Here Guatemala » History

patron saint festivities in honor of St. Luke the Evangelist

admin — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:55:39 +0000

In October in San Lucas Sacatepequez celebrate our patron saint festivities in honor of St. Luke the Evangelist, cultural activities, sports and religious.

Bring the girlfriend, wife, family, in-laws, friends or whoever you prefer, you come to enjoy entertainment, partying or simply to taste the delicious typical dishes, a hearty soup or a good steak and clear, the obligatory toasts and corn gruel, I do not think a lot and come on.

For more information and the program of activities please visit our website www.condadosanlucas.com

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Identity Guatemala

DarioMoran — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 16:55:37 +0000

IDENTITY GUATEMALA
By Darío Morán

Guatemala as a country and as a nation should be thought as a rainbow of uncountable colors due to its too many riches, riches, which unfortunately not all guatemalans have acquainted and known very well.

Our history, is a history of a nation which had to be conquered, to be found even though this became destruction of peoples and nature : natures has been harmed since a long time ago, I say sometimes that progress means damage.

I believe the interaction between people from other regions like the conquistadors, and local people : our ancestors; formed our nationality, one, that we can not separate from the mixing of races because otherwise we ought to be against time and time is life.

We are still taking the best of all cultures which have been interacting in our behaviour as people of Guatemala.
Besides this to speak of a Guatemaya and a Guatemala separates but in a kind of racial division and racial divisions stop armony and peace between peoples and people.

Folklore is a term that we still can not understand, we confuse folklore with real traditions, but, ¿ Are there real and genuine traditions in countries now?

I Do not think so, because the interction of events linked with art and culture, changes that progress bring, fashion, intracultural effects, transculture trip going and coming back and other social phenomenae affect and changes.

I ask myself if we could separate the folkloric colors with which we paint our own culture and live our traditions and then how would our traditions look : pale.

So we need a mix of everything, unless we start a profound study of our culture and art and then try to recreate events, facts, costumes, dances and festivities on stages already furnished with elements of past epochs and behaviours, well I am trying to do so thru my investigatins and studies when I write the scripts for our ethnic dances with the group Nán Nikte´Guatemala and thru other proposals we have been submitted but not enough heard.

Traditions are rich but we have to make them richer showing all the people in and ouside our country.

Traditions are the landscapes painted with the essence of colors we had inside tiny gourds before and other colors other brought by ship to us, and when the both painters : from here and there started to paint dropped some drops, we picked them up and started to paint our own portrait of our nationality which formed then our colorful identity.

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The Mayans, part two

admin — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:00:35 +0000

Since the sixteenth century Mayan architecture has drawn the attention of the powerful West. Their pyramids, temples and palaces had been abandoned long ago, but the jungle and the lack of information served as incentives for their first scholars. The materials that were disposed of the architects Maya limestone blocks for the coating and dirt, gravel and stone slabs to fill the cores and basements, getting cement for the attachment of calcium carbonate.

The mahogany and zapote provided the lintels of the doors, the reinforcements for the vaults, as well as scaffolding, ladders and rollers that facilitated the work. The technical achievement was the most characteristic false vault, which is nothing more than two walls that meet at the top of spun by approximation of stones. The stucco was used to plaster floors, walls and sculptures, and was obtained by mixing lime with water in a rubber plant. The enormous weight of the vaults and the crest (masonry walls that stood on it) forced to increase the thickness of the walls and reduce vain. The styles are the most important of Peten (Tikal, Uaxactún), characterized by imposing mass front smoothed by the height of facing Massifs and shrines, irregular plant with a single door; Valley Motagua (Copan, Quiriguá) becomes singular for the use of blocks of Trachyte, the abundance of sculptures and profuse decoration of the friezes, the region of the Usumacinta (Yaxchilán, Piedras Negras) possesses vast acropolis, and noted for its stucco decoration and the sense of lightness to it print their large porches and figures of the facades, the area Puuc (Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil) is characterized by the use of columns, baseboards simple, smooth walls and friezes enormous and richly decorated with stone mosaics; and the region Chenes (Hochob, Dzibilnocac) and decorate the whole surface of the stone walls with masks. Finally, the Rio Bec style includes towers coated masonry shell similar to the real Tikal.

