Guatemalan lawyer travels to US to press Rios Montt genocide conviction

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian

Guatemalan lawyer travels to US to press Rios Montt genocide conviction

Prosecutor representing Ixil minority group hopes pan-American court can reinstate 80-year sentence that was quashed in May

Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent
The Guardian, Monday 4 November 2013 12.16 EST

The disrupted prosecution for genocide of the former Guatemalan dictator José Efraín Rios Montt will move onto the international stage this week when victims' relatives and their lawyers converge on Washington.

The 86-year-old former military ruler of the central American state was found guilty by a domestic court in May of ordering the massacre of 1,771 members of the Mayan Ixil people during Guatemala's civil war in the early 1980s. But 11 days later the country's constitutional court overturned the conviction and 80-year prison sentence imposed on him, throwing the complex legal process into disarray.

Montt, who remains under house arrest, was the first former head of state to have been found guilty of genocide in his country's own courts. That judgment is now effectively suspended after the constitutional court ruled the trial should restart from a late stage in the evidence.

Edgar Pérez, the lead Guatemalan prosecutor, will join members of the Ixil people to present a petition at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington seeking to enforce the conviction through international courts.



Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/04/guatemala-jose-efrain-rios-montt-genocide

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Ronald Reagan with Efrain Rios-Montt[/center]

[Judi Lynn]

1. Ronald Reagan: Accessory to Genocide

Ronald Reagan: Accessory to Genocide
May 11, 2013

Exclusive: More than any recent U.S. president, Ronald Reagan has been lavished with honors, including his name attached to Washington’s National Airport. But the conviction of Reagan’s old ally, ex-Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt, for genocide means “Ronnie” must face history’s judgment as an accessory to the crime, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

The conviction of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide against Mayan villagers in the 1980s has a special meaning for Americans who idolize Ronald Reagan. It means that their hero was an accessory to one of the most grievous crimes that can be committed against humanity.

The courage of the Guatemalan people and the integrity of their legal system to exact some accountability on a still-influential political figure also put U.S. democracy to shame. For decades now, Americans have tolerated human rights crimes by U.S. presidents who face little or no accountability. Usually, the history isn’t even compiled honestly.

By contrast, a Guatemalan court on Friday found Rios Montt guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced the 86-year-old ex-dictator to 80 years in prison. After the ruling, when Rios Montt rose and tried to walk out of the courtroom, Judge Yasmin Barrios shouted at him to stay put and then had security officers take him into custody.

Yet, while Guatemalans demonstrate the strength to face a dark chapter of their history, the American people remain mostly oblivious to Reagan’s central role in tens of thousands of political murders across Central America in the 1980s, including some 100,000 dead in Guatemala slaughtered by Rios Montt and other military dictators.

More:
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/05/11/ronaldreagan-accessory-to-genocide/