After twenty days, the dramatic trial in Guatemala of former dictator
General Efraín Ríos Montt, has been suspended. We will see if this effort to derail the legal process is successful, but twenty days of extraordinary testimony by victims, survivors, witnesses, forensic experts, and journalists with film footage of interviews with the perpetrators and with Ríos Montt himself, have given a new, international and national public forum for evidence of the events. For details of the trial itself, see the series of posts "Genocide on Trial" here at
NISGUA (an international solidarity organization); they provide day-by-day summaries of the trial and coverage of events in Guatemala around the proceedings. Guatemala's Attorney General,
Claudia Paz y Paz, in unlikely to let the attempts to derail justice stand without her vigorous opposition, but events in Guatemala are always accompanied by the cloud of fear that comes from decades of savage state repression.
Ríos Montt attended the infamous U.S.
School of the Americas, in the early 50s, and played a minor role in the U.S.-sponsored coup against
Jacobo Arbenz, a watershed event in the history of U.S. sponsorship of terrorism in Latin America
The goal of that coup was to undo the land reforms Arbenz was
implementing, including expropriations of uncultivated land by
United Fruit Company. United Fruit drove the project
Operation "PBSuccess", the means the CIA used to orchestrate the coup, both in terms of propaganda and military action, with the
authorization of U.S presidents Truman and Eisenhower. Nicaraguan dictator Somoza and
Dominican dictator Trujillo played roles in the coup as well, just to remind us that because U.S. support for dictators did not start with the Cold War. But, I digress.
If you want to know more about the historical context for these events, I recommend reading historian
Greg Grandin's book
Empire's Workshop:Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Empire (Metropolitan 2005).
For a more dramatic presentation of interviews with participants in the coup as well as a multitude of other historical actors, it is well worth watching this part of he 3-part documentary film directed by Allan Francovich,
"The Houses are Full of Smoke". (see the other parts all
here), presents the events as told by participants in the coup. It's 60 minutes, but watch it!
During the 36 years of the
ensuing civil war in Guatemala , the military controlled the government, but internal struggles over power led to a series of coups as factions fought for power. Ríos Montt seized power himself by military coup in 1982, and implemented a scorched-earth campaign of murder, torture and terror in the Guatemalan highlands against the Maya-speaking peoples, including the Ixil, (as well as against any political opposition). He was kicked out by a different group of military For years, his responsibility in orchestrating these crimes have been well-documented, but he has had immunity from prosecution due to holding office. Now, with his prosecutorial immunity lapsed, and society and the justice system in Guatemala attempting to assert the rule of law, he is facing his accusers in court for the first time.
Current president Otto Pérez Molina was a participant in the Ixil campaigns, but was later a part of a sector in the military that wanted to end a conflict that and has been accused of complicity in a series of other crimes including murders of opposition leaders, including
Everardo Bamaca The attempt to annul the trial is being seen as an attempt to prevent future prosecutions.
The text that follows this video is the description and transcript of the video provided by Democracy Now!
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