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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey everyone, I'm getting some much needed R

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Speaker 1: and R in the comfort of my home. But just

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Speaker 1: because I'm resting doesn't mean history stops. Let's get on

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Speaker 1: with another episode. Today is December twenty nine, nineteen. The

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Speaker 1: day was December twenty nine, Guatemalan President Alvaro Artistsu and

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Speaker 1: the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity or you are in g

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Speaker 1: signed peace accords ending the thirty six year long Guatemalan

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Speaker 1: Civil War. In nineteen fifty four, the United States Central

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Speaker 1: Intelligence Agency back to coup to overthrow the democratically elected

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Speaker 1: Guatemalan President Hukabo Arbans. Right wing Guatemalan Army Colonel Carlos

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Speaker 1: Gustillo Artomas led the coup. American anti communist fear was

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Speaker 1: at a high, and Artabans was deemed a communist threat.

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Speaker 1: He had legalized the Guatemalan Communist Party and his land

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Speaker 1: reform threatened major landowners, particularly the US based United Fruit Company.

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Speaker 1: Ottomans was forced to resign and went into exile. Ottomas

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Speaker 1: took power in Guatemala and reversed reforms from the last

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Speaker 1: decade and returned land to the United Fruit Company. Throughout

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Speaker 1: the rest of the nineteen fifties, government corruption was common,

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Speaker 1: leftist political parties were banned, and poverty was rampant. Ottomas

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Speaker 1: was assassinated in nineteen fifty seven, but military personnel continued

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Speaker 1: to take power, but the Guatemalan Civil War did not

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Speaker 1: begin until November of nineteen sixty, when the country was

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Speaker 1: under the autocratic rule of General Idras Fuentes. A group

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Speaker 1: of junior military officers attempted a revolt against the government

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Speaker 1: and failed, but some of them went into hiding and

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Speaker 1: established contact with Fidel Castro's Cuban government. By nineteen sixty two,

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Speaker 1: they had established an insurgent movement known as MR thirteen,

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Speaker 1: and from there the conflict escalated. Left wing guerrilla groups

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Speaker 1: began fighting government military forces. There were demonstrations, riots, and

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Speaker 1: strikes in Guatemala City. With the assistance of the U S,

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Speaker 1: the Guatemalan Armed Forces engaged in anti guerrilla warfare. The

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Speaker 1: conflict was especially brutal, marked by violence, abductions, and state terror.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty six, civilian rule was restored in Julio

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Speaker 1: Mendez Montenegro, the candidate of the Moderate Revolutionary Party, was

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Speaker 1: elected president, but violence and terror intensified as the army

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Speaker 1: launched a counterinsurgency campaign that broke up guerrillas in the countryside.

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Speaker 1: Guerrilla attacks continued in Guatemala City, though after Colonel Carlos

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Speaker 1: Aarana Ossorio assumed the presidency in nineteen seventy, he declared

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Speaker 1: a state of siege so that the military imposed more

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Speaker 1: control over civilians, including a curfew in home searches. Throughout

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Speaker 1: the rest of the nineteen seventies, a series of military

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Speaker 1: governments perpetrated violence against guerrilla groups and anyone who seemed

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Speaker 1: to support their cause. Guatemala's indigenous people had been subjected

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Speaker 1: to discrimination over the years, and many of them fought

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Speaker 1: in the civil war. Their communities were hit hard in

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Speaker 1: the violence of the conflict. In nineteen eighty one, the

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Speaker 1: Inter American Human Rights Commission issued a report that said

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Speaker 1: the Guatemalan government was responsible for thousands of missing people

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Speaker 1: and illegal executions throughout the nineteen seventies. A particularly bloody

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Speaker 1: part of the civil war were the years under the

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Speaker 1: dictatorship of General Efrain Rios mont He resorted to using

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Speaker 1: a scorched earth policy, and indigenous Mayans were murdered in

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Speaker 1: mass but the war he had pledged to end escalated

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Speaker 1: and in August of nineteen eighty three, he was overthrown

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Speaker 1: by General Oscar Umberto Mejia victories, the new president promised

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Speaker 1: a return to the democratic process. Two years later, a

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Speaker 1: new constitution was approved and presidential elections resulted in the

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Speaker 1: victory of civilian president Marco Veniceo cere Rivello. Peace talks

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Speaker 1: between the government and rebels of the Guatemalan Revolutionary National

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Speaker 1: Unity began in nineteen ninety four, but the civil war

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Speaker 1: raged on until nineteen when President Alvaro Arsu was elected.

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Speaker 1: He finalized the peace negotiations and on December twenty nine

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Speaker 1: he signed a peace agreement ending the Guatemalan Civil War.

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Speaker 1: More than two hundred thousand people were killed over the

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Speaker 1: course of the war. Most of the people who were

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Speaker 1: killed were Mayan. The army was responsible for the majority

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Speaker 1: of the human rights abuses committed. Rios mont was convicted

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Speaker 1: of genocide and times against humanity, but his conviction was

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Speaker 1: later overturned. A court later ruled that he would not

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Speaker 1: be sentenced if found guilty in a retrial due to

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Speaker 1: his simility. He died in while his child was ongoing.

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Speaker 1: The effects of the war resounded into the twenty one century. Poverty, crime, violence,

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Speaker 1: and human rights violations continue to plague the country. I'm

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Speaker 1: each Jeff Coote and hopefully you know a little more

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Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. And if you

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Speaker 1: i HC Podcast. If you want to email us, you

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Speaker 1: can reach us at this Day at i heart media

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Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you

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