The Case of Rios Montt: Justice and Impunity in Latin America

by CounterPunch (reposted)

Mon, Mar 27, 2006 7:29PM

Guatemala's Efrain Rios Montt earned the nickname "the General" after taking power in a 1982 coup d'etat. His sixteen-month rule is considered one of Guatemala's bloodiest periods since the Spanish conquest. Under the General's command, entire villages were massacred in a bloody counterinsurgency campaign, and some 150,000 mostly indigenous Guatemalans were killed. Despite his gruesome history, Rios Montt remained a powerful political figure and in 2003 ran as a presidential candidate despite a constitutional ban prohibiting former dictators from entering the race. In 1999, Maya activist Rigoberta Menchú submitted an indictment against the former dictator, but over six years later, the trial is still pending.

Rios Montt is not an anomaly in Latin America. F! rom El Salvador to Chile, ex-military leaders guilty of violent crimes perpetrated during the region's "dirty wars" of the 70's and 80s roam free. Many, like Rios Montt, wield enough political power to ensure that their macabre pasts remain buried from public scrutiny. Throughout Latin America, human rights groups are seeking to convict these criminals, but most have confronted the greatest obstacle to a functioning justice system--impunity. In Guatemala, the state has made little attempt to investigate or prosecute those responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of war victims--most likely because a large percentage of these criminals still hold high government positions. In the few cases that have ended in conviction, only the material authors, those at the lowest level of the military, have been punished, while the intellectual author! s remain immune to prosecution.

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