Yearbook 2019
Guatemala. According to
CountryAAH, Alejandro Giammattei from the conservative
opposition alliance Vamos won over the center-left coalition
Hope National Union (UNE) in the second round of the
presidential election on August 11. The victory margin was
convincing - 58% - but his mandate was weak as turnout was
just over 40%, the lowest in 20 years. Thus, the turnout
showed more than the election result's lack of electoral
confidence in the political establishment. The main cause
was considered above all to be the corruption. Nor was the
discontent diminished by Giammattei pledging to follow
outgoing President Jimmy Morale's decision not to renew the
mandate of the UN-backed International Commission on
Impunity (CICIG), whose mandate expired in September and
which was tasked with examining the transparency of public
authorities. Morale's decision was considered to come from
CICIG: s decision to review him for illegal campaign
funding. Giammattei himself was indicted in 2011 for
involvement in arbitrary executions of prisoners, and
several people in his vicinity have also figured in the
legal context.
In September, President Morales issued a 30-day state of
emergency in 22 municipalities in the northeast to
facilitate military operations against organized crime.
National and international human rights groups expressed
concern about the risk of further human rights violations,
which became more common during Morales, and also pointed
out that conflicts over natural resources with indigenous
peoples are ongoing in the areas concerned. Morales also
repeatedly attacked the Supreme Court during the year for
its decision in principle, and the newly elected Giammattei
suggested that his attitude would be the same.
Peace agreements and democratization
Mostly, there was peace on the battlefield from 1984. The
guerrillas were militarily beaten, but negotiations dragged
on. First with President Ramiro de León Carpio (1993–1996),
and with the help of the UN and a group of friends from
countries where Norway was also involved, government and
guerrillas came to the negotiating table. The guerrilla
organizations had then joined forces in the alliance URNG.
During 1994, URNG and the government signed a number of
sub-agreements, including the establishment of a Truth
Commission. The next president, Álvaro Arzú, completed the
process. The final "permanent and lasting peace" agreement
was signed in 1996.
In all, the sub-agreements laid the foundation for
comprehensive reform of the state. Among other things, the
agreement on socio-economic reforms and agriculture
stipulates that the tax base must be increased to expand
school and health services. Through an agreement on the
identity and rights of the indigenous peoples, Guatemala
declared itself as a multicultural state like most Latin
American countries in the 1990s. During the war, indigenous
issues had moved higher up the agenda worldwide. Awarding
the Nobel Peace Prize to k'iche ' woman Rigoberta Menchú Tum
in 1992 is an expression of this.
In the first decade after the peace, the country
succeeded in disarming the rebels and significantly reducing
the army. A UN- led force (MINUGUA) supported these
processes and the country received significant international
assistance. However, the economy did not receive a decisive
boost. Tax revenue is still the lowest in Latin America.
Judicial and political reforms have been very slow, much
because conservative circles in Guatemalan society (far
beyond the urban white elite) have not accepted a reform
program they consider foreign-inspired and unduly leftist.
In February 1999, the Truth Commission presented its
report on the atrocities of the war. It stated that the army
had committed " genocidal acts" and was responsible for the
vast majority of the assaults. President Arzú gave the
report a lukewarm reception and the army thought it was
one-sided. General Ríos Montt had then founded a new
right-wing party, FRG, which measured the skepticism of the
peace treaty.
FRG candidate Alfonso Portillo won the presidential power
in 2000 while URNG (now as a political party) failed to
gather more than twelve percent of the vote. The support of
Portillo and Ríos Montt in Mayan areas may seem surprising,
but is understandable given the widespread value
conservatism in the countryside and that very many Mayan
communities perceived the war as being "wedged between two
wildfires". The Civil Defense Patrols (PAC) came into being
as a tool for the army, but, led by the rural people
themselves, they also became an opportunity for the Mayan
community to keep the war away. The FRG built much of its
power on providing war reparations to tens of thousands of
PAC members in addition to compensation programs for war
victims that peace agreements had otherwise drafted.
In defiance of the peace treaties, Guatemala has
conducted a series of lawsuits against high-ranking military
for war crimes. General Ríos Montt was sentenced to 80 years
in prison for genocide (massacres on Mayx Mayans) in May
2013, but ten days later the sentence was canceled with
reference to procedural errors. The case was resumed in
2015, but Ríos Montt died before being sentenced.
Alfonso Portillo was followed by Óscar Berger (2004–2008)
and Álvaro Colom Caballeros (2008–2012), both of whom
followed up the peace agreements to a greater extent. Berger
gave the agreements the constitutional rank and entered into
an agreement with the UN to establish an International
Commission (CICIG) to assist the state forces in the fight
against corruption and hidden networks. Large parts of the
court system were then paralyzed; not only as a result of
military resistance to litigation, but also as drug
traffickers acquired influence among politicians and
impunity in the judiciary.
Colom managed to establish CICIG despite training in
Congress and the judiciary. The Commission assisted the
prosecution with investigative capacity and independence and
uncovered a number of corrupt networks of politicians,
military, businessmen and drug dealers. The crown of the
work came in 2015, when it was charged with President Otto
Pérez Molina (as well as Vice President Roxana Baldetti) for
wasting funds from the Customs Service to himself and his
parties through the La Línea network.
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