The Paralysis of the Past: An Evaluation of President Arévalo’s Aspirations to Combat Historic Impunity and Indigenous Oppression in Guatemala

Content Warning: This article includes discussions of genocide

On January 15, 2024, President Bernardo Arévalo became the first Guatemalan President to mention Indigenous rights in an inaugural speech. In the months leading up to his inauguration, the Guatemalan national prosecutor’s office, spearheaded by Attorney General Consuelo Porras, attempted to usurp the Movimiento Semilla (‘Seed Movement’) Party’s electoral victory through arbitrary lawsuits and investigations. However, President Arévalo secured his position after thousands of Indigenous protesters demonstrated outside the public prosecutor’s office in Guatemala City for 106 consecutive days. Protesters endured gunshots fired by rogue attackers as well as threats from the Attorney General, who urged state police to use force, until the Constitutional Court dropped their investigations against President Elect Arévalo. Importantly, Movimiento Semillas’ victory was perceived at the time as a ‘democratic spring’ by the Guatemalan people that could disrupt the status quo of corruption and impunity in their government. President Arévalo’s success in withstanding attacks from the prosecutor's office could be credited to his Indigenous supporters.

Despite President Arévalo’s commitment to combat corruption and empower Indigenous groups, Human Rights Watch ranked Guatemala the 13th least accountable Latin American state in 2024. Corruption is so entrenched among government staff that there are too many suspects of financial or political malpractice for it to be possible to convict most of them across one presidential tenure.  Moreover, President Arévalo is unable to redistribute public funds because of the sheer volume of unethical state contracts which have been signed over decades by previous corrupt administrations ad nauseam. Moving public funds away from these contracts risks paralysis of basic services like infrastructure repair and public education. Finally, Attorney General Porras’ history of undermining investigations into corrupt officials has established a norm of impunity in the Guatemalan judicial branch.

Developing a holistic understanding of Guatemala’s contemporary issues requires contextualizing the past. Explicitly, Semilla seeks to alter a state that has historically weaponized its powers against reform.  For decades, the Guatemalan military has cooperated with foreign and domestic elites to stymie public efforts at combating racial and social inequalities. State repression is so embedded into the Guatemalan political system that corruption has been made contingent for the state to function. Nevertheless, various transitional justice initiatives which emerged at the end of the Civil War in the 1990s, such as the Equipulus I and II agreements and the REHMI and CEH reports, led to the convictions of many perpetrators of the Guatemalan Genocide while increasing the participation of Indigenous people in state politics. 

In 1954, after facing pressure from the United Fruit Corporation, the United States orchestrated a coup to oust democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz. The overthrow was a response to Decree 900, a policy that would reacquire uncultivated lands from United Fruit and redistribute it to 100,000 impoverished and Indigenous families.  After the coup, US-backed Guatemalan military juntas overexaggerated the presence of leftist rebel groups to eradicate 626 indigenous communities. Over the course of the Guatemalan Genocide, more than 200,000 Guatemalan people, many of whom were from Mayan Ixil communities, were massacred by the state between 1957 to 1994. As the Genocide transpired, military leadership conspired with political elites to deny and distort the truth of the state terror. Evidently, financial and military elites in Guatemala colluded their powers to undermine reforms like Decree 900 and reinforced racial hierarchies through state terror.

The end of the Guatemalan Civil War is an unusual period of state accountability in Guatemalan history. Throughout the late 1980s, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias arranged a series of summits between Central American leaders to end violent conflicts in the region.  Significantly, the Equispulus I and II agreement facilitated peace in Guatemala by formalizing a state commitment to uphold human rights. Additionally in 1998, an independent truth commission composed of domestic civil rights groups released the REHMI report of over 5,000 testimonials of victims of human rights violations from predominantly Indigenous communities. The REHMI report coincided with the state’s official Committee for Historical Clarification releasing Memory of Silence, a 3,500 page report for committing over 600 “scorched earth massacres”––mass killings designed to silence any potential survivoros––across Mayan villages. These reports led to the convictions of many of the Genocide’s chief aggressors–an important step for establishing a precedent of legal punishment for abusers of state power in Guatemala.  This precedent sets the groundwork for the proliferation of transitional justice in Guatemala, through which the state can acknowledge its crimes through institutions like truth commissions which simultaneously hold perpetrators responsible and generate protective reforms and reparations for the victims.  Reform in Guatemala was supported by institutions like Equispulus that compelled Guatemala to combat injustice under the gaze of international observation. Importantly, transitional justice initiated a pursuit for accountability in Guatemala that has empowered victims of oppression to contribute to President Arévalo and Semilla’s anti-corruption efforts today.

Despite these reforms, Guatemala has experienced democratic backsliding prior to Arévalo’s victory. In the 2000s, many sentences against leaders in the Genocide were reduced or even revoked by municipal and constitutional courts.  Further, the 2013 sentencing of General Rios Montt to 80 years of prison for his leading role in the Genocide was overturned by Guatemala’s Constitutional Court.  Their decision was made beneath the influence of financial elites who benefitted from Montt’s 1982-83 de facto Presidential tenure. Crucially, the recurrent alliance between Guatemala’s political elite and military and economic actors have squashed public efforts at enforcing accountability and have delegitimized transitional justice reforms rather than building upon them.  

These anti-democratic measures taken by the state augments the difficulty of Arévalo’s goals to combat corruption.  In order to combat these challenges, there are three actions the Semila party should take to expedite their fight against corruption. First, the Arévalo government should appoint an Attorney General in 2026 who is Indigenous or has a proven record of supporting transitional justice policies. Since Article 251 of Guatemala’s constitution requires the President to select from a pool of six candidates appointed by a team of legal scholars, Arévalo may have to seek out connections from his academic past to ensure the appointment of an adequate candidate.  Second, President Arévalo should include more Indigenous officials in his administration who can help resume transitional justice initiatives which emerged after the war. It would also be an effective political tool for Semilla to rally support across a broader range of demographics. Additionally, the administration should forge international partnerships with states like Costa Rica, or institutions such as the UN, who have an interest in advancing human rights in Latin America. International actors can provide financial support as the government gradually eliminates extractive contracts which have been accumulated over decades of neocolonial hegemony. Finally, international institutions should be invited to monitor elections to ensure the will of the people is represented in government. 

By expanding his party’s network, President Arévalo can build a coalition that is genuinely committed to fighting corruption in the Guatemalan state. Moreover, the President can unite the impoverished and Indigenous majority of Guatemala into a political base that will augment the number of Semilla representatives in the Guatemalan legislature. Decades of corruption and racism cannot be undone by one administration alone. Change requires composite efforts from, and the political participation of, many affected and concerned groups.