Burning of the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala

In the early morning of 31 January 1980, a group of Guatemalan peasants from the Committee for Peasant Unity, joined by workers and students, entered the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City. The protesters announced that they had come to the embassy peacefully and that they would hold a press conference to state their grievances against the Guatemalan government. The protesters choose to enter the Spanish embassy as Spain had been sympathetic towards their cause. At the time the protesters entered, the Spanish Ambassador, Máximo Cajal López was meeting with former Guatemalan Vice-President Eduardo Rafael Cáceres Lehnhoff at the embassy.^[7]

The Spanish Ambassador met with the protesters and announced to the government that they hope for a peaceful negotiation to take place. Guatemalan President Fernando Romeo Lucas García and police and government officials immediately met at the National Palace and decided to remove the protesters by force from the embassy. Just before noon that same day, 300 armed state agents surrounded the building and cut the electricity, water and telephone lines. The armed agents entered the building and began to shoot at the protesters who ran to barricade themselves in the various offices. During the commotion, a fire broke out on the second floor of the embassy. As the fire blazed, the police refused to allow volunteers and firefighters to enter the building to save those trapped on the second floor. 37 people died during the fire, including the former vice-president Cáceres Lehnhoff and Vicente Menchú, father of future Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Rigoberta Menchú, as well protesters and Spanish embassy employees. There were only two survivors for the fire, the Spanish Ambassador who narrowly escaped and protester Gregorio Yujá Xona. Both were taken to Herrera Llerandi Hospital for treatment.

On 1 February, 20 armed men entered the hospital and kidnapped Gregorio Yujá Xona. His dead body was later found tortured. On him was a sign stating that the Spanish Ambassador Máximo Cajal López was next. The Ambassador, with assistance from the diplomatic staff left the hospital and fled the country. On 2 February 1980, Spain severed diplomatic relations with Guatemala over the incident at the embassy and the threat on its diplomatic staff.^[8][9]

In September 1984, Guatemala and Spain re-established diplomatic relations.^[10] In 1999, Rigoberta Menchú presented charges for torture, genocide, illegal detention and state-sponsored terrorism against former President Ríos Montt and four other retired Guatemalan generals, two of them ex-presidents in Spain as Spain's Constitutional Court ruled in 2005 that Spanish courts can try those accused of crimes against humanity even if the victims were not of Spanish origin. In July 2006, a Spanish judge ordered an arrest warrant for Ríos Montt and others accused of genocide.^[11]