page_title: Tragic Week (Guatemala)
section_title: Unionists Party
hierarchical_section_title: Tragic Week (Guatemala) / Background / Unionists Party
caption_attribution_description: Español: Firma del Acta de los Tres dobleces en 1919.
context_page_description: The Tragic Week of 1920 was a civil uprising that took place in Guatemala in the week of April 8 to April 14, 1920, led by Unionist Party leaders, student leaders and those who opposed President Manuel Estrada Cabrera when the latter refused to leave office after the National Assembly declared him mentally incompetent for the presidency and named Carlos Herrera as interim president.
context_section_description: Several attacks had been made on president Manuel Estrada Cabrera's life, but fortune had always favored him. Even though he was a civilian, he based his power entirely on the support of the military. By declaring war on Germany during the First World War, he concocted a reason to increase his already well-equipped artillery by the addition of modern field guns, machine guns and ammunition.
  Opposition to his regime started after the 1917-1918 earthquakes, as it was evident that the President was incapable of leading recovery efforts. Urged by his cousin, Manuel Cobos Batres, the Bishop of Facelli, Piñol y Batres from the Aycinena family, began preaching against government policies in the San Francisco Church in 1919. For the first time, the Catholic Church opposed the President. Additionally, Cobos Batres was able to inspire the national sentiment of conservative criollo leaders José Azmitia, Tácito Molina, Eduardo Camacho, Emilio Escamilla, and also Julio Bianchi, into forming a Central American Unionist party and opposing the strong-arm regime of Estrada Cabrera. The Unionist party began its activities with the support of several sectors of Guatemala City society, among them the Universidad Estrada Cabrera students and the labor associations, who under the leadership of Silverio Ortiz founded the Patriotic Labor Committee.
  The new party was called "Unionist", to differentiate it from both the Liberal and Conservative parties and therefore be able to appeal to all "good willing, freedom and democracy loving" men who "dreamed of the Central American Union". The headquarters of the new party were in a house belonging to the Escamilla family which soon was known as "People's House". Tácito Molina wrote a founding declaration for the party, which was signed by fifty one citizens on 25 December 1919 and was later known as the "Three-fold Act" because it had to be folded in three when it was distributed to the citizens of the city. The document was distributed in Guatemala City until January 1, 1920.
caption: Picture taken inside the People's House -Spanish: Casa del Pueblo- on December, 1919, when the Unionists Party leaders signed the Three-fold minutes. Conservative leaders are sitting forefront.
exif: {"Image Artist": "Paulo Herrera", "Image ExifOffset": "2136", "Image XPAuthor": "Paulo Herrera", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:05:05 08:46:36", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:05:05 08:46:36", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "20", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "20", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}