Guatemala

F

Social Issues

In Guatemala the wide gulf between a small, wealthy elite and a large, impoverished lower class is very evident. The inequities worsened in the 20th century, as the population increased and more resources were devoted to producing goods for export. Although a significant middle class has developed in urban areas, some 13 percent of Guatemalans survive on less than U.S.$1 per day. It is estimated that 22 percent of the population is undernourished. According to 1987 statistics, the top 10 percent of the population received 44 percent of the income, and the bottom 10 percent received 0.9 percent.

Poverty affects both urban and rural Guatemalans, but rural residents, including most of the Maya population, generally live under harsher conditions. More than 70 percent of rural residents are classified as living in extreme poverty, compared to 36 percent of urban inhabitants. Access to sanitation and health care is also limited in rural areas. Malnutrition affects a large number of young children.

The problems of the middle class and poor have been major issues in ongoing political struggles in Guatemala throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. The widespread abuse of human rights has also become a domestic and international issue, after years in which the military-dominated governments repressed any opposition and massacred entire villages to discourage support for guerrillas. Rigoberta Menchú Túm, a Quiché activist for indigenous rights, did much to publicize the problem and won the Nobel Peace Prize (see Nobel Prizes) in 1992 for her work. Recent governments have finally begun to curb human rights abuses, and 1996 peace agreements signed by the government and guerrillas promise protection for human rights, respect for indigenous cultures, and many social programs. In recent years, street crime has also become a serious problem, with violent crime rising as poverty spreads and worsens.

G

Culture

The modern ways of Guatemala City contrast with the traditional customs and crafts of the Maya peoples, providing Guatemala with a colorful and dynamic culture. Spanish colonists gave Guatemala its official language and many architectural and art treasures. Magnificent buildings of the colonial period remain at Antigua Guatemala, the colonial capital, located about 40 km (about 25 mi) from Guatemala City. Contemporary crafts such as weaving, jewelry making, and ceramics combine indigenous design and color patterns with Spanish technical skills. Throughout Guatemala, the marimba remains the typical Guatemalan musical medium, although its popularity is often challenged today by Mexican ballads known as rancheras and North American rock music.

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Guatemala’s literary heritage includes the 16th-century Popol Vuh, a Maya account of the creation and history of the world. Among 20th-century Guatemalan artists of international repute are writers Enrique Gómez Carrillo, Rafael Arévalo Martínez, Mario Monteforte Toledo, and Miguel Ángel Asturias, winner of the 1967 Nobel Prize in literature. The novels of Asturias criticize Guatemala’s tyrannical, corrupt dictatorships and the intervention in Latin affairs by U.S. companies. His stories and novels exalt Guatemala’s Indian heritage and incorporate many native myths. See also Latin American Literature.

Twentieth-century painters Carlos Mérida, Alfredo Gálvez Suárez, and Valentín Abascal, among many others, have been inspired by the indigenous heritage of their nation, while an entire community of primitive painters at Comalapa has achieved international recognition. A number of Guatemalan social scientists have been recognized for their work in exile during times of conflict and repression in their own country. These include sociologist Edelberto Torres Rivas, historian Julio Castellano Cambranes, and author Victor Perera. A notable Guatemalan composer is José Castañeda, while Dieter Lehnhoff has done much to preserve the musical heritage of colonial and modern Guatemala.

The Ballet Guatemala was founded in 1948, along with the National School of Dance. The troupe performs both traditional ballets and works based on Guatemalan themes. The Ballet Moderno y Folklórico de Guatemala was founded in 1964. Guatemala City is home to many of the nation’s libraries and museums, including the National Archives, the National Library, and the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, which has an excellent collection of Maya artifacts. The Colonial Museum, in Antigua Guatemala, has large exhibits of colonial artwork. It contains not only paintings and sculpture but also wood carvings and examples of wrought iron and leatherwork that once adorned colonial houses.

IV

Economy

Guatemala had a traditional, subsistence economy before the Spanish conquest in the early 1500s, producing corn, beans, chocolate, cotton, and a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. To these indigenous products, the Spaniards added wheat, sugarcane, livestock, and European fruits and vegetables. Guatemala exported small quantities of cacao, sugar, cotton, and other crops early in the colonial period, but in the 18th century the Spanish government put greater emphasis on exports. Since then, Guatemala’s dependence on foreign markets has steadily increased.

