The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (, URNG-MAIZ or most commonly URNG) is a Guatemalan political party that started as a guerrilla movement in 1982. The party laid down its arms in 1996 and became a legal political party in 1998, after the peace process which ended the Guatemalan Civil War.
History
Background PBSUCCESS and early insurgency Since the CIA-backed coup in 1954, opposition groups were continuously forming in an attempt to fight against the repression that the military and wealthy landowners in Guatemala had created. The ensuing military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas immediately on 28 June 1954 banned the Guatemalan Party of Labour (PGT) and shortly later other labor unions and left-wing parties with suspected communist sympathies via Decree 4880. After the assassination of Castillo Armas by a left-wing member of the presidential guard, Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes prevailed in the ensuing power struggle. The continued repression, coupled with an ever closer alignment of the Guatemalan government with the United States government, as well as rampant corruption and favoritism led to a rebellion by a group of dissident officers, which later named themselves Revolutionary Movement 13th November (MR-13), in reference to the incident. The failed coup d'état on 13 November 1960 usually marks the beginning of the Guatemalan Civil War, a bloody affair that lasted 36 years and claimed the lives of an estimated 200,000 people. With United States military assistance, the guerrilla were uprooted from eastern Guatemala and had to flee to neighboring Honduras. Remnants of the MR-13 returned in 1962 and established the first guerrilla group, the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR). After barely any preparation the FAR launched its first attacks against remote military installations and properties of the United Fruit Company on 6 February 1962. The failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961 and his purported erratic behavior convinced part of the military and the United States to rid themselves of Ydígoras Fuentes, which finally succeeded after several attempts in March 1963. This putsch, led by his Minister of Defense Alfredo Enrique Peralta Azurdia, denoted the beginning of Guatemala's first authentic military regime. In 1966, the law professor Julio César Méndez Montenegro was elected to the presidency, but was only allowed to take up the position under the condition, that he would not interfere in matters of internal security or the military. The year also saw the creation of Mano Blanca, a right-wing paramilitary group associated with the MLN, founded to prohibit Méndez Montenegro from taking office and to counter left-wing activism. The subsequent "white terror" coupled with the Zacapa program, severely crippled the guerrilla force based in eastern Guatemala, which in turn tried to avoid detection by hiding in cities. The FAR responded by resorting to various assassinations and abductions during the late 1960s to early 1970s, like those of John Gordon Mein and Karl von Spreti. The tense security situation led both right-wing military factions, namely the MLN and PID to unify for the elections in 1970, to counter the reforms initiated under Méndez Montenegro, which the army perceived as infringing on their autonomy. The incoming government of Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio initiated another counterinsurgency to stifle the FAR and began to entrench the military in the Guatemalan economy, chiefly by establishing the Army Bank, which handed out loans to the officer corps.
FAR splinters and government pressure As a consequence of the repression, a large contingent of the FAR came to the conclusion that they needed to change their strategy. Instead of continuing with the foco strategy of confronting the army in the countryside, which inflicted heavy losses on them, they saw the need to expand their social base to indigenous communities and middle class intellectuals and professionals. This perception gave rise to the Organization of People in Arms (ORPA) and Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP) in the early 1970s. The former was formed in 1971 as the Organización Regional de Occidente, as a branch of the FAR in western Guatemala, before splitting outright in mid 1972. The split was effectuated by their differences regarding organizational and ideological questions, particularly the role of ethnicity in the economic exclusion of indigenous people. The group underwent a gestation period of 8 years, operating clandestinely, mainly recruiting soldiers and accruing arms, before committing their first operation in September 1979. The group would soon grow famous for acts of armed propaganda in this mold, wherein they disarmed the local police and military forces and read out revolutionary statements, while handing out propaganda leaflets. Similarly the Guerrilla Army of the Poor was established in 1972, as a splinter of the FAR, caused by ideological and tactical differences akin to ORPA, in that they saw the greatest revolutionary potential in indigenous people. This group was heavily influenced by liberation theology and build a large indigenous and Ladino following in El Quiché. In the midst of this situation the MLN-PID alliance broke down and the protégé of Arana Osorio, Fernando Romeo Lucas García of the PID was elected to the presidency. Lucas García tried to solidify his hold on power by integrating the Mano Blanca into the regular military, while establishing the Ejercito Secreto Anti-Comunista, a paramilitary group beholden to himself. This group committed various human rights abuses, among them torture, public threats to prominent political adversaries and massacres, like the infamous Panzós massacre. In response to these massacres, sections of the FAR and a PGT splinter group also rejoined the armed struggle by the late 1970s, creating a volatile atmosphere in Guatemala.