Sculpture

Includes a variety of events: altars, steles, tombstones, zoomorphic lintels, panels, thrones, jambs, columns, statues and markers package ball game. Its main features are the use of the relief, the monumentality in the treatment of the themes, use of color on the surface, the dependence of the architectural field, the profusion of signs, calligraphy and ornamentation, the relevance of curved lines and character brindle and theatrical of the composition. The memorial stelae are among the magnificent work that the highlight of Tikal, Copan, Quiriguá and Coban. These are huge slabs of stone nailed vertically in the ground, where the Maya sculptors carved in low relief images of the jubilee of their kings. Stood at the end of a particular time period, every five and every twenty years, and in them, using hieroglyphics, is narrated the most important events of the reign. Excellent lintels are the figurative which flanked the gates of the palaces and temples of Yaxchilán, the altars of Piedras Negras and zoomorphic of Quirigua, but perhaps the summit of the Mayan sculpture are panels of the buildings of Palenque. The palace, and the temples of the inscriptions, the Sun, the Cross and the Cross Folias, are one of the best examples of how man is able to translate their religious universe in stone.

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The Mayans

admin — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:26:30 +0000

Mesoamerican group of indigenous people belonging to the family or mayense Mayan language, which traditionally have lived in the Mexican states of Yucatan, Campeche, Tabasco and Chiapas, in most regions of Guatemala and Belize and Honduras.

The people best known, the Maya itself, which gives its name to the whole group, took the Yucatan peninsula. Among other peoples significant are the Tzeltal in the highlands of Chiapas, the Chol of Chiapas, the Quiché, Cakchiquel, and pokonchis Pokomans the mountains of Guatemala and the Chorti of eastern Guatemala and western Honduras. All these people were part of a common culture and civilization in many respects, reached the highest levels of development among indigenous people throughout the Mesoamerican area.

Economic and social organization

Agriculture has been the basis of the economy from the Mayan pre-Columbian era and the corn is their main crop. The Mayans also cultivated cotton, beans (kidney beans or bean), camote (sweet potato), cassava and cocoa. The techniques of spinning, dyeing and weaving achieved a high degree of perfection. As a unit of exchange were used cocoa beans and copper bells, material that was used for ornamental work, like gold, silver, jade, shell and sea-colored feathers.

The Mayans were a very hierarchical. They were ruled by a political authority, the Halach Uinic, supreme leader, whose dignity was inherited by male line, and the Soul Kan., high priest. The supreme leader delegated authority over village communities to local chiefs or bataboob, foremen farming that meet civilian, military and religious. The minimum unit of production was the family farmer, who cultivated a ‘corn’ (plot of a 4-5 hectares) through the system Rozas, to meet their needs and generate, at times, a surplus that is the appropriate class leader.

Architecture

Mayan culture produced a monumental architecture, which will retain large ruins in Palenque, Uxmal, Mayapan, Copan, Tikal, Uaxactún, Quiriguá, Bonampak, and Chichen Itza, among many others. These places were huge centers of religious ceremonies. Three architectural styles are: the River Bec, the Chenes and Puuc, each with characteristics of engineering and ornamentation own. The distribution of cities consisted of a series of pyramid structures, most often topped by temples or carved crest, and grouped around open plazas. The pyramids were coated with staggered blocks of polished stone and usually wore a carved staircase in one or more of their faces. The infrastructure of the pyramids were usually formed by earth and stones, but sometimes used stone blocks together with mortar.

Although today is an exception, it is believed that the Temple of the Inscriptions in Palenque, which houses the tomb of King Pacal, it may not be the sole use of funerary monument that was built in the Mayan culture. The most common type of construction consists of a core of rubble or limestone game, mixed with concrete or cement, and coated with polished stone or stucco. The walls were built of stone, usually without mortar. The wood was used for the lintels of the doors and for the sculptures. His great discovery was the technical system of the false vault by approximation of rows of stone blocks, to fill spaces or narrow elongated, which expire in the characteristic bow Maya, of which there are 10 different types. The windows were rare, very small and narrow. The interiors and exteriors are painted with bright colors. Special attention was devoted to the field and was lavishly decorated with painted sculptures, carved lintels, stucco moldings and stone mosaics. The decorations are usually available in wide friezes that contrasted with strips of plain bricks. The homes of the common ones are certainly seemed to mud huts and roofs of branches that still today can be seen among the contemporary Maya.

continue…

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Guatemalan literature

admin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:29:08 +0000

The Guatemalan writer Miguel Angel Asturias (1899-1974) explores the legends and mythology in pre-Columbian to understand the reality of indigenous life. His novel strong wind was cited in the speech of the Nobel Prize award, which was awarded for “his colorful writings deeply rooted in individuality and national traditions of American Indians.”