In the 19th century, first cochineal dye derived from insects and then coffee became the principal Guatemalan export. Coffee revenues paid for early development of the country’s cities, roads, and other facilities, and the elite class of coffee planters became powerful in government and the military. In the early 20th century bananas became an important secondary export, and large foreign-owned banana companies contributed greatly to the development of the nation’s network of railroads, ports, and communications systems. In the late 20th century Guatemala significantly diversified its exports, with sugar, cardamom, cotton, livestock, and other products gaining importance.

Manufacturing developed in Guatemala after 1945, adding another dimension to the economy and permitting the rise of an industrial elite alongside the coffee planters. The growth of manufacturing was greatly aided by the establishment of the Central American Common Market (CACM). Recently, assembly plants (maquiladoras) for clothing and other export products have become important. The rapid growth of Guatemala’s population ensures that producing food crops remains a major economic challenge. However, profitable export crops have expanded into the best land, forcing Guatemala to import more food and thereby increasing the cost of living.

The Guatemalan economy grew at about 5.5 percent per year throughout the 1960s and 1970s, but civil disorder and world economic crises during the 1980s brought an economic downturn. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the period 2006 averaged 4.5 percent annually, reaching $35.3 billion in 2006. The per capita GDP in 2006 was $2,711.40, placing Guatemala behind Panama ($5,200.60), Costa Rica ($5,053.50), and El Salvador ($2,758.50) but well ahead of Honduras ($1,325.20) and Nicaragua ($958.10).

Until 1980 Guatemalan governments usually pursued conservative fiscal policies. But during the 1980s they were encouraged by international lenders to accept large loans, and Guatemala’s external debt grew dramatically, from $760 million in 1978 to $2.8 billion by 1990. Since then, austerity measures have slowed its growth. To pay interest on the debt, the government has imposed budget cutbacks, which most seriously affect the lower classes. Financing of the debt also kept interest rates high, impeding investment in the economy. In the 1990s, most economic indicators for Guatemala showed improving conditions, but benefits were not evenly distributed, and the standard of living for many continued to decline.

A

Labor

Guatemala’s labor force was estimated at 4.2 million workers in 2006. Agriculture occupied 39 percent of those workers; 20 percent were employed in manufacturing, construction, and mining; and 38 percent were employed in services. Unemployment was 2.8 percent (2003), but an estimated 31.5 percent were underemployed. A minimum-wage law went into effect in 1992.

Labor organization has been important in Guatemala since the 1920s, but has often suffered repression from government and private paramilitary groups. Labor organizers have been labeled “communists,” and many were killed, tortured, or exiled under military regimes that governed from 1931 to 1944 and from 1954 to 1985. Only about 9 percent of Guatemalan workers are organized, although both industrial and agricultural unions exist. Guatemala is a member of the International Labor Organization (ILO), International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), World Confederation of Labor (WCL), and World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU).

B

Agriculture

Agriculture in 2006 accounted for 22 percent of the GDP, and food products represented 47 percent of Guatemala’s exports in 2003. Coffee has been Guatemala’s most important export for more than a century, and despite considerable diversification, in 2006 the country produced 256,610 metric tons. Sugar has been rising in importance, and Guatemala harvested 18.7 million metric tons of sugarcane in 2006. Bananas remain important and are grown in the tropical lowlands, mainly by foreign corporations—including Chiquita (formerly United Fruit and United Brands), Fyffes, Dole, and Del Monte. But as world demand for bananas has declined, as soil has been depleted, and as other crops have been developed, banana production has become a much smaller percentage of total exports than formerly.

Since the 1970s Guatemala has been the leading exporter of cardamom, a spice popular in Arab countries. Falling prices for this crop, however, have diminished its importance, and in the early 2000s it accounted for about 4 percent of Guatemalan export income. In 2006 fresh fruits (2.3 million metric tons), oil seeds (767,984 metric tons), and vegetables (1,044,271 metric tons) were significant crops. Guatemala no longer exports cotton, which had been a major export. Cotton output dropped dramatically from 165,698 metric tons in 1985 to a mere 1,020 metric tons in 2006, because of both production problems and wide competition from other regions and synthetic fibers.

Export agriculture has absorbed so much of Guatemala’s limited arable land that food production has suffered. Corn remains the principal crop for domestic consumption, but significant amounts of rice, beans, sorghum, potatoes, soybeans, and other fruits and vegetables are also cultivated. Animals raised for food include cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and poultry.

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