Civil War vs. Genocide

There are many different types of political violence that can occur in the world, and history is full of such examples.  There are revolutions, civil wars, genocides, and terrorism to name a few.  While there are many examples, I will focus my investigation of the Guatemalan Civil War that started in 1960 and continued until the rebels declared a ceasefire in 1996₁.

Many sources call this political conflict a civil war, but after studying it a little more in depth, it’s not so cut and dry in terms of being a civil war.  Comparative Politics defines civil war as “armed combat within the boundaries of a sovereign state between parties that are subject to common authority at the start of hostilities₂.”  While this is true of the Guatemalan Civil War; that it started under common authority within the boundaries of the state, there is much more to its history that could possibly change its categorization with cases of political violence.

Since the time the Spaniards came to America, Guatemala has always had a problem with discrimination against the indigenous Mayan people.  In 1944, “October Revolutionaries” took control of the government and started instituting liberal policy reform.  Leftism seemed to be growing very quickly, so in consequence, the US government ordered the CIA helped to help organize a coup d’état to remove the current regime in order to head off a possible “communist revolt” in 1954₃.  They installed a right wing military General and for the next decade things went downhill.  Widespread racism against indigenous Mayans helped aggravate the general Mayan population and set the stage for insurgent groups to arise and start a civil war₄.

Over the next 36 years, war would ravage the country and human rights would be violated.  According to statistics, over 200,000 Guatemalans would be killed or forcibly disappeared.  83% of those 200,000 were indigenous Mayan citizens.  Why were so many citizens killed you might ask?  Initially some of the Mayan people sympathized with leftist insurgent groups out of a hope that their discriminated position could be addressed.  The Guatemalan Government took this connection and used it to spread the idea that all Mayans were connected to insurgent groups and therefore enemies of the state.  Government forces targeted large Mayan populations in an effort to “starve” insurgent groups of their support₅.

At this point, one might ask, was this really just a civil war, or something more?  According to Samuels, genocide is “a coordinated plan seeking to eliminate all members of particular ethnic, religious, or national groups, through mass murder₆.”  Mayans were identified as leftists, insurgent suppliers and enemies of the state, and then they were systematically murdered over the next 36 years.  According to the definition in the book, the Guatemalan Civil War qualifies more as genocide.  Many people refer to it as a civil war because it did start under common authority.  Leftist insurgent groups weren't happy with the change of power in Government and after much discrimination rose up.  Some would argue that because some Mayans sympathized with rebels, they would be counted as part of the insurgency, and this situation would still be a civil war.  I believe that the key distinguishing point is that the government generalized and identified all the Mayans as enemies.  They did not distinguish between those that were actually part of the insurgency and those that just lived in the general area.  All Mayans were targeted and executed.  It is clear that this was no civil war, but genocide by the Guatemalan military against its own citizens.

Works Cited

1.      1.    Uppsala Universitet Department of Peace and Conflict Research, "UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset." Last modified 2012. Accessed November 9, 2012. http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_prio_armed_conflict_dataset/.

2.      2.    David J. Samuels, Comparative Politics, (Pearson, 2012), 259.

3.      3.    Stone, Alex (2009-06-02). "Mountain of evidence - Book Review | Washington Monthly | Find Articles at BNET". Findarticles.com. Retrieved 2009-09-03.

4.      4.    "Online NewsHour: Peace in Guatemala - December 30, 1996". Pbs.org. 1996-12-30. Retrieved 2009-09-03.

5.    5.    The Center for Justice & Accountability, "Guatemala "Silent Holocaust" The Mayan Genocide." Last modified 2011. Accessed November 9, 2012. http://www.cja.org/article.php?list=type&type=294.

6.      6.    David J. Samuels, Comparative Politics, (Pearson, 2012), 279.