signing the Firm and Lasting Agreement. The conclusion of the peace talks led the URNG to pursue the registration as a legal party inside the Guatemalan political system in June 1997. The group was formally registered as a political party in December 1998. Civil war era In March 1982, only one month after their formation, the URNG experienced an attack ordered by then president, retired General Efraín Ríos Montt. Backed by the CIA, Ríos Montt led a "scorched-earth" counter-insurgency campaign against the URNG and its supporters until he was toppled the following year. During his rule, Rios Montt tried to eradicate the insurgency by banning the activities of political parties and commiting various massacres against the population in the Guatemalan highlands, thereby removing the recruitment pool of the URNG. He and his associates ascribed critique on their measures to an "international communist conspiracy" of which Amnesty International and the Catholic Church were also a part of. Ríos Montt's eventual downfall from power followed a similar path as his ascension, with a coup by his Minister of Defence Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores in August 1983. His overthrow ended the bloodiest episode of the civil war and the Guatemalan genocide, in which approximately 150,000 civilians were killed between mid 1981 and 1983. The Victoria 82 campaign, as it was called by Ríos Montt, proved to be highly successful against the guerrilla though, which had to retreat to remote rural zones, while its leadership fled to Mexico City. It also hampered the merging process of the divergent groups considerably, as streamlined and unified logistics could only be arranged by 1986. Additionally devastating for the guerrilla was the renewed support from the USA to the Guatemalan military upon the Reagan administration taking office in January 1981. The militant PGT splinter groups saw their base wiped-out, following the capture and coerced conversion of an important commander in their ranks. The political wing of the PGT also faced a major crisis, after unsuccessfully trying to reorganize itself in its former northern strongholds of Alta Verapaz, as this plan was thwarted by the military. The social disarticulation and continuous assassinations of its members eventually led to its exhaustion by 1986, which prompted them to mend their relationship with the URNG. The URNG employed ambushes and raids on government security forces as their main tactic, and also performed bombings and assassinations. They attacked the military, government officials, as