If you think about war and then peace, is war really that bad? Without wars there would be virtually no human life, because no one would really have anything. Wars are certainly not all good, but they are not all bad either if there are not a certain number of them. The Guatemalan War of 1960-1996 was a successful war in the transition to peace, as they still live in a somewhat peaceful country today but are making major progress. An example of a failed transitional war to peace is the Somali civil war of 1991, which continues to this day. Corruption is one of the main topics of this essay, as it is one of the main causes of most wars in the world. The Guatemalan Civil War was one of the longest and deadliest wars ever fought in Latin America; the poor country is still recovering from this tragedy today and trying to move towards the establishment of peace. One of the reasons for the war was that before the war officially began, the United States-backed United Fruit Company had taken control of Guatemala. The indigenous Mayan people were forced to work in the company's fields. They were also tortured by the Ladino, partly European, who thought they were better than the Mayans. During the “Ten Years of Spring,” the presidencies of Juan José Arevalo and Jacob Arbenz Guzman improved the situation for the Mayan people, but the United Fruit Company did not let this happen for long. Another cause of the war was that the President of the United States was closely monitoring Guatemala and decided that their actions posed a major communist threat. After this, the United States influenced the Guatemalan military to take control of the country, with the help of the CIA, led by Carlos Castillo Armas; the communist threat was over... middle of paper ......org/military/world/war/guatemala.htm>."Civil War in Somalia." Blog. March 8, 2010. The web. July 2, 2010. .Garvin, Glenn. “Guatemala heralds a new era of peace.” Miami Herald (Miami, Florida). December 30, 1996: 1A+. SIRS researcher. Internet. July 2, 2010. http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SPASCO-0-3034&artno=0000015871 Hegstrom, Edward. “The Legacy of Fear of Civil War.” Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, Maryland). February 9, 1999: 2A. SIRS researcher. Internet. July 2, 2010. http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SPASCO-0-6442&artno=0000096805&type=ART Gordon, Dan. “History of Guatemala’s Civil War: A look at the country’s 36 years of armed conflict.” Suite101.com: online magazine and writers' network. March 1, 2008. The web. July 2 2010. .