Guatemalan president accused of involvement in civil war atrocities

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Guatemalan president accused of involvement in civil war atrocities

Former soldier tells trial that Otto Pérez Molina ordered soldiers to burn and pillage during 1980s war

Associated Press in Guatemala City
guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 April 2013 03.40 EDT

A former soldier has implicated the Guatemalan president, Otto Pérez Molina, in civil war atrocities during the trial of the former US-backed military strongman Efraín Ríos Montt, proceedings that have heard witnesses recount a litany of horrors.

Hugo Reyes, a soldier who was a mechanic in an engineering brigade in the area where atrocities were carried out, told the court that Pérez Molina, then an army major, ordered soldiers to burn and pillage during Guatemala's dirty war with leftist guerrillas in the 1980s.

"The soldiers, on orders from Major 'Tito Arias', better known as Otto Pérez Molina … co-ordinated the burning and looting, in order to later execute people," Reyes told the court by video link.

Pérez Molina, who retired as a general, was elected president for the conservative Patriotic party and assumed office on 14 January 2012. As president, Pérez Molina is protected by amnesty granted to public officials and cannot be subpoenaed.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/05/guatemalan-president-accused-civil-war

[idwiyo]

1. K&R

[Solly Mack]

2. kr

[a la izquierda]

3. Anybody who followed the Guatemalan elections...

knew, or at least suspected this.

Thanks for posting, and KnR for visibility.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Very gory closer look at this man's testimony:

Efrain Rios Montt Trial: Soldier Implicates Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina In Civil War Atrocities
By SONIA PEREZ-DIAZ 04/04/13 11:43 PM ET EDT AP

~snip~
The secretary general of the presidency, Gustavo Martinez, called the testimony "poorly intentioned declarations and in bad faith." He said the presidency reserves the right to take action against Reyes.

In line with the gruesome testimony that has marked the trial of Rios Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, Reyes described what happened in one massacre in the early 1980s.

"The people who were to be executed arrived at the camp beaten, tortured, their tongues cut out, their fingernails pulled out," he said.

Rios Montt is on trial along with his former head of intelligence in connection with the deaths of 1,771 Mayan Indians during the military dictatorship he led from March 23, 1982 to Aug. 8, 1983, during which he led a U.S.-backed counterinsurgency against guerrillas.

The court also heard testimony from the victims of massacres. Some told the judges about the shelling of villages, beheadings and body parts kicked around like soccer balls.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/05/efrain-rios-montt-trial_n_3020052.html?utm_hp_ref=world