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Julio César Méndez Montenegro (November 23, 1915 – April 30, 1996) was a Guatemalan academic who served as the 34th
president of Guatemala The president of Guatemala (), officially titled President of the Republic of Guatemala (), is the head of state and head of government of Guatemala, elected to a single four-year term. The position of President was created in 1839. Selectio ...
from July 1966 to July 1970. Mendez was elected on a platform promising democratic reforms and the curtailment of military power. The only civilian to occupy Guatemala's presidency during the long period of military rule between 1954 and 1986. Nevertheless, his
election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...
and swearing in was considered a major turning point for the long military-led Guatemala. He was the first cousin of César Montenegro Paniagua whose kidnapping, torture and murder during the Julio César Méndez presidency is rumored to have been undertaken with presidential sanction.


Presidency (1966–1970)

In 1966, the left-of-center Méndez defied odds after being elected and successfully sworn in as President of Guatemala. As a civilian who previously made a career as a law professor, Méndez's election, despite challenges, was also considered a historical transition from longstanding military rule in Guatemala. At the time of Méndez's election, Juan Jose Arévalo, who served as President of Guatemala from 1945 to 1951, was the only civilian to complete a full presidential term since Guatemala's independence in 1847. It was during the Mendez presidency that the United States dramatically expanded its military mission in Guatemala. Within days of Mendez taking office, US Colonel John Webber Jr. was dispatched to the country to assist in modernizing Guatemala's counterinsurgency apparatus. Under Colonel Webber's command, the United States expanded training within Guatemala's 5,000-man army and outfitted the Guatemalan security forces with the most modern counterinsurgency equipment available. The United States also assisted the Guatemalan security forces in the implementation and use of counter-terrorism, and the establishment of counter-terror units under the supervision of U.S. police advisors. With increased US military support, the Guatemalan Army launched a counter-insurgency campaign that successfully combated and dispersed the left-wing guerrilla organizations fighting in the mountains and country. The guerrillas, including the Rebel Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes — FAR), then concentrated their attacks in Guatemala City, assassinating many leading representatives of the military government, U.S. military advisors, and the American ambassador John Gordon Mein, in 1968.


"White Terror" and paramilitarism

The repression that began to take shape under the presidency of Enrique Peralta Azurdia intensified under Mendez. With the onset of the Guatemalan army's first major anti-guerrilla offensive, the army and security forces carried out widespread
extrajudicial killing An extrajudicial killing (also known as an extrajudicial execution or an extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, ...
,
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...
and
forced disappearances An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person with the support or acquiescence of a State (polity), state followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate or whereabouts with the i ...
. The repression was most intense in the southeastern region of the country, particularly in the department of Zacapa, under the command of Colonel
Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio (July 17, 1918 – December 6, 2003) was a military officer and politician who served as the 35th president of Guatemala from 1970 to 1974. A member of the National Liberation Movement, his government enforced tortur ...
. In March 1966, thirty Guatemalan Party of Labour (PGT) associates were kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the security forces. This was one of the first major instances of
forced disappearance An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person with the support or acquiescence of a State (polity), state followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate or whereabouts with the i ...
in Latin American history. These 30 disappearances marked the beginning of a dramatic increase of state repression in 1966. When law students at the University of San Carlos used legal measures (such as ''
habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a legal procedure invoking the jurisdiction of a court to review the unlawful detention or imprisonment of an individual, and request the individual's custodian (usually a prison official) to ...
'' petitions) to require the government to present the detainees at court, some of the students were "disappeared" in turn. In exchange for military support of his administration, President Mendez authorized the armed forces to use "any means necessary" to suppress the insurgency. No longer bound to the rule of law, the security forces resorted to terror to control the population and dismantle the civilian support base of the insurgency. Guatemalan government forces killed or "disappeared" thousands of civilians during the escalation of the counterinsurgency. The repression was most intense in the eastern regions where the MR-13 operated, and in
Guatemala City Guatemala City (, also known colloquially by the nickname Guate), is the Capital city, national capital and largest city of the Guatemala, Republic of Guatemala. It is also the Municipalities of Guatemala, municipal capital of the Guatemala Depa ...
where the PGT operated. In eastern Guatemala, government forces engaged in the massacre of civilians and destruction of peasant communities as a means of breaking up guerrilla bases. Some observers referred to the policy of the Guatemalan government as " White Terror" -a term previously used to describe similar periods of anti-communist mass killing in countries such as
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
and
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- Observers estimate that as many as 15,000 Guatemalans were killed by the military and government-led death squads in three years of Mendez's presidency to eliminate fewer than 300 Marxist guerrillas.
Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...
cited lower estimates of 3,000 to 8,000 peasants killed by the military during that time. Colonel Arana, who commanded the Guatemalan army, earned the nickname "Butcher of Zacapa" or "Jackal of the East." The victims included guerrilla sympathizers, labor union leaders, intellectuals, students, and people vaguely defined "enemies of the government." The government's use of "any means necessary" resulted in the opposition increasing its level of resistance to ensure its survival. The "White Terror" (which led to the destruction of the FAR's ladino peasant base in the eastern provinces) caused the MR-13 to retreat to
Guatemala City Guatemala City (, also known colloquially by the nickname Guate), is the Capital city, national capital and largest city of the Guatemala, Republic of Guatemala. It is also the Municipalities of Guatemala, municipal capital of the Guatemala Depa ...
. There, the MR-13 began to engage in selective killings of members of the security forces as well as U.S. military advisors. The insurgents assassinated the American ambassador to Guatemala, John Gordon Mein, in 1968, and the German ambassador to Guatemala, Karl Von Spreti, in 1970.


