Following the overthrow of Arbenz, it was the army that rose to fill the power vacuum, with US support; they were to dominate politics for the next thirty years, sending the country into a spiral of violence and economic decline.

Castillo Armas , the new president, immediately swept away all the reforms of the previous ten years: the 1945 constitution was revoked, all illiterates were disenfranchised, left-wing parties were outlawed, and large numbers of unionists and agrarian reformers were simply executed. All the land that had been confiscated was returned to its previous owners. Hardest hit was the indigenous population as the old order of ladino rule was firmly reinstated.

In the following years, corruption, incompetence, outrageous patronage, and economic decline caused by a fall in coffee prices brought Guatemala to its knees. Arévalo even threatened to return to Guatemala and contest the 1963 elections. The possibility was too much for the Guatemalan establishment and the US and John F. Kennedy authorized another coup in 1963.

The 1960s saw the start of guerrilla war - initially confined to the eastern highlands and ruthlessly fought by the army. Another centre-left government held power until 1970, although it was the army that really controlled affairs. Political assassination became commonplace as " death squads " operated with impunity, killing peasant leaders, students, unionists and academics.

In the 1970 elections the power of the military and the far right was confirmed. Colonel Arana Osorio was elected president with the support of just four percent of the population (bearing in mind that only a small percentage was enfranchised). Once in power he set about eradicating armed opposition, declaring that "if it is necessary to turn the country into a cemetery in order to pacify it, I will not hesitate to do so". The reign of terror reached unprecedented levels: students, academics, opposition politicians, union leaders and agrarian reformers were particularly targeted. Some estimate that there were 15,000 political killings in the first three years of Osorio's rule.

Osorio's successor, President Laugerund, was not a great reformer, though he did introduce limited measures to alleviate rural poverty, including opening up parts of the Petén to peasants to farm. However, even these modest concessions were interrupted by a massive earthquake on February 4, 1976. The quake left around 23,000 dead, 77,000 injured and a million homeless. The poor suffered the most, whilst on the Caribbean coast, Puerto Barrios was almost totally destroyed and remained cut off from the capital for several months.

In the wake of the earthquake, during the process of reconstruction, many of the victims felt the time had come to take action, and trade unions and a new guerrilla organization, the EGP , emerged. The army's response was predictable, with daily disappearances, murders and atrocities. In 1977, US President Carter suspended all military aid to Guatemala because of the country's appalling human rights record. At the same time, Guatemala continued to press its longstanding claim to Belize , but failed to gain international support.

In 1978 elections were again dominated by the army, who procured a victory for Lucas García , the most murderous of all Guatemala's leaders. All opposition groups met with severe repression. The economy took a battering, while several guerrilla armies started developing strongholds in the highlands. There was a major massacre within a month of García's accession in the village of Panzós, Alta Verapaz, during which a hundred villagers were shot by the army. Political opponents, including rival Christian Democrat politicians, were assassinated by death squads and Vinicio Cerezo , the party's leader, was forced into hiding. A peaceful occupation of the Spanish embassy by demonstrators ended with the security forces burning the building to the ground, resulting in the death of 39 people. Spain broke off diplomatic relations for over five years.

Meanwhile, the rural guerrilla war intensified, with Israeli military aid replacing American. The guerrilla groups had an estimated 6000 combatants and some 250,000 unarmed collaborators. Army casualties rose to 250 a month, and the demand for conscripts grew rapidly. Peasants were massacred in their thousands, while in the towns victims included students, journalists, academics, politicians, priests, lawyers, teachers and unionists. Tens of thousands fled to Mexico, and the Catholic Church withdrew all its clergy from Quiché after a number of priests were murdered. It's estimated that around 25,000 Guatemalans were killed during the four years of the García regime.

In 1982 a successful coup was engineered by Ríos Montt , who even today remains one of the most powerful political figures in Guatemala. Ríos Montt was a committed evangelical Christian who was, above all, determined to restore law and order, eradicate corruption, and defeat the guerrillas. Repression dropped overnight in the cities, corrupt police and army officers were forced to resign, and trade and tourism began to return.

However, in the highlands the war intensified as Ríos Montt declared that he would defeat the guerrillas by Christmas. By a highly successful (and locally detested) programme, villagers were organized into Civil Defence Patrols (PACs), armed with ancient rifles, and told to patrol the countryside. The guerrillas' support infrastructure was immediately undermined and villagers were forced to take sides, caught between the guerrilla's propaganda and the sheer brutality of the armed forces. Significant gains were made against the guerrillas, but as fighting intensified thousands of highland Maya fled into Mexico.

Little progress was made towards democratic reform, however. The Catholic church had become alienated and in 1983 Ríos Montt was overthrown by yet another military coup - this one backed by a US government keen to see Guatemala set on the road to democracy. Although the rural repression, death squads and disappearances continued under the new president, General Mejía Víctores, elections were held for an 88-member Constituent Assembly in July 1984. GAM, a new mutual support group for families of the "disappeared", brought the human rights abuses in Guatemala to international media attention. In November 1985, the first legitimate elections in thirty years were held