3. Guatemala: historical overview
Mayan societies
Spanisch colony since the early 1500.
Independent republic since 1821
1898-1920: Manuel Estrada Cabrera & The United Fruit Co
1954: CIA backed military coup
1960-1996: civil war
4. The war (1960-1996)
The Guatemalan army controls the country:
United States Army Special Forces u. CIA
School of the Americas
USA support
Leftit guerrilla-groups fight against the military:
ORPA (Organización del Pueblo en Armas)
EGP (Ejército Guatemalteco de los Pobres)
=> URNG (Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca)
5. Human rights during the war
The military organizes:
“Orejas”
PAC
Kaibiles
1978 -1982: General Romeo Lucas García
1982-1983: General Efraín Ríos Montt
6. Why did the war end?
international pressure
Rigoberta Menchú
UNO Intervention
1994: First Peace Talks
1996: Piece Accords
7. Rigoberta Menchú Tum Testimony
Maya-Quiché
Nobel Prize for Peace 1992
Rigoberta Menchú (1985):
I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in
Guatemala.
8. 1998
REPORT GUATEMALA: NEVER AGAIN.
„Recovery of Historical Memory Project“
(REMHI) in Guatemala.
Direction: Monsignor Juan José Gerardi
9. Genocide against the Mayan
Peoples of Guatemala
160.000 murdered
40.000 disappeared
600 massacres
440 villages destroyed
More than 1.000.000 peoples go into exile