Army Day: June 30 Guatemala

Army Day     Guatemala

Army Day: June 30

Army Day is a public holiday celebrated in Guatemala.
Countries all over the world have national events that pertain to celebrating their armed forces. For example, the United States has Veterans Day on November 11,
a day when people pay tribute to the soldiers who fought in Vietnam and so on. In a similar fashion there is a huge cultural and national event in Guatemala called Army Day that is held every year on June 30.

Army Day     Guatemala

As in other cases, this day is celebrated to honor the country’s soldiers that fought to liberate the Guatemalan public. It is known locally as Día del Ejército and is celebrated with great fanfare throughout the country. However, there are many political issues that surround the celebration and its purpose.

Army Day     Guatemala

History of Army Day in Guatemala

In the late 1830s, a new conservative movement brewed in Guatemala led by a young Rafael Carrera. Carrera became the de facto ruler of Guatemala by 1838, and soon afterwards, civil war broke out across Central America, breaking apart the Federal Republic of Central America. Backed by the church and conservative land owners, Carrera and the Conservadora administration led Guatemala ruthlessly.

Army Day     Guatemala

Army Day     Guatemala

In 1863, El Salvador’s President Gerardo Barrios went to war with Guatemala and Carrera, disagreeing with his rival, believing in the unity of Central America. On October 26, 1863, the city of San Salvador was taken by Carrera, ousting Gerardo Barrios. On April 14, 1865, Carrera died, but left a dominant Conservadora presence in control.
It wouldn’t be until 1871 that Justo Rufino Barrios, together with General Miguel García Granados, worked with Guatemalan rebels who wanted to see the ousting of the Conservadora administration. The duo put together a revolutionary army on March 17 and shortly after began their march into Guatemala.
Taking city after city, the march ended in Guatemala City on the morning of June 30, 1871. Days later, the group organized their campaign called the “Plan for the Fatherland”, a course of action set to overthrow the Conservadora administration of Guatemala. Soon after, the group achieved victory, installing General Granados as president.

Army Day     Guatemala

Guatemala’s Army Day Traditions, Customs and Activities

In the past, typical celebrations included a military parade and performances that aimed at celebrating the efficiency of the Guatemalan army. However, in 2008, the government cancelled the military parade for budgetary reasons, though the more likely cause of the cancellation was in part due to efforts by the Sons and Daughters for Identity and Against Forgetting (HIJOS). The group has been campaigning for years to end the military parades, considering the parade an insult to the memories of the thousands of people dead or missing due to actions by the army.

The last day of June every year for the past 137 years has been marked as Army Day in Guatemala. For the previous 136 years this has also been the occasion for a military parade throughout the capital city. However, this year there will be no parade, due to "budgetary constraints", according to a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence. The branches of the armed services in Guatemala are known to be hypersensitive to what the perceive as affronts to their dignity, and the spokesperson may just have been speaking out of turn to cover up the fact that the parade had been cancelled by order of a civilian, and at the behest of a human rights group at that. The celebration of the day will now take place in private. Members of the group HIJOS - Sons and Daughters for Identity and against Forgetting and Silence - have been pressing for many years for the ending of the military parades, considering them to be an affront to the memory of the thousands of dead and disappeared and their relatives whose lives have been so affected by the actions of the armed services. As this item, drawn from a blog makes clear, "Nada hay que celebrar en un país en que el aún no se han juzgado a un ejército culpable de la desaparición de más de 20 mil personas, y de masacrar o mandar al exilio a medio millón de guatemaltecos". (There is nothing to celebrate in a country in which an army guilty of disappearance of more than 20,000 and massacring or sending into exile half a million Guatemalans, still remains to be judged"). Last year members of HIJOS, who lost parents to the internal conflict, organised a parade of their own, the March of Memory, to remember their relatives and interrupt the military one, which led to violence apparently provoked by military dressed as civilians. They are planning to run this again this year, but they are already experiencing a backlash from those who don't believe the Ministry of Defence's explanation for the lack of a military parade this year. On 21 June, the National Day of the Disappeared, a member of HIJOS was threatened. The person was beaten and advised to stop "messing about" or he and his colleagues would be killed. It remains to be seen what will happen on 30 June.