AMY GOODMAN: In an historic verdict, former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt was found guilty Friday of genocide and crimes against humanity and was sentenced to 80 years in prison. Judge Yassmin Barrios announced the verdict on Friday.
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For the first time in history an ex-head of state goes down for genocide. Ríos Montt becomes the first for former state to be found guilty of genocide in his or her own country. Ríos Montt was a close ally of the United States. Trained and supplied by the US, the Guatemalan government killed 250,000, almost all peasants and Indians. More prosecutions are expected, and some are trying to nail US figures such as Negroponte*.
President Ronald Reagan once called Rios Montt, "A man of great personal integrity."
Rigoberta Menchu, a Mayan Indian woman who lost her mother, father, and brother in the genocide (tortured and shot) was an activist who fled the country decades ago. Ten years ago she started filing legal attacks on the generals and a trial was held in Spain that helped lead to the Guatemalan trial. She now lives back in Guatemala and attended the trial, along with hundreds of Mayan who literally risked death to be there.
The first woman attorney general of Guatemala, Dr. Claudia Paz y Paz, (from Forbes) "Since assuming office in 2010, she has worked hard to bring justice to notorious organized crime bosses, human rights abusers and perpetrators of widespread gender-based violence. In a country confronting serious challenges to the rule of law, she has significantly increased the number of prosecutions and convictions." A woman of great courage, she was willing to take on the oligarchy, a very dangerous position.
Judge Yassmin Barrios at one point was threatened by a man who put a revolver on the table in front of her and said, "We know where you children are." She is now a national hero to some, to the oligarchy a hated figure. She leaves the court wearing a bullet proof vest and is facing a smear campaign by the oligarchy, who publicly accuse her of being a dirty guerrilla, a hysterical Nazi.
from the Democracy Now! article that illuminates the mind set of the elite:
And just to give you an idea of the kind of environment theyre operating in, theres a piece that just came out in Plaza Pública, one of thekind of the leading political magazine in Guatemala, where they interview the families of the military, who have been protesting against the Ríos Montt trial. These are young people, now extremely rich because of all their money their parents stole in the military. And one of the topics that they talk about in this interview is the rape charges against the generals and colonels, because witness after witness talked about how indigenous women would be raped in the course of these massacre operations. And one of the military family men says that, "Well, yes, these rapessome of these rapes may have happened, but they didnt happen as a rule." And he then defends the military men by saying he doesnt think that they would systematically rape the indigenous women, and he then uses language so vile that I cant repeat it on the air. But the essence of his argument is thathis argument is not that they wouldnt have done it because it would be wrong to rape or because its against the law to rape or because these military men have honor or because its indecent to rape; his point was that they wouldnt have committed these mass rapes because they wouldnt havebecause of personal characteristics of the indigenous women, they would not have found them desirable. But he expresses it in the most disgusting language you can imagine. This is the oligarchy that has now beenand the military, that has now been stung by this verdict and is itching for payback.
*"The mandate that the judge gave, the order to the attorney general, Judge Barrioss order to the attorney general, Paz y Paz, to further investigate everyone involved in Ríos Montts crimes, that could encompass U.S. officials, because the U.S. military attachés in Guatemala, the CIA people who were on the ground aiding the G2 military intelligence unit, the policy-making officials back in Washington, people like Elliott Abrams and the other high officials of the Reagan administration, they were direct accessories to and accomplices to the Guatemalan military. There were supplying money, weapons, political support, intelligence. They, under the lawunder international and Guatemalan law, they could be charged. The courts and the attorney general could have right to seek their extradition from the U.S. Also, in the investigation process, they could subpoena U.S. documents, because there would be extensive reports and National Security Agency intercepts of Guatemalan army communications from that period, and there would also be still-classified reports on exactly what the CIA and the DIA and the White House and the State Department were doing with Ríos Montt and with the commanders in the field, people like, well, before Ríos Montt, General Benedicto Lucas García, afterward Pérez Molina. So, both President Pérez Molina and the U.S. are now potential targets for criminal investigation for these crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity in Guatemala."
