Chapter 5: The 1990s

Figure 5.1 illustrates how state violence steadily declined in the 1990s. In 1989, the Central American states signed the Esquipulas II agreements, obliging the region’s governments to achieve peace with their internal oppositions. Facing domestic pressures and persistent international condemnation for its human rights record, the Guatemalan government and the army began to seriously consider a negotiated settlement with the URNG guerrillas.

Figure 5.1. Number of killings and disappearances by year, 1990-1995

Despite the efforts of the military and other reactionary elements in Guatemala, the idea of respect for human rights began to gain greater acceptance in both official circles and among the population. This change occurred in part because of the persistence of organizations both inside and outside of Guatemala: international groups such as Amnesty International, Americas Watch, and the Washington Office on Latin America; exiled Guatemalan organizations like the Justice and Peace Committee and the Center for Human Rights Legal Action (CHRLA, which functioned as CALDH in Guatemala from 1994 on); and groups within Guatemala, including the popular movement organizations CUC (which was founded in 1978, and survived as a clandestine organization during the height of state violence), GAM (active since 1984), and the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission (active since 1981 though based in Mexico until 1995). Later, in 1990, the Catholic Archbishop’s Office for Human Rights (ODHA) opened after years of delays (Americas Watch 1989: 52).

Change also occurred within the government. Congress appointed Ramiro de León Carpio the government’s Ombudsman for Human Rights in late 1989. He brought unprecedented official concern to issues of human rights, especially in the countryside.

The government continued to send mixed signals about its commitment to human rights. On the one hand, officials of the Jorge Serrano Elias government (the second civilian administration) emphasized the importance of the rule of law in speeches and sent army and police personnel to human rights training courses. On the other hand, Serrano and other government officials sought to undermine rights groups by linking them to the URNG rebels (Americas Watch 1991: 1-3).

State-sponsored repression of human rights activists continued, especially in the countryside. Unlike previous decades, army personnel no longer committed the vast majority of murders and disappearances. Instead, army loyalists in the civil patrols acted against neighbors who challenged the army’s hegemony or the local patrol’s authority (see Chapter 19).

Meanwhile, negotiations to end the armed conflict slowly moved forward. In 1993 Ramiro de León became President after the Serrano Elías unsuccessfully attempted to consolidate his power by suspending Congress and the constitution. Though de León did little to curtail the army’s power, by 1994 the government and guerrillas had agreed to a United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA), charged with guaranteeing compliance of a number of agreements on human rights and demilitarization. With the U.N. presence, state agents, especially members of the army, faced unprecedented limits in their ability to commit extralegal violence against the population. Never had so many resources been dedicated to investigating abuses, following up on allegations, and challenging the army’s impunity (Amnesty International 1997c: 44; MINUGUA 1995a; 1995b; 1995c; 1996a; 1996b).

The level of state violence continued to diminish through the end of 1996 when the URNG rebels and the Guatemalan government signed a final peace agreement ending the armed conflict. The State’s main pretext for attacking the political opposition was now gone: the guerrilla insurgency no longer existed. What remained was the process to clarify exactly who did what to whom during this conflict and to hold the aggressors responsible for their crimes. The following chapters are written with these goals in mind.