Guatemala's Rios Montt found guilty of genocide
Source: BBC
10 May 2013 Last updated at 23:05 GMT
A court in Guatemala has found former military leader Efrain Rios Montt guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.
Judges in Guatemala City sentenced the 86-year-old to 80 years in prison.
Rios Montt was convicted of ordering the deaths of 1,771 people of the Ixil Maya ethnic group during his time in office in 1982 and 1983.
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Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22490408
enough
(13,262 posts)byeya
(2,842 posts)thucythucy
(8,086 posts)SharonAnn
(13,778 posts)timdog44
(1,388 posts)"President Ríos Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment. ... I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice."1
Guess who said this?
2ndAmForComputers
(3,527 posts)timdog44
(1,388 posts)Now my next question is - why do Latin American people hate the USA? But you already know that.
The same reason we are hated around the world.
The Magistrate
(95,252 posts)MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)in favor of Rios Montt. Good to see that it wasn't.
pmorlan1
(2,096 posts)I won't celebrate until all appeals are exhausted.
yonder
(9,669 posts)let's hope the sentence is upheld through the appeals process
lsewpershad
(2,620 posts)for all world leaders....justice ....justice ...justice....
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)intervention. They were absolutely rapturous about a real born again and "Spirit-filled" Christian taking power in Latin America.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)I went to a spanish immersion school in Quetzeltenango Guatemala (ICA) just two years after the end of the civil war. Rios Montt's crimes were known by everyone I spoke with, even as he was the president.
The calls for justice were LOUD back then. I'm so glad they never stopped demanding he face the courts.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)I hope Maria, not her real name, finds some peace in knowing this ass will die in jail.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)that his co-conspirator, the Gipper, has eluded earthly justice. One may only hope that it has found him elsewhere.
RainDog
(28,784 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,598 posts)For any DU'er craving to know more about this incredible accomplishment, bringing a true monster to justice in a deadly still-racist country, please take a look at the running notes taken of the trial throughout the day, posted here by Catherina since around 9:00 a.m. Friday in the Latin America forum.
You will be stunned to see how intense this last day of trial actually was:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1108&pid=16623
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)And when they're done, they oughta literally throw away the keys after they lock him up.
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Alamuti Lotus
(3,093 posts)Well, maybe not--I think that court would find itself coming out second best in a fight with an armed drone.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,598 posts)Guatemalas Ríos Montt Genocide Conviction Omen for US Presidents and Their Assassins
by Jay Janson / May 18th, 2013
José Efraín Ríos Montt began the his political and military career as a young officer taking part in the bloody successful CIA-organized coup against the first democratically elected president in Guatemalan history that was ordered by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1954. Two years earlier he had attended what peace activists call, the US School for Assassins, namely, the long infamous School of the Americas. He ended his career a few days ago, convicted of genocide by the Guatemalan court he once controlled as president and dictator.
~snip~
Once the US is no longer overwhelmingly powerful, and American elitists no longer enjoy immunity, their crimes against humanity will be prosecuted as was the genocide committed by Ríos Montt, a loutish butcher employed by who and what everyone knows. Everyone! If one of Al Capones triggermen was on trial for murder, who was more importantly guilty, the triggerman, who was only one of the Mafia Dons many triggermen convicted, or Mafia don Al Capone himself?
Eventually, if not sooner, given the fact that there is no time limitation on prosecution of genocide, and the coming inevitable restitution of logic and law in public affairs, one can expect prosecution of Americans, and not just Americans in high office serving that financial element in the circles of power that has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt quipped to his friend Colonel House in 1932. (One might also like to recall that at the time FDR, in confidence, noted his secondary importance to that financial element, a tightly inclusive group of his of his friends and acquaintances and captains of industry and banking were, as a block, investing in the cheap labor of a financially prostate Nazi Germany and building its Wehrmacht up to number one military force in the world in full knowledge of Hitlers plan for the Soviet Union and European Jews.)
If one confines oneself to researching the well published documentation of crimes against humanity during the administrations of the presidents that followed Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the last American president, who, as an aristocrat, had some influence among his wealthy peers, it becomes very clear why eminent historian Prof. Noam Chomsky of M.I.T. can say, without provoking much negative outcry, If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. Prof. Chomsky followed this statement with listing the crimes against humanity of each of these presidents he had stated would be condemned by Nuremberg Law to the gallows, and has since occasionally updated the list to include subsequent new US presidents. A hard rain is going to fall in America one day.
More:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/05/guatemalas-rios-montt-genocide-conviction-omen-for-us-presidents-and-their-assassins/
mikekohr
(2,312 posts)Let us not forget that my former congressman, Jerry Weller, (R) IL, married the daughter of General Montt.
Scary Jerry choose not to run for an 8th term after being voted one of the top 10 most corrupt congressmen in Washington DC.