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Guatemalan Civil War: A Visual History

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Visual history of a war

Thirty-six years of military rule against leftist guerrillas, culminating in the genocide of Maya communities in the early 1980s: 200,000 dead, 83 percent of them Maya.

Fought
1960 to 1996
Duration
36 years
Dates
13 November 1960 to 29 December 1996
Deaths
About 200,000 killed or disappeared, 83 percent Maya; 93 percent of violations by state forces (CEH); 1 million displaced
State
Guatemalan army and civil patrols (PAC); US aid and training; Argentine and Israeli support
Insurgents
FAR, EGP, ORPA, PGT, united as the URNG from 1982; Cuban and Nicaraguan support
Result
Peace accords; URNG becomes a party; impunity largely persists

The Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996) grew from the CIA-backed overthrow of the reformist president Arbenz in 1954; a failed officers' revolt in 1960 spawned guerrilla groups that the army, trained and armed by the US, hunted through the 1960s in the east and the 1970s in the highlands. Under Lucas Garcia and Rios Montt (1978-1983) the army's scorched-earth campaign destroyed over 600 Maya villages, killing tens of thousands and displacing a million; the UN truth commission later called it genocide. Civilian rule from 1986 and the end of the Cold War led to the URNG guerrilla coalition and government signing peace accords in December 1996. About 200,000 died or disappeared; Rios Montt was convicted of genocide in 2013, a verdict then annulled.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Guatemalan Civil War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

14001500160017001800190020002100Guatemalan Civil War (1960 to 1996)Open: Aztec EmpireAztec Empire (1428 to 1521)Open: Spanish EmpireSpanish Empire (1492 to 1976)Open: United StatesUnited States (1776 to present)Open: Mexican RevolutionMexican Revolution (1910 to 1920)Open: Cristero WarCristero War (1926 to 1929)Open: Cold WarCold War (1947 to 1991)Open: Colombian conflictColombian conflict (1964 to present)Open: Mexican drug warMexican drug war (2006 to present)

Victims of the Guatemalan Civil War (CEH findings)

023.7547.571.2595Victims who were Maya: 8383Victims who were MayaViolations by state forces: 9393Violations by state forcesViolations by guerrillas: 33Violations by guerrillasKillings in 1981-1983: 6060Killings in 1981-1983percent

Timeline of the Guatemalan Civil War

  1. 1954
    CIA-backed coup against Arbenz
  2. 1960
    Officers' revolt; war begins
  3. 1966
    Counter-insurgency in the east
  4. 1980
    Spanish embassy fire
  5. 1982
    Rios Montt's coup; scorched earth; URNG formed
  6. 1986
    Civilian government
  7. 1996
    Peace accords29 December.
  8. 1999
    CEH truth commission report
  9. 2013
    Rios Montt convicted, then annulled

From Arbenz to the guerrillas

Arbenz's land reform, which touched United Fruit, led the CIA to arm Castillo Armas's 1954 coup; the counter-revolution reversed reforms and repressed the left. Nationalist officers rebelled in November 1960 and, defeated, founded the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR) in the eastern hills. US Green Berets trained the army, which crushed the FAR in 1966-1968 with the first death squads and napalm; some 8,000 died. Guerrilla remnants moved to the Maya highlands and, as the Guerrilla Army of the Poor and ORPA, built support among Ixil, K'iche' and other communities in the 1970s.

The genocide, 1981-1983

Lucas Garcia's regime murdered union leaders, students and the Spanish embassy's occupiers (burned alive in 1980); the army's Operation Sofia and Plan Victoria 82 under Rios Montt, who took power in a coup in March 1982, targeted whole Maya regions as guerrilla bases: villages were razed, men, women and children massacred (Plan de Sanchez, Dos Erres), survivors herded into 'model villages' and civil patrols. The CEH counted 626 massacres; the Ixil population fell by a third. Reagan called Rios Montt 'a man of great personal integrity'.

Peace and impunity

Mejia Victores ousted Rios Montt in 1983 and civilian rule returned under Cerezo in 1986, though the army kept power and killed on; the guerrillas were reduced to a few thousand. UN-mediated talks from 1991 produced accords on human rights, indigenous rights, land and the army; the final Firm and Lasting Peace was signed on 29 December 1996. The Catholic Church's REMHI report of 1998 was followed two days later by the murder of Bishop Gerardi; the CEH report of 1999 found genocide. Rios Montt was convicted in 2013 and the verdict overturned within ten days; he died in 2018 during a retrial. Guatemala remains poor, violent and unequal, its Maya majority marginalised.

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8 surprising things about the Guatemalan Civil War

  1. The CEH found that the state committed acts of genocide against Maya groups in four regions in 1981-1983.
  2. Rios Montt was the first former head of state convicted of genocide in his own country's courts; the verdict was annulled ten days later.
  3. Bishop Juan Gerardi was beaten to death two days after presenting the Church's report Guatemala: Never Again.
  4. Rigoberta Menchu, whose family was killed by the army, won the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize.
  5. The Dos Erres massacre of 1982 killed over 200 villagers, thrown into a well; survivors' testimony convicted soldiers decades later.
  6. The US cut military aid in 1977 under Carter over human rights; Israel and Argentina filled the gap.
  7. Guatemala's civil patrols enrolled up to a million men, making peasants complicit in the counter-insurgency.
  8. The 1954 coup that set the war in motion inspired Che Guevara, who was in Guatemala at the time.

Sources

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