Alaíde Foppa

[citation needed] She and her husband were forced to flee the country in 1954 when the presidency of Jacobo Árbenz[7] was overthrown by a CIA-backed military coup.

[12] She lectured at other institutions, published columns and served as an art critic in local newspapers,[6] and she wrote much of her poetry in Mexico City.

In 1975, she co-founded with Margarita García Flores the publication Fem, a magazine for scholarly analysis of issues from a feminist perspective.

[6] With others of the Guatemalan intellectual community, Foppa denounced the government for human rights violations and her name began appearing on published lists of "subversives".

[11] When her husband Solórzano was struck and killed by a car, Foppa went to Guatemala,[8] ostensibly to visit her mother[5] and renew her passport,[2] but it was believed she had decided to work for the guerrillas.

[16] Both of her sons Mario and Juan Pablo, though born in Mexico, had returned to fight with the guerrilla forces in Guatemala and were killed.

[11] Initially the newspapers carried a report that she had been abducted by members of the G-2 intelligence unit, beaten, and forced into a car, which sped away, but fearful of retaliation witnesses would not come forward.

Daughter Laura, who had won a grant to study dance in New York, used the trip to visit both the United Nations and the office of human rights of the Organization of American States.

Julio, flew to Paris and with the help of friends secured an audience with the Legislative Assembly in an attempt to put international pressure on the Guatemalan government.

[12][18] Julio returned to Mexico and met with Jorge Castañeda y Álvarez de la Rosa, Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs.

Mexican president Jose Lopez Portillo authorized a commission of legal scholars, journalists and Foppa's children to go to investigate the disappearance; however, right before the group was to leave, a veiled threat was received telling them they were welcome to come but that "international communism, in its efforts to make the Guatemalan government look bad, may cause harm… to come to them."

[11] In 2010, Foppa's family, Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM) (Mutual Support Group) and the Centro de Reportes Informativos sobre Guatemala (CERIGUA) (Center of Informative Reports on Guatemala) and other organizations demanded that an inquiry into Foppa's disappearance be launched by Guatemalan authorities.