Guatemalan literature, literature itself from Guatemala.

Guatemala is by Mexico, the richest Latin American country in aboriginal literature, or previous peers to the Spanish conquest. Although decadent and cut, the nation Mayan culture had an active and, for that matter now, a system of six and eighteen sub-variants of the Mayan-Quiche, and three-Zoque Maya.

Among the rescued Mayan manuscripts and translated by European travelers have the Quiche Bible, the Book of the board, the Memorial Tecpán Atitlan and, above all, the Popol Vuh, a sum of cosmogony, mythology and thought. Among the dances and performances, the texts of Rabinal-Achí or Dance Tun.

Guatemala appears in the chronicles of Bernal Diaz del Castillo and Francisco de Fuentes and Guzman. As a starter in Spanish literature include the work of the catechists Sunday Betanzos, Sunday Vico, Francisco Marroquín and Bartolome de Las Casas.

College life begins in 1563 in Santiago. It is taught scholasticism. Societies of Friends of the Country, in the eighteenth century, while in Spain, disseminate ideas of the Enlightenment. The first Gazette dating from 1729. Rafael Landivar, in the same century, is releasing its Rusticatio Mexicana, written in Latin and contained lengthy descriptions of Guatemala. Other epic of the XVIII are Matias de Cordova and Diego Saenz de Ovecuri. It was also reminds the fabulist Rafael Garcia Goyena. The lyrical poetry began in the sixteenth and continues to collect names like Pedro de Lievano, Juan de Mestanza and Sister Juana Maldonado.

Independence and modernism

Independence was minor literary. In the late nineteenth Estrada stressed Sunday, modernized romantic, linked to the Cuban José Martí. In the modern campaigning novelist and poet Max Soto Hall, Felix Calderon Avila and Alberto Velazquez. Rafael Arevalo Martinez, the signing of the relevant period, practiced a fantastic literature, utopian and political satire, which opens new perspectives: the novel of psychological Flavio Herrera, the naturalism of Wyld Carlos Ospina and impressionism regionalist Jose Rodriguez Cerna and Carlos Samayoa Chinchilla.

In the decades 1920 and 1930 stress Miguel Angel Asturias and Luis Cardoza y Aragón.

The renovators

By 1930 a new generation emerges, nationalistic and indigenous (see Indian Literature, Literature and patriotic independence). The group Tepeus next to Augusto Pino Morales, Oscar Mirón, Miguel Marsicovétere and Mario Monteforte.

In the forties highlights the action of the Association of Young Artists and Writers, with names like Augusto Monterroso, Carlos Illescas, and in the peer review Accent, Raul Leiva, Otto Raul Gonzalez and Enrique Juarez Toledo. Other important bodies of the era are the Journal of Guatemala (1945) and the politicized group Saker-Ti (1947). In subsequent decades: New Sign (1967), Guatemala trade, Alero and university notebooks.

As writers of social protest set to Pellecer Carlos Manuel Jose Maria Teresa Lopez Valdigón and Arevalo. In a more politicized: Arqueles Morales, Marco Antonio Flores and Roberto Obregón.

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Department of Jalapa

admin — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 12:00:08 +0000

Catholic Church, San Luis Jilotepeque

Jalapa is a department in the south east of Guatemala. Its climate is one of the best in the world. It is an entirely pleasant climate, neither cold nor hot. Jalapa, for this very special feature is known as La Morena weather of the East.

The media is of good quality. There are three roads from which you can reach the capital and two of the main communication routes such as Road to The Atlantic and Pan-American Highway. There is another road which is in the process of construction which runs through the mountains of Jalapa, in a village known as La Soledad.

The department has beautiful mountains, volcanoes and landscapes that make it very interesting. This picturesque department also has many tourist attractions, among which are worthy of mention the ecological park of Tatasiriri, The waterfalls of Paraiso, Los Chorros of Pinula, Pinula of lukewarm water and warm water of nuns.

The volcano of Jumay is also ideal for those who enjoy climbing, especially for amateurs, as it constitutes a good basis for training, because it offers no great difficulty in its promotion.

The population is very hospitable and friendly. All visitors receive a warm welcome and are treated with courtesy and respect. The head of the department of the same name, has all the services of any modern city, including Internet access, as it has many cafes with a moderate charge.

This department is famous for its production of glazed ceramic. In the central park of the city is an interesting and very old petrified tree.

