Laugerud García, Eugenio Kjell (1930–)

Eugenio Kjell Laugerud García, born on January 25, 1930, was a brigadier general who became president of Guatemala in 1974, succeeding Carlos Arana Osorio. He served until 1978. It is widely believed that the 1974 elections were fraudulent and that Efrain Ríos Montt was the actual winner.

Laugerud initially tried to implement a program of slight social and political reform. During his first years in office, membership in labor unions nearly tripled. Laugerud also inaugurated colonization programs for landless peasants in the Petén and along the Mexican border.

Laugerud's reform programs were cut short when a massive earthquake on February 4, 1976, caused enormous destruction and catalyzed social unrest. The last years of Laugerud's presidency were overshadowed by growing political violence. In May 1978, the army massacred one hundred civilians thought to be subversives in the village of Panzós, Alta Verapaz. One month later, Fernando Romeo Lucas García succeeded Laugerud as president of the republic. In 1983 Laugerud was forced to retire from the army.

See alsoGuatemala .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jim Handy, Gift of the Devil: A History of Guatemala (1984).

Richard F. Nyrop, ed., Guatemala: A Country Study, 2d ed. (1984).

Additional Bibliography

Booth, John A. "Socioeconomic and Political Roots of National Revolts in Central America." Latin American Research Review 26, no. 1 (1991): 33-73.

                              Virginia Garrard-Burnett