[7] In 1977, when he stepped down as defense minister to pursue his presidential campaign, General Fernando Romeo Lucas García also happened to hold the position of coordinator of the megaproject of the Northern Transversal Strip, whose main objective was to bring production of to facilitate oil exploitation of that vast land.

[8] In 1977, the municipality of San Mateo Ixtatán signed a contract with Cuchumaderas company for the "sanitation, reforestation, maintenance and exploitation of forests, based on the urgent need to build and maintain natural resources attacked by the pine beetle."

[10][c] During the Lucas García administration, the Army Engineers Battalion built the road stretch from Cadenas (Petén / Izabal) to Fray Bartolomé de las Casas.

[11] After the overthrow of Lucas Garcia on 23 March 1982, rose to power a military triumvirate headed by General Efraín Ríos Montt, along with Horacio Maldonado Shaad colonels and Francisco Gordillo.

[14] Due to his seniority in the military and economic elites in Guatemala and his fluency fluent in Q'ekchi, one of the Guatemalan indigenous languages, Lucas García was the ideal official candidate for the 1978 elections.

Villagrán Kramer was a man of recognized democratic trajectory, having participated in the Revolution of 1944 and was linked to the interests of transnational corporations and elites, as he was one of Guatemala's main advisers of agricultural, industrial, and financial chambers.

[15] At the beginning of his tenure as president, Saúl Osorio founded the weekly Siete Días en la USAC, which, besides reporting on the university's activities, constantly denounced the violation of human rights, especially the repression against the popular movement.

[17] Although not strictly an armed group, FERG sought confrontation with government forces all the time, giving prominence to measures that could degenerate into mass violence and paramilitary activity.

[15] On 7 March 1978, Lucas Garcia was elected president; shortly after, on 29 May 1978—in the late days of Laugerud García government—in the central square of Panzós, Alta Verapaz, members of the Zacapa Military Zone attacked a peaceful peasant demonstration, killing many people.

In 1978, for example, Osorio Paz and other universities received death threats for their outspoken opposition to constructing an inter-oceanic pipeline that would cross the country to facilitate oil exploration.

[15] On June 8, the AEU organized a massive protest in downtown Guatemala City where speakers denounced the slaughter of Panzós and expressed their repudiation of the Laugerud García regime in stronger terms than ever before.

[15] Whereas under the previous administration, the human rights situation in Guatemala had improved, the regime of Lucas Garcia brought the repression to much the same level observed during the "State of Siege" period under former President Arana Osorio (1970–1974).

In late 1979, the EGP expanded its influence, controlling a large amount of territory in the Ixil Triangle in El Quiche and holding many demonstrations in Nebaj, Chajul, and Cotzal.

[21] ORPA established an operational base in the mountains and rain forests above the coffee plantations of southwestern Guatemala and in the Atitlan, where it enjoyed considerable popular support.

[22] On 18 September 1979, ORPA made its existence publicly known when it occupied the Mujulia coffee farm in the coffee-growing region of the Quezaltenango province to hold a political education meeting with the workers.

In 1980, guerrilla operations on both the urban and rural fronts greatly intensified, with the insurgency carrying out many overt acts of armed propaganda and assassinations of prominent right-wing Guatemalans and landowners.

In 1980, armed insurgents assassinated prominent Ixil landowner Enrique Brol and president of the CACIF (Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial, and Financial Associations) Alberto Habie.

[28] "Beheaded corpses hanging from their legs in between what is left from blown up cars, shapeless bodies among glass shards and tree branches all over the place is what a terrorist attack caused yesterday at 9:35 am.

El Gráfico reporters were able to get to exact place where the bomb went off, only seconds after the horrific explosion, and found a truly infernal scene in the corner of the 6th avenue and 6th street -where the Presidential Office is located- which had turned into a huge oven -but the solid building where the president worked was safe-.

[29] A group of native people from El Quiché occupied the embassy in a desperate attempt to bring attention to the issues they were having with the Army in that region of the country, which was rich in oil and had been recently populated as part of the "Franja Transversal del Norte" agricultural program.

[30] In the end, thirty-seven people died after a fire started within the embassy after the police force tried to occupy the building; after that, Spain broke its diplomatic relationship with Guatemala.

[35] The attacks against private financial, commercial, and agricultural targets increased in the Lucas Garcia years, as the leftist Marxist groups saw those institutions as "reactionaries" and "millionaire exploiters" who were collaborating with the genocidal government.

The successes of the revolutionary forces in Nicaragua against the Somoza regime and the insurgency's victories against the Lucas Garcia government led rebel leaders to falsely conclude that a military equilibrium was being reached in Guatemala.

[40] The army, to curtail civilian participation in the insurgency and provide greater distinction between "hostile" and compliant communities in the countryside, resorted to a series of "civic action" measures.

The military under Chief of Staff Benedicto Lucas García (the President's brother) began to search out communities in which to organize and recruit civilians into pro-government paramilitary patrols, who would combat the insurgents and kill their collaborators.

[48] The United States, Israel, and Argentina all provided military support to the regime in the form of pipeline aid, sales, credits, training, and counterinsurgency advisors.

[50] In June 1981, the Reagan Administration announced a $3.2 million delivery of 150 military trucks and jeeps to the army, justifying these shipments by blaming the guerrillas for the violence perpetrated against civilians.

[54] In 1999, the Audiencia Nacional of Spain began criminal proceedings for accusations of torture and genocide against the Maya population after a formal petition introduced by Rigoberta Menchú.

However, the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal denied the extradition on 22 June 2005, arguing "...medical reports from García's wife showing that her husband is severely affected by the Alzheimer's disease."

[55][56][57] In May 2018, his brother Manuel Benedicto Lucas García, who served as his Army Chief of Staff, would receive a 58-year prison sentence after being convicted for a 1981 incident that involved torture and rape.