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Republic of Guatemala
President: Otto Pérez Molina (2012)
Land area: 41,865 sq mi (108,430 sq km); total area: 42,042 sq mi (108,890 sq km)
Population (2011 est.): 14,099,032 (growth rate: 1.948%); birth rate: 26.48/1000; infant mortality rate: 25.16/1000; life expectancy: 71.17
Capital and largest city (2009 est.): Guatemala City, 1.075 million
Monetary unit: Quetzal
National name: República de Guatemala
Languages: Spanish 60%, Amerindian languages 40% (23 officially recognized Amerindian languages, including Quiche, Cakchiquel, Kekchi, Mam, Garifuna, and Xinca)
Ethnicity/race: Mestizo (Ladino)—mixed Amerindian-Spanish ancestry—and European 59.4%, K’iche 9.1%, Kaqchikel 8.4%, Mam 7.9%, Q’eqchi 6.3%, other Mayan 8.6%, indigenous non-Mayan 0.2%, other 0.1% (2001)
Religions: Roman Catholic, Protestant, indigenous Mayan beliefs
National Holiday: Independence Day, September 15
Literacy rate: 71% (2003 est.)
Economic summary: GDP/PPP(2011 est.): $74.64 billion; per capita $5,000. Real growth rate:3.8%. Inflation: 6.2%.Unemployment: 4.1% (2011 est.).Arable land: 13.22%. Agriculture:sugarcane, corn, bananas, coffee, beans, cardamom; cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens. Labor force: 5.571 million; agriculture 38%, industry 14%, services 48% (2011 est.).Industries: sugar, textiles and clothing, furniture, chemicals, petroleum, metals, rubber, tourism.Natural resources: petroleum, nickel, rare woods, fish, chicle, hydropower. Exports: $10.46 billion (2011 est.): coffee, sugar, petroleum, apparel, bananas, fruits and vegetables, cardamom.Imports: $16.6 billion (2011 est.): fuels, machinery and transport equipment, construction materials, grain, fertilizers, electricity. Major trading partners: U.S., El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, South Korea, China (2009).
Communications: Telephones:main lines in use: 1.499 million (2009); mobile cellular: 18.068 million (2009). Broadcast media: 4 privately-owned national terrestrial TV channels dominate TV broadcasting; multi-channel satellite and cable services are available; 1 government-owned radio station and hundreds of privately-owned radio stations (2007). Internet hosts: 346,834 (2010). Internet users: 2.279 million (2009).
Transportation: Railways: total: 332 km (2008). Highways: total: 14,095 km; paved: 4,863 km (including 75 km of expressways); unpaved: 9,247 km (2000).Waterways: 990 km; note: 260 km navigable year round; additional 730 km navigable during high-water season (2012). Ports and harbors:Puerto Quetzal, Santo Tomas de Castilla. Airports: 291 (2012).
International disputes: annual ministerial meetings under the Organization of American States-initiated Agreement on the Framework for Negotiations and Confidence Building Measures continue to address Guatemalan land and maritime claims in Belize and the Caribbean Sea; Guatemala persists in its territorial claim to half of Belize, but agrees to Line of Adjacency to keep Guatemalan squatters out of Belize’s forested interior; Mexico must deal with thousands of impoverished Guatemalans and other Central Americans who cross the porous border looking for work in Mexico and the United States.
Geography
The northernmost of the Central American nations, Guatemala is the size of Tennessee. Its neighbors are Mexico on the north and west, and Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador on the east. The country consists of three main regions—the cool highlands with the heaviest population, the tropical area along the Pacific and Caribbean coasts, and the tropical jungle in the northern lowlands (known as the Petén).
Government
Constitutional democratic republic.
History
Once the site of the impressive ancient Mayan civilization, Guatemala was conquered by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado in 1524 and became a republic in 1839 after the United Provinces of Central America collapsed. From 1898 to 1920, dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera ran the country, and from 1931 to 1944, Gen. Jorge Ubico Castaneda served as strongman.
