{"id":161904,"date":"2018-04-28T01:32:49","date_gmt":"2018-04-28T05:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=161904"},"modified":"2018-04-28T01:32:49","modified_gmt":"2018-04-28T05:32:49","slug":"ex-president-who-signed-accord-ending-guatemalas-war-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/04\/28\/ex-president-who-signed-accord-ending-guatemalas-war-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-president who signed accord ending Guatemala’s war dies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE:<\/a>
FILE: Alvaro Arz\u00fa in February 2014 (Photo By Guatemalanoticiasya – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

GUATEMALA CITY — Former Guatemalan President Alvaro Arzu, who signed the 1996 peace accord ending the country’s civil war and later became mayor of the capital, died Friday. He was 72.<\/p>\n

Arzu was playing golf with friends when he suffered a heart attack, Guatemala City official Rosa Maria Bolanos told local media. He was taken to a medical centre, but did not survive.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuatemala has lost a great man who dedicated his life to service. Statesman, leader and true friend,\u201d President Jimmy Morales, who counted Arzu as an ally, said via Twitter.<\/p>\n

Arzu was one of the country’s most influential politicians and was elected mayor of Guatemala City five times, a position he held at the time of his death. Arzu’s son is the president of Congress.<\/p>\n

Last year, prosecutors accused Arzu of campaign finance violations in which companies funneled money through his Unionist party, but he was immune from prosecution while holding elected office as mayor.<\/p>\n

He was also investigated for providing support to Byron Lima, a former army captain imprisoned for the killing of Monsignor Juan Jose Gerardi in 1998, while Arzu was president. Lima had been part of Arzu’s personal security team.<\/p>\n

Arzu served as Guatemala’s president from 1996 to 2000. He helped broker the peace accords that ended the country’s 36-year civil war.<\/p>\n

Loved by some and despised by others, Arzu was a polemical politician.<\/p>\n

He had a terrible relationship with the press, which he often labelled as \u201csold\u201d for reporting on accusations of corruption against him. When the Guatemalan military awarded him a prize for leadership in January, he told them to \u201cgo over the heads of the negative press.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Guatemalan government planned to give him state honours on Saturday and his burial was scheduled for Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GUATEMALA CITY — Former Guatemalan President Alvaro Arzu, who signed the 1996 peace accord ending the country’s civil war and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":161905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[50354,462],"class_list":["post-161904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","tag-alvaro-arzu","tag-guatemala","mauthors-sonia-perez-d","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}