The EGP: Insurgent Strategies in the Ixcán and the Ixil

Abstract

Chapter 4, Insurgent Strategies in the Ixcan and the Ixil, builds on the theoretical framework presented in the previous chapter. The chapter introduces the case studies that will represent the core of the book, turning to an analysis of the original empirical research on political violence in Guatemala. This chapter begins by detailing the two case study regions from the department of El Quiche, the Ixcan and the Ixil, documenting the demographic and historical conditions that shaped political mobilisation and violence in these regions. The discussion then analyses the origins of the revolutionary movement in the Ixcan and the Ixil, exploring the strategies that the rebels implemented through which to construct their social base. The historical, socio-political, economic and demographic conditions differed in the Ixcan and the Ixil, elements that, in turn, shaped the trajectory of the armed conflict and the responses of the civilian population to armed actors. Nevertheless, the final and most egregious act of the political violence, the genocide, was carried out in both regions, despite these differences, a question to which we shall subsequently return.