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Timeline
May 1993 – President Jorge Serrano Elías of the governing Solidarity Action Movement (MAS—Movimiento de Acción Solidaria) fails in his attempt at autogolpe (a self-coup). Citing a need to fight corruption, Serrano illegally orders that Congress dissolve, the Supreme Court disband and that civil liberties be suspended. After a massive public outcry and the Army's unwillingness to enforce an illegal order, the self-coup fails and Serrano flees the country.
June 1993 – Congress appoints Human Rights Ombudsman Ramiro de León Carpio to complete Serrano's term as president. De León initiates a number of reforms to fight corruption, and in August demands the resignation of all members of Congress and the Supreme Court. When most refuse to step down and the Supreme Court rules that the president cannot force a referendum to push the issue, de León negotiates a deal with Congress in November to stage a national referendum.
January 1994 – Voters approve a package of constitutional reforms, including elimination of a confidential presidential slush fund, annual publication of the budget and shifting the power to appoint the attorney general and comptroller general from the president to Congress.
August 1994 – A dismal 21 percent voter turnout elects a new Congress to serve out the term of the previous Congress. The two parties that emerge as leaders are the populist Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG—Frente Republicano Guatemalteca), led by former dictator and ex-general Efraín Ríos Montt, and the center-right National Advancement Party (PAN—Partido de Avanzada Nacional Guatemalteca).
January 1996 – PAN candidate and former Guatemala City Mayor Alvaro Arzú Irigoyen wins the runoff presidential election, defeating FRG candidate Alfonso Portillo Cabrera by slightly more than 2 percent—the closest election in Guatemalan history. Former dictator Ríos Montt, ineligible to run for president due to his involvement in a coup attempt, is widely believed to have used Portillo as a proxy candidate.
September 1996 – Alfredo Moreno Molina, alleged ringleader of a criminal syndicate that stretched across all sectors of Guatemalan government, especially the customs and duty sector, is arrested. His imprisonment triggers the fall of what the attorney general calls "the largest network of corruption we've ever seen." Moreno, a friend of presidential runner-up Portillo, who had donated to his campaign, faces criminal charges including tax evasion. He is later convicted and sentenced to prison. President Arzú notes that following the arrests, customs revenues nearly double, and the attorney general estimates that Moreno and his associates were siphoning off as much as 113 million quetzals (US$15 million) in annual tax revenues.
November 1996 – General Roberto Letona, the military attaché in Washington, D.C., is ordered to return to Guatemala following revelations that he had stolen nearly 20.5 billion quetzals (US$2.7 billion) in tax revenue during the past 15 years. Letona is linked to Moreno.
December 1996 – Peace accords end the 36-year civil war in which almost 200,000 people disappeared or were killed.
April 1998 – The Catholic Church's Recuperation of the Historical Memory Project reports that the government and government-backed paramilitary forces had committed 89.9 percent of civil war human rights violations, while 4.8 percent had been committed by guerillas. Two days after the report is issued, its chief sponsor, Bishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera, is killed inside his home in Guatemala City. A nine-volume report, released by the UN-sponsored Commission for Historical Clarification (Comisión de Esclarecimiento Histórico) in February 1999, similarly attributes most of the human rights violations to government-backed military forces.
December 1999 – In a runoff presidential election, Alfonso Portillo Cabrera of the right-wing FRG carries all departments and Guatemala City to take 68 percent of the vote. Portillo comes under fire for his friendship with FRG founder and Chairman Efraín Ríos Montt.
March 2001 – Following allegations that the FRG illegally manipulated legislation on behalf of the liquor industry, the Supreme Court strips parliamentary immunity from a number of implicated politicians, including President of Congress Ríos Montt.
June 2001 – A priest and three military officers are sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder of human rights activist Bishop Gerardi in 1998. In 2005, an appeals court rules that two of the convicted officers were only "accomplices" and reduces their sentences by 10 years.
September 2001 – Interior Minister Byron Barrientos resigns amid charges of corruption. In January 2002, the Supreme Court strips Barrientos of his legislative immunity, allowing a lower court to prosecute him for allegedly siphoning off 76 million quetzales (US$10 million) of public funds.
January 2002 – Drug agents raid the village of Chocón, killing two people in an alleged attempt to steal a two-ton shipment of cocaine. The following year, more than a dozen agents are convicted of extrajudicial execution and illegal search and seizure. In the aftermath of the Chocón raid, the Department of Anti-Narcotics Operations (DOAN—Departamento de Operaciones Anti-Narcoticos) fires 80 percent of its officers and, within a year, it is officially disbanded and replaced by the U.S.-aided Anti-Narcotic Analysis and Information Service (Servicio de Análisis y Investigaciones Anti-Narcoticos). Authorities estimate that in its last year of existence, DOAN officials stole more than twice the amount of cocaine they legally seized.
