Conflict Analysis: The Guatemalan Civil War
Stefanie Viera, Ramapo College of New Jersey
Abstract: Throughout the Cold War, countries in Latin America were home to several revolutions and coup d’états that reflected the increasing international division of capitalist and communist countries. Guatemala was one such country, being the target of a CIA-backed overthrow of the elected government of Jacobo Árbenz. The brutal reign of dictators that followed this continued U.S. intervention resulted in an opposition movement, a civil war, and a genocide of the indigenous Mayan communities. This essay investigates the casus belli of the Guatemalan Civil, with significant consideration of the presence of deeply entrenched systemic inequalities and the Cold War environment in which it occurred. Furthermore, the moral issues about the conduct of either side throughout the war’s duration are addressed, using documents and analysis from such organizations as the United Nations to ensure that the analysis of these war crimes is conducted in a comprehensive and unbiased nature. Finally, and importantly, the essay examines the attempts to achieve peace and justice after such a brutal war to denote what has been and still needs to be done to help Guatemala rebuild.
Introduction
Guatemala's tumultuous history can be traced back to its roots in colonialism, in which the indigenous Guatemalan community was systematically marginalized and oppressed, reflecting a pattern familiar across the colonized Western Hemisphere. The indigenous community worked to advocate for themselves, particularly in the 20th century, but the government would inevitably ignore and dismiss these efforts. However, a triumph seemed on the horizon for them with the election of the left-wing politician Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, who ran on a platform of equality, notably introducing Decree 900, which aimed to develop a balanced economic environment through equitable land distribution. It must be noted that Árbenz’s government came into power during the Cold War, and its leftist ideology was viewed as a threat to the United States government's economic interests, ability to exploit the country's resources through the United Fruit Company, and overall position in the Cold War (Totten & Totten, 2018, pp. 345-347). Furthermore, around this time, numerous overthrows of oppressive right-wing and pro-U.S. regimes in Latin America had occurred, which were subsequently replaced by socialist and communist ones, as exemplified in Cuba, Nicaragua, and El Salvador (Pierce, 2009). The combined desire of the United States to continue the exploitation of Guatemala and the Cold War tensions plaguing Latin America makes it no surprise that in 1954, the C.I.A. planned, funded, and provided arms for a coup d’etat of the Árbenz administration to avoid a communist toehold in Central America. The coup was subsequently followed by the quick installation of a right-wing military regime that would abide by United States interests.
Much like many other countries in Latin America that were subject to similar American intervention, a rebel group named the Fuerza Armadas Rebeldes (Rebel Armed Forces) emerged to oppose the numerous right-wing governments in Guatemala that followed the coup. However, when their efforts failed, the F.A.R. moved their operations to the western highlands of Guatemala, where a predominantly Maya population presided, to convince the oppressed to join their cause. The whiplash economic growth and economic downturns that punctuated the 1960s and 1970s only exacerbated a country already in distress, and the Mayans became more and more protective over their culture, which was consistently threatened by the state (Totten & Totten, 2018, pp. 347-349). Guatemala finally reached a boiling point, with the rebellion gaining enough support to wage a war against the oppressive military government in 1960.
Casus Belli
Immense, systemic pressures to start a war, compounded with the struggles of the communist party in Guatemala, led to the Civil War. There are numerous casus belli for the war, but the causes follow a similar thread of the economic and social injustices inflicted upon the larger population by the governmental, economic, and military elite. As mentioned, the resources needed to thrive economically were disproportionately distributed. Specifically, a significant amount of the most fertile land was used as plantations for exports, while the peasants had access to small plots where they would struggle to achieve subsistence agriculture. This land inequity is reflected in the economic and educational struggles faced by the impoverished majority. For example, 60% of Guatemalans had to survive on less than $1 a day. Living on $1 a day indicates extreme poverty levels, which is doubly distressing when one considers the grandiose living situations of the elite. Concerning education, 95% were unable to achieve a secondary education, and 44% did not have the opportunity to attend school at all (Pierce, 2009). This was encouraged by the almost unchecked control the elites had over the economy and politics, which allowed for the passage of state social policies that increased the inequalities. The elite's absolute and systematically ensured monopoly over resources that could have provided the larger Guatemalan population with opportunities for comfortable living and educational success serves as a justifiable reason to wage war against the state.
