Truthdiggers of the Week: Judges, Prosecutors of Efraín Ríos Montt

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9. Efrain Rios Montt: The "Christian" mass-murderer

...A CIA-backed coup brought Rios Montt to power in 1983. President Ronald Reagan supported him right down the line, sending him huge amounts of military aid even though Rios Montt's mass-murdering ways were infamous throughout the world...

Back in the 1980s, Rios Montt received tons of favorable coverage (and money) from American televangelists Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart and Jerry Falwell, because the Guatemalan dictator was a Pentacostal Protestant who loved to caterwaul about how much he loved Jesus, even as his soldiers raped and slaughtered indiscriminately. I suspect, but cannot prove, that American intelligence used these fundamentalist churches as "cover" for sending funds to the Guatemalan regime.

Rios Montt belonged to a California-based ministry called Verbo, or the Church of the Word, a subsidiary of a larger organization called Gospel Outreach. Over the years, many a spook-watcher has suggested that this missionary group his provided cover for a Certain Interesting Agency. (See, for example, this website.) In many ways, the Agency made a tactical error when it allowed this man to lead a coup in a traditionally Catholic country, because his fervent Protestant evangelism alienated most Guatemalans. Even members of the conservative elite who might otherwise have supported the right came to despise Rios Montt...

"Rios Montt is a dictator who came in with all these promises, and yet, what did he do?" Goldman says. "He abolished all press freedom. There's less press freedom now in Guatemala than there has been for the last 30 years. No political parties are allowed. No union activity. Search and seizure without warrants are conducted. A three-man military tribunal can sentence anybody to anything, including death."

Here's a chilling thought: Much of that description now applies to our own country. Unions have been largely crushed. The feds need no warrant to scoop up your emails and cell phone calls. Most of the press will soon be owned by Murdoch and the Kochs. Anyone declared an "enemy combatant" can be blasted to atoms by a killer drone, without trial...

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-christian-mass-murderer.html

Shocking that none of the right-wing apologists in this 'group' have come to condemn Montt and Reagan.