Mario Payeras: The Peregrine Falcon That Took up Arms

Mario Payeras, born in Chimaltenango, Guatemala, in 1940. Philosopher, poet, short story writer, and guerrilla commander who dedicated much of his life to building a dignified life for the Guatemalan population. This article seeks to trace the motives that led Mario Payeras, later known as Commander Benedicto, to organize and take up arms in the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP). This is understood not only in the context of the Cold War and the emergence of armed movements in the region, but also in light of the rise and fall of the October Revolution (1944—1954) in Guatemala, as Payeras witnessed the triumph of the counterrevolution carried out by local and regional oligarchies and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America. Likewise, some aspects of Payeras’s thought are presented, based on his political, philosophical, and poetic work, regarding his perspective on how the country’s popular revolutionary war should be carried out. Mario Payeras was a man whose most exceptional quality was his ability to self-criticize his organization’s guerrilla strategy and his own revolutionary work.