Protracted Civil War Results in Huge Number of Civilian Deaths
After Ubico’s overthrow in 1944 by the “October Revolutionaries,” a group of left-leaning students and professionals, liberal-democratic coalitions led by Juan José Arévalo (1945–1951) and Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán (1951–1954) instituted social and political reforms that strengthened the peasantry and urban workers at the expense of the military and big landowners, like the U.S.-owned United Fruit Company. With covert U.S. backing, Col. Carlos Castillo Armas led a coup in 1954, and Arbenz took refuge in Mexico. A series of repressive regimes followed, and by 1960 the country was plunged into a civil war between military governments, right-wing vigilante groups, and leftist rebels that would last 36 years, the longest civil war in Latin American history. Death squads murdered an estimated 50,000 leftists and political opponents during the 1970s. In 1977, the U.S. cut off military aid to the country because of its egregious human rights abuses. The indigenous Mayan Indians were singled out for special brutality by the right-wing death squads. By the end of the war, 200,000 citizens were dead.
A succession of military juntas dominated during the civil war, until a new constitution was passed and civilian Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo was elected and took office in 1986. He was followed by Jorge Serrano Elías in 1991. In 1993, Serrano moved to dissolve Congress and the supreme court and suspend constitutional rights, but the military deposed Serrano and allowed the inauguration of Ramiro de Leon Carpio, the former attorney general for human rights. A peace agreement was finally signed in Dec. 1996 by President Álvaro Arzú Irigoyen.
Army Blamed for Most of the Abuses in Civil War
In 1999, a Guatemalan truth commission blamed the army for 93% of the atrocities and the rebels (the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit) for 3%. The former guerrillas apologized for their crimes, and President Clinton apologized for U.S. support of the right-wing military governments. The army has not acknowledged its guilt. Alfonso Portillo Cabrera, closely associated with the former dictatorship of Efrain Rios Montt (1982–1983), became president in Jan. 2000. In Aug. 2000, Portillo apologized for the former government’s human rights abuses and pledged to prosecute those responsible and compensate victims.
Guatemala Signs Several Trade Agreements
To stimulate the economy, Guatemala, along with El Salvador and Honduras, signed a free trade agreement with Mexico in June 2000. In Aug. 2001, plans for tax increases prompted widespread, and often violent, protests.
In July 2003, the country’s highest court ruled that former coup leader and military dictator Rios Montt, responsible for the massacre of tens of thousands of civilians during the civil war, was eligible to run for president in November. The ruling conflicted with the constitution, which bans anyone who seized power in a coup from running for the presidency. But in November, Rios Montt was soundly defeated by two candidates, conservative Oscar Berger and center-leftist Alvaro Colom. In the runoff election in December, Berger was elected president.
In 2005, the government ratified a free-trade agreement (CAFTA) with the U.S.
Three Salvadoran politicians, all members of the Central American Parliament, and their driver were found murdered on a road near Guatemala City in Feb. 2007. Four Guatemalan police officers were arrested in connection with the murders and later shot dead in their prison cells. Three other officers were named as suspects. Guatemala’s security minister, the national police chief, and the director of the country’s prisons all resigned in the scandal.
Fourteen candidates, including 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú, competed in the first round of presidential elections in September 2007. Otto Pérez Molina, a former general, and businessman Álvaro Colom advanced to the second round. After a vitriolic campaign, Álvaro Colom, of the National Unity for Hope party, defeated Otto Pérez Molina in the presidential election on November 4, 2007, 52% to 47%.
Pérez Molina Elected President On His Second Try
After coming in second in 2007, Otto Pérez Molina was elected president in November 2011, receiving 53.7% of the vote. Pérez Molina beat Manuel Baldizón, a young businessman who was running as a fresh, populist alternative. The leader of the right-wing Patriot Party, Pérez Molina’s election was a sign that voters desired change, going against their current centre-left government.
Even though Pérez Molina won the 2011 election, he was seen as a divisive figure during his campaign. A former general, Pérez Molina played a prominent role during the country’s civil war. In July 2011, Waqib Kej, a Guatemalan indigenous organization, sent a letter to the United Nations accusing Pérez Molina of genocide and torture in 1982, during the civil war. Some voters feared him for his role in the war and because of the allegations against him. Others did not want the reminder of the country’s 1960–96 civil war, in which there were mass murders and approximately 200,000 people died. The first ex-soldier elected since democracy was restored in 1986, Pérez Molina vowed to fight hard against organized crime. This was a huge selling point with some voters because Guatemala has one of the highest murder rates in the world.