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Politics of Guatemala takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, where by the President of Guatemala is both head of state, head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Congress of the Republic. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. Guatemala is a Constitutional Republic.
Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a K'iche' Indigenous feminist and human rights activist from Guatemala. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the rights of Guatemala's Indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996), and to promoting Indigenous rights internationally.
José Efraín Ríos Montt was a Guatemalan general, politician, and war criminal who served as President of Guatemala. Born in Huehuetenango, he was a dictator who took power as a result of a coup d'état on March 23, 1982. He was overthrown by his defense minister, Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores, in another coup d'état on August 8, 1983. In the 2003 presidential elections, Ríos Montt unsuccessfully ran as the candidate of the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG). In 2007 he returned to public office as a member of Congress, thereby gaining prosecutorial immunity. He was protected from a pair of long-running lawsuits alleging war crimes against him and a number of his former ministers and counselors during their term in the presidential palace in 1982–83. His immunity ended on January 14, 2012, with the end of his term in legislative office. On January 26, 2012, he appeared in court in Guatemala and was formally indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity.
In 1994 Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification - La Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (CEH) - was created as a response to the thousands of atrocities and human rights violations committed during the decades long civil war that began in 1962 and ended in the late 1990s with United Nations-facilitated peace accords. The commission operated under a two-year mandate, from 1997 to 1999, and employed three commissioners: one Guatemalan man, one male non-national, and one Mayan woman. The mandate of the commission was not to judge but to clarify the past with "objectivity, equity and impartiality."
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The Guatemalan Civil War was a civil war in Guatemala fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. These were supported by ethnic Maya indigenous peoples and Ladino peasants, who together make up the rural poor. The government forces have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of Guatemala during the civil war and for widespread human rights violations against civilians. The context of the struggle was based on longstanding issues of unfair land distribution; European-descended residents and foreign companies, such as the American United Fruit Company, had dominated with control over much of the land, conflicting with the rural poor.
MINUGUA was a United Nations humanitarian mission in Guatemala that involved, at the most critical point in the peace process, a three-month peacekeeping mission.
The Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA (GHRC) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, humanitarian organization that monitors, documents, and reports on the human rights situation in Guatemala. GHRC advocates for survivors of human rights abuses in Guatemala, and works toward systemic change.
Otto Fernando Pérez Molina is a Guatemalan politician and retired military officer, who was President of Guatemala from 2012 to 2015. Standing as the Patriotic Party candidate, he lost the 2007 presidential election but prevailed in the 2011 presidential election. During the 1990s, before entering politics, he served as Director of Military Intelligence, Presidential Chief of Staff under President Ramiro de León Carpio, and as chief representative of the military for the Guatemalan Peace Accords. On being elected President, he called for the legalization of drugs.
Dianna Ortiz is an American Roman Catholic sister of the Ursuline order. While serving as a missionary in Guatemala in 1989, she was abducted on November 2 by members of the Guatemalan military, detained, raped, and tortured for 24 hours before being released. After her release, Ortiz reported that an American was among her captors. This part of her account could not be confirmed.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Guatemala:
Aura Elena Farfán is a Guatemalan human rights activist. She is one of the founders and Executive Director of FAMDEGUA (Familiares de Detenidos y Desaparecidos de Guatemala), a Guatemala City-based organization dedicated to surviving family members of people who have been disappeared by the Guatemalan government. It is one of Guatemala's oldest human rights organizations. Farfán has been the subject of frequent death threats as the result of her activities, and was, along with her driver, briefly kidnapped by armed assailants on 4 May 2001.
Nineth Varenca Montenegro Cottom is a Guatemalan human rights activist and a victim of state terrorism. She was the first person to face civil resistance on a national level as a result of protesting in the streets about the whereabouts of her husband, Edgar Fernando García, who had been captured illegally by the government and has been a missing person since February 18, 1984. The disappearance of her husband still remains an unsolved case, as he is considered a disappeared person.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Guatemala may face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Both male and female same-sex sexual activity are legal in Guatemala.
Frank La Rue is a Guatemalan labor and human rights law expert and served as UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, from August 2008 to August 2014. Along with American Human Rights attorneys, Anna Gallagher and Wallie Mason, Mr. La Rue is the founder of the Center for Legal Action for Human Rights (CALDH) and has been involved in the promotion of human rights for over 25 years. He was nominated for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize by Mairead Corrigan, Northern Irish peace activist and 1976 laureate. Mr La Rue was previously the Executive Director of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Europe. He currently serves as Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information at UNESCO.
Byron Barrera Ortiz is a Guatemalan journalist noted for his reporting of human rights abuses by the Guatemalan government during and after the Guatemalan Civil War, for which he received repeated threats against his life. In 1990, his wife, Refugio Araceli Villanueva de Barrera, was murdered in an attack on their car. Members of the Guatemalan military have been implicated in the crime.
Héctor Francisco Medina Polanco was a Honduran journalist who often reported on agricultural and corruption issues in Honduras. An employee of Omega Visión, he died 11 May 2011 from gunshot wounds inflicted by assailants the previous evening.
Violence against women in Guatemala reached severe levels during the long-running Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), and the continuing impact of that conflict has contributed to the present high levels of violence against women in that nation. During the armed conflict, rape was used as a weapon of war.
Rodolfo Martín Villa is a Spanish engineer and politician, who served in various capacities in cabinets of the Spanish transition to democracy, including interior minister and first deputy prime minister. He is being investigated in Argentina for aggravated homicide and crimes against humanity committed during the 1976 Vitoria massacre.
Human rights is an issue in Guatemala. The establishment of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala has helped the Attorney General prosecute extrajudicial killings and corruption. There remains widespread impunity for abusers from the Guatemalan Civil War, which ran from 1960 to 1996, and Human Rights Watch considers threats and violence against unionists, journalists and lawyers a major concern.
References
- ↑ Aizenman, N.C. (2006-02-26). "Self-Styled Justice in Guatemala: 'Social Cleansing' Squads, Though Welcomed by Some, Evoke Horrors of Long Civil War". Washington Post . Retrieved 2008-06-17.
- ↑ Guatemala: Fear for Safety Amnesty International, 8 April 2003.
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