Guatemala (redirected from Guatamala)

Guatemala, city, Guatemala

Guatemala, city (1994 est. pop. 823,301), S central Guatemala, capital of the republic. Its full name is La Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción. In a broad, fertile, highland valley, c.5,000 ft (1,520 m) high, it enjoys an equable climate the year round. It is the largest city in Central America, with a cosmopolitan atmosphere and many fine public buildings. It is served by international and local airways, modern highways, and railroads and is the industrial, commercial, and financial center of the republic. To the city's markets come the fruits and vegetables of the tropical coasts and temperate highlands and also native handicrafts, especially textiles. Much of the produce is carried in from the countryside and sold in the market stalls. There is also a modern business section. The present city is the fourth permanent capital of Guatemala and was founded in 1776 after Antigua Guatemala was abandoned. An earthquake destroyed Guatemala City in 1917–18, but it was rebuilt on the same site. In 1976, another earthquake caused extensive damage to the city and its environs, resulting in more than 20,000 fatalities. From the city excursions may be made to the sites of Antigua Guatemala and Ciudad Vieja, the first two capitals. Many interesting remains of Mayan civilization have been unearthed in the vicinity of Guatemala City, notably at Lake Amatitlán. The Univ. of San Carlos de Guatemala (1676) is in the city, as are many other educational and cultural institutions.

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Guatemala, country, Central America

Guatemala (gwätəmä`lə), officially Republic of Guatemala, republic (2005 est. pop. 14,655,000), 42,042 sq mi (108,889 sq km), Central America. The country is bounded on the north and west by Mexico, on the east by Belize and the Caribbean Sea, on the southeast by Honduras and El Salvador, and on the southwest by the Pacific Ocean. The capital and largest city is Guatemala City. In addition to the capital, important cities include Puerto Barrios, San José, Quezaltenango, and Antigua Guatemala.

Land and People

A highland region, where most of the population lives, cuts across the country from west to east. The rugged main range includes the inactive volcano Tajumulco, which is the highest point in Central America (13,816 ft/4,211 m). The range is flanked on the Pacific side by a string of volcanoes (some active), such as Tacaná, Acatenango, and Agua. Volcanic eruptions, floods, and hurricanes have plagued Guatemala throughout history. In the center of the range is Lake Atitlán, and south of the highlands is the Pacific coastal lowland. North of them are the Caribbean lowland and the vast tropical forest known as Petén. Lake Petén Itzá is in N central Guatemala. The largest river is the Motagua, which flows into the Caribbean at the port of Puerto Barrios. North of the Motagua is the Lake Izabal–Río Dulce system, which was a major waterway in colonial times.

The population is about evenly divided between those of mixed Mayan and Spanish descent (Ladinos) and those of purely Mayan origin. The latter have historically suffered from discrimination, poverty, and relative geographical isolation. Roman Catholicism is the dominant religion, and there are also Protestant (about 30%) and traditional Mayan minorities. Spanish is the language of about 60% of the people; the balance speak indigenous dialects. The literacy rate and per capita income are extremely low.

Economy

Coffee, sugar, and bananas are the leading commercial and export crops in Guatemala's mainly agricultural economy. There is some manufacturing, primarily of refined sugar, textiles and clothing for the U.S. market, furniture, and chemicals. Zinc and lead concentrates are mined. There are nickel and petroleum deposits in the north, and a petroleum industry has developed, although it has been limited by political unrest and environmentalist opposition. Extensive jade deposits are found in E central Guatemala. The Mayan town of Chichicastenango is a popular site for the nation's tourist industry. The leading imports include fuel and petroleum products, machinery, grain, fertilizers, and motor vehicles. The United States, Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela, Germany, and Japan are the major trading partners.

Government

Guatemala's current constitution was adopted in 1985 and revised in 1994. It provides for a directly elected president who serves a single four-year term. An 80-member unicameral legislature is also elected for a four-year term. The major political parties are the National Centrist Union (UCN), the Christian Democratic party (DCG), the National Advancement party (PAN), and the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG). Guatemala is divided into 22 administrative departments.

