GUATEMALA EX-DICTATOR RIOS MONTT TO STAND 2ND GENOCIDE TRIAL

[Judi Lynn]

Mar 31, 6:18 PM EDT



GUATEMALA CITY (AP) -- Guatemala will hold a second trial for former dictator Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

This trial is about the killing of at least 200 people in a rural northern part of the country during its bloody civil war.

Rios Montt is also accused in a separate case over the killing by soldiers of nearly 2,000 indigenous Ixil Guatemalans during his 1982-83 regime.

Both are special trials to be held behind closed doors and cannot result in prison time due to his advanced age and delicate health. Instead, they seek to determine whether he is responsible.

More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_GUATEMALA_RIOS_MONTT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-03-31-18-18-17

[Judi Lynn]

1. Former Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt to face second genocide trial

Sat Apr 1, 2017 | 11:26pm EDT
Former Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt to face second genocide trial


A judge this week ordered former Guatemalan dictator Efrian Rios Montt to stand for a second trial on genocide charges, this time for the deaths of some 200 people in the 1982 Dos Erres Massacre, human rights authorities said on Friday.

The 90-year-old Montt is facing another trial for genocide in a separate case involving the Mayan Ixil population, which has been delayed repeatedly by his defense team. In August 2015, the former leader was declared medically unfit to face a standard trial.

Judge Claudette Domínguez still has to select a date for the second trial to begin.

The Dos Erres massacre, which took place over three days in December 1982, was the work of a counterinsurgency unit known as the Kaibiles in the rural village of Dos Erres in northern Guatemala. The soldiers shot, strangled and bludgeoned the villagers to death with sledgehammers, and one admitted to throwing a baby into the village well.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-guatemala-rights-montt-idUSKBN17402W?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FworldNews+%28Reuters+World+News%29&&rpc=401

[Judi Lynn]

2. Useful: Guatemala profile - Timeline

Guatemala profile - Timeline
3 January 2017

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19636725

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History Commons:
US-Guatemala (1901-2002)

http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=guatemala

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Guatemalan Slaughter Was Part of Reagan’s Hard Line

Greg Grandin

Greg Grandin is a professor of history at New York University and a fellow at the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He is the author of the forthcoming "Empire of Necessity."

UPDATED MAY 21, 2013, 1:54 PM

In 1966, the U.S. Army’s Handbook of Counterinsurgency Guidelines summarized the results of a war game waged in a fictitious country unmistakably modeled on Guatemala. The rules allowed players to use “selective terror” but prohibited “mass terror.” “Genocide,” the guidelines stipulated, was “not an alternative.”

A decade and a half later, genocide was indeed an option in Guatemala, supported materially and morally by Ronald Reagan’s White House. Reagan famously took a hard line in Central America, coming under strong criticism for supporting the contras in Nicaragua and financing counterinsurgency in El Salvador.

His administration’s actions in Guatemala are less well known, but even before his 1980 election, two retired generals, who played prominent roles in Reagan’s campaign, reportedly traveled to Central America and told Guatemalan officials that “Mr. Reagan recognizes that a good deal of dirty work has to be done.”

Once in office, Reagan, continued to supply munitions and training to the Guatemalan army, despite a ban on military aid imposed by the Carter administration (existing contracts were exempt from the ban). And economic aid continued to flow, increasing to $104 million in 1986, from $11 million in 1980, nearly all of it going to the rural western highlands, where the Mayan victims of the genocide lived.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/05/19/what-guilt-does-the-us-bear-in-guatemala/guatemalan-slaughter-was-part-of-reagans-hard-line

ETC., ETC.,  ETC.,  ETC.,  ETC.,  ETC.,  ETC.

[Judi Lynn]

3. American Conservative Christian Leaders Enabled Genocidal Guatemalan Dictator Rios Montt

May 19, 2013
American Conservative “Christian” Leaders Enabled Genocidal Guatemalan Dictator Rios Montt

... ... Pat Robertson had praised Ríos Montt for his 'enlightened leadership' and claimed that the dictator insisted on 'honesty in government.' Observed Robertson, 'I was in Guatemala three days after Ríos Montt overthrew the corrupt (previous) government. The people had been dancing in the street for joy. ...

Keeble McFARLANE

Jamaica Observer, May 18, 2013

RONALD Reagan once described him as "a man of great personal integrity and commitment". Erfaín Ríos Montt, in the course of a long military career dating back to the early 1950s, displayed very little integrity but certainly a lot of commitment to eradicating the indigenous people of his native Guatemala who were guilty of nothing more than wanting to exist and make a living.

In the course of a 17-month stint as president in 1982-83, he led a scorched-earth campaign which took the lives of 1,771 Mayans. At least, that's the number actually documented by prosecutors who secured his appearance before three Guatemala n judges. Last week, they found him guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.

It was a historic decision, for never before has a country's judicial process found one of its own former heads of state guilty of such crimes. Monumental as it is, the task leaves much unfinished business. Ríos Montt was, by no means, solely responsible for the systematic brutality and genocide unleashed against the poorest citizens of that beautiful Central American country.

Many others remain to be brought to trial, and the stain is not confined within the boundaries of Guatemala . The United States, beginning with President Eisenhower — initiated, encouraged and sponsored much of the brutality on the grounds of fighting communism.

American evangelical leaders also played a huge part in supporting Ríos Montt who, after falling out with the Roman Catholic Church, fell under the influence of American Pentecostal "God Squads" and became a born-again member and passionate preacher in the Iglesia del Verbo (Church of the Word). Big names on the US evangelical circuit — like Jerry Falwell , Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggart, Loren Cunningham and Pat Robertson — adopted him. Through their offices, he was introduced to the White House when Reagan became its occupant in 1981.

More:
http://www.constantinereport.com/american-conservative-christian-leaders-supported-genocidal-guatemalan-dictator-rios-montt/

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