Guatemala is a poor Central American country bordered by Mexico on its northern and western boundaries. Genocidal history began when Pedro de Alvarado and his Spanish conquistadores first arrived in Guatemala in early 1524. Victory over the highland Maya by Pedro de Alvarado's forces, as well as the defeat of the lowland Itza Maya by Martin de Arizmendi's forces, completely subjugated the Maya natives. The conquest rapidly spread the Spanish language and the Catholic religion throughout Guatemala and Central America. Guatemala's rich indigenous and Spanish history was ruined further with the thirty-six years long Guatemalan Civil War, from 1960-1996, which caused an estimated 200,000 killed and 100,000 women raped. Guatemala's "Silent Holocaust," from 1981-1983, caused the murders by government soldiers of 75,000 men, women, elders, and children. Kidnappings, torture, and rape of women numbered well into the thousands.

In 1904, the United Fruit Company (UFCO), an American corporation, bought massive land tracts in Guatemala, receiving many tax exemptions and gaining control of all railroads along the Atlantic Ocean. The UFCO held a monopoly on banana plantations and the network of distribution routes to America and Europe. After his election to the presidency in 1931, President Jorge Ubico Castaneda unleashed his authoritarian policies upon Guatemala. He greatly militarized the Guatemalan army, froze labor wages, and strengthened his police force by giving them more power to arrest, shoot, and imprison labor dissidents. He gave even more land concessions to the UFCO, turning farmland into banana plantations, therefore displacing many indigenous Maya farmers from their lands.
The election of 1950 saw Jacobo Arbenz Guzman become the new Guatemalan president, and his moderate capitalist approach favored the landless indigenous peasants. He sought a program of agrarian land reform that would expropriate large tracts of uncultivated land, by purchasing it from the United Fruit Company and redistributing it among poverty-stricken agriculture land laborers. His policy was in full opposition of the United Fruit Company, and the UFCO sought help from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was ill-informed that Guatemala was on the verge of becoming a Communist satellite. With the U.S. CIA's help, the Arbenz presidency was toppled. The 1960s and 1970s saw more revolution and instability in Guatemala through the process of coup d'etat, which included Guatemalan Army training by U.S. Special Forces in counter-insurgency against anti-government guerillas in the Guatemalan highlands.

In 1982, a coup d'etat placed General Efrain R. Montt as president of Guatemala and his military's plan, called "Victoria 82", included a pacification strategy called "frijoles y fusiles" that offered to feed and arm those that would turn their backs on the insurgents and follow his government's orders. When the "frijoles y fusiles" plan failed, he immediately unleashed a "scorched earth" policy against the anti-government insurgents and indigenous Ixil Maya people of the Guatemalan highlands. He believed the Maya were aiding the anti-government guerillas in the highlands. His soldiers were responsible for up to 75,000 murders of men, women, children, and elders, while torture and rape of women numbered in the lOOO's during the "Silent Holocaust" from 1981-1983. Estimates of 200,000 killed and 100,000 women raped in Guatemala's Civil War from 1960-1996 had been reported. President Montt was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity on May 10, 2013. His conviction was overturned on May 20, 2013 by the Constitutional Court of Guatemala on grounds that he could stand trial but not be sentenced due to his age and failing health. He died on April 1, 2018 in Guatemala City. Today, newly recovered genocide victims are placed in lined up coffins and ceremoniously reburied.

Text by Candido Garza Jr.