For the first time in history an ex-head of state goes down for genocide. Ríos Montt becomes the first for former state to be found guilty of genocide in his or her own country. Ríos Montt was a close ally of the United States. Trained and supplied by the US, the Guatemalan government killed 250,000, almost all peasants and Indians. More prosecutions are expected, and some are trying to nail US figures such as Negroponte*.
President Ronald Reagan once called Rios Montt, "A man of great personal integrity."
Rigoberta Menchu, a Mayan Indian woman who lost her mother, father, and brother in the genocide (tortured and shot) was an activist who fled the country decades ago. Ten years ago she started filing legal attacks on the generals and a trial was held in Spain that helped lead to the Guatemalan trial. She now lives back in Guatemala and attended the trial, along with hundreds of Mayan who literally risked death to be there.
The first woman attorney general of Guatemala, Dr. Claudia Paz y Paz, (from Forbes) "Since assuming office in 2010, she has worked hard to bring justice to notorious organized crime bosses, human rights abusers and perpetrators of widespread gender-based violence. In a country confronting serious challenges to the rule of law, she has significantly increased the number of prosecutions and convictions." A woman of great courage, she was willing to take on the oligarchy, a very dangerous position.
Judge Yassmin Barrios at one point was threatened by a man who put a revolver on the table in front of her and said, "We know where you children are." She is now a national hero to some, to the oligarchy a hated figure. She leaves the court wearing a bullet proof vest and is facing a smear campaign by the oligarchy, who publicly accuse her of being a dirty guerrilla, a hysterical Nazi.
from the Democracy Now! article that illuminates the mind set of the elite:
And just to give you an idea of the kind of environment theyre operating in, theres a piece that just came out in Plaza Pública, one of thekind of the leading political magazine in Guatemala, where they interview the families of the military, who have been protesting against the Ríos Montt trial. These are young people, now extremely rich because of all their money their parents stole in the military. And one of the topics that they talk about in this interview is the rape charges against the generals and colonels, because witness after witness talked about how indigenous women would be raped in the course of these massacre operations. And one of the military family men says that, "Well, yes, these rapessome of these rapes may have happened, but they didnt happen as a rule." And he then defends the military men by saying he doesnt think that they would systematically rape the indigenous women, and he then uses language so vile that I cant repeat it on the air. But the essence of his argument is thathis argument is not that they wouldnt have done it because it would be wrong to rape or because its against the law to rape or because these military men have honor or because its indecent to rape; his point was that they wouldnt have committed these mass rapes because they wouldnt havebecause of personal characteristics of the indigenous women, they would not have found them desirable. But he expresses it in the most disgusting language you can imagine. This is the oligarchy that has now beenand the military, that has now been stung by this verdict and is itching for payback.
*"The mandate that the judge gave, the order to the attorney general, Judge Barrioss order to the attorney general, Paz y Paz, to further investigate everyone involved in Ríos Montts crimes, that could encompass U.S. officials, because the U.S. military attachés in Guatemala, the CIA people who were on the ground aiding the G2 military intelligence unit, the policy-making officials back in Washington, people like Elliott Abrams and the other high officials of the Reagan administration, they were direct accessories to and accomplices to the Guatemalan military. There were supplying money, weapons, political support, intelligence. They, under the lawunder international and Guatemalan law, they could be charged. The courts and the attorney general could have right to seek their extradition from the U.S. Also, in the investigation process, they could subpoena U.S. documents, because there would be extensive reports and National Security Agency intercepts of Guatemalan army communications from that period, and there would also be still-classified reports on exactly what the CIA and the DIA and the White House and the State Department were doing with Ríos Montt and with the commanders in the field, people like, well, before Ríos Montt, General Benedicto Lucas García, afterward Pérez Molina. So, both President Pérez Molina and the U.S. are now potential targets for criminal investigation for these crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity in Guatemala."