Former Guatemalan strongman begins genocide trial

Share

The trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity opened on Tuesday, the first time a country has prosecuted an ex-head of state in a national court on such charges.

For decades, Mr. Rios Montt was not prosecuted for alleged atrocities committed during his 1982-83 rule in a particularly bloody phase of the country's long civil war – as a congressman, he was protected by a law that grants immunity to public officials.

Mr. Rios Montt, who left Congress in 2012, was ordered to stand trial in January when a judge found sufficient evidence linking him to the killing of more than 1,700 indigenous people in a counterinsurgency plan executed under his command.

"It's historic," Attorney-General Claudia Paz y Paz told Reuters ahead of the trial. "We cannot leave thousands of deaths unpunished. We must deliver justice to the victims."

A court charged the former ruler in January, 2012, for the war crimes, but his defence team had until now stalled the process with a series of appeals, arguing he did not control battlefield operations and that there was no genocide in Guatemala.

Prosecutors allege Mr. Rios Montt, now 86, turned a blind eye as soldiers used rape, torture and arson against leftist insurgents and targeted indigenous people during a "scorched earth" military offensive that killed at least 1,771 members of the Ixil group.

Mr. Rios Montt had few words as he entered the courtroom.

"Whatever I say or don't say will be used against me," he told reporters. "I have to keep quiet. I am staying quiet."

In opening statements, prosecutors argued that Mr. Rios Montt's government put indigenous people in concentration camps while employing rape and torture as a means of terrifying the population.

Prosecutors will present hundreds of testimonies, videos and military documents in the trial against the former dictator, a process that could take months.

Roughly 200,000 civilians, most of them of Mayan descent, were killed during the 1960-1996 conflict as a string of right-wing governments attempted to rid Guatemala of leftist guerrilla fighters. An additional 45,000 people went missing.

A United Nations-backed truth commission report released after the 1996 peace accords found that the army and paramilitary groups were responsible for more than 90 per cent of the hundreds of massacres carried out during the war.

"This is the first time, anywhere in the world, that a former head of state is being put on trial for genocide by a national tribunal," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement.

"Until quite recently, no one believed a trial like this could possibly take place in Guatemala, and the fact that it is happening there … should give encouragement to victims of human-rights violations all over the world."

Victims and human-rights advocates applauded the start of the trial into Mr. Rios Montt's 17-month rule.

"Finally, we're going to know the truth. It's justice for the survivors and for the world," said Sandra Moran, 53, who was laying flowers outside the court before the trial started. Her uncle was tortured during Mr. Rios Montt's rule, she said.

Genocide trials have been rare for ex-leaders in Latin America, a region scarred by bloody civil conflicts and fierce repression. Multiple charges were raised against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, but he died in 2006 before standing trial.

Often sporting thick glasses and a grey moustache, Mr. Rios Montt has been under house arrest for more than a year. The right-wing party that he founded changed its name this year to distance itself from its past.

Mr. Rios Montt sat silently through pretrial hearings, reading Guatemala's constitution and its penal code, occasionally nodding off.

Reuters