Rios Montt Verdict Day. Sanchez statements. Verdict at 4PM Central today

[Catherina]

55. One more thing. Happy Mother's Day Guatemalan Indigenous Women

Last edited Fri May 10, 2013, 09:14 PM - Edit history (1)

I hope this is just the start of things because Rios Montt is just the tip of the iceberg.

The judge spoke of a reparations trial, which is only fair since 8 out of 10 indigenous people live in squalid poverty, but at my age, I no longer hold my breath.

Rios Montt was correct when he said this was a political show. Guatemala and the Obama administration want to overturn the Carter era congressional ban on sending weapons to Guatemala. The current government and the Obama administration made a deal that Rios Montt would be the sacrificial lamb to show Guatemala was just zipping along in improving its atrocious Human Rights record and the US Congress could then lift the ban without too much of an outcry from activists. The Guatemalan deal was that the current President wouldn't be implicated or mentioned in the trial. He was. Early on and quite forcefully. The trial was immediately shut down and only continued because of this courageous young female Judge Barrios.

So Rioss Montt, whose people litter Guatemala's political and business landscape was sent to a cushy jail and the Maya Ixils might get a few pennies in reparation.

This isn't justice yet.

Where are all his accomplices? Where is the Reagan administration? Where are all his US advisors? Where is School of the Americas, renamed but still as genocidal as ever? It was a US officer named Captain Jesse Garcia who trained them how to implement their sweep technique. One of the trainings was how to enter a room with 10 people quietly sitting around the dinner table and shoot them all. Where is this asshole?

A US Green Beret, Captain Jesse Garcia showed me how, under Rios Montt, he was training Guatemalan troops in the techniques of how to "destroy towns." (Allan Nairn, "Despite Ban, U.S. Captain Trains Guatemalan Military," Washington Post, October 21, 1982, page 1).

http://www.allannairn.org/2013/05/the-guatemala-genocide-case-testimony.html

Where are the US evangelical pastors and their congregations who funneled millions to him? Where's Pat Robertson?

Where are the US Senators who kept supporting him despite pleas from the Pope himself?

There were 259,000 slaughtered and at least twice that displaced.

No, no, this is not over yet. This was just a symbolic start or symbolic distraction. There's still a long, long way to go.


Ms. Caba Ijom told this reporter she was 8 years old when her entire family was killed by the Army in 1982. Soldiers then tied her hands and feet and threw her into a river, breaking her legs. "I survived," she said. Photo: Xeni Jardin