Guerrilla offensive and pre-unification measures The repression of the late 1970s failed to quell the rebellion and likely had the unintentional consequence of growing the ranks of the guerrilla factions between 1980 and 1981, who by that time were in charge of 9 departments in Guatemala. Another pivotal incident was the Spanish Embassy Fire in January 1980, in which the Guatemalan military firebombed the embassy to evict a protest group of indigenous peasant farmers and student activist inside the embassy, which also backfired at the military, leading to even more momentum for the guerrilla mobilization effort. By early 1981, the guerrilla forces were so strong that they mounted a major offensive on government forces, leaving rural areas in the West and South firmly in their hands and enabling them to mount occasional assaults in the capital. The military responded with a widespread counter-insurgency campaign, linked with a divide and conquer strategy, by organizing the recruitment of indigenous people into, so-called "self-defense patrols" (Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil (PAC)), to control their communities. The increasing oppression brought the divided groups back together, which had in 1978 already established a Tripartite cooperation agreement between EGP, FAR and PGT-ND. Geopolitical circumstances at the end of 1980 led the Cuban and Nicaraguan government, which supported the guerrilla, to ultimately press for a more thorough merger.
Formation In the backdrop of these civil war circumstances the URNG formed as a leftist umbrella organization consisting of four groups: the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), the Revolutionary Organization of People in Arms (ORPA), the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR) and the National Directing Nucleus of PGT (PGT-NDN) on 8 February 1982. The unification process was mediated by the Cuban government, who only wanted to support a unitary and forceful insurgency. In consequence, the group became the public face of the long-running insurgency against the Guatemalan government throughout the Guatemalan Civil War.
Later on, the URNG led the leftist opposition in peace negotiations with the conservative Guatemalan government. These negotiations began in 1986 and brought the end of the civil war when negotiations finished in December 1996, by signing the Firm and Lasting Agreement. The conclusion of the peace talks led the URNG to pursue the registration as a legal party inside the Guatemalan political system in June 1997. The group was formally registered as a political party in December 1998.
Civil war era Military regimes and suppression of the guerrilla In March 1982, only one month after their formation, the URNG experienced an attack ordered by then president, retired General Efraín Ríos Montt. Backed by the CIA, Ríos Montt led a "scorched-earth" counter-insurgency campaign against the URNG and its supporters until he was toppled the following year. During his rule, Rios Montt tried to eradicate the insurgency by banning the activities of political parties and committing various massacres against the population in the Guatemalan highlands, thereby removing the recruitment pool of the URNG. He and his associates ascribed critique on their measures to an "international communist conspiracy" of which Amnesty International and the Catholic Church were also a part of. Ríos Montt's eventual downfall from power followed a similar path as his ascension, with a coup by his Minister of Defence Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores in August 1983. His overthrow ended the bloodiest episode of the civil war and the Guatemalan genocide, in which approximately 150,000 civilians were killed between mid 1981 and 1983 and which led to widespread displacement of another 1.5 million people. The Victoria 82 campaign, as it was called by Ríos Montt, proved to be highly successful against the guerrilla though, which had to retreat to remote rural zones, while its leadership fled to Mexico City. It also hampered the merging process of the divergent groups considerably, as streamlined and unified logistics could only be arranged by 1986. Additionally devastating for the guerrilla was the renewed support from the USA to the Guatemalan military upon the Reagan administration taking office in January 1981.
The militant PGT splinter groups saw their base wiped-out, following the capture and coerced conversion of Carlos Quinteros, an important commander in their ranks. The political wing of the PGT also faced a major crisis, after unsuccessfully trying to reorganize itself in its former northern strongholds of Alta Verapaz, as this plan was thwarted by the military. The social disarticulation and continuous assassinations of its members eventually led to its exhaustion by 1986, which prompted them to mend their relationship with the URNG. These events led the URNG to eventually substitute the PGT-NDN for the PGT in its leadership by 1987.
The URNG employed ambushes and raids on government security forces as their main tactic, and also performed bombings and assassinations. They attacked the military, government officials, as well as foreign diplomats and foreign businesses. The government responded with undercover death-squads, supported by the police and military, who undertook the mission to take down prominent leftists.
Return to civilian rule