Racism and Ethnic Discrimination in Guatemala - Institute of Latin ...

Racism and the Guatemalan StateRoddy BrettBetween 1978 and 1983, Guatemala experienced the most brutal yearsof its internal armed conflict, during which time genocide was perpetrated bythe state against the Maya indigenous people. Under the military governmentof General Romeo Lucas García (1978-1982), a violent counterinsurgency“scorched earth policy” was executed against both the Guatemalan guerrilla,the Unidad Nacional Revolucionaria Guatemalteca (URNG), particularlyin the capital city and urban areas, and emphatically against its principallyindigenous civilian social base, above all in the rural areas of the country. Underthe subsequent dictatorship of General Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-1983), whilstmilitary operations in urban areas were scaled down, egregious human rightsviolations escalated in rural Guatemala, as the military sought to wipe out theinsurgents’ social base. State institutions and institutional arrangements duringthis six year period were controlled and held to ransom by the military; after1980 no space existed for civil society mobilization or for organized oppositionto the successive regimes and the state justice system was effectively shut down,the legal system such as it was neutered, and subordinated to the violent andarbitrary procedures of military justice (Barry, 1986; Black et al., 1984; Manz,1989; Brett, 2006; 2007; 2008).During this first moment, interpersonal, institutional and structural racismfacilitated the genocide perpetrated by Guatemala’s racist state. However,whilst the diverse and interconnected forms of racism had historically excludedindigenous peoples from the Guatemalan state and the genocide decimatedindigenous communities, it has been convincingly argued by scholars thatthe ethnic violence perpetrated against indigenous communities played a keyrole in precipitating and shaping the subsequent indigenous resurgence, whichemerged in the aftermath of the genocide, in particular during Guatemala’speace process (Wilson, 1994; Warren, 1998; Grandin, 2000; Brett, 2008). Inthis regard, a key reaction by indigenous communities to the racism and thegenocide was mobilization along ethnic lines, as indigenous identity graduallybecame a hegemonic form of social movement politics in Guatemala, framed asit was through demands based upon indigenous peoples’ rights and claims toentitlement consecrated in national and international instruments (Brett, 2008).Significantly, claims to entitlement articulated by indigenous movementsshaped the peace process, in particular the Accord Concerning the Rightsand Identity of Indigenous Peoples, signed in 1995, resulting in subsequentdemands for the transformation of the Guatemalan state from a racist,genocidal exclusionary entity, to a plural, multicultural state, representative ofits four peoples. It has been these demands that have molded the present-dayGuatemalan state, the context of which forms the background for the analysispresented here.46STOCKHOLM REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIESIssue No. 6, March 2010