SCUGA

Following the inauguration of Méndez Montenegro, he appointed Colonel Rafael Arriaga Bosque to Defense Minister. Mendez activated the 'Special Commando Unit of the Guatemalan Army' (SCUGA). The SCUGA was placed under the command of Colonel Máximo Zepeda in January 1967, after which point it assumed command over most of the Guatemalan government's urban counterinsurgency operations against PGT. Composed of both military and civilian personnel, the SCUGA functioned both as a counter-terror apparatus and as an intelligence-gathering apparatus. SCUGA commandos routinely carried out abductions, bombings, street assassinations, torture, "disappearances" and executions of both documented and suspected communists. The SCUGA often collaborated with the Fourth Corps of the Guatemalan National Police, which carried out similar activities. Together these forces often carried out various counter-terror and counter-insurgency operations under the guise of fictitious
paramilitary A paramilitary is a military that is not a part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the term "paramilitary" as far back as 1934. Overview Though a paramilitary is, by definiti ...
death squad A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings, massacres, or enforced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in w ...
s and anti-communist front organizations (known by acronyms such as the NOA, CADEG, CRAG and RAYO). In addition to engaging in operations under the guise of para-militarism, the SCUGA nominally worked with paramilitary death squads such as the infamous ''Mano Blanca'' ("White Hand").


Mano Blanca

Mano Blanca (Spanish for 'White Hand'), was a Guatemalan far-right, anti-communist death squad, set up in 1966 to prevent Julio César Méndez Montenegro from being inaugurated as the president of Guatemala. While initially autonomous from the government ...
, or the Movement of Organized Nationalist Action, was set up in 1966 as a front for the MLN to carry out its more violent activities, along with many other similar groups, including the New Anticommunist Organization and the Anticommunist Council of Guatemala. These three groups operated within the United States supported government arm known as the Regional Telecommunications Center, which linked them to various government, military and police agencies. This network was built on the Committees against Communism created by the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
after the coup in 1954. The members of Mano Blanco were largely army officers, and the outfit received a lot of its funding from planters. It also received information from military intelligence. It was one of the only death squads directly affiliated with a political party. Most such groups were "phantom organizations," created so that the Guatemalan military could carry out illicit activities. Armed with this support, Mano Blanca began a campaign described by the United States Department of State as one of "kidnappings, torture, and
summary execution In civil and military jurisprudence, summary execution is the putting to death of a person accused of a crime without the benefit of a free and fair trial. The term results from the legal concept of summary justice to punish a summary offense, a ...
." One of the main targets of Mano Blanca was the '' Partido Revolucionario'' (PR), an anti-communist group that was the only major reform oriented party allowed to operate under the military-dominated regime. Other targets included the banned leftist parties. The PR drew a lot of its members from the activist base that had been created during the agrarian reform program begun by former president Jacobo Arbenz in 1952, and these individuals were targeted by the Mano Blanca. When it was founded, the group had the specific aim of preventing Méndez Montenegro from taking power. During the 1970s, Mano Blanca was led by Raúl Lorenzana. Human rights activist Blase Bonpane described the activities of Mano Blanca as being an integral part of the policy of the Guatemalan government, and by extension the policy of the United States government and the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
. One of the deaths Mano Blanca was responsible for was that César Montenegro Paniagua, a communist politician who was killed in retribution for the killing of West German ambassador Karl von Spreti by FAR guerrillas. Mano Blanca also sent death threats to one of the leaders of a student organization. When he was questioned about the reason for the death threats, the leader of Mano Blanca stated that the student needed to be killed because he was a communist, and would "give his life for the poor." Overall, Mano Blanca was responsible for thousands of murders and kidnappings, leading travel writer
Paul Theroux Paul Edward Theroux ( ; born April 10, 1941) is an American novelist and travel writer who has written numerous books, including the travelogue '' The Great Railway Bazaar'' (1975). Some of his works of fiction have been adapted as feature films ...
to refer to them as "Guatemala's version of a volunteer Gestapo unit."


References


Bibliography

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