Leonel Aguilar

  

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Aguilar and the second or maternal family name is Murillo.

His Excellency Leonel Aguilar
Aguilar in 2015
1st President of Central America
In office May 2, 1987 – May 2, 1992
Deputy	Sebastian Mejía Estuardo Araya
Preceded by	Alonzo de Guzmán (acting)
Succeeded by	Geovanni Valverde
Leader of the Nationalist Party
In office January 16, 1987 – May 2, 1992
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Sebastian Mejía
3rd Governor of Guatemala
In office January 16, 1993 – November 1, 1999
Secretary of Foreign Affairs
In office February 3, 2000 – September 19, 2004
Secretary of Education
In office September 19, 2004 – May 2, 2007
Personal details
Born	(1935-12-06) December 6, 1935 Guatemala City, Republic of Guatemala
Political party	Republican Unionist (1956–1970) Independent (1970–1986) Nationalist (1986–present)
Spouse(s)	Patricia Conedera
Children	4
Alma mater	Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Roman Catholic
Nickname(s)	"Leon"
Additional political offices 1956–1966: Guatemala City Councilman 1966–1970: Member of the Guatemalan National Congress 1970–1974: Ambassador to Sierra 1974–1980: Permanent Representative to the League of Nations 1980–1985: Secretary of Foreign Affairs 1985–1987: President of the Republic of Guatemala

Leonel Aguilar Murillo (born December 6, 1935) is a Central American statesman who became the first elected President of the Federation of Central America from 1987 until 1992. He began his career in local politics in the Republic of Guatemala, and rose to become one of the few civilian leaders of the Guatemalan military government during the decades-long Guatemalan Civil War. He had a reputation as being a moderate and favored ending the war through negotiations, and therefore was chosen by the military leaders to represent Guatemala abroad, first as ambassador to Guatemala's closest ally, Sierra, and later to the League of Nations. Aguilar was the country's Secretary of Foreign Affairs during the Central American crisis and in that position helped end the civil war, institute democratic reforms, and bring about a similar end to the conflicts in other Central American states. He was also a leading advocate of restoring a unified Central American state as a way of ending the century-long pattern of regional instability, leading to the creation of the Federation of Central America in 1987. Aguilar, along with Sierran prime minister Mitchell Ford and Continental president Simon Valure, jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for ending the Central American crisis. He continued his political career during the 1990s and early 2000s before retiring in 2007.

Born and raised in Guatemala City, Aguilar graduated from University of San Carlos of Guatemala with a law degree. He decided to go into politics after witnessing the 1953 coup d'état engineered by Sierra and the Antilles as a college student, which overthrew President Armando Carías for attempting to nationalize land and infrastructure owned by the United Fruit Company. He began his career on the Guatemala City Council as a member of the far-right Republican Unionist Party in 1956, during which time he played a role in developing the city's public transportation system, before getting elected to the National Congress in 1966. Although Aguilar was an anti-Landonist and opposed the MR-13 and other left-wing insurgent groups that started fighting the government in the 1960s, he was also a nationalist who opposed UFC and other foreign companies owning large parts of Guatemala, not paying taxes, and being exempt from local laws. He continued working within the system, and in 1970 the elected civilian government of President Julio Mendoza appointed Aguilar as ambassador to Sierra, where he negotiated with Henry Kissinger the deployment of additional Sierran military advisors to Guatemala to assist in the campaign against leftist revolutionaries. Aguilar would later be criticized for this and his overall role in assisting Mendoza's "White Terror" against peasants accused of supporting or harboring Landonist–Marxist rebels, during which Mendoza gave the military the authority to carry out an unrestricted pacification campaign against the leftist insurgents in the countryside.

In the early 1970s Aguilar was successful in convincing the Sierran administration of Walter Zhou, in part with the help of Kissinger, to continue military assistance to Guatemala despite the disappearances of thousands of Guatemalans at the hands of anti-Landonist death squads in rural areas for being suspected communists. At the same time, Aguilar attempted to use his influence to get the government to rein in their activities and stop the excesses, including after the killings of several San Marcos University law students who published a list of victims of the paramilitaries. In 1974 he became Guatemala's representative to the League of Nations, where he always sided in votes with Sierra and the Western allies against the United Commonwealth-led Eastern Bloc. In 1980, he was appointed as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and remained in that position in a series of military governments that attempted to end the growing insurgency through increasing brutality. Aguilar brought attention to the atrocities to get the Sierran government of Kirk Siskind to pressure General Roberto Márquez to stop his campaign, and in 1983 he supported a military coup that overthrew Márquez to open talks with the rebels and begin a transition to democracy. When the military gave up power in 1985, Aguilar was appointed as interim president of Guatemala, and he released all arrested dissidents and ended the military's campaign. He also worked to bring an end to the Nicaraguan Revolution and the Salvadoran Civil War in a similar fashion, and promoted the creation of a Central American federation as a way of ending conflict and instability in the region.

In the fall of 1985 he was one of the lead negotiators of the Treaty of Sonsonate and the Sonsonate Peace Accords, which ended the conflicts and created the constitution for the Federation of Central America. The talks took place involving the Guatemalan and Salvadoran military governments, and Nicaraguan Contras, the main leftist rebel groups from those countries (PGT, FMLN, and Sandanistas), and the governments of Honduras and Costa Rica, as well as foreign mediators (Sierra, Mexico, and the United Commonwealth). After the creation of the Federation, Aguilar became its first elected president in 1987, and remained in office until 1992. He focused on establishing a strong judiciary and other government institutions, civilian control over the military, and a unified Central American identity. He created the new state of Los Altos in 1990 by splitting part of Guatemala. After leaving the presidency he ran for Governor of his home state, Guatemala, serving in that position from 1993 to 1999, before returning to the federal government as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and later Secretary of Education in the Nationalist administrations of Alonzo de Guzmán and Isaías Núñez Arias. During that time Aguilar focused on increasing Central America's ties with its Anglo-American allies, leading to it joining the Conference of American States in 2002, and policies that strengthened the country's united national identity. He retired from politics in 2007.

In the 21st century Aguilar is viewed positively by Central Americans for his role in ending the wars and creating a unified Central American Federation, but he is also sometimes criticized for his role in the military government and not doing enough to prevent human rights abuses by the Guatemalan military, including the operations of far-right paramilitary death squads. In 2016, he was called to testify at an international tribunal held in Switzerland under LN supervision against certain Guatemalan generals who were involved in the disappearances of thousands of civilians accused of being communists.