Guerrilla Army of the Poor
Encyclopedia
The Guerrilla Army Of The Poor (EGP - Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres) was Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
n guerrilla movement, one of the four organizations comprising the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity
Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity
The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity is a Guatemalan political party that started as a guerrilla movement but laid down its arms in 1996 and became a legal political party in 1998 after the peace process after the Guatemalan Civil War.-Formation:Since the CIA-backed...
(URNG - Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca) that negotiated and signed the Peace accords in Guatemala with the Government and the Army of Guatemala.
Initially, the guerrilla organization went by the acronym NORC but soon became known as the EGP. On January 19, 1972, the first guerrilla contingents entered the forests of the Ixcán, to the north of Quichė. As a communist organization, it combined a vanguard party
Vanguard party
A vanguard party is a political party at the forefront of a mass action, movement, or revolution. The idea of a vanguard party has its origins in the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...
structure with paramilitary forces and a Marxist-Leninist ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
.
The EGP sought to organize and, to a certain extent, control elements of the Indigenous towns of Guatemala as an opposition to the dictatorial regimes of the late twentieth century.
Until the peace accords were signed on December 29th 1996, the EGP was the guerrilla organization with the greatest number of militants and territorial extension, although this level of influence was greatly diminished from earlier levels, particularly following the brutal 'pacification' of the countryside under General Efrain Rios Montt
Efraín Ríos Montt
José Efraín Ríos Montt is a former de facto President of Guatemala, dictator, army general, and former president of Congress. In the 2003 presidential elections, he unsuccessfully ran as the candidate of the ruling Guatemalan Republican Front .Huehuetenango-born Ríos Montt remains one of the most...
. At its peak, the EGP could rely upon a social base of approximately 250,000 people, divided in the following guerrilla fronts:
- “Commander Ernesto GuevaraChe GuevaraErnesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
”, in the NW zone of the country and the Forest of the Ixcán. - “Ho Chi MinhHo Chi MinhHồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
” in the Ixil zone of Guatemala. - “Marco Antonio Yon SosaMarco Antonio Yon SosaMarco Antonio Yon Sosa was leader of the Revolutionary Movement 13th November, a Guatemalan guerilla organization.MR-13 left the Rebel Armed Forces in 1969. Yon was killed by Mexican border police, in the Chiapas area....
” in the North Central region of the country. - “Augusto César SandinoAugusto César SandinoAugusto Nicolás Calderón Sandino was a Nicaraguan revolutionary and leader of a rebellion against the U.S. military occupation of Nicaragua between 1927 and 1933...
” in the central zone of Guatemala. - “13 of November” in the Eastern zone.
- “Luis Turcios LimaLuis Augusto Turcios LimaLuis Augusto Turcios Lima was a Guatemalan army officer and leader of the Rebel Armed Forces . He died in 1966, in a car incident, when a bomb exploded inside his austin mini cooper....
” in the South Coast. - “Otto René CastilloOtto René CastilloOtto René Castillo was a Guatemalan poet and revolutionary.- Early life and activism :Castillo was born in Quetzaltenango in 1934 to middle-class parents...
” in the capital of the country and suburban zones.
The Commander-in-Chief was Ricardo Ramirez de León, alias Commander Rolando Morán, who became the first Secretary General of URNG following the peace accords. The EGP were disbanded on February 15th 1997, two months after signing the accords, and were integrated into the URNG, which today exists as a conventional political party.
See also
- GuatemalaGuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
- Guatemalan Civil WarGuatemalan Civil WarThe Guatemalan Civil War ran from 1960-1996. The thirty-six-year civil war began as a grassroots, popular response to the rightist and military usurpation of civil government , and the President's disrespect for the human and civil rights of the majority of the population...
- Communist Parties
- Guerrilla WarfareGuerrilla warfareGuerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...