Guatemala has experienced significant conflict since the latter half of the 20th century. In 1954, President Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown in a U.S.-backed coup. In 1960, a civil war broke out, which would last for over thirty years as left-wing guerilla groups fought a series of right-wing military-aligned governments. The government committed numerous abuses throughout the decades of conflict. The military, and associated death squads, assassinated, “disappeared,” and tortured thousands of Guatemalans suspected of involvement with guerillas. Despite the persistent existence of insurgent groups and their violation of human rights on some occasions, there was never any major threat to the Guatemalan government. Despite this, state terror continued for decades, with systematic torture and assassination. The counterinsurgency tactics under military dictator Efraín Ríos Montt were extraordinarily harsh, and have been called a genocide targeted against Mayan and other Indigenous people in the countryside. Democratic elections took place for the first time in 1986, followed by a slow peace process in the 1990s. By the end of the war in 1996, it is thought that up to 200,000 people had been killed or disappeared, with the perpetrators generally belonging to or affiliated with the security forces. While the end of the civil war ended large-scale fighting in Guatemala, violence due to crime and drug trafficking remains common, as does government corruption and abuse of power.
Since the end of the war, Guatemala has struggled to maintain stable democratic governance. The country continues to face pervasive corruption, weak judicial institutions, and high levels of organized crime and violence. In 2019, the government expelled the UN-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), which had successfully prosecuted high-profile corruption cases, including those involving former presidents. Its closure marked a setback for accountability and transparency. Protests against corruption and political repression have continued since, especially in 2023 and 2024, when Attorney General Consuelo Porras faced widespread accusations of undermining democracy by pursuing legal action against anti-corruption officials and political opponents. The 2023 election of progressive candidate Bernardo Arévalo of the Semilla party, on an anti-corruption platform, represented a major political shift and renewed hope for reform. However, his victory was met with attempts by entrenched political and judicial elites to block his inauguration, leading to mass protests demanding respect for democratic institutions. As of 2025, Arévalo’s government faces significant challenges in addressing corruption, inequality, and the influence of organized crime, while also seeking to restore trust in Guatemala’s fragile democratic system.
Peace attempts:
Peacebuilding only became possible in Guatemala following the democratic transition in the late 1980s. Before then, the succession of military governments preferred a military solution, which left hundreds of thousands dead, missing, or tortured. The peace accords, negotiated from 1994–1996, successfully ended the civil war. However, they still have not been fully implemented, and have not fully addressed the issues that led to the conflict in the first place. Accountability for past abuses has been hard to achieve. Ríos Montt, one of the most notorious abusers of human rights during the conflict, spent several years as a member of Guatemala’s legislature and was only convicted for crimes committed during the civil war in 2013. The creation of the Civil National Police failed to address corruption or violence in the country, and the government failed to fully implement most of the provisions surrounding social issues. Today, peace in Guatemala is threatened by a lack of progress in addressing a number of issues, especially corruption, crime, drug trafficking, and inequality.
Since the late 2010s, Guatemala’s civil society, Indigenous movements, and international partners have pushed for renewed peacebuilding and anti-corruption efforts. The now-defunct CICIG had been one of the most successful initiatives for accountability since the 1996 peace accords, and its closure sparked international concern. In 2023 and 2024, mass demonstrations demanding judicial independence and respect for electoral results echoed the democratic mobilization of the 1990s peace process. The incoming Arévalo administration has pledged to revive elements of the accords by strengthening human rights protections, judicial reform, and Indigenous inclusion in governance. The United Nations and Organization of American States have continued to monitor Guatemala’s democratic transition, encouraging dialogue and institutional reforms. As of 2025, Guatemala’s fragile peace depends on the government’s ability to dismantle entrenched corruption networks, restore rule of law, and address the social inequalities that fueled its civil conflict.
