Tales of Reagan’s Guatemala Genocide
Tales of Reagan’s Guatemala Genocide
April 16, 2013
Exclusive: Guatemala is finally putting ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt on trial for genocide in the extermination of hundreds of Mayan villages in the 1980s, but Ronald Reagan remains an American icon despite new evidence of his complicity in this historic crime, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The first month of the genocide trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt has elicited chilling testimony from Mayan survivors who – as children – watched their families slaughtered by a right-wing military that was supported and supplied by U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
As the New York Times reportedon Monday, “In the tortured logic of military planning documents conceived under Mr. Ríos Montt’s 17-month rule during 1982 and 1983, the entire Mayan Ixil population was a military target, children included. Officers wrote that the leftist guerrillas fighting the government had succeeded in indoctrinating the impoverished Ixils and reached ‘100 percent support.’”
So, everyone was targeted in these scorched-earth campaigns that eradicated more than 600 Indian villages in the Guatemalan highlands. But this genocide was not simply the result of a twisted anticommunist ideology that dominated the Guatemalan military and political elites. This genocide also was endorsed by the Reagan administration.
A document that I discovered recently in the archives of the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, revealed that Reagan and his national security team in 1981 agreed to supply military aid to the brutal right-wing regime in Guatemala to pursue the goal of exterminating not only “Marxist guerrillas” but people associated with their “civilian support mechanisms.”
More:
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/04/16/grichilling-tales-of-reagans-guatemala-genocide/
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Guatemala: photos from the Rios Montt genocide tribunal
Xeni Jardin at 6:42 am Thu, Apr 11
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An Ixil Maya woman assists another witness from her community with "Beats by
Dr. Dre" headphones supplied by the court for translation audio from Spanish to Ixil.
Rios Montt enters the courtroom with his daughter, Zury Rios, who is a prominent political
and social figure here in Guatemala. Her husband is former US congressman Jerry Weller. [/font][/center]
Posted 11/21/2004 11:19 AM
Illinois congressman weds daughter of former dictator
ANTIGUA, Guatemala (AP) — They met during a trade mission, and despite controversy over their engagement, U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller of Illinois and the outspoken daughter of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt tied the knot Saturday in a civil ceremony.
About 300 people — including Rios Montt — attended the wedding of the Republican congressman from central Illinois and Zury Rios Sosa, a 36-year-old Guatemalan senator. Security was tight as the two exchanged wedding vows at a mansion belonging to the former dictator.
Rios Sosa wore a creamed-colored, strapless dress, Weller a black suit. U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala John Hamilton also attended.
A large security team watched the home, which also was encircled by a high stone wall topped by electrified wire, in this colonial mountain town popular with tourists.
Weller's opponents criticized the engagement because Rios Montt, a retired general who seized control of Guatemala for 18 months in 1982-83, is accused of leading one of the bloodiest campaigns in the nation's 36-year civil war, which killed 200,000 people.
More:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-11-21-congressman-guatemalan-wed_x.htm
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Republican Rep. Jerry Weller & Zury Rios
Efrain Rios-Montt, friend, supporter Ronald Reagan[/center]
Reagan was a monster. I have no doubt he was deeply connected and conscious of the genocide being committed against Mayans in Guatemala. He simply didn't care. The right-wing simply doesn't care. Impunity empowers them. This will only change when they started being punished for their crimes.
Reagan was also the father of neoliberalism in Latin America. Thatcher, of course, was the mother.
Together they had "lovely" puppies, such as Menem in Argentina, Cardoso in Brazil, Fujimori in Peru, Banzer in Bolivia, etc, etc, etc.
