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Genocide Under Ríos Montt
The Guatemalan genocide, also referred to as the Maya genocide, or the Silent Holocaust (, , or ), was the mass killing of the Maya Indigenous people during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996) by successive Guatemalan military governments that first took power following the CIA-instigated 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état. Massacres, forced disappearances, torture and summary executions of guerrillas and especially civilians at the hands of security forces had been widespread since 1965, and, with the backing of the United States, was a longstanding policy of the military regime. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented "extraordinarily cruel" actions by the armed forces, mostly against civilians. The repression reached genocidal levels in the predominantly indigenous northern provinces where the Guerrilla Army of the Poor operated. There, the Guatemalan military viewed the Maya as siding with the insurgency and began a campaign of mass killings and disappearances of Mayan peasants. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guatemalan Civil War
The Guatemalan Civil War was fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various Left-wing politics, leftist rebel groups. The Guatemalan government forces committed Guatemalan genocide, genocide against the Maya population of Guatemala during the civil war and there were widespread human rights violations against civilians. The context of the struggle was based on longstanding issues over land distribution. Wealthy Guatemalans, mainly of White Latin Americans#Guatemala, European descent, and foreign companies like the American United Fruit Company had control over much of the land leading to conflicts with the rural, disproportionately indigenous, peasants who worked the land. Democratic elections in 1944 and 1951 which were during the Guatemalan Revolution had brought popular leftist governments to power, who sought to ameliorate working conditions and implement land distribution. A 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, United States-backed coup d'état in 1954 inst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
