This 88-Year-Old Man Is Accused Of Genocide. But He Might Die Before Being Brought To Justice.

This 88-Year-Old Man Is Accused Of Genocide. But He Might Die Before Being Brought To Justice.
by Beenish Ahmed
Posted on January 16, 2015 at 8:30 am Updated: January 16, 2015 at 1:53 pm

General Efrain Jose Rios Montt was one of a band of military dictators in South America who are believed to have persecuted or even murdered their own people under the premise of a U.S.-supported effort to combat communism. The dictators leveled a combination of amnesty laws, presidential pardons, and tacit agreements to keep from facing prosecution for their crimes. A case against the infamous Augosto Pinochet of Chile, however, ushered in a new era of accountability which saw the imprisonment of Uruguay’s Juan Maria Bordaberry for illegally seizing power and Argentina’s General Jorge Rafael Videla for murder, torture, and kidnapping. The delay in justice, however, has meant that many of the former dictators are in their 80s or 90s but still face charges for the crimes they allegedly committed decades ago.

The case against Rios Montt, 88, has taken more than 30 years to come to fruition because of the immunity he held as a member of the Guatemalan legislature until 2012 when he left office. Although the shift towards ending impunity for the region’s former leaders has been slow, the trial is historic for being the first time a former head-of-state is being charged for the crime of genocide within the very country where the crimes were allegedly carried out — the proximity to the events in question, however, has sparked an almost unbelievable series of twists and turns in the quest for justice.

Rios Montt is currently standing trial for alleged atrocities he committed in the mid-1980s: ordering the killings of 1,771 Mayans, the violent displacement of nearly 30,000, plus several acts of torture and sexual violence.
Until quite recently, no one believed a trial like this could possibly take place in Guatemala,” United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay said. “And the fact that it is happening there…should give encouragement to victims of human rights violations all over the world.”

The backdrop for the alleged genocide is a 34-year long civil war. Although the defense argues that the crimes were committed as a part of an effort to root out separatist guerrillas from traditional Mayan land in Guatemala’s northern highlands, it has done little to support that claim. Instead, Rios Montt’s defense has relied on a series of delay tactics that range from refusing to file documents, to questioning the validity of the trial and the impartiality of judges since the Guatemalan trial began in early 2013.

More:
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/01/16/3611345/the-tribulations-of-trying-a-dictator-for-genocide/