Internal and International Displacement in Guatemala

Abstract During Guatemala’s thirty-six-year war, state violence displaced approximately 1.5 million people, the majority of whom were identified as Indigenous and belonged to one of Guatemala’s twenty-two Maya Peoples, according to the UN Commission for Historical Clarification’s 1999 report. Internal migration was not novel in the mid-20th century; land privatization and forced labor regimes caused much seasonal and rural-to-urban migration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, the military state’s efforts to eradicate places and peoples it considered to be the guerrillas’ bases of support triggered massive displacement that was unprecedented in Guatemala’s history during the 1970s and 1980s. After fleeing their homes, internally displaced people typically followed a few patterns of migration. Some relocated to urban areas, such as Guatemala City, while others fled across international borders and sought refuge in refugee camps in Mexico. Others remained in Guatemala, near their communities and formed clandestine Communities of Population in Resistance, while others were forced to live under military surveillance in strategic villages in the military’s established poles of development. Still, others migrated farther, forming new lives and communities in countries such as the United States, where some have formed connections with other Central American and Maya diasporas, respectively. Though the war formally ended in 1996, the structural inequalities in land tenure, state corruption, and violence in other forms continue displacing Guatemalans. At the same time, the experience of internal displacement has led to new solidarities, subjectivities, organizing, and in important ways has revitalized the collective struggle for peace in Guatemala.