Department: Jalapa
Height: 1.362 m SNM
Length: 2.063 km2
Coordinates: 14º 37’58” Latitude Longitude 89º 59’20”
Population: 235.192 inhabitants
Adjacent to the north with the departments of El Progreso, Zacapa east to the south of Chiquimula with those of Jutiapa and Santa Rosa on the west by Guatemala. The department was created by decree number 107 of 24 November 1873. Its municipalities are:
1. Jalapa
2. San Pedro Pinula
3. San Luis Jilotepeque
4. San Manuel Chaparrón
5. San Carlos Alzatate
6. Nuns
7. Mataquescuintla

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Department of Izabal

admin — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:00:06 +0000

Izabal, Guatemala department located in the far eastern part of the country, bordering Belize and Honduras to the north east. In its northern sector highlights the coastline which is situated in the Bay Amatique, while in the mountains of the interior stand out Mico and Santa Cruz, with a central position of Lake Izabal, in the depression and tectonics volcano of the same name.

Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic coast, is the capital, absorbing the bulk of commercial traffic in timber, coffee, cocoa and sugar cane produced in the department. Such traffic accesses to the city by freight rail line that connects the capital, Guatemala City. Other localities are Morales and Puerto Livingstone. Surface, 9038 km2; population (1995), 359,056 inhabitants.

Izabal, Lake, Lake Guatemala, the largest of the republic with a size averages of 45 km long by 20 km wide, which pours its waters and the Polochic river is drained by the Dulce River (in front of the castle San Felipe).

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Departmental Interior of Huehuetenango

admin — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:00:44 +0000

For a few years, between 1881 and 1885, the header was moved to Chiantla, because I had to Hatred Huehuetenango the notorious political boss Evaristo Cash, who committed all sorts of abuses against huehuetecos, invoking his status as a relative political General Justo Rufino Barrios.

Finally it should be noted that in 1865 was first introduced a flow of water through aqueducts to the town of Huehuetenango in 1910 and was inaugurated the National Hospital, built with a legacy of Mrs Margaret Avila and the funds raised by charitable society El Amparo, founded in 1901 at the initiative of Dr. Urban Polanco and Professor Celso Herrera.

It was not until 1950 that established the Joint Institute Normal. In the same year the college started activities for girls La Sagrada Familia, which is an indicator of neglect suffered by the department in education. But in 1893 already had presidio.

Legend of the origin of peoples
Each village has its own printing Huehuetenango history. Thus, in San Gaspar Ixchil is counted among the elderly, who at that time came to San Gaspar walk to the sites where it is now the town. To see everything so beautiful, it was to fish in the river Cuilco; then noted that it brought seeds from chile. San Gaspar took the seed and reaped good chile, so the saint and did not return to Chiapas (Mexico), where he had been and remained to live in this place.

The inhabitants of the place he built a church and San Gaspar continued sowing chile. Since then the town is called San Gaspar Ixchil, “where born chili” because it means ix chile-language Mam. Variants of this legend repeated in Chiantla, La Libertad, San Sebastian Huehuetenango and San Juan Ixcoy. The other legends of the region relate to stories about the origin of corn and the owners of the hills and mountains.

Tale of oral tradition
Within the oral tradition huehueteca tales abound of animals, some of ancient roots of European and other Mayan tradition, with echoes prehispanic.

It is well that appears in Cuilco and San Pedro Nectar tales of the rabbit and the fox, where the rabbit always ready to play against the fox, which is being naive. In Malacatancito and Jacaltenango, is narrated the story of a monkey that was burning our eyes for stealing the jewels of the church. Barillas is narrated in the case of man drone that was turned into vulture, “for not working the milpas.”

In San ta Huista Ana and Santa Barbara, we hear stories of barnyard animals, as the woman who became rich with the egg of a chompipa, which turned out to be gold. In La Libertad and Chiantla, is that there was an orphan who was picked up by a rich man, who was the owner of the hill. The orphan scratch the riches of the lord and to uncover a chest, left a huge cloud of smoke that the owner of the hill he saw from afar. He returned and punished for opening the orphan their chests and threw it in the house. Aj say Yol Pétzal of San Rafael, that “the orphan was punished for touching things that do not belong.”

