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Guatemala

Country in Central America, bounded north and northwest by Mexico, east by Belize and the Caribbean Sea, southeast by Honduras and El Salvador, and southwest by the Pacific Ocean.

Government

The 1985 constitution, amended 1994, provides for a single-chamber 80-member congress elected by universal suffrage for a five-year term. Sixty-eight of its members represent departmental congressional districts and twelve are elected nationally. The president, also directly elected for a similar term, appoints a cabinet, is assisted by a vice-president, and is not eligible for re-election.

History

Formerly part of the Maya empire, Guatemala became a Spanish colony in 1524. Independent from Spain in 1821, it then joined Mexico, becoming independent in 1823. It was part of the United Provinces of Central America 1823-40.

Dictatorship

The military rebellion in 1838, led by José Rafael Carrera, set a pattern of long-term dictatorship in Guatemala. Thereafter, despite frequent ostentatious displays of constitutionalism, the country was ruled by a succession of personal or military dictators. The Indian population, in particular, was ruthlessly exploited, while human rights were ignored or trampled upon.

A revolutionary strike 1944 led to the electoral triumph of Juan José Arévalo. Along with his successor, Jácobo Arbenz, he attempted to curb the power of the army and install political freedoms. Health services and education were expanded. Agrarian reform was also proposed.

Era of coups

Arbenz's nationalization of the United Fruit Company's plantations 1954 so alarmed the US government that it sponsored a revolution, led by Col Carlos Castillo Armas, who then assumed the presidency. He was assassinated in 1963, and the army continued to rule until 1966. There was a brief period of constitutional government during which some 10,000 civilians, mostly Maya, were killed by the armed forces. The military returned in 1970.

In the 1982 presidential election the government candidate won, but opponents complained that the election had been rigged, and before he could take office there was a coup by a group of young right-wing officers, who installed Gen Ríos Montt as head of a three-person junta. He soon dissolved the junta, assumed the presidency, and began fighting corruption.

The antigovernment guerrilla movement was growing in 1981 and was countered by repressive measures by Montt, so that by 1983 opposition to him was widespread. After several unsuccessful attempts to remove him, a coup led by Gen Mejía Victores finally succeeded. Mejía Victores declared an amnesty for the guerrillas, the ending of press censorship, and the preparation of a new constitution. After its adoption and elections 1985, the Guatemalan Christian Democratic Party (PDCG) won a majority in the congress as well as the presidency, with Vinicio Cerezo becoming president. In 1989 2% of the population owned more than 70% of the land. An attempted coup against Cerezo that year was put down by the army.

Deaths and disappearances

The army, funded and trained by the USA, destroyed some 440 rural villages and killed more than 100,000 civilians 1980-89; 40,000 people disappeared during the same period. From January to November 1989 almost 2,000 people were killed and 840 disappeared (representing a six-fold increase over the same period in the preceding year).

Constitutional reform

In presidential elections in January 1991, Jorge Serrano Elías of the Solidarity Action Movement (MAS), an ally of Montt, received 68% of the vote. Diplomatic relations with Belize were established in September 1991. Serrano suspended the constitution in May 1993 after demonstrations against his economic policies, but was forced to step down by the military, who took control of government. The following month human-rights prosecutor Ramiro de Leon Carpio was elected president by the assembly. His constitutional reform package, aimed at stamping out corruption, received overwhelming support in a referendum in January 1994. In the same month talks began between the government and the rebel Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union.

In elections to a new congress in August 1994, right-wing parties, led by Montt's Guatemalan Republican Front, won an overall majority. Violence escalated and in March 1995 both the USA and United Nations publicly criticized the Guatemalan government for continued and widespread human rights abuses. In August 1995 guerrilla groups signed a ceasefire, the first in 30 years. In January 1996 Alvaro Arzú of the right-of-centre National Advancement Party (PAN) was elected president, defeating a Republican Front rival. A truce between the government and the rebel Guatemalan Revolutionary Movement was agreed in March 1996.

A peace treaty was signed between the rebels and the government in December 1996, officially ending Latin America's longest guerrilla war which had lasted 36 years. During the conflict, 100,000 people died, 40,000 more ‘disappeared’ from military detention, and more than one million fled their homes.

In a referendum notable for a low turnout, voters in May 1999 rejected 50 proposed reforms aimed at giving rights to indigenous people and curbing its security forces. Proponents of the reforms saw this result as a setback for the peace process. In elections in 1999, Arzú was replaced as president by right-wing Alfonso Portillo, who swore in his new government in January 2000.

President Portillo astonished human rights activists in August 2000 by admitting government responsibility for atrocities committed during the country's 36-year civil war which ended in 1996. He pledged to investigate the massacres, abduction of children, and murders, and to compensate victims' families. The gesture was seen as significant, as many Latin American regimes had taken decades to acknowledge the crimes of previous governments.

In June 2000, Guatemala, together with El Salvador and Honduras, signed a free-trade agreement with Mexico, eliminating duties, on 65 % of Mexican exports and on 80% of the exports of the other three countries to Mexico, over 12 years. In December, the US dollar was adopted as a second currency, alongside the quetzal.

Guatemala has the most inequitable distribution of land in Latin America; 98% of indigenous families (1988) do not have enough land to be self-supporting.

Alvarado, Pedro de Belize

Bonampak Central America

Central American Common Market Esquipulas

Guatemala City Lothrop, S(amuel) K(irkland)

Menchú Túm, Rigoberta United Provinces of Central America