff and taking office in January 2000. Despite economic growth, the violence and widespread poverty in the country contributed to increased emigration to Mexico and the United States. Remittances to relatives remaining in Guatemala came to be a major source of foreign exchange for the country, second only to coffee export income. During Portillo's administration Guatemala also became a major clandestine exporter of illegal drugs to the United States. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency repeatedly claimed that Guatemala was a transfer point for Colombian heroin and cocaine, and Portillo agreed to allow U.S. military and other special agents to operate within Guatemala against the drug dealers.

Reports of corruption eroded support for Portillo, especially a legislative report in 2001 known as Guategate that resulted in twenty-four indictments, including one against Ríos Montt. Although the courts later exonerated Ríos Montt, there continued to be charges of government corruption and financial mismanagement. Attention to these problems as at least temporarily diverted by the visit of Pope John Paul II to Guatemala in July 2002, when he canonized the seventeenth-century friar, Pedro de San José Betancur, the only Central American ever to achieve sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.

The FRG had little credibility left by the November 2003 election, but the Court of Constitutionality had finally ruled that Ríos Montt could be a candidate for the presidency. He was unable, however, to overcome the failing reputation of his FRG party and he finished well behind óscar Berger of the rightist coalition Grand National Alliance (GANA) and Álvaro Colom of the leftist coalition National Unity of Hope (UNE). In the December runoff, Berger won with 54 percent of the votes and took office on January 14, 2004. Berger continued the neoliberal agenda and promised greater productivity and a pledge to increase employment, emphasizing the need to improve the lot of Guatemala's indigenous majority. He recognized former governments' responsibility for much of the country's violence when he ordered compensation to peasants for lands and lives lost during the civil war, and he named Rigoberta Menchú to supervise implementation of the 1996 peace accords. He also reduced the size of the army, shifting some military personnel to the National Police in an effort to attack the continuing high rates of murder, violence against women, kidnappings, and violations of civil rights.

Rising coffee prices by 2005 and more diversification in manufacturing and agriculture created new jobs and more economic activity. There were improvements, too, in public health, thanks especially to considerable aid from the Cuban government, which equipped six new hospitals in Guatemala and sent physicians and other medical personnel to staff them. Cuba also provided scholarships for hundreds of Guatemalans to study medicine in Havana. The infant mortality rate in Guatemala dropped sharply and the occurrences of many epidemic diseases was significantly reduced. The neoliberal policies of the government, while controversial, moved Guatemala into a globalized economy, while the traditional dominance of the military in Guatemalan history appeared to be diminishing.

See alsoArana, Francisco J; Arana Osorio, Carlos; Arbenz Guzmán, Jacobo; Arce, Manuel José; Arévalo Bermejo, Juan José; Aycinena, Mariano de; Barrundia, José Francisco; Bustamante y Guerra, José; Carrera, José Rafael; Castillo Armas, Carlos; Central America; Central American Common Market (CACM); Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); Cerezo Arévalo, Marco Vinicio; Cerna, Vicente; Chacón, Lázaro; Cruz, Serapio; Estrada Cabrera, Manuel; Galván Rivera, Mariano; García Granados, Miguel; Guatemala, Audiencia of; Iturbide, Agustín de; Lucas García, Fernando Romeo; Mejía Victores, Oscar Humberto; Menchú Tum, Rigoberta; Méndez Montenegro, Julio César; Molina, Pedro; Morazán, Francisco; North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); Orellana, José María; Paredes, Mariano; Peralta Azurdia, Enrique; Plan of Iguala; Reyna Barrios, José María; Ríos Montt, José Efraín; Serrano Elías, Jorge Antonio; Ubico y Castañeda, Jorge; United Fruit Company; Wyke-Aycinena Treaty (1859); Ydígoras Fuentes, Miguel; Yon Sosa, Marco Antonio.

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                                Ralph Lee Woodward Jr.