The Spanish Embassy Occupation and Assault: History and the Partisan Politics of Memory Since 1980 in Guatemala

Authors

  • Myrna Ivonne Wallace Fuentes Roanoke College University

Keywords:

Guatemala, Spanish Embassy, memory, indigenism

Abstract

This essay recounts the occupation of the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala in 1980 by an indigenous delegation and its urban allies and the subsequent assault by security forces which ended with a fire that killed 37 people trapped inside.  It explains why the event unfolded as it did by fleshing out the operative political context constraining and informing people’s actions and striving to understand the changing logic behind the Guatemalan military regime’s decisions between 1978-1981.  It then traces the tragedy’s afterlife, charting how this contentious memory was fought over during the next thirty years and how it was transformed into an emblematic battleground for explaining and processing the violence of Guatemala’s civil war and mobilized in battles over the country’s political future.  

Author Biography

Myrna Ivonne Wallace Fuentes, Roanoke College University

Myrna Ivonne Wallace Fuentes es catedrática de historia en la Universidad Roanoke College. Obtuvo su doctorado en la Universidad de Duke en el año 2006. Entre los campos de la investigación que le interesan se incluyen el género y la historia cultural así como la política de los movimientos revolucionarios del Perú y de Guatemala. Actualmente se encuentra completando un libro que provisoriamente se titula “Una mujer y el sueño de la revolución: Magda Portal y el Partido Aprista Peruano,” que traza la biografía de Portal y examina su papel como la fundadora y la organizadora del Partido Aprista Peruano durante las décadas de 1930 a 1950.

Additional Files

Published

2012-10-15

How to Cite

Wallace Fuentes, M. I. (2012). The Spanish Embassy Occupation and Assault: History and the Partisan Politics of Memory Since 1980 in Guatemala. A Contracorriente: Una Revista De Estudios Latinoamericanos, 10(1), 365–412. Retrieved from https://acontracorriente.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/acontracorriente/article/view/100

Issue

Section

Articles / Artículos