Guatemala Issues - 2023

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES 

Disputes - international

Guatemala-Belize: Demarcated but insecure boundary due to Guatemala’s claims to more than half of Belizean territory.  Line of Adjacency operates in lieu of an international boundary to control influx of Guatemalan squatters onto Belizean territory. Smuggling, narcotics trafficking, and human trafficking for sexual exploitation and debt bondage are all problems. Belize lacks resources to detect and extradite impoverished Guatemalan peasants squatting in Belizean rain forests in the remote border areas. Both countries agreed in April 2012 to hold simultaneous referenda, scheduled for 6 October 2013, to decide whether to refer the dispute to the ICJ for binding resolution, but this vote was suspended indefinitely. At present, Belize and Honduras 12-nm territorial sea claims close off Guatemalan access to Caribbean in the Bahia de Amatique. Maritime boundary remains unresolved pending further negotiation.

Guatemala-Mexico: Mexico must deal with thousands of impoverished Guatemalans and other Central Americans who cross the porous border looking for work in Mexico and the US.

Refugees and internally displaced persons

IDPs: 243,000 (more than three decades of internal conflict that ended in 1996 displaced mainly the indigenous Maya population and rural peasants; ongoing drug cartel and gang violence) (2021)

Illicit drugs

a major transit country for illegal drugs; illicit cultivation of opium poppies, marijuana, and coca plants in rural areas; a major source of precursor or essential chemicals used in the production of illicit narcotics

 

NOTE: The information regarding Guatemala on this page is re-published from the 2023 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and other sources. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Guatemala 2023 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Guatemala 2023 should be addressed to the CIA or the source cited on each page.