1. Indigenous Peoples Now
The genocide against Mayan peoples
in Guatemala

3. Guatemala: historical overview
 Mayan societies
 Spanisch colony since the early 1500.
 Independent republic since 1821
 1898-1920: Manuel Estrada Cabrera & The United Fruit Co
 1954: CIA backed military coup
 1960-1996: civil war

4. The war (1960-1996)
 The Guatemalan army controls the country:
 United States Army Special Forces u. CIA
 School of the Americas
 USA support
 Leftit guerrilla-groups fight against the military:
 ORPA (Organización del Pueblo en Armas)
 EGP (Ejército Guatemalteco de los Pobres)
 => URNG (Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca)

5. Human rights during the war
 The military organizes:
 “Orejas”
 PAC
 Kaibiles
 1978 -1982: General Romeo Lucas García
 1982-1983: General Efraín Ríos Montt

6. Why did the war end?
 international pressure
 Rigoberta Menchú
 UNO Intervention
 1994: First Peace Talks
 1996: Piece Accords

7. Rigoberta Menchú Tum Testimony
 Maya-Quiché
 Nobel Prize for Peace 1992
Rigoberta Menchú (1985):
I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in
Guatemala.

8. 1998
REPORT GUATEMALA: NEVER AGAIN.
„Recovery of Historical Memory Project“
(REMHI) in Guatemala.
Direction: Monsignor Juan José Gerardi

9. Genocide against the Mayan
Peoples of Guatemala
 160.000 murdered
 40.000 disappeared
 600 massacres
 440 villages destroyed
 More than 1.000.000 peoples go into exile