Guatemala: 25 years later, 'firm and lasting peace' is nowhere to be found
January 2, 2022 7.58am EST
Dec. 29 marked the 25th anniversary of the signing of a peace accord that effectively brought 36 years of armed conflict in Guatemala to an end. When what’s known as the Firm and Lasting Peace Accord was signed, the Guatemalan Civil War was one of the longest, bloodiest conflicts in 20th-century Latin America.
A quarter century later, the peace that was supposed to be “firm and lasting” is anything but. If any peace prevails in Guatemala, it is a peace resembling war.
As a researcher with long-standing interests in the historical geography of Latin America, I have studied Guatemala for many years. A 2019 memoir I wrote revisits the impact of Guatemala’s military-dominated state on its Indigenous Maya Peoples.
A legacy of violence
More than 80 per cent of the civil war casualties were unarmed Indigenous Mayas. A United Nations-backed commission charged the Guatemalan military forces with genocide and held them responsible for 93 per cent of the killings. Guerrilla insurgents, fighting to overthrow the regime, were attributed three per cent of the atrocities.
More:
https://theconversation.com/guatemala-25-years-later-firm-and-lasting-peace-is-nowhere-to-be-found-174153