In celebration of the first century of independence in 1919, President Manuel Estrada Cabrera placed the first stone for a future palace next to the Plaza de Armas.

Two years later, in 1921, President Carlos Herrera, with the Centenary very close, ordered the Palacio del Centenario to be built in only three months time with a small budget and few resources.

On June 30, 1982, Ríos Montt, in a speech called "We are willing to let honesty and justice reign" ("Estamos dispuestos que reine la honestidad y la justicia"), told the Guatemalan people that the government had realized that there were many Guatemalans that were afraid of being killed and that therefore did not apply for the amnesty his government issued in late March.

Rios Montt said that in order to accomplish that he had set up "special jurisdiction tribunals" which would judge leftist criminals and that they were going to apply capital punishment to those proven guilty.

[2] These secret tribunals, whose members were appointed by the president but were unknown to the Guatemalan people, performed fast and drastic trials, in parallel to the judiciary system of the country.