One of the most beautiful traditional stories of Huehuetenango is the hummingbird, which is narrated in San Pedro nectar, Solome and Concepcion. They say he had a “patoja chula” who sat in the courtyard of her house with her loom to weave waist. A young man fell in love with her, but could not enter the house because the father “was very brave,” then became the patojo hummingbird, and was the youngest and was set in the eyes of the animal, fell in love with him, and no longer tejía his huipil. The patoja grabbed the hummingbird and put him in a cage, but it was not being quiet, so it took him to his tapexco. The hummingbird became a man love a woman and stole. The parents pursued, but then became patojo again in hummingbird and was introduced in the huipil she tejía and no longer came out of there.
That’s why all the young women of Huehuetenango do hummingbirds in their huipiles, the boyfriend who hoped to one day come to their lives.

Other literary forms of Huehuetenango, are the tales of Peter Tecomate, which is a variant of huehueteca Pedro Urdemales, as well as other bandits wonderful Ixcot Juan de Todos Santos Cuchumatán, which takes care of the roads and appears to be men “who have bad intentions “With women. The legends of Animist and souls have appeared in shame, are also present in Huehuetenango. Variants of the Duende, the Tzipitío, La Llorona and the Tatuana, can be heard in San Gaspar Ixchil, San Rafael The Independence and especially in the departmental head. It was also heard romances, romancillos, old and decimal ballads, particularly in San Juan Ixcoy.

The vastness of the territory, ceremonies and social history, make Huehuetenango one of the richest departments in sincretizadas oral traditions that are directly related to the ancient Mayan culture.

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From Chinabajul to Huehuetenango

admin — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 12:00:44 +0000

Download PowerPoint presentation here

The city of Huehuetenango occupies the site of the ancient indigenous population which became known as Chinabajul (between ravines).
Well contained, for example, in relation War’s common K’iche and Kaqchikel, in the year 1554.

Huehuetenango was perhaps the largest population of the area mam. According to several authors, the original name was Chinabajul and was the capital of the lordship of the Mames in the north. The archaeological research has shown that the area of Zaculeu (in white ground K’iche means and is located a few miles from the header) was occupied from the early classical period (between 300 and 500 of the Christian era).

Chinabajul and Zaculeu were the political and religious center of the most important area mam and fell under the domination K’iche early in the fifteenth century when the town reached its maximum power during the reigns of Gucumatz and his son Quicab the big one.

In July 1525, after taking Gumarcaj and the founding of Santiago de Guatemala, a force of 40 riders, 80 infantry soldiers and two assistants Mexicans thousand and K’iche, commanded by Gonzalo de Alvarado, brought to the site Zaculeu fortress, where the fighters took refuge huehuetecos led by Kaibil Balán, after taking Mazatenango (the current village of San Lorenzo) and Malacatán, Malacatancito today. Some six thousand warriors, including people from Cuilco and Ixtahacán, resisted a siege for a month and a half, at which time he was defeated a force of modest from the Sierra (Todos Santos, San Martín, San Juan and Santiago Chimaltenango Atit).

After the fall of Zaculeu, the Spaniards established their dominance over the area of the Cuchumatanes. Huehuetenango was awarded in entrusts the conquistador Juan de Espinar, who enjoyed this pre between 1525 and 1562.

At the end of the decade of 1540, the Dominican missionaries dropped by the indigenous peoples who lived dispersed, to facilitate the evangelization and control. According to the chronicler Fray Antonio de Remesal, between the villages reduced in those years is Huehuetenango. During colonial times, Huehuetenango was part of the administration and then mayor of greater Vancouver and was only on the two peoples, until 1732, when the mayor lived permanently in Totonicapán The first administrator of the court appointed in 1579, was Francisco Diaz del Castillo, son of the famous chronicler Bernal Diaz del Castillo.

Around 1580, the religious orders to the mercy replaced the Dominicans in tion of the parishes in the northwest, including Huehuetenango, remaining there until the late eighteenth century.

When in 1770 the Archbishop Pedro Cortes and Larraz made his pastoral visit to the parish of Huehuetenango had a population of five thousand 49 people, of whom 916 live in the village of Huehuetenango and the rest in their villages annexed San Lorenzo, San Sebastian Huehuetenango , Santa Isabel, San Juan Atit, Santiago Chimaltenango, San Pedro nectar and Santo Domingo. The San Sebastian was more populous, with 1384 inhabitants.

From the economic point of view, during the colonial period, the population had increased importance of Chiantla, by mines and raising sheep on the farms of the senior. However, in Huehuetenango was a major activity of tissue, thanks to the wool Chiantla.