March 2002 – Guatemala's Siglo XXI and Panama's La Prensa report that President Portillo and his vice president had opened bank accounts in Panama with the intention of looting the Guatemalan treasury. The so-called "Panama Connection" allegedly involves the transfer of 11 million quetzals (US$1.5 million) every month from shell companies controlled by Portillo and his associates.
March 2003 – Karen Fischer, the anti-corruption public prosecutor, resigns following pressure from her superiors in the Attorney General's Office to dismiss a case against President Portillo in the Panama Connection investigation. The following month, after receiving death threats, she and her family flee to Mexico. In August, Prosecutor Tatiana Morales and her family go into exile after receiving death threats—allegedly coming from within the Public Prosecutor's Office—while working on the Panama Connection investigation.
March 2003 – Representatives from the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the Guatemalan government work to form a commission they hope will identify and confront the "parallel government" of organized crime that permeates the police and military.
April 2003 – Ríos Montt and his party arrange for the government to pay hundreds of thousands of former members of the paramilitary group, Civil Self-Defense Patrols, for their services during the civil war. Ríos Montt had founded the paramilitary unit in 1983 to aid the army in its campaign against Mayan rebels. More than 455,000 former members receive payment by the time Guatemala's highest court in January 2004 orders the government to stop the payments.
July 2003 – A rally for Ríos Montt's candidacy turns into a two-day riot that damages Guatemala City's financial district and the Constitutional Court, which was set to rule on the legitimacy of Ríos Montt's candidacy. Following the riot, the court rules in his favor despite the Constitution forbidding anyone who has taken part in a coup from running for president and the fact that courts had struck down Ríos Montt candidacies twice before. Ríos Montt is placed under house arrest in May 2004 for inciting the riot. In July 2006, a Spanish judge charges him with genocide, torture, illegal arrest and terrorism and issues an international warrant for his arrest.
December 2003 – Óscar Berger, the conservative former mayor of Guatemala City and Great National Alliance (GANA—Gran Alianza Nacional) candidate, is elected president. Portillo flees to Mexico after his term ends the following month and is charged with embezzling more than 113 billion quetzals (US$15 million).
April 2004 – Former Finance Minister Eduardo Weymann is convicted of mishandling more than 30 million quetzals (US$4 million) and is sentenced to 13 years in prison.
July 2004 – Juan Francisco Reyes Lopez, former vice president under Portillo, is arrested and jailed on charges of fraud and attempted graft.
February 2005 – Congress passes a law ensuring the impartiality of appointment commissions, a law designed to enhance the independence and impartiality of the Supreme Court, the public prosecutor, the auditor general and the Supreme Electoral Court.
April 2005 – In the country's first race discrimination trial, five Guatemalan politicians, including the grandson of former dictator Ríos Montt, are found guilty of discrimination against Nobel Prize-winning indigenous activist Rigoberta Menchu. The five are sentenced to three years in prison and fined 3,000 quetzals (US$400).
July 2005 – Investigators uncover an enormous archive kept by the now-defunct National Police containing millions of pages of documents, including detailed records of human rights abuses committed by government security forces during the civil war.
October 2005 – On the same day Interior Minister Carlos Vielmann fires 24 senior police officers for alleged ties to organized crime, a court sentences former Comptroller General Oscar Dubon to 17 years in prison for money laundering and embezzlement.
November 2005 – Adan Castillo, Guatemala's top anti-drug investigator, and two of his deputies are arrested in the United States on drug trafficking charges.
December 2005 – The United States deports Junior Vinicio Abadio-Carrillo, the son of former Tax and Customs Authority Director Marco Tulio Abadio-Molina, to Guatemala, where he is wanted on charges of conspiring with his father to embezzle more than 37 million quetzales (US$5 million).
March 2006 – Congress approves a law expanding the police's powers to use wiretaps, conduct undercover operations and file criminal conspiracy charges. Passed largely to combat the country's worsening street gang and organized crime problem, the new law can also be used against corrupt public officials.
April 2006 – After four years on the run, Interior Ministry official Angel Argueta, accused of embezzling more than 75 million quetzales (US$10 million), surrenders to authorities.
May 2006 – Attorney General Juan Luis Florido and five other officials are charged with mishandling a major tax fraud investigation.
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