History

The Maya-Quiché (see Quiché) inhabited Guatemala long before the arrival of the Spanish. They were defeated (1523–24) by the Spaniard Pedro de Alvarado, who became captain general of Guatemala. The first colonial capital was Ciudad Vieja, or Santiago. The conquerors found little of the gold they sought, but cocoa and indigo were raised with forced labor. Central America became independent from Spain in 1821. Guatemala was first a part of the Mexican Empire of Agustín de Iturbide and then became a nucleus of the Central American Federation. After the federation collapsed, Guatemala became a separate nation (1839).

Guatemalan interference in the affairs of other Central American republics during the 19th and early 20th cent., under the conservative dictatorships of Rafael Carrera and Manuel Estrada Cabrera and under the liberal, Justo Ruffino Barrios, caused intense hostility and finally led to the Washington Conference of 1907, which established the Central American Court of Justice. Jorge Ubico became president in 1931, and his tenure was marked by repressive rule and an improvement in the nation's finances.

After Guatemala declared war on the Axis powers in 1941, the large German-owned coffee holdings were expropriated. Popular discontent led to Ubico's overthrow in 1944 and his replacement by Juan José Arévalo. Arévalo launched a series of labor and agrarian reforms that were continued by Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, who succeeded him in 1951. A law expropriating large estates angered foreign plantation owners, particularly the United Fruit Company. As Communist influence in the Arbenz government increased, relations with the United States deteriorated. In 1954 the United States aided the anti-Arbenz military force that placed Col. Carlos Castillo Armas in power. When Castillo Armas was assassinated three years later, Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes became president. Guatemalan bases were used to train anti-Castro guerrillas in the early 1960s; around the same time, dissident leftist military officers and students combined to form a guerrilla movement.

In 1963 the prospect of the return to power of Arévalo led to a military coup under the defense minister, Enrique Peralta Azurdia. However, leftist guerrilla activity and terrorism mounted, in turn provoking rightist repression. In 1966 the moderate leftist Julio César Méndez Montenegro was elected president; he allowed the army to conduct a major anti-insurgency campaign against the guerrillas in which thousands were killed. In Aug., 1968, in the continuing violence, the U.S. ambassador was assassinated.

In the 1970 election, Col. Carlos Arana Osorio, an extreme conservative, was chosen president. He imposed a one-year state of siege in an attempt to end the violence. In the early 1970s many labor and political leaders were killed and several foreign diplomats were kidnapped. When no candidate received an absolute majority in the presidential election of 1974, the legislature declared Gen. Kjell Laugerud García the winner, even though Gen. José Efraín Ríos Montt, the antigovernment candidate, had allegedly won a plurality.

Violence continued in the 1970s and 1980s, with reports that anti-insurgency campaigns were destroying Indian villages and killing tens of thousands. In 1977 the United States cut off military aid to Guatemala. After three elections widely regarded as fraudulent, Gen. Ríos Montt took power in a 1982 coup and ruled by decree; he was deposed the next year by another strongman, Gen. Oscar Mejias Victores. During the early 1980s leftist guerrillas formed what became known as the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union (URNG) and began an insurgency against the government.

A civilian reformist, Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo, became president in 1985, after elections held under a new constitution, but his government did not seem to pose a substantial challenge to the power of the military. He was succeeded in 1990 by Jorge Serrano Elías, a right-wing businessman; Serrano adopted unpopular austerity measures, and in 1993, when he attempted to institute rule by decree, he was forced by the army to resign. Ramiro de León Carpio, the attorney general for human rights, was elected by the congress to succeed Serrano and won passage of anticorruption reforms.