An additional justification for the war waged against Guatemala's military government is the unabashed physical violence used by military leaders to quash any political dissent. These actions mainly included killing or disappearing those who opposed the state or who were suspected of opposing the state. This violence and the subsequent fear induced in the people further silenced what little voice the majority of the population had in their governance, therefore amplifying the desperation among the civilians (Pierce, 2009). As these issues continued and their more peaceful efforts to reform the government failed, the left began to escalate their military operations and prepared to act as guerillas. Some Mayans supported the guerillas, as the guerillas were considered to be their last hope to end the systemic oppression and marginalization of their peoples, but that, of course, does not mean all Mayans were a part of these operations (The Center for Justice and Accountability, Guatemala, n.d.). The consistent marginalization of the majority population and abuse of power exercised by the military government and elite provide a legitimate and justifiable casus belli for the Guatemalan Civil War.
The pressure to initiate a civil war was only compounded by the Cold War politics that impacted most countries at that time, including Guatemala. The Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (Guatemalan Labor Party) was not initially militant and preferred the Soviet Union’s cautious and calculated approach to dealing with opposition. They staunchly supported the election of Árbenz, and were thus simultaneously surprised by the coup of 1954 and embarrassed by their lack of action and foresight. The toppling of the elected government and the installation of a right-wing dictatorship placed the P.G.T. under tremendous pressure to follow the militant Cuban example, as opposed to the previously mentioned policy of the USSR. For this reason, the P.G.T. took steps to form a military group separate from the state army, but shortly after, two of their guerilla detachments were destroyed entirely during their first combat experience against the national military and police, only encouraging them to increase their efforts. The war was already underway, but the rebel side was yet to be adequately organized. Thus, the P.G.T. sent representatives to Havana to receive political and military instruction from the Cuban guerilla centers. After this, they worked to consolidate numerous opposition groups to create the F.A.R. It only took from 1963 to 1964 for the rebels to establish guerilla fronts in the northeastern area of Guatemala (Crain, Guatemalan Revolutionaries and Havana's Ideological Offensive of 1966-1968 1975, 178-182). It was this gradual militarization of the leftists, notably with the support of Cuba, that enabled the rebellion to commence.
Moral Issues
From the beginning of the Civil War, immoral tactics were employed by the F.A.R. and the state. The government defined the Maya population as inherent enemies of the state, deliberately focusing their attacks on the civilian population and pursuing collective punishment to impair the guerillas’ operations. In other words, the state identified the already marginalized Maya population as the cause for the rebellion and directed many of their attacks towards them. It is this rhetoric and collective punishment that enabled the commencement of the genocide of the Mayas, which lasted five deadly years from 1978 to 1983. Within the vein of collective punishment can also be found the use of the scorched earth policy, in which the government systematically attacked over 600 villages. The targeted populations would be subjected to murder, rape, and torture, resulting in over 70,000 people being killed or disappeared. Out of the 600 villages that were attacked, around 300 were utterly destroyed beyond the point of repair and restoration. Not only does this mean that many people were left without a home, it also means that places and objects of significant cultural value were destroyed. The infamous forced disappearances began in 1966 and were primarily conducted by the government with the help of the C.I.A. The United States assisted in the training of death squads whose main goal was to capture, torture, and kill those believed to be associated with the left. The bodies would be disposed of in myriad locations, such as the ocean, which would make them nearly impossible to recover, which is why these people are said to have "disappeared” (The Center for Justice and Accountability, n.d.). These numerous significant human rights abuses and violations committed mainly by the Guatemalan government were very well documented, thus allowing people today to understand the depth of the moral issues of the Civil War.
The documentation of the moral issues committed by both the guerillas and the government is best exemplified by the Truth Commission report entitled Memoria del Silencio (Memory of Silence) (1999). This work was created by the UN Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (C.E.H.) (The UN Commission for Historical Clarification), which concludes that the actions committed by the government during this war toward the Maya were genocidal. The report takes into account human rights violations and assigns responsibility for the genocide directly to the state. According to the C.E.H., 93% of the human rights violations and acts of violence were committed by the state, with 91% occurring from 1978 to 1984. 85% of all human rights violations and acts of violence were executed by the army, with the support of the state, and 18% by civil patrols that were organized by the armed forces. These percentages indicate that a majority of the responsibility for the violations falls on the state and military. The C.E.H. creates an extensive list of specific violations, beginning with the massacres of the Maya population. This analysis points to the scorched earth policy, disappearances, arbitrary executions, and rape. As the C.E.H. put it, the army and the state participated in “multiple acts of savagery.” Furthermore, the death squads, the courts’ complicity with the authorities, and the forcing of young men (including minors) to take part in the violence are listed as violations attributable to the state. At the end of this portion of the human rights violations section, the C.E.H. charges them with acts of genocide, writing that there was an “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, numerous Mayan groups,” notably using the language from the U.N. Genocide Convention to make this conclusion (La Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico, 1999, 33-41). With the help of this truth commission, accountability for the majority of the human rights violations is placed on the state, which is very useful in understanding the disproportionality of the war. However, what is most notable is the fact that the genocide was recognized by the United Nations, which would mean that action would need to take place to address and attempt to rectify the issue.
