Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetCarlos Manuel Arana Osorio
President of Guatemala
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Barberena, Santa Rosa Department, Guatemala
About Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio
- Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio (July 17, 1918 – December 6, 2003) was President of Guatemala from 1970 to 1974.
- His government enforced torture, disappearances and killings against political and military adversaries, as well as common criminals. Arana was born in Barberena, in the department of Santa Rosa.
- A colonel in the Army, he was elected in an electoral process generally considered "non-transparent" on a platform promising a crackdown on law-and-order issues and stability; his vice president was Eduardo Cáceres.
- In November 1970, Arana imposed a "State of Siege" which was followed by heightened counterinsurgency measures.
- The government received continued large-scale military support from the United States, which provided weapons, technical support and military advisors to the security forces under Arana to assist in fighting the guerrillas.
- The systematic use of state-terrorism which emerged in 1966 under President Julio CĂ©sar MĂ©ndez persisted under Arana; government-sponsored "death squads" remained active and the security forces regularly detained, disappeared, tortured and extrajudicially executed political opponents, student leaders, suspected guerrilla sympathizers and trade unionists.
- It is estimated that over 20,000 Guatemalans were killed or "disappeared" under the Arana administration.Carlos Arana, a freemason, was the first of the string of Institutional Democratic Party military rulers who would dominate Guatemalan politics in the 1970s and 1980s (his predecessor, Julio CĂ©sar MĂ©ndez, while dominated by the army, was a civilian). He also served as the ambassador to Nicaragua.
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