Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity
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The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (in Spanish: Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca or URNG) was a guerrilla movement that emerged in Guatemala in 1982. After a peace process brokered by the United Nations it laid down its arms in 1996 and became a legal political party in 1998.
The URNG was formed as guerrilla umbrella organization on February 7 by four Marxist groups active in Guatemala: the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), the Revolutionary Organization of Armed People (ORPA), the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), and the National Directing Nucleus of PGT (PGT-NDN).
On 23 March 1982, retired General Efraín Ríos Montt came to power as the chairman of a military junta that embarked upon a violent "scorched-earth" counterinsurgency campaign in the indigenous highlands against the URNG and its supporters until he was toppled the following year.
By the time a civilian government returned to office in 1986, the URNG recognized that coming to power through armed struggle was out of the question, and they took initiatives to negotiate a political solution.
According to a report in NACLA's Report on the Americas (May/June 1997),
- The government and army maintained that since they had "defeated" the URNG, they had no need to negotiate until the guerrillas had laid down their arms. The subsequent settlements ending the civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador stiffened the elites' resolve "never" to permit such an outcome in Guatemala.
But gradually, between 1986 and 1996, the Guatemalan army and government were drawn into a peace process with the United Nations as moderator and verifier of the process, and other international actors as key players, with major concessions from both sides. Obligations were imposed on the Guatemalan government, including significant constitutional reforms, which were to be internationally binding and be verified by the UN.
In 1987 URNG substituted PGT-NDN for the Guatemalan Party of Labour (PGT) in its leadership.
On 29 December 1996, a peace agreement, signed by the government and the URNG in the presence of UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, officially ended the 36-year civil war.
In the last legislative election, held on 9 November 2003, the party won 4.2% of the popular vote and 2 out of 158 seats in Congress. In the presidential election held that same day, its candidate Rodrigo Asturias won 2.6% of the popular vote.