Mano Blanca (Spanish for 'White Hand'), was a Guatemalan far-right, anti-communist death squad,[2] set up in 1966 to prevent Julio César Méndez Montenegro from being inaugurated as the president of Guatemala.

The group was officially known as the Movimiento de Acción Nacionalista Organizado (English: Movement of Organized Nationalist Action) which gives the acronym "MANO", (Spanish: hand).

[4] In response to this threat, the Guatemalan government acted on the advice of the military attaché at the United States embassy and helped set up several vigilante groups throughout the country.

"[8] One of the main targets of Mano Blanca was the Partido Revolucionario (PR), an anti-communist group that was the only major reform oriented party allowed to operate under the military-dominated regime.

[8] The PR drew a lot of its members from the activist base that had been created during the agrarian reform program begun by former president Jacobo Arbenz in 1952, and these individuals were targeted by the Mano Blanca.

"[11] Overall, Mano Blanca was responsible for thousands of murders and kidnappings, leading travel writer Paul Theroux to refer to them as "Guatemala's version of a volunteer Gestapo unit.