Guatemala History

In the first lawsuit of its kind in Central America, more than 300 Mayas marched through downtown Guatemala City to file genocide charges against the president of the nation's Congress. Listing a series of massacres that took place under the dictatorship of Efrain Rios Montt in the early 1980s, the group charged that he pursued a deliberate policy to wipe out the indigenous population during the country's 35-year civil war.

More than 1,500 years ago, Maya priest-kings built dozens of pyramids just tall enough to poke above the suffocating jungle here and reach the cooling breezes of a nearby lake. They also carved dozens of stone monuments, erected handball courts and laid out the streets of their city in a grid, a departure from the sprawling confusion of most other contemporaneous Maya cities.

When South Coast Repertory describes the main attraction of its fourth annual Hispanic Playwrights Project as a sweeping epic of capitalist imperialism in Central America, the key phrase is sweeping epic. In the very first scene of Arthur Giron's "A Dream of Wealth"--which is to receive an SCR Mainstage reading on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

In the first lawsuit of its kind in Central America, more than 300 Mayas marched through downtown Guatemala City to file genocide charges against the president of the nation's Congress. Listing a series of massacres that took place under the dictatorship of Efrain Rios Montt in the early 1980s, the group charged that he pursued a deliberate policy to wipe out the indigenous population during the country's 35-year civil war.

A royal palace and the remains of an ancient Maya city--one of the richest yet known--were recently found deep in a neglected part of a Guatemalan rain forest, scientists announced Thursday. The site, called Cancuen, has been known for a century but was generally dismissed as a place of little interest. Now Vanderbilt University archeologist Arthur Demarest says an enormous three-story palace showing signs of extraordinary riches is hidden within a tree-covered mound of rock, debris and dirt.

More than 1,500 years ago, Maya priest-kings built dozens of pyramids just tall enough to poke above the suffocating jungle here and reach the cooling breezes of a nearby lake. They also carved dozens of stone monuments, erected handball courts and laid out the streets of their city in a grid, a departure from the sprawling confusion of most other contemporaneous Maya cities.

Two rightist parties have captured enough seats in Guatemala's new legislature to change the constitution. The Guatemalan Republican Front, led by former dictator and retired Gen. Jose Efrain Rios Montt, won 32 seats in the 80-seat Congress elected Sunday. The National Advanced Party won 24 seats. Results were announced Monday. The results raised the possibility that Rios Montt could run for the presidency, a post he held for about 17 months after seizing power in a 1982 coup.

A conservative, born-again Christian jumped to an early lead in Guatemala's presidential election today, but it appeared that the contest would have to be decided by a runoff in January. Jorge Serrano Elias, 45, whose resume ranges from close collaboration with one of Guatemala's last dictators to a stint on a national commission promoting democracy and peace talks with leftist rebels, led with 28.09% of the vote with about 21% of the total counted.

In an emotional ceremony before an array of international dignitaries, 43-year-old Vinicio Cerezo was inaugurated Tuesday as the first civilian president of Guatemala in 16 years. Cerezo, a populist-style Christian Democrat, succeeded Gen. Oscar Mejia Victores as chief of state. Mejia was the third general to rule the country through coups and rigged elections since the late 1970s.

Roman Catholic Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi was buried Wednesday in a ceremony that served to remind all of Central America of the perils of trying to discover the truth about its war-torn past. Gerardi, 75, was brutally killed Sunday, two days after he released a detailed study of human rights violations during Guatemala's 35-year civil war.

A royal palace and the remains of an ancient Maya city--one of the richest yet known--were recently found deep in a neglected part of a Guatemalan rain forest, scientists announced Thursday. The site, called Cancuen, has been known for a century but was generally dismissed as a place of little interest. Now Vanderbilt University archeologist Arthur Demarest says an enormous three-story palace showing signs of extraordinary riches is hidden within a tree-covered mound of rock, debris and dirt.

When South Coast Repertory describes the main attraction of its fourth annual Hispanic Playwrights Project as a sweeping epic of capitalist imperialism in Central America, the key phrase is sweeping epic. In the very first scene of Arthur Giron's "A Dream of Wealth"--which is to receive an SCR Mainstage reading on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

One of the stunning photographs in this book shows a group of Mayan Indian women in colorful dress moving across a landscape of brown earth and green, a shimmering cornfield that might have been painted by Monet. Another shows the mutilated body of a young woman schoolteacher in a morgue. The teacher was the victim of a paramilitary death squad that cut off her hands and placed them on her chest next to a cardboard sign reading "More to follow."

A jetliner carrying passengers to Mayan ruins in northern Guatemala crashed into a remote jungle area and exploded Saturday, killing at least 90 people, including six Americans, the Guatemalan airline Aerovias said. There was confusion over the exact number of persons on board the plane when a presidential spokesman reported that 96 badly burned bodies had been pulled from the wreckage. It was the worst crash was in Guatemala's aviation history.