The Guatemalan Military Government had a iron grip on the nation for decades, and they were willing to use any means to keep it. The Marxist Guerrilla groups, later formed as the U.R.N.G., wanted to return the prosperous Communist led era of the 1940’s, before the 1954 coup replaced the Democratic Communist Jacobo Árbenz with the first military dictator Castillo Armas. The United States Government orchestrated the 1954, and funded the Guatemalan Government for decades even during the most questionable moments to quell the fear of neighboring Communist states during their divisive Cold War with Soviet Russia. Caught in the middle of this conflict were he indigenous Mayan tribes of the highlands, who were targeted by the army in the later stages of the war due to their neighboring with the Guerrillas and population overlaps with the Guerrillas. This targeting lead to a Genocide in the early 1980’s slaughtering over 150,000 innocent Mayans dead, and leaving the minority of survivors homeless and in great poverty. When reflecting on what caused the war and the tragedy that came with it, there are no real winners. The U.S. now had the guilt of all the deaths that happened on their watch, the Mayans were nearly wiped out to extinction, the Marxists never actually overthrew the government while taking heavy losses, and the Guatemalan Government and Army became international monsters. The Guatemalan and U.S. governments tried to justify their actions at the time by painting the Marxists as the problem, dangerous commie threats who would if in charge would turn Guatemala into a Cuban Missile Crisis version 2. On the contrary though, the facts prove the opposite not just in
The Guatemalan Military Government had a iron grip on the nation for decades, and they were willing to use any means to keep it. The Marxist Guerrilla groups, later formed as the U.R.N.G., wanted to return the prosperous Communist led era of the 1940’s, before the 1954 coup replaced the Democratic Communist Jacobo Árbenz with the first military dictator Castillo Armas. The United States Government orchestrated the 1954, and funded the Guatemalan Government for decades even during the most questionable moments to quell the fear of neighboring Communist states during their divisive Cold War with Soviet Russia. Caught in the middle of this conflict were he indigenous Mayan tribes of the highlands, who were targeted by the army in the later stages of the war due to their neighboring with the Guerrillas and population overlaps with the Guerrillas. This targeting lead to a Genocide in the early 1980’s slaughtering over 150,000 innocent Mayans dead, and leaving the minority of survivors homeless and in great poverty. When reflecting on what caused the war and the tragedy that came with it, there are no real winners. The U.S. now had the guilt of all the deaths that happened on their watch, the Mayans were nearly wiped out to extinction, the Marxists never actually overthrew the government while taking heavy losses, and the Guatemalan Government and Army became international monsters. The Guatemalan and U.S. governments tried to justify their actions at the time by painting the Marxists as the problem, dangerous commie threats who would if in charge would turn Guatemala into a Cuban Missile Crisis version 2. On the contrary though, the facts prove the opposite not just in