Of course, the violations were not limited to the state; the C.E.H. notes that while only 3% of the violations were committed by the guerrillas, the abuses were still devastating and carried significant weight. It must be additionally noted, however, that these actions were often responses to the genocide and decades of violence that had been perpetrated by the state. While this is no justification for their violence, it is an important perspective to keep in mind. The acts of violence of the guerillas proved to be very similar to that of the state but were committed on a smaller scale. For example, they were found guilty of arbitrary executions, with most of their victims being people affiliated with the military and civil patrols; massacres mainly of people within the insurgent groups in the name of “revolutionary justice”; the forced disappearance and kidnapping of captured peoples; and the forced recruitment of young men, including minors (La Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico, 1999, 41-44). Again, of course, the scale of these actions does not take away from their impact, but it does still mean that a majority of the responsibility can be attributed to the state.
All of these statistics and neatly presented accusations, while accurate and valuable resources, cannot encapsulate the devastation of this war in the same manner that testimony from a survivor could. The U.S.C. Shoah Foundation has accumulated several testimonies in which survivors of the war and genocide share what they remember from their experiences. One such testimony was given by Aracely Garrido, who survived the genocide. While describing what the indigenous civilian population experienced, she said:
...there was so much hunger, so much death. People would die from bullet and stab wounds. These violent acts were done by the military and through strafing [repeated attacks with bombs or machine-gun fire from low-flying aircraft] or people would die of hunger. Many people also died of illnesses – since the area was occupied by the military there was no access to medicine so people went without treatment (Garrido, Aracely Garrido on the Guatemalan Genocide (subtitled) 1994, 0:42-1:11).
Garrido spoke level-headedly and softly about the war until she began listing these causes for the death of people around her. At this point, her words began speeding up as her eyes occasionally averted from the camera, using her hand to punctuate the points she was making. A deep sadness could be found in her otherwise plain expression. Garrido, like many other people who survived the genocide, most likely experiences trauma from the actions committed during the war. What one may find to be interesting is the mention of hunger and the lack of medicinal support. The words “hunger,” “medicine,” and “illnesses” do not show up once in the C.E.H. report, which may be because the C.E.H. found these issues to be unintentional repercussions of the war. However, the state likely intentionally perpetuated and weaponized the lack of access to such essential needs to increase the devastating effects of their actions. Either way, the testimony of Garrido reflects the trauma of the genocide and war at large that cannot be captured through more formal mediums. It is essential that this side of the war be shared because it is truly about the people who suffered at the hands of the powerful.
Peace Conclusion
In 1983, Efraín Ríos Montt, the military dictator of Guatemala at the time, was ousted in a coup d'etat, thus concluding the formal totalitarianism that had ruled over the country since 1954. Shortly after this, the civilian government worked to develop and eventually successfully pass a new constitution in 1986, marking the beginning of the path to gradual peace in Guatemala (The Center for Justice and Accountability, n.d.). The guerillas and the Guatemalan government agreed to a human rights accord in 1994, and just two years later, the United Nations facilitated and brokered a treaty between the two parties (Totten & Totten, 2018, p. 353). Thus in 1996, an end was finally reached after 36 years of bloody and egregious fighting. Despite the war being over, the extensive damage and loss caused by both sides of the war, but most notably the state, would result in a struggle to achieve peace and justice that is still occurring today.
Peace was attempted to be acquired through the help of non-governmental organizations, such as the previously discussed U.N. mandated C.E.H. truth commission that documented the genocide under the administrations of Generals Lucas García and Ríos Montt. Furthermore, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights made significant strides in reparations for the families of victims through several landmark cases. One year before the release of the C.E.H. report, a Recuperación de la Memoria Historia (Recovery of Historical Memory) project was undertaken by the Guatemalan Catholic Church, resulting in the publication of Guatemala: Nunca Mas (Guatemala: Never Again), which Bishop Juan Gerardi authored. However, just two days after its release, Gerardi was found beaten to death in his own home (The Center for Justice and Accountability, n.d.). The death of Gerardi hauntingly reflects the more extensive experiences of those who have attempted to achieve peace within Guatemala, in which they faced a lack of cooperation from the justice system and the state in their pursuit of reconciliation and a resolution due to continued political corruption and marginalization of the impacted communities.
