Complete Thesis_double spaced abstract.pdf

Detailed monitoring of displaced persons and refugees was not readily available prior to
the 1970s. The movement of the number of refugees and displaced Guatemalans takes place in
the 1980s. Estimates from the United Nations, U.S. State Department, and domestic institutions
and groups vary from one million to one and a half million refugees and displaced persons during
the early 1980s. In 1982 the Catholic Church released their estimate of the displaced population,
claiming that one-seventh of the population had been displaced within and outside of Guatemala.
Approximately 70% had returned to their departments after General Montt declared amnesty in
1982. The remainders of the refugees were to be resettled in Guatemala; the Guatemalan state
government created the Special Commission for Repatriate Assistance (CEAR) in 1986 and
worked with the United Nations and Mexico to develop programs to facilitate return migration, or
resettlement, of refugees and displaced persons. Most often returnees were placed in model
villages, or development poles, designed and managed by the military. The model villages held
many more internally displaced persons compared with refugees. Under the National Plan for
Security and Development the army forcibly relocated “42,000 people in the Ixil Triangle
alone…the entirety of the population in the affected area” are placed into model villages
(Asociacion para el Avance de las Ciencias Sociales en Guatemala, 13). In 1987 there were an
estimated 800,000 people living in model villages throughout Guatemala with “plans to extend
the program to other areas” (Micklin, 1990, 181). In 1985 there were 46,000 refugees that were
officially recognized in Mexico by the Mexican Commission for Assistance to Refugees
(COMAR). There were an estimated 150,000 additional refugees that were not officially
recognized; 60,000 in Chiapas alone (Salvado, 1988, 1). Fewer Guatemalan refugees were also
found in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Belize and Panama; the United States State
Department gave the lowest estimate at 1,000 and the United Nations High Commissioner on
Refugees estimated 7,000 (Salvado, 1988, 3). Part of the issue with securing an accurate
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