Julio César Méndez Montenegro

Julio César Méndez Montenegro (November 23, 1915 – April 30, 1996) was a Guatemalan academic who served as the 34th president of Guatemala from July 1966 to July 1970.

Mendez was elected on a platform promising democratic reforms and the curtailment of military power.

At the time of Méndez's election, Juan Jose Arévalo, who served as President of Guatemala from 1945 to 1951, was the only civilian to complete a full presidential term since Guatemala's independence in 1847.

It was during the Mendez presidency that the United States dramatically expanded its military mission in Guatemala.

Within days of Mendez taking office, US Colonel John Webber Jr. was dispatched to the country to assist in modernizing Guatemala's counterinsurgency apparatus.

Under Colonel Webber's command, the United States expanded training within Guatemala's 5,000-man army and outfitted the Guatemalan security forces with the most modern counterinsurgency equipment available.

The United States also assisted the Guatemalan security forces in the implementation and use of counter-terrorism, and the establishment of counter-terror units under the supervision of U.S. police advisors.

With increased US military support, the Guatemalan Army launched a counter-insurgency campaign that successfully combated and dispersed the left-wing guerrilla organizations fighting in the mountains and country.

The only civilian to occupy Guatemala's presidency during the long period of military rule between 1954 and 1986.

Mendez had assumed the presidency under a pact in July 1966 that gave the armed forces carte blanche with respect to internal security matters and an effective veto over governmental policy.

Nevertheless, his election and swearing in was considered a major turning point for the long military-led Guatemala.

He was the first cousin of César Montenegro Paniagua whose kidnapping, torture and murder during the Julio César Méndez presidency is rumored to have been undertaken with presidential sanction.

In 1966, the left-of-center Méndez defied odds after being elected and successfully sworn in as President of Guatemala.

As a civilian who previously made a career as a law professor, Méndez's election, despite challenges, was also considered a historical transition from longstanding military rule in Guatemala.

In March 1966, thirty Guatemalan Party of Labour (PGT) associates were kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the security forces.

This was one of the first major instances of forced disappearance in Latin American history.

These 30 disappearances marked the beginning of a dramatic increase of state repression in 1966.

When law students at the University of San Carlos used legal measures (such as habeas corpus petitions) to require the government to present the detainees at court, some of the students were "disappeared" in turn.

In exchange for military support of his administration, President Mendez authorized the armed forces to use "any means necessary" to suppress the insurgency.

No longer bound to the rule of law, the security forces resorted to terror to control the population and dismantle the civilian support base of the insurgency.

Guatemalan government forces killed or "disappeared" thousands of civilians during the escalation of the counterinsurgency.

The repression was most intense in the eastern regions where the MR-13 operated, and in Guatemala City where the PGT operated.

In eastern Guatemala, government forces engaged in the massacre of civilians and destruction of peasant communities as a means of breaking up guerrilla bases.

Some observers referred to the policy of the Guatemalan government as "White Terror" -a term previously used to describe similar periods of anti-communist mass killing in countries such as Taiwan and Spain- Observers estimate that as many as 15,000 Guatemalans were killed by the military and government-led death squads in three years of Mendez's presidency to eliminate fewer than 300 Marxist guerrillas.

Amnesty International cited lower estimates of 3,000 to 8,000 peasants killed by the military during that time.

Colonel Arana, who commanded the Guatemalan army, earned the nickname "Butcher of Zacapa" or "Jackal of the East."

The victims included guerrilla sympathizers, labor union leaders, intellectuals, students, and people vaguely defined "enemies of the government."

The government's use of "any means necessary" resulted in the opposition increasing its level of resistance to ensure its survival.

The "White Terror" (which led to the destruction of the FAR's ladino peasant base in the eastern provinces) caused the MR-13 to retreat to Guatemala City.

There, the MR-13 began to engage in selective killings of members of the security forces as well as U.S. military advisors.

The SCUGA was placed under the command of Colonel Máximo Zepeda in January 1967, after which point it assumed command over most of the Guatemalan government's urban counterinsurgency operations against PGT.

Composed of both military and civilian personnel, the SCUGA functioned both as a counter-terror apparatus and as an intelligence-gathering apparatus.

SCUGA commandos routinely carried out abductions, bombings, street assassinations, torture, "disappearances" and executions of both documented and suspected communists.

The guerrillas, including the Rebel Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes — FAR), then concentrated their attacks in Guatemala City, assassinating many leading representatives of the military government, U.S. military advisors, and the American ambassador John Gordon Mein, in 1968.

The repression that began to take shape under the presidency of Enrique Peralta Azurdia intensified under Mendez.

With the onset of the Guatemalan army's first major anti-guerrilla offensive, the army and security forces carried out widespread extrajudicial killing, torture and forced disappearances.

The repression was most intense in the southeastern region of the country, particularly in the department of Zacapa, under the command of Colonel Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio.

The insurgents assassinated the American ambassador to Guatemala, John Gordon Mein, in 1968, and the German ambassador to Guatemala, Karl von Spreti, in 1970.

Following the inauguration of Méndez Montenegro, he appointed Colonel Rafael Arriaga Bosque to Defense Minister.

Mendez activated the 'Special Commando Unit of the Guatemalan Army' (SCUGA).