In September 1821, by the contact that you had to Chiapas, Mexico, and without knowing the events of Sept. 15 in Guatemala, the municipality of Huehuetenango, in the 20th meeting stated that Huehuetenango is independent of Spain and would remain united Guatemala, provided that “this embrace the party of independence.” Topped the municipality Mr. Juan Manuel Recinos and Manuel Mendoza, mayors first and second, respectively.

By decree of the Constituent Assembly of November 12 of 1825, to Huehuetenango was awarded the title of Villa. By decree of May 8 of 1866 created the Department of Huehuetenango. The sanctuary was elevated to a city on November 23 of 1886.

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Cuban interlude

admin — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 12:00:47 +0000

In April 1960, Guatemala broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba following the rise to power of Fidel Castro. In Guatemala there were serious riots in July and again in November. This month the U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower ordered to ground and air units from the U.S. Navy stationed along the Caribbean coast of Guatemala and Nicaragua to prevent an attack on Cuba, a fact that both countries denounced as imminent, the attack never took place , So that naval units had to withdraw in early December.

Political violence

In March 1963, Ydígoras was deposed by his Defense Minister, Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia, who declared a state of emergency and canceled elections to be held in December. He also took strong measures to quell a revolt guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), especially active in Zacapa, despite the harsh repression, the guerrillas continued their activity. The paramilitary groups that are authorized by the Army, murdered hundreds of people during the period of Peralta’s successor, Julio Cesar Mendez Montenegro (1966-1970), only exacerbated the situation.

After a campaign marked by violence, Gen. Carlos Arana Osorio was elected president in 1970, four years later was succeeded by General Kjell Eugenio Laugerud Garcia. During the two governments continued political violence, although some decrease was seen in the mid-1970s. However, during that time the country was rocked by two natural disasters, a devastating hurricane (1974) and a violent earthquake (1976), which claimed over 20,000 lives and left more than a million people homeless. Nevertheless, Guatemala’s economy enjoyed a remarkable growth, spurred by rising oil production and high prices of coffee. The resurgence of civil conflict, provoked by the activities of the FAR and the ‘death squads’ paramilitaries, characterized the presidential term of General Fernando Romeo Lucas García, who was elected in 1978.

Coup d’etat

On March 23, 1982, two weeks after the general election as president of Angel Anibal Guevara, a coup d’etat installed in power a military junta headed by General Efraim Rios Montt. In June, Rios Montt dissolved the Board and assumed the presidency, ruling in a dictatorial. After the guerrilla forces that reject a possible amnesty, the activities of paramilitary forces spread throughout the country, perpetrating atrocities among Indians and peasants.

The slow transition to democracy

Rios Montt was deposed from his post on August 8, 1983 after the military coup led by Brigadier Oscar Humberto Mejia Victores, who restored civil liberties. The results of the elections in December 1985 led the Christian Democrat Vinicio Cerezo to the presidency after more than 30 years of military rule. However, Cerezo was unable to suppress drug trafficking and to end abuses of human rights, but progressed attempts to dialogue with the guerrillas, with which agreements were reached in Oslo (Norway) and in El Escorial ( Spain), which allowed the peaceful development of the presidential elections of 1991 which were won by Jorge Serrano Elías, a businessman and evangelical Protestant closely tied to Rios Montt.

A year later, Rigoberta Menchú, Quiche Indian who had fled to Mexico in 1981 to escape persecution of the army and paramilitary groups, received the Nobel Peace Prize for his advocacy of human rights. In May 1993, President Serrano, supported by the Army, gave a coup that led to the dissolution of Congress and the suspension of the Constitution, but in the absence of domestic support and international protests, a ‘kickback’ addressed by the Constitutional Court forced him to resign.

That same year, Congress chose Ramiro de León Carpio as president of the Republic to complete the period of government. Leon Carpio, who had distinguished for their complaints to the institutional violence, prompted a number of constitutional reforms such as limiting the presidential term to four years, set up negotiations with the guerrilla-grouped at the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) – and supported the creation of a commission to demarcate responsibilities on institutional violence, which resulted in the last three decades more than 100,000 dead and 50,000 missing, also favored the return of thousands of indigenous people displaced by the war, many of whom had taken refuge in Mexico.

In the presidential elections of November 1995 winner was the conservative Álvaro Arzú to the front of the Partido de Avanzada Nacional (PAN). In December 1996, Arzu got the URNG to renounce armed struggle and accept the democratic path as a means to access the government of the country. This event, which marked the end of 36 years of hard fighting, earned him international recognition through the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation (see the Principality of Asturias Foundation), failed in May 1997, which was shared between his government and the URNG.

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