On 29 December 1996, under the government of Alvaro Arzu, the Guatemalan government signed a peace accord with the guerilla Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity. This signaled the end of Central America’s longest-running guerilla war. Peace came in phases beginning with an informal cease-fire in March 1996, along with the signing of the socioeconomic accord. The latter had taken a year to negotiate and called for the government to raise its tax revenues from 8% to 12% of GDP and increase its spending in health, education, and housing. The last accord, signed in Mexico City in September 1996, called for legislative and judicial reforms. It also included a reassessment of the military’s role, as the parties agreed to remove the army from public security functions and to annul the law that provided for the Civil Defense Patrols established in the 1980s to fight guerillas in the highland villages.
In February 1999, the country’s Historical Clarification Commission blamed the army for more than 90% of the deaths or disappearances of more than 200,000 Guatemalans during the 36-year civil war. In many instances, the army committed genocide against entire Mayan villages, the report concluded. The three-member commission blamed the United States government for supporting right-wing regimes even though it knew about the atrocities being committed by the army. An earlier report by the Catholic Church revealed similar findings. During a short visit to Guatemala in March 1999, US president Bill Clinton said his country had been wrong for supporting the Guatemalan army. He pledged to support the peace process. In May, the peace process suffered a setback when Guatemalans rejected 50 key constitutional reforms that would have diminished the role of the army and given protection and recognition to Amerindian languages and traditional customs, in a vote in which only about 20% of Guatemalans took part. In November of 1999, Alfonso Portillo, a populist lawyer, captured 47.8% of the vote in the presidential election, not enough to prevent a runoff election, held a month later. Portillo, a member of the conservative Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG), was a controversial candidate. During his campaign, he confirmed reports that he had killed two men in the Mexican state of Guerrero and had fled to avoid prosecution in 1982. Portillo said the killings were in self-defense and that he left because he could not have gotten a fair trial. He was also criticized for close ties to former dictator Gen. José Efraín Ríos Montt, whose 17-month regime in 1982–83 was blamed for some of the worst atrocities against Amerindians. Ríos Montt, as FRG’s secretary general, worked closely with Portillo. The populist attorney built support with promises to reduce crime, one of the worst problems facing the nation after the war. Crime was rampant throughout the nation, with dramatic increases in murders, kidnappings, and armed robbery. Portillo also promised to aid the poor and curb unemployment, a message that did not go unheard in a nation where 64% of Guatemalans are unemployed or underemployed. In the December runoff election, Portillo captured 68.3% of the vote to win the presidency. His party captured 63 of 113 seats in Congress, while the conservative PAN won 37 seats. A leftist coalition captured 9 seats.
New presidential and parliamentary elections were scheduled for late 2003. Former dictator Ríos Montt, now 77 years old, was widely perceived as the favorite to win the election. He was seeking to overturn a constitutional ban preventing former coup plotters from running for public office. Although he failed to overturn the ban 1999, the influence of sitting president Portillo on the Supreme Court might help Ríos Montt clear his way to be the official candidate for the Guatemalan Republican Front. The meager economic growth experienced in recent years, the fact that more than 60% of the country live in poverty, and the increasing levels of crime and violence might help Ríos Montt, perceived as tough on crime, to convince Guatemalans to give him a second chance, this time as an elected leader.
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