Chapter 12: Terror and Seasonality

State violence in Guatemala also varied by season of the year. Figure 12.1 averages killings and disappearances for urban areas, by month of the year, for the cases in the CIIDH database. In Guatemala City, the level of violence is relatively consistent, though it tends to decrease slightly as the year goes on. Note that December’s rate of killing is much lower than that for the following month of January (repeated at the far right of the figure). In December, state offices close and much of the country slows down. State terror, it appears, also takes a holiday.

Figure 12.1. Average number of urban killings, by month, 1959-1995

This pattern is even more marked for rural areas, as Figure 12.2 shows. The level of state violence is much lower in November and December than for other months of the year. January presents a significant increase and the average level of violence rises to a peak
in March and April.15 After April, rural violence steadily declines through the end of the year.

Figure 12.2. Average number of rural killings, by month, 1959-1995

One explanation of this rural pattern is that in much of Guatemala, May to October is the rainy season when both rebels and their government adversaries have lesser mobility, thus slowing operations.16 The slope of the graph is more pronounced for rural violence than for urban violence, where the rainy season apparently does not have as big an effect on the state’s ability to commit violence.

The database also provides evidence of political seasonality. That is, throughout Guatemala’s armed conflict, levels of violence have fluctuated around the time of regime changes. For example, in 1966, the government enticed guerrillas and members of opposition parties to participate in the electoral process by easing the repression. As soon as the campaign season ended, but before the new president’s inauguration, security forces attacked the guerrillas through a mass disappearance of its leadership. A similar pattern took place during the 1970 election cycle. After the election of Arana Osorio and before he took office, the death squad Eye for an Eye (Ojo por Ojo) claimed responsibility for 27 killings in reprisal of FAR rebels’ murder of the German Ambassador Karl von Spretti (Cáceres 1980; McClintock 1985: 98).

A pattern emerges: during the months just prior to elections, political violence tends to decrease as the State tries to promote the image of a functioning democracy. Once a new President is elected (by either legitimate or fraudulent means), violence may rise as the lame-duck predecessor becomes free to employ violence to consolidate government control. Once the new President takes office, violence may decrease for a time as the new government attempts to gain popular support.

Figure 12.3 shows graphically that such a progression occurred during various regime changes. For the 1970 transition between Méndez Montenegro and Arana Osorio, the monthly level of violence rose after the election during the lame-duck period, then fell again after Arana’s inauguration.17

Figure 12.3. Average monthly killings and disappearances for three periods, by regime

As the earlier narrative discussed, 1974 was an anomalous election year when open electoral fraud compelled the State to try to co-opt the political opposition through reforms instead of disciplining it through extra-judicial violence. That year, according to CIIDH data, killings fell immediately after the election, though the lame-duck period that year was also characterized by state repression. Amnesty International reported a spate of killings by paramilitary organizations in the days following the March elections, including that of human rights activist and vocal government critic Edmundo Guerra Theilheimer (1976: 6). And at that year’s May Day march, also during the interim period, the police’s anti-riot Pelotón Modelo opened fire on protesters, killing five and wounding hundreds (Cáceres 1980). Figure 12.3 shows that in 1974 as during other regime changes, state repression declined dramatically after the new president’s inauguration.

The pattern of political seasonality is even more marked for the 1978 regime change. The level of violence increased dramatically between the election and the inauguration of Lucas García. It was in the interim period that the Secret Anticommunist Army killed activist priest Hermógenes López Coarchita in San José Pinula (one of the earliest government attacks on activist members of the Catholic Church) and when army troops opened fire on protesters in Panzós, Alta Verapaz, killing over a hundred civilians and sending a sharp message to opposition groups organizing in the countryside.

By the 1982 elections, Guatemala’s democratic façade was in shambles. The armed rebels encouraged villagers under their influence not to go to town to vote. Conversely, the government said that anyone who did not come to the polls on election day would be treated as a guerrilla supporter. Then the army used election-day activities to abuse and detain peasants from suspect communities making a rare and dangerous trip to the town center. The official candidate, former Defense Minister Angel Aníbal Guevara, "won" the March 7 election, but he never took office. Two weeks after the election, fellow general José Efraín Ríos Montt seized power following an army coup.

For this election cycle, at the height of state terror, levels of killing in the database for all three periods are literally off the graph: 453 deaths per month during the four-month campaign season; 2223 killings during the abbreviated one-month lame-duck period (defined as the month of March as a proxy for the March 7 to 23 period); and 1813 killings per month during the first four months of the Ríos Montt regime. During this regime change, the government apparently did not worry about its legitimacy and the elections appear to have had a negligible effect on the patterns of violence.

A new pattern emerged in 1985 when the military dictatorship prepared to hand formal control back to a civilian government. For that election cycle, levels of state violence were much higher before the election than after. Leaders of the military government appear to have prepared for the transition by accelerating attacks on the opposition during their final days of absolute control over the state apparatus.

16 For example, in 1981 in the humid Ixil region of northern Quiché, the army waited for summer to begin an offensive against villages distant from their headquarters in the town centers (REMHI 1998 III: 172).

17 Each electoral regime transition was divided three periods: 1) the three months before the election was held; 2) the period between the election and the transition; and 3) the first three months of the new government.