In 1996, Álvaro Arzú Irigoyen, a former mayor of Guatemala City and foreign minister, won the presidency. He conducted a purge of top military officers and, in Dec., 1996, his government signed a UN-supervised peace accord with the URNG guerrillas, who subsequently regrouped as a political party. The 1999 presidential elections were won by Alfonso Portillo Cabrera, a lawyer and rightist associated with former dictator Ríos Montt and backed by the Guatemalan Republican Front. A draft settlement reached in 2002 with Belize concerning their disputed border contained maritime, but not land, concessions by Belize; the agreement must be approved by national referendums in both nations.

Óscar Berger Perdomo, a conservative former mayor of Guatemala City and the leader of the Grand National Alliance, won the presidency in Dec., 2003, after a runoff election. In the first round of voting in November, Ríos Montt made a bid for the presidency despite a ban on candidates who had overthrown a government. He came in third, and the November vote was marred by violence and intimidation that was largely blamed on his supporters. In early 2004 former President Portillo was implicated in a corruption scandal, and he fled to Mexico. Some 10,000 soldiers were demobilized in May–June, 2004, and in July the government paid compensation to victims of human-rights violations that occurred during the civil war. UN supervision of the peace process ended in Dec., 2004. Rains from Tropical Storm Stan caused flooding and mudslides in Oct., 2005, that resulted in hundreds of deaths in Guatemala. Since 2002 the country has suffered from increasing gang and, more recently, anti-gang vigilante violence.

Bibliography

See R. N. Adams, Crucifixion by Power: Essays on Guatemalan National Social Structure, 1944–1966 (1970); T. Melville and M. Melville, Guatemala: The Politics of Land Ownership (1971); R. E. Moore, Historical Dictionary of Guatemala (rev. ed. 1973); J. Handy, Gift of the Devil: A History of Guatemala (1984); R. Nyrop, ed., Guatemala, a Country Study (1984).

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Guatemala

 officially Republic of Guatemala

Country, Central America. Area: 42,130 sq mi (109,117 sq km). Population (2006 est.): 13,019,000. Capital: Guatemala City. Mestizos make up more than three-fifths of the population; most of the rest are Indian, predominantly Maya. Language: Spanish (official). Religion: Christianity (predominantly Roman Catholic; also Protestant). Currency: quetzal, dollar. Guatemala has extensive lowlands in the Petén portion of the Yucatán Peninsula and along the littoral of the Caribbean Sea in the north. Mountains occupy much of the country and cut across its midsection. The northern tropical rainforests of the Petén produce fine woods and rubber. Guatemala has a developing market economy based largely on agriculture; coffee is one of its leading exports, along with sugar and bananas. It is a republic with one legislative body; its head of state and government is the president. From simple farming villages dating from 2500 BCE, the Maya of Guatemala and the Yucatán developed a sophisticated civilization. Its heart was the northern Petén, where the oldest Mayan stelae and the ceremonial centre of Tikal are found. Mayan civilization declined after 900 CE, and the Spanish began subjugating the descendants of the Maya in 1523. Independence from Spain was declared by the Central American colonies in Guatemala City in 1821, and Guatemala was incorporated into the Mexican Empire until its collapse in 1823. In 1839 Guatemala became independent under the first of a series of dictators who held power almost continuously for the next century. In 1945 a liberal-democratic coalition came to power and instituted sweeping reforms. Attempts to expropriate land belonging to U.S. business interests (see United Fruit Co.) prompted the U.S. government in 1954 to sponsor an invasion by exiled Guatemalans. In the following years Guatemala's social revolution came to an end, and most of the reforms were reversed. Chronic political instability and violence henceforth marked Guatemalan politics; most of some 200,000 deaths that resulted from subsequent political violence were blamed on government forces. Thousands more died in 1976 when a powerful earthquake devastated the country. In 1991 Guatemala abandoned its long-standing claims of sovereignty over Belize, and the two countries established diplomatic relations. It continued to experience violence as guerrillas sought to seize power. A peace treaty was signed in 1996, but labour discontent, widespread crime and poverty, and violations of human rights continued into the 21st century.