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Travel to Guatemala — Unbiased reviews and great
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Guatemala
Republic of Guatemala National
name: República de Guatemala President: Álvaro Colom Caballeros
(2008)
Current government officials
Land area: 41,865 sq mi (108,430 sq km);
total area: 42,042 sq mi (108,890 sq km) Population (2008 est.): 13,002,206 (growth
rate: 2.1%); birth rate: 28.5/1000; infant mortality rate: 28.7/1000;
life expectancy: 69.9; density per sq km: 119
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Guatemala City, 2,655,900 (metro. area),
1,128,800 (city proper) Other large
cities: Mixco, 287,600; Villa Nueva, 138,900 Monetary unit: Quetzal
Languages:
Spanish 60%, Amerindian languages 40% (23
officially recognized Amerindian languages, including Quiche,
Cakchiquel, Kekchi, Mam, Garifuna, and Xinca)
Ethnicity/race:
Mestizo (Ladino)—mixed Amerindian-Spanish
ancestry—and European 59.4%, K'iche 9.1%, Kaqchikel 8.4%, Mam 7.9%,
Q'eqchi 6.3%, other Mayan 8.6%, indigenous non-Mayan 0.2%, other 0.1%
(2001)
Religions:
Roman Catholic, Protestant, indigenous Mayan
beliefs
National Holiday:
Independence Day, September 15 Literacy rate: 71% (2003 est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.):
$62.53 billion; per capita $4,700. Real growth rate: 5.7%.
Inflation: 6.8%. Unemployment: 3.2% (2005 est.).
Arable land: 13%. Agriculture: sugarcane, corn, bananas,
coffee, beans, cardamom; cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens. Labor
force: 3.958 million; agriculture 50%, industry 15%, services 35%
(1999 est.). Industries: sugar, textiles and clothing,
furniture, chemicals, petroleum, metals, rubber, tourism. Natural
resources: petroleum, nickel, rare woods, fish, chicle,
hydropower. Exports: $7.468 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.): coffee,
sugar, petroleum, apparel, bananas, fruits and vegetables, cardamom.
Imports: $12.67 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.): fuels, machinery
and transport equipment, construction materials, grain, fertilizers,
electricity. Major trading partners: U.S., El Salvador,
Honduras, Mexico, South Korea, China (2006). Communications: Telephones: main lines in
use: 1.355 million (2006); mobile cellular: 7.179 million (2006).
Radio broadcast stations: AM 130, FM 487, shortwave 15 (2000).
Television broadcast stations: 26 (plus 27 repeaters) (1997).
Internet hosts: 40,927 (2007). Internet users: 1.32
million (2006). Transportation:
Railways: total: 886 km (2006). Highways: total: 14,095 km;
paved: 4,863 km (including 75 km of expressways); unpaved: 9,247 km
(1999). Waterways: 990 km; note: 260 km navigable year round;
additional 730 km navigable during high-water season (2007). Ports
and harbors: Puerto Quetzal, Santo Tomas de Castilla.
Airports: 402 (2007). International
disputes: Guatemalan squatters continue to settle in the rain
forests of Belize's border region; OAS is attempting to revive the
2002 failed Differendum that created a small adjustment to land
boundary, a Guatemalan maritime corridor in Caribbean, a joint
ecological park for the disputed Sapodilla Cays, and a substantial
US-UK financial package; Guatemalans enter Mexico illegally seeking
work or transit to the US.
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
The northernmost of the Central American
nations, Guatemala is the size of Tennessee. Its neighbors are Mexico on
the north and west, and Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador on the east. The
country consists of three main regions—the cool highlands with the
heaviest population, the tropical area along the Pacific and Caribbean
coasts, and the tropical jungle in the northern lowlands (known as the
Petén).
Government
Constitutional democratic republic.
History
Once the site of the impressive ancient Mayan
civilization, Guatemala was conquered by Spanish conquistador Pedro de
Alvarado in 1524 and became a republic in 1839 after the United Provinces
of Central America collapsed. From 1898 to 1920, dictator Manuel Estrada
Cabrera ran the country, and from 1931 to 1944, Gen. Jorge Ubico Castaneda
served as strongman.
