Button made in the Netherlands. Made in the 1980’s.
In 1982 and General Efraín Ríos Montt was named president of the military junta after a military coup. A bloody campaign of torture, forced disappearances, and “scorched earth” warfare followed.
The country became a pariah state internationally, although the regime received considerable support from the Reagan Administration.
Ríos Montt was overthrown by General Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores, who called for an election of a national constituent assembly to write a new constitution, leading to a free election in 1986, won by Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo, the candidate of the Christian Democracy Party.
In 1982, the four guerrilla groups, EGP, ORPA, FAR and PGT, merged and formed the URNG, influenced by the Salvadoran guerrilla FMLN, the Nicaraguan FSLN and Cuba’s government, in order to become stronger. As a result of the Army’s “scorched earth” tactics in the countryside, more than 45,000 Guatemalans fled across the border to Mexico. The Mexican government placed the refugees in camps in Chiapas and Tabasco.