4 Human Trafficking in Guatemala
4.1 Guatemala’s Country Profile
4.1.1 Economic: Guatemala Agrarian Law
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15,083,000 5 people, its majority women population occupying 51.22 percent over the 48.78 percent of the male population.6 Almost half of the total population (48%) corresponds to boy, girls and teenagers (less than 18 years old). The majority of the population lives in rural areas comprised of 51.52 percent and 48.48 percent live in urban areas.7
Historically, the country has been characterized by economic, political, social and cultural inequalities. It has led to the exclusion of broad sectors of the population who had no access to development opportunities. The increase number of migrations flows from South to North in recent years has increased the risks and vulnerability of thousands of people. Women, adolescents and children most of whom cross the international borders without documentation, expose their lives to the various forms of exploitation increasing the chance to be a victim of human trafficking.
Guatemala’s history, increased violence, the growth of felony and organized crime in the last decade, has steered human rights violations that go beyond sexual exploitation.
In Guatemala in recent years for example, it has been detected cases related to human trafficking by transnational criminal organizations. The following section will explain the economic and political background of Guatemala. This will explain the situation and the government’s struggle in providing the basic needs of its citizens, and reasons why human trafficking is prevalent in Guatemala.
4.1.1 Economic: Guatemala Agrarian Law
Land and labor rights in Guatemala were limited since the period of colonization in 14th to the 19th century. After the independence from Spain in 1821 the first agrarian law was passed in 1825. By 1880, eighteen laws regarding agricultural production and
5 WHO-World Health Organization, “Countries: Guatemala,” www.who.int, http://www.who.int/countries/gtm/en/
(accessed May 19, 2014).
6 Duque, ‘Violencia Sexual En Contra De Niñas, Adolescentes Y Mujeres En Guatemala’, 4
7 Duque, ‘Violencia Sexual En Contra De Niñas, Adolescentes Y Mujeres En Guatemala’ , 5
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land were established. Their purpose was to limit land distribution. Land remained segmented and controlled by private owners. The public territory of land was nationalized as the Guatemalan increasingly invested in coffee production. In the mid-twentieth century Guatemala was a rural country and based on agriculture. Eighty percent of the population lived in the countryside and seventy five percent was dedicated to agricultural activities. A small landowning elite (2 percent of the population) owned 72 percent of the arable. 8 The landowners’ main crop was coffee being the biggest product to export. A second product behind coffee was the banana, the trading and production was owned by the United States Company called United Fruit Company (UFC).
In November 1950 Jacobo Arbenz was elected president becoming the second democratically elected leader. His objective was to convert Guatemala from a country bound by a predominantly feud economy into a modern capitalist one. He advocated legislation that encouraged the construction of factories, the development of social security system and modern banking system. Land ownership became increasingly concentrated until Arbenz initiated the Agrarian Reform Law.9 Known as decree 900 the agrarian reform bill allowed the government to expropriate uncultivated portions of large plantations and redistribute the land to the peasants in plots of 42.5 acres.10 The law required property owners be compensated with 25-year bonds bearing 3 percent interest with the amount paid by the government. It was determined by the
8 Livia Letts Benavides, La Intervención de Estados Unidos en Guatemala de 1954: El Papel Jugado por United Fruit Company, Paper prepared for the Seminario de Historia Comparada de América Latina, Universidad Católica de Perú, July 2011.
9 Danielle Kelly Donovan, Land Tenure and Land Administration Issues in Guatemala, Department of Spatial Information Sciences and Engineering, University of Maine, May 2002.
http://www.spatial.maine.edu/%7eonsrud/Landtenure/CountryReport/Guatemala.pdf (accessed May 1, 2014).
10 John Kirch, “Covering a Coup: The American Press and Guatemala in 1954”, Paper presented at the AEJMC National Convention in Washington D.C. on August 2007.
http://imerrill.umd.edu/johnkirch/files/2010/03/Covering-a-Coup-John-Kirch.pdf (accessed May 1, 2014).
