The Guatemalan Genocide, coined the Silent Holocaust, had a great impact upon the indigenous Mayan people of the mountainous regions of Guatemala; however, few have heard of it. Between 1981 and 1983 the CIA backed military dictatorship of Guatemala persecuted indigenous Mayans as a proxy in the war against socialist guerillas. Roy Williams explains.
Queqchí people carrying their loved one's remains after an exhumation in Cambayal in Alta Verapaz department, Guatemala. Source: Trocaire / CAFCA archive, available here.
Amid the backdrop of the Cold War and the Reagan administration’s newfound vigor in combatting Soviet style socialism in the western hemisphere, the United States funded the military dictatorship of Efrain Rios Mott. The rise of the Guatemalan dictatorship stemmed from the Guatemalan Civil War and the United States backed coup, which overthrew a democratically elected government in favor of a more easily controlled military dictatorship. From 1960 until 1996, the Guatemalan civil war raged as the military and the government sought to defeat leftist rebels. Amid this conflict, the Guatemalan military carried out cruel acts of genocide upon the indigenous Mayan population who were blamed for rebel activity regardless of their actual involvement.
To understand the reasons behind the Guatemalan genocide, the history of Guatemala’s civil war remains tantamount. In 1944 Juan Jose Arevalo was democratically elected to the presidency and began instituting multiple reforms. These reforms included increased funding for education, a national minimum wage, and a maximum work week. While these reforms were ultimately beneficial for the Guatemalan people, they failed to recognize one of the most consequential determinants of Guatemalan poverty, land ownership.
The United Fruit Company
In 1951, Jacobo Arbenz was elected president of Guatemala and continued in the spirit of reform as his predecessor. Arbenz stood as a unique leader in the Latin American world as a proponent of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. At the time of Arbenz’s presidency, Guatemala stood as an ideological leader of the Latin American world in its quest for reform and modernization. On June 17, 1952, the Agrarian Reform Law was passed as a monumental move towards granting Guatemala’s people a chance at land ownership. At the time of passage, 40% of the Guatemalan economy was run by the American company, the United Fruit Company. The United Fruit Company owned large swaths of land and controlled all the country’s railways as well as the electrical infrastructure. Arbenz attempted to pay the United Fruit Company for their large swaths of land but they ultimately refused. Unbeknownst to president Arbenz, the current secretary of state of the United States during the Eisenhower Administration, John Foster Dulles, was a corporate board member of the United Fruit Company. John Foster Dulles’ brother, Allen Dulles, was also the head of the CIA at the time.
Upon the conflict between the Guatemalan government and the United Fruit Company, a concerted effort began to paint president Arbenz as a communist for his reformist attitude. Slowly but surely public opinion in the United States began to go against president Arbenz and his attempted reforms. In June 1954, the CIA staged a coup of the Guatemalan government led by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, which sought to regain the lands of the United Fruit Company. Ultimately the CIA were successful and on June 27, 1954, Armas overthrew Arbenz and became president of Guatemala, marking the end of the 10 years of spring, the only time in Guatemalan history that any leaders were elected democratically without foreign interference.
War begins
Immediately after the coup, Armas began suspending civil liberties and accusing peasants of having communist sympathies. This cycle of military dictatorships continued until 1960 when the Guatemalan civil war began. Initially guerilla resistance began in the cities of Guatemala, but it soon became evident that the mountainous regions of Guatemala would be more effective as a base of operations in resisting the government. The sad coincidence of the movement of guerillas to mountainous regions such as El Quiche is that the indigenous Mayan populations lived there largely uninvolved with the revolutionary politics of Guatemala.
In March 1982, military leader Efrain Rios Montt assumed power - with the help of the military. Montt had strong ties with the Reagan administration in the United States and ultimately received foreign aid in the conflict with the Guatemalan people. Montt claimed that God had put him in power and began his reign by bringing law and order to the major cities of Guatemala. Every Sunday Montt conducted erratic sermons aimed at reducing crime in the cities. Ultimately Montt’s goals succeeded in reducing crime and gained him wild popularity in the cities. Montt then turned his mission towards wiping out all resistance in the rural areas of Guatemala. On May 28, 1982, the government announced a 30-day amnesty plan allowing any guerilla fighters to turn themselves in. The 30-day amnesty plan ultimately failed resulting in the mobilization of the Guatemalan Army against the countryside. Montt instituted the Frijoles y Fusiles program, which would be used to legally justify attacking indigenous populations. During this period, the government and army systematically massacred the indigenous Mayan populations of mountainous regions such as El Quiche. The government of Guatemala made the horrendous decision that all indigenous populations were considered guerilla sympathizers and treated them as enemies. During this phase of the Guatemalan civil war, 200,000 native Mayans were massacred with 400 villages destroyed. Many of the massacres were committed in rudimentary ambush formats. When Mayan villagers would journey to the marketplace, the army would force as many people into large buildings, bar the door and burn them alive with the aide of gasoline. Other forms of genocide included forced disappearances, torture of suspected guerillas, and indiscriminate massacres.
War ends
The Guatemalan Civil War finally ended on December 29, 1996 when guerilla fighters signed a peace treaty with the government. Efrain Rios Montt was eventually found guilty of genocide in 2013 and sentenced to 80 years in prison. The sentence did not hold, as the Guatemalan constitutional court demanded a retrial and Montt died in 2018 without ever facing justice. Many officials in both the Guatemalan and American governments continue to deny the massacres as genocide, defending their actions as appropriate. The Guatemalan Civil War claimed the lives of some 200,000 people – including over 40,000 killed and disappeared as identified by the Commission for Historical Clarification (although the true figure is higher). Countless mass burial sites dot the landscape of the mountainous regions of Guatemala for which researchers continue to uncover the bodies of those murdered by their own government.
While the genocidal killings have ended and dictator Efrain Rios Mott is dead, the United States has not atoned for its heinous actions in supporting the killings. The CIA is widely known to have understood its role in funding genocidal persecution whether intentionally or unintentionally. Regardless of the overarching goals of United States’ Cold War foreign policy in containing the spread of socialism throughout the world, the United States still bears responsibility in perpetuating genocide against the Mayan people of Guatemala. In combatting the denial of the Guatemalan genocide, citizens of both Guatemala and the United States must continue to stand up for the truth in remembering the atrocities of the past committed by both governments. By telling the stories of the Guatemalan Genocide and condemning the crimes against humanity perpetuated upon the Mayan people of Guatemala, further acts of genocide may be prevented in the battle against the violence of the state.
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Now, read Roy’s article on the Armenian Genocide here.
