Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
forced to work the elites' land. The demands of a growing urban middle class, meanwhile,
were repressed with the help of the armed forces and right-wing death squads.
The United States, meanwhile, continued to pour money and logistical support into the
increasingly bloody repression. Three years after the election of Carlos Arana Osorio in
1970, who was nicknamed “the butcher of Zacapa,” 15,000 Guatemalans had been killed
or disappeared. The United States did its share by training 32,000 Guatemalan policemen
through the Agency for International Development (AID) via its public safety program.
Guatemala'sPolicíaNacionalwasnotoriouslylinkedtotheparamilitarydeathsquadsoper-
ating with impunity in the cities and countryside. Many off-duty policemen filled the ranks
of these right-wing extremist groups working parallel to, but with unofficial sanction from,
the more traditional forms of counterinsurgency.
In 1971, another guerrilla unit, the Organización Revolucionario del Pueblo en Armas
(ORPA, Revolutionary Organization of the People in Arms), was formed. The unit was led
by Rodrigo Asturias, the son of Nobel Prize novelist Miguel Ángel Asturias. It operated in
the vicinity of Lake Atitlán, Quetzaltenango, San Marcos, and Suchitepéquez, setting up
operations in a strategically important corridor between the highlands and the agricultur-
ally rich coastal lowlands. ORPA spent eight years recruiting local combatants, then train-
ing and indoctrinating them into its ranks. Believed to be the most disciplined of the rebel
organizations, it launched its first offensive in 1979 with the occupation of a coffee farm
near Quetzaltenango.
Yet another guerrilla organization, the Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres (EGP, Guerrilla
Army of the Poor), exploded onto the scene in 1975 with the much-publicized execution
of a notoriously ruthless Ixcán land-lord. It had spent three years developing political con-
sciousness among the peasantry in the remote Ixcán jungle where it operated prior to
launching its first assault. The Guatemalan military began increasingly violent reprisals
against the peasantry living in remote jungle outposts, some of whom kept the guerrillas
fed and supplied. In Ixcán, as well as throughout Guatemala, peasants would become in-
creasingly caught in the cross-fire between the military and the rebel groups often serving
as a scapegoat for the army's wrath.
On February 4, 1976, a massive earthquake struck the Guatemalan highlands, leaving
23,000 dead, 77,000 injured, and about a million homeless. The reconstruction efforts saw
a renewed push to reform the inherent injustices of Guatemalan society with increased
activity on behalf of the trade unions. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter, citing increasingly
gross human rights violations, cut off military aid to Guatemala.
The 1978 elections were rigged to the benefit of Romeo Lucas García, who unleashed
a fresh wave of repression against the usual victims but now also added academics, journ-
alists, and trade unionists to the mix. The guerrilla war grew increasingly strong in rural
Guatemala at this time, with the number of total combatants estimated at 6,000 distributed
