Understanding Post-Atrocity Transition in Guatemala: Continuities and Ruptures with Past Ideology

Guatemala experienced a 36 year internal armed conflict (1960-1996), shaped by a clash between political ideologies, as was the case in much of Latin America during the Cold War. The Guatemalan military fought confronted communist ideology propagated by the armed insurgency, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG). However, at the beginning of the 1980s, during a military, economic and political crisis which exacerbated the state's incapacity to defeat the insurgents, the military took the strategic decision to subject the indigenous population to a massive, sustained and systematic killing campaign, a brief episode of which was characterised by the perpetration of genocide against the country's indigenous Maya population, the perceived social base of the guerrilla from the military’s perspective. Ritualistic violence possessed deeply historical roots, shaped by intersecting structural formations and pre-existing ideological frameworks: Guatemala’s nation/statebuilding process had been based upon a racist purified founding narrative. However, the indigenous population was murdered for being both communist (from the state's perspective) and racially inferior. The violence was then driven by the convergence and mutual reinforcement of two ideological frameworks: one of race and one of political ideology. This paper traces the continuity of the racial and political ideologies that were prevalent during the conflict in Guatemala into the post-atrocity era, and argues that despite efforts by national and international actors, racism remains prevalent as an ideology, whilst a discourse of anti-communist subversion against those seeking to challenge the predominant narrative (such as human rights and anti-corruption activists) remains embedded. The Guatemalan state and political and economic elites continue to fight both the Cold War and a race war against indigenous communities and those that challenge the status quo. The paper argues that the confluence and continuity of these two ideologies has been fundamental in preventing any meaningful post-atrocity transition / transformation.