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The following lists events that happened during 2016 in Guatemala.
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| Decades: | |||||
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| See also: | |||||
The following lists events that happened during 2016 in Guatemala.
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Dependencies not included. Semi-autonomous territories are in italics. | ||
2016 in Central America | ||
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The history of Guatemala begins with the Maya civilization, which was among those that flourished in their country. The country's modern history began with the Spanish conquest of Guatemala in 1524. Most of the great Classic-era Maya cities of the Petén Basin region, in the northern lowlands, had been abandoned by the year 1000 AD. The states in the Belize central highlands flourished until the 1525 arrival of Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado. Called "The Invader" by the Mayan people, he immediately began subjugating the Indian states.
José Efraín Ríos Montt was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as de facto President of Guatemala in 1982–83. His brief tenure as chief executive was one of the bloodiest periods in the long-running Guatemalan Civil War. Ríos Montt's counter-insurgency strategies significantly weakened the Marxist guerrillas organized under the umbrella of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG), while also leading to accusations of war crimes and genocide perpetrated by the Guatemalan Army under his leadership.
Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo is a Guatemalan politician and the current Secretary General of the Central American Integration System (SICA). He served as President of Guatemala from 14 January 1986 to 14 January 1991.
Brigadier General Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores was the 27th President of Guatemala from 8 August 1983 to 14 January 1986. A member of the military, he was president during the apex of repression and death squad activity in the Central American nation. When he was minister of defense, he rallied a coup against President José Efraín Ríos Montt, which he justified by declaring that the government was being abused by religious fanatics. He allowed for a return to democracy, with elections for a constituent assembly in 1984 followed by general elections in 1985.
General Fernando Romeo Lucas García was the 37th President of Guatemala from July 1, 1978 to March 23, 1982. He was elected as Institutional Democratic Party candidate. Elections for his presidency were fraud-ridden. During Lucas García's regime, tensions between the radical left and the government increased. The military started to murder political opponents while counterinsurgency measures further terrorized populations of poor civilians.
Álvaro Colom Caballeros was a Guatemalan engineer, businessman and politician who was the President of Guatemala from 2008 to 2012, as well as leader of the National Unity of Hope (UNE).
Chisec is a town and municipality in the north of the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz that was founded in 1813. It is situated at 230 metres (755 ft) above sea level. The municipality covers a territory of 1244 km². Approximately 95% of the municipality's inhabitants are Mayan, spread over the town of Chisec and approximately 140 communities. The Q'eqchi' language is widely spoken there alongside Spanish.
Fray Bartolomé de las Casas is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. It is situated at 170m above sea level. It contains 31,611 people. It covers a terrain of 1229km2. The annual festival is April 30-May 4. It is named after the 15th-century Spanish priest, bishop, and writer Bartolomé de Las Casas.
San Lucas Tolimán is a municipality in the Sololá department of Guatemala. The town of 17,000 people sits on the southeastern shore of Lago de Atitlán. The population is 90–95% Highland Maya. There is a population of about the same size living in the surrounding villages.
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. 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. Wealthy Guatemalans, mainly European-descended, and foreign companies such as the American United Fruit Company had dominated control over much of the land, and paid almost zero taxes in return – leading to conflicts with the rural indigenous poor who worked the land under miserable terms.
Ixcán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché. Its administrative centre is the town of Playa Grande. The municipality consists of 176 communities, called aldeas. It has an area of 1693 km2. It is the northernmost municipality of El Quiché, and borders with Mexico, the municipalities of Chisec and Cobán of the Department of Alta Verapaz, the municipality of Santa Cruz Barillas of the Department of Huehuetenango, and the municipalities of Chajul and Uspantán of El Quiché.
Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean, to the east by Honduras, to the southeast by El Salvador and to the south by the Pacific Ocean. With an estimated population of around 17.6 million, Guatemala is the most populous country in Central America and the 11th most populous country in the Americas. It is a representative democracy with its capital and largest city being Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción, also known as Guatemala City, the most populous city in Central America.
The Guatemalan genocide, also referred to as the Maya genocide, or the Silent Holocaust, was the massacre of Maya civilians during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996) by the US-backed Guatemalan military government, originally at the behest of American companies like the United Fruit Company. Massacres, forced disappearances, torture and summary executions of guerrillas and especially civilian collaborators at the hands of security forces had been widespread since 1965 and was a longstanding policy of the military regime, which US officials were aware of. A report from 1984 discussed "the murder of thousands by a military government that maintains its authority by terror". Human Rights Watch has described "extraordinarily cruel" actions by the armed forces, mostly against unarmed civilians.
The First Lady of Guatemala is the title held by the wife of the president of Guatemala or designee. Currently, the position of first lady has been vacant since January 2020 because Alejandro Giammattei is divorced.
Alejandro Baltazar Maldonado Aguirre is a Guatemalan statesman who served as the Acting President of Guatemala, following the Congress of Guatemala's acceptance of the resignation of President Otto Pérez Molina on September 3, 2015.
General elections were held in Guatemala on 16 June 2019, to elect the President, Congress and local councils. A second round of the presidential elections was held on 11 August 2019, since no candidate won a majority in the first round. Alejandro Giammattei won the election in the second round of voting.
The following lists events in the year 2020 in Guatemala.
The following lists events that happened during 2020 in Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Guatemala was a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have reached Guatemala in March 2020.
Barrios' War of Reunification was a war initiated by President Justo Rufino Barrios of Guatemala. His goal was to reunify Central America with himself as President. He died in battle on 2 April 1885 and peace was reached on 14 April.
