Introduction

Abstract

The Guatemalan peace process has been considered a success in academic and policymaking circles. It involved polarized groups in dialogue, which seemed impossible during several decades of war. It provided a development program to modernize the economy and national infrastructure that had the support of international organizations and both sides of the negotiating table. The peace process appeared to involve widespread popular participation, and by extension reflect a significantly democratic process. In this reading, the peace process involved disenfranchised communities in national level politics, in principle enhancing both the quality of their representation and their capacity for participation.

The peace process in Guatemala has the potential to become one of the standard-setting achievements of the second half of the twentieth century, in the same class as the Camp David Agreement between Egypt and Israel, the peace settlement in Namibia, the Paris Accords on Cambodia, and the peaceful transitions that took place in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, and Poland after the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union. It is an ambitious attempt, by visionary Guatemalans and the international community as a whole, to end an ostensibly internal conflict that has torn a country apart for almost two generations.

—Sir Marrack Goulding, former UN under secretary general¹