The new government brought to power by the United States suspended constitutional guarantees, jailed thousands of political and labor leaders, and exiled hundreds of others.

[4] ORPA initially focused its operations on the Pacific Southern Coast, however, after 1971 it concentrated its forces in the heavily populated Indian highlands of Chimaltenango and Sololá.

[5] In the following years ORPA opened an urban front in Guatemala City, but the focus of its operations remained the central highlands.

In March 1982, after increasing discontent in the Guatemalan Armed Forces regarding the perceived corruption and incompetence of the military command, a group of junior officers launched a coup d'etat, overthrowing the administration of Fernando Romeo Lucas García.

The Ríos Montt administration carried out a brutal counterinsurgency campaign against the guerrillas and their alleged supporters, killing thousands of civilians in the process.