After Ubico's overthrow in 1944 by the “October
Revolutionaries,” a group of left-leaning students and professionals,
liberal-democratic coalitions led by Juan José Arévalo (1945–1951) and
Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán (1951–1954) instituted social and political reforms
that strengthened the peasantry and urban workers at the expense of the
military and big landowners, like the U.S.-owned United Fruit Company.
With covert U.S. backing, Col. Carlos Castillo Armas led a coup in 1954,
and Arbenz took refuge in Mexico. A series of repressive regimes followed,
and by 1960 the country was plunged into a civil war between military
governments, right-wing vigilante groups, and leftist rebels that would
last 36 years, the longest civil war in Latin American history. Death
squads murdered an estimated 50,000 leftists and political opponents
during the 1970s. In 1977, the U.S. cut off military aid to the country
because of its egregious human rights abuses. The indigenous Mayan Indians
were singled out for special brutality by the right-wing death squads. By
the end of the war, 200,000 citizens were dead.
A succession of military juntas dominated during
the civil war, until a new constitution was passed and civilian Marco
Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo was elected and took office in 1986. He was
followed by Jorge Serrano Elías in 1991. In 1993, Serrano moved to
dissolve Congress and the supreme court and suspend constitutional rights,
but the military deposed Serrano and allowed the inauguration of Ramiro de
Leon Carpio, the former attorney general for human rights. A peace
agreement was finally signed in Dec. 1996 by President Álvaro Arzú
Irigoyen.
In 1999, a Guatemalan truth commission blamed
the army for 93% of the atrocities and the rebels (the Guatemalan National
Revolutionary Unit) for 3%. The former guerrillas apologized for their
crimes, and President Clinton apologized for U.S. support of the
right-wing military governments. The army has not acknowledged its guilt.
Alfonso Portillo Cabrera, closely associated with the former dictatorship
of Efrain Rios Montt (1982–1983), became president in Jan. 2000. In Aug.
2000, Portillo apologized for the former government's human rights abuses
and pledged to prosecute those responsible and compensate victims.
To stimulate the economy, Guatemala, along with
El Salvador and Honduras, signed a free trade agreement with Mexico in
June 2000. In Aug. 2001, plans for tax increases prompted widespread, and
often violent, protests.
In July 2003, the country's highest court ruled
that former coup leader and military dictator Rios Montt, responsible for
the massacre of tens of thousands of civilians during the civil war, was
eligible to run for president in November. The ruling conflicted with the
constitution, which bans anyone who seized power in a coup from running
for the presidency. But in November, Rios Montt was soundly defeated by
two candidates, conservative Oscar Berger and center-leftist Alvaro Colom.
In the runoff election in December, Berger was elected president.
In 2004, Guatemala experienced an alarmingly
violent crime wave. More than 2,000 murders took place, which were blamed
on crime gangs and bands of teenagers.
In 2005, the government ratified a free-trade
agreement (CAFTA) with the U.S.
Three Salvadoran politicians, all members of the
Central American Parliament, and their driver were found murdered on a
road near Guatemala City in Feb. 2007. Four Guatemalan police officers
were arrested in connection with the murders and later shot dead in their
prison cells. Three other officers were named as suspects. Guatemala's
security minister, the national police chief, and the director of the
country's prisons all resigned in the scandal.
Fourteen candidates, including 2002 Nobel Peace
Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú, competed in the first round of presidential
elections in September 2007. Otto Pérez Molina, a former general, and
businessman Álvaro Colom advanced to the second round.
After a vitriolic campaign, Álvaro Colom, of the
National Unity for Hope party, defeated Otto Pérez Molina in the
presidential election on November 4, 2007, 52% to 47%.
See also Encyclopedia: Guatemala U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Guatemala National Institute of Statistics (In Spanish Only)
www.segeplan.gob.gt/ine/index.htm .
Information Please® Database, © 2008 Pearson Education,
Inc. All rights reserved.
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