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land value claimed by the property for the tax purposes. The 1952 law called for expropriation of mostly idle lands from large plantation ownership to be redistributed to the farmers. The reform benefited an estimation of 100,000 families and threatened the holdings of large landowners and powerful foreign companies such as the UFC.11 The UFC owned eighty-five percent of the five hundred acres of land that could be used by Guatemalans. The president Arbenz presented the UFC money equaling the total value of the land as reimbursement for the penalty.12 The government seized 209,842 acres of the company’s land offering to pay the UFC an amount of $627,572 in bonds. This amount was not enough for the United States. They demanded $15.9 million for the land, which, Arbenz refused to accept. Overall, Arbenz government seized 400,000 acres of the 500,000 owned by the UFC compensating them with bonds.13 As a response the United States felt uncomfortable with Arbenz administration making anti-communist propaganda against Guatemala in the U.S.
press.
The U.S. government led by Eisenhower authorized the CIA to plan a coup against Arbenz in May 1953. They recruited an opposition force to overthrow Arbenz administration. The CIA chose Carlos Castillo Armas because of his military background, honesty, folk hero image and Mayan appearance to lead the operation.
On June 17, 1954 with the support of the U.S. government and the CIA, Carlos
11 Lisa Viscidi, A History of Land in Guatemala: Conflict And Hope for Reform. Edited by Lauren Carlsen, Americas Program, Silver City, NM: Interhemispheric Resource Center, September 17, 2004.
http://www.nisgua.org/themes_campaigns/land_rights/Background/A%20History%20of%20Land%20in%20Guate mala%20091704.pdf (accessed April 30, 2014).
12 Mayra Barrios, Rupturas, Reconstrucción y Continuidad en Cinco Comunidades Q’eqchi: Las Mujeres y el Acceso a la Tierra, Guatemala: Universidad Rafael Landivar, 2007.
13 Kirch, 4
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Castillo Armas attacked. The United States called it “operation success”14 sending mercenaries from the CIA that remained in Honduras at that time. The CIA used spies within the Guatemalan military and government to actively destabilize the President’s Arbenz authority. CIA discouraged Arbenz followers and block efforts to defeat Armas. In 1954 President Arbenz was forced to resign. The CIA replaced President Arbenz by placing the dictator Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas whom the CIA designated the “liberator of Guatemalan people”. 15 Then Armas became the leader of the country and Arbenz fled Guatemala. As a result, Guatemala felt into dictatorship and disorder. Armas alienated elements, which became more unified, resentful and caused Armas assassination in 1957.16 Following the assassination was a civil war, brutality, political unrest and uncertainty in the country.
4.1.2 Political: Guatemala Civil War
By 1960, resistance set in Guatemala and guerrilla groups form; this began a 36-year civil war. The armed conflict started in Guatemala in the 1960s, after the failing of the nationalist military forces uprising against the power of the counterrevolution in 1954.
There was four-guerrilla groups- the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), the Revolutionary Organization of the Armed People (ORPA), the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR) and Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT). Combined they formed the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) in 1982.17
14 James Lusher, “SUCCESS: The CIA in Guatemala, 1954.” The Lobster Magazine 60, 15-31 (Winter 2010).
http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster60/lobster60.pdf (accessed May 2, 2014).
15 Gustavo Palma Murga, “El Contexto de la Intervención Norteamericana de Guatemala en 1954”, Diálogo, Número Extraordinario, Año 4, 4-5 (July 2004).
http://www.flacso.edu.gt/site/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Dialogo-extra-Julio-2005-2.pdf (accessed May 1, 2014).
16 Max Holland, “Operation PBHistory: The Aftermath of SUCCESS”, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 17, no. 2, 300-332 (2004).
https://edge.apus.edu/access/content/group/a125dc7a-c07d-45e4-ac5c-41bf3162775a/%20Covert%20Action%20Course%20Materials%20Folder/CovertActionGuatamala.pdf (accessed May 1, 2014).
17 Global Security, “Guatemala Civil War 1960-1996”, Military, GlobalSecurity.org.