Seeking justice within the country, particularly within the government, was a daunting task that would ultimately result in significant failures. It often occurred that if one were to try to get justice for what one had suffered during the Civil War, one would find that prosecutors were often ill-trained and ill-equipped, that the courts took extremely long to address judicial appeals and motions, that the Army and state resisted cooperation, and that the police would do a poor job in protecting the judges, prosecutors, and witnesses in the cases. In 2009, out of the 626 massacres documented in the C.E.H. Truth Commission, only three were successfully prosecuted. However, 2009 did not mark the end of people seeking justice through the judicial system.
Increased access to evidence may enable a pursuit of true transitional justice. In 2005, 80 million documents from the former national police were discovered, which covered information about those who were murdered and disappeared. These documents could help not only in identifying those who should be held responsible for the inhumane deaths but also in bringing a level of closure to those who lost loved ones. Later, in 2008, President Álvaro Colom announced his plan to release military archives from the Civil War but received pushback from the minister of defense, who claimed that this violated the right to confidentiality for national security documents. This resulted in the passage of a law that states that information relating to human rights violations cannot be declared confidential (Human Rights Watch, 2023), thus paving the way for the release of the records in 2011 (Willard, 2021, p. 1). While having access to such pertinent information is helpful, simply just knowing what happened to the victims and the actions taken by the state does not truly accomplish the peace that Guatemala still desperately needs. The most effective way to achieve significant progress in the way of peace is by utilizing this information to prosecute those guilty of the crimes and provide reparations and reconciliation for those affected.
Today, strides are still being made to try to bring justice, and therefore peace, to the people of Guatemala. A trial against General Benedicto Lucas García, who was in charge of the Army during the war, and Manuel Callejas y Callejas, who oversaw military intelligence, are being charged with "crimes of genocide, enforced disappearance and crimes against humanity" in January of 2023. Their victims number at least 1,421 people (Ortiz Borbolla, Genocide Trial Against High Level Military Officials to Begin in Guatemala 2023). These trials are critical in achieving justice, although it has taken such a notably long time to do so, especially considering how highly these officials ranked during the war. However, lamenting how delayed the trials are does not achieve change. Despite the war being concluded 28 years ago, it is not too late to make a difference. The momentum of this trial can be harnessed to pursue similar trials and achieve justice. It is only then that Guatemala can truly begin its path toward peace and prosperity.
Bibliography
The Center for Justice and Accountability. (n.d.). Guatemala. CJA. https://cja.org/where-we-work/guatemala/
Crain, D. A. (1975, May). Guatemalan Revolutionaries and Havana’s Ideological Offensive of 1966-1968. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/174897
Human Rights Watch. (2023, January 20). World Report 2009: Rights Trends in Guatemala. Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2009/country-chapters/americas-guatemala
La Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico. (1999). Guatemala - Memory of Silence: Report of the Commission for Historical Clarification: Conclusions and Recommendations. Human Rights Data Analysis Group. https://hrdag.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/CEHreport-english.pdf
Ortiz Borbolla, S. (2023, January 6). Genocide Trial Against High Level Military Officials to Begin in Guatemala. WOLA. https://www.wola.org/2023/01/genocide-trial-against-high-level-military-officials-to-begin-in-guatemala/#:~:text=Guatemalan%20courts%20have%20twice%20determined,and%20sentenced%20to%2080%20years.
Pierce, D. (2009, October 1). Causes for the Guatemalan Civil War as seen in Paradise in ashes by Beatriz Manz. Inquiries Journal. http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/7/causes-for-the-guatemalan-civil-war-as-seen-in-paradise-in-ashes-by-beatriz-manz
Totten, S. (2018). The US Government’s Relationship with Guatemala During the Genocide of the Maya (1981-1983). In S. Totten (Ed.), Dirty Hands and Vicious Deeds: The US Government’s Complicity in Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide (pp. 343–382). essay, University of Toronto Press.
USC Shoah Foundation. (1994). Aracely Garrido on the Guatemalan Genocide (subtitled). Guatemalan Genocide Testimony Series | USC Shoah Foundation. Retrieved 2024, from https://sfi.usc.edu/playlist/guatemalan-genocide-testimony-series.
Willard, E. (2021, June). Fieldnotes: Searching for the Guatemalan Military Archives. University of Washington. https://jsis.washington.edu/latinam/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2021/06/Final-Willard-Guatemala-Military-Archives-Article-6-11-2021.pdf
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