Guatemala
Latest IDP figure:
Number of refugees:
(Originating from the country)
6,161 (UNHCR, June 2008)
Total Population:
12,59 million
9 June 2006
Ten years after peace accords, key provisions benefiting the displaced remain unimplemented
The signing of a peace accord in 1996 marked the end of the 36-year-old civil war in Guatemala but not the end of the structural injustices that triggered it. Key commitments, such as the resettlement of the displaced, redistribution of land and compensation for the uprooted people and other victims of the conflict have as of June 2006 only to a very limited degree been implemented. Ten years after the formal end of the conflict, there are no official figures on the remaining internally displaced people. However, estimates range from 250,000 to one million, according to a local IDP organisation. Indigenous people, who made up the overwhelming majority of the IDPs, have increasingly resorted to occupying large land holdings; these occupations have been violently repressed by successive governments since 1996, particularly after the installation of President Oscar Berger's government in 2004.
The war began in the early 1960s with an insurgency by guerrilla forces fighting for economic and political reforms, following a century and a half of authoritarian regimes and the exclusion of the indigenous majority from wealth and power, particularly land. Guatemala has one of the most unequal distributions of land in the world. The regime responded to the uprising with a massive military counter-offensive. An estimated 200,000 people were killed during the conflict, mostly at the hands of the armed forces and their paramilitary allies. Forced displacements culminated in the early 1980s when indigenous populations in the regions of Quiché, Huehuetenango, Chimaltenango and Alta Verapaz, viewed by the regime as supporters of the insurgency, became the targets of scorched-earth operations by the military.
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Access to database
"Resumen del Informe en español","Resumen del Informe en español"
"Causes and Background","Background","Causes of displacement","Peace efforts"
"Population Figures and Profile","Global figures","Geographic distribution"
"Patterns of Displacement","General"
"Physical Security & Freedom of Movement","Physical security"
"Subsistence Needs","General","Shelter and non-food items"
"Access to Education","General"
"Issues of Self-Reliance and Public Participation","Self-reliance","Public participation"
"Documentation Needs and Citizenship","General"
"Issues of Family Unity, Identity and Culture","General"
"Property Issues","Law and policy","Restitution"
"Patterns of Return and Resettlement","Return"
"National and International Responses","National and International Response","Reference to the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement"
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