Country: Guatemala

Group: Tzu’utuhil (Tzutujil)

Date Finalized: 3/20/2020

Team: Gabriel Cardenas (lead), Aracely Esquer, Ray Gerard Regorgo

Content warning: genocide, homicide, war

Approximate Time Period: 1960-1996

The Guatemalan genocide has its roots in 1944, during the October revolution, which then ended in 1954 with the overthrowing of current president Jacobo Árbenz, and the start of military suppression and dictatorship (Kistler, 2014). This was followed by the beginning of the Guatemalan Civil War in 1960. In 1980, the Guatemalan government instituted Operation Sophia, with the intent of destroying the civilian base for the insurgency, which was believed to be the Mayan population in the country (“Genocide in Guatemala”). After the following three years, over 200,000 men, women and children were killed, 1.5 million internally displaced, and another 150,000 sought refuge in neighboring Mexico (“Genocide in Guatemala”). On May 10th, 2013 ex-president and general Jose Effain Rios Montt was convicted of genocide and war crimes for his actions during the Guatemalan Civil War. Today, many Mayan populations are still feeling the impact of the genocide and its corresponding policies. As discussed by Crosby, Lykes, and Caxaj (2016), sexual violence became a tool of the military and their campaign against the Maya, and many Mayan women still feel the effects today.

            The Tzu’utuhil Maya were targeted by Operation Sophia, specifically on December 2nd 1990. On this date the Guatemalan Army opened fire on a crowd of unarmed Tzu’utuhil that resulted in 14 people killed. This event happened before the end of the Guatemalan Civil War. Later, the Catholic Archdiocese Human Rights Office declared that the army was guilty of genocide not only during the above event, but also during the past decade of civil war (Calrsen, 1991) The data quality for the Guatemalan genocide is high (3), while the data quality for the genocide in terms of just the Tzutujil is extremely low (1). Overall, this would constitute ethnic-directed lethal violence.

Sources

  1. Crosby, A., Lykes, M. B., & Caxaj, B. (2016). Carrying a heavy load: Mayan women’s understandings of reparation in the aftermath of genocide. Journal of Genocide Research, 18(2–3), 265–283. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2016.1186952
  2. Kistler, S. A. (2014). Murder, Memory, and the Maya. Latin American Research Review, 49(1), 251–260. https://doi.org/10.1353/lar.2014.0014
  3. Genocide in Guatemala. (n.d.). Holocaust Museum Huston. Retrieved February 9, 2020, from https://hmh.org/library/research/genocide-in-guatemala-guide/
  4. Carlsen, J. (1991, September). Massacre in Santiago Atitlan: A turning point in the Maya struggle? https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/massacre-santiago-atitlan-turning-point-maya-struggle