https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5 A timeline of key events. Sources: Sources: The U.S. State Department, Inter-American Commission on Human Right, Human Rights Watch, Commission for Historical Clarification, New York Times, BBC, Frontline, PBS. en-us 2022-07-01 19:15:09 UTC 2022-07-03 18:19:47 UTC hello@padlet.com mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235281409 The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency backed a coup commanded by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas against the democratically-elected president, Jacobo Arbenz. He was considered a communist threat, especially after legalizing the communist party and moving to nationalize the plantations of the United Fruit Company. Following the coup, Castillo was declared president, and set about reversing land reforms that benefited poor farmers. He also removed voting rights for illiterate Guatemalans.]]> 2022-07-01 19:18:24 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235281409 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235281916 Guatemala’s 36-year civil war began as left-wing guerilla groups started resisting government military forces. The country was now under autocratic rule by Gen. Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes, who assumed power in 1958 following the murder of Col. Castillo Armas. The long conflict was marked by abductions and violence, including mutilations and public dumping of bodies.

]]> 2022-07-01 19:20:08 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235281916 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235282124 Civilian rule was restored to Guatemala and Cesar Mendez was elected president, but the civil war only intensified with a major counterinsurgency campaign by the army.]]> 2022-07-01 19:20:44 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235282124 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235282258 Military-backed Carlos Arana was elected president, and he immediately placed the country under a state of siege, giving the military more control over civilians.  For the next decade, a series of military-dominated governments escalated violence against guerilla groups and indigenous communities.]]> 2022-07-01 19:21:06 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235282258 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235282796 The Inter-American Human Rights Commission released a report blaming the Guatemalan government for thousands of illegal executions and missing persons in the 1970s, and documenting accounts of the slaughter of members of Indian communities.]]> 2022-07-01 19:23:05 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235282796 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235283114 General Efrain Rios Montt seized power following a military coup. He annulled the 1965 constitution, dissolved Congress and suspended political parties. Montt formed local civilian defense patrols alongside the military in the country and rural indigenous regions, through which he was able to reclaim most guerrilla territory. This crackdown against the newly-united coalition, the Guatemalan Revolutionary National Unity, marks one of the most violent periods of the civil war during which a large number of indigenous civilians killed.

]]> 2022-07-01 19:24:04 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235283114 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235283190 A new constitution was drafted and democratic elections for president resumed two years after Montt was ousted in another coup.]]> 2022-07-01 19:24:19 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235283190 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235283320 Then-President Jorge Serrano illegally dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court and restricted civil rights, but was later forced to resign.]]> 2022-07-01 19:24:48 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235283320 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235283520 Under President Ramiro De Leon Carpio, the former human rights ombudsman, peace talks between the government and rebels of the Guatemalan Revolutionary National Unity began and agreements were signed on several issues including human rights.]]> 2022-07-01 19:25:22 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235283520 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235284011 A new president, Alvaro Arzu, was chosen in a runoff election. Under Arzu peace negotiations were finalized. Peace accords ending the 36-year internal conflict were signed in December of 1996.]]> 2022-07-01 19:27:25 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235284011 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235285370 The National Reparations Program was created in 2003, mandated to focus on "material restitution, economic restitution, cultural restitution, dignifying victims and psycho-social reparations."^[116] According to the UN High Commission on Refugees, as of March 2012, 52,333 victims had been registered with the PNR and of those, more than 24,000 victims and/or families had received monetary reparations for crimes including rape, torture, execution and forced disappearance. Some other measures, such as naming streets after victims and creating a "Day of Dignity" to commemorate victims, have been instituted. PNR has primarily worked on economic reparation.]]> 2022-07-01 19:32:54 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235285370 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235285466 Following the release of the CEH report in 1999, President Álvaro Arzú apologized for the government's role in the atrocities of the war.^[117] Ex-leaders of the URNG also apologized and asked forgiveness of the victims.^[118]]]> 2022-07-01 19:33:19 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235285466 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235285559 In 2012, President Otto Pérez Molina denied that there had been genocide in Guatemala, arguing that it was impossible as a large portion of the army was indigenous.^[119]]]> 2022-07-01 19:33:44 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235285559 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235285742 In March 2013, the trial against former president and dictator Jose Efrain Ríos Montt for the genocide of at least 1,771 members of the Maya Ixils began.^[130] On May 10 2013, Ríos Montt was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison (50 for genocide and 30 years for crimes against humanity).^[133] He is the first former head of state to be convicted of genocide by a court in his own country.^[134] However, ten days later, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala overturned the verdict.^[135]]]> 2022-07-01 19:34:27 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235285742 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235286673 On July 7, 2015, former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Ríos Montt was declared mentally unfit to stand trial for committing genocide.^[136]

Later in 2015, there was a populist uprising that eventually led to President Otto Pérez Molina’s resignation and imprisonment.

]]> 2022-07-01 19:37:56 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235286673 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235287002 Benedicto Lucas García, former chief of military intelligence Manuel Antonio Callejas y Callejas, and Military Zone No. 17 senior officers Francisco Luis Gordillo Martínez and Hugo Ramiro Zaldaña Rojas were found guilty of not only crimes against humanity, but also aggravated sexual violation related to the Molina Theissen case.^[86][140] The case, which saw convictions for the forced disappearance of her teenage brother, was the first court judgement in Guatemala genocide trials which involved the forced disappearance of a child.^[86] Three of the officials, including both Lucas García and Callejas y Callejas,^[141] received a sentence of 58 years in prison, while Luis Gordillo received a 33-year prison sentence.^[140][85]]]> 2022-07-01 19:39:26 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235287002 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235287244 In November 2019, Lucas García, Callejas y Callejas and retired Colonel César Octavio Noguera Argueta received additional criminal charges related to the Maya Ixil genocide.^[141] Luis Enrique Mendoza García, who was third in command of the Guatemalan army during the government of Efraín Ríos Montt, would be charged genocide and crimes against humanity against the Maya Ixil population soon afterwards as well.^[142] César Octavio Noguera Argueta died in November 2020 while still being prosecuted with his two co-defendants.^[143]]]> 2022-07-01 19:40:25 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235287244 mariselliagreenlaw1 https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235287333 In January 2022, five former paramilitary officers of the pro-government Civil Self-Defense Patrols militia were sentenced to 30 years in prison for the rape of several Indigenous women during the time the genocide progressed in the early 1980s.^[144]

]]> 2022-07-01 19:40:43 UTC https://padlet.com/mariselliagreenlaw1/lcgcgrm65st7mho5/wish/2235287333