The American Bear

› Guatemala overturns former dictator's genocide conviction | guardian.co.uk

This is unfortunate, but not unexpected: 

Guatemala’s top court has overturned the genocide conviction of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, ordering that the trial be taken back to the middle of proceedings.

The ruling late on Monday threw into disarray a process that had been hailed as historic for delivering the first guilty verdict for genocide against a former Latin American leader.

The constitutional court secretary, Martin Guzman, said the trial needed to go back to where it stood on 19 April to resolve several appeal issues.

The ruling came 10 days after a three-judge panel convicted the 86-year-old former general of genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in massacres of Mayans during Guatemala’s bloody 36-year civil war.

The panel found after two months of testimony that Rios Montt knew about the slaughter of at least 1,771 Ixil Mayans in the western highlands and did not stop it.

The tribunal sentenced Rios Montt to 80 years in prison, drawing cheers from many Guatemalans. It was the first time a former Latin American leader was convicted of such crimes in his home country and the first official acknowledgment that genocide occurred during the war – something the current president, retired general Otto Perez Molina, has denied.

Rios Montt’s lawyers immediately filed an appeal, and he spent three days in prison before he was moved to a military hospital, where he remains.

The court said on Monday it threw out his conviction because the trial should have been stopped while appeals filed by the defence were resolved.

Defence lawyer Francisco Garcia Gudiel told the Associated Press by telephone he would seek the former dictator’s freedom on Tuesday.

[…] The defence constantly claimed flaws and miscarriages of justice.

Courts solved more than 100 complaints and injunctions filed by the defence before the trial even started.

Rios Montt’s defensce team walked out on 18 April, arguing that they couldn’t continue to be part of such bad proceedings. When the three-judge tribunal resumed the trial, it ordered two public defenders to represent Rios Montt and his co-defendant, Jose Rodriguez Sanchez.

Rios Montt rejected his public defender and instead brought in Garcia, who was expelled earlier by the tribunal but reinstated by an appeals court.

Garcia had earlier been ordered off the case after he called for the three judges on the tribunal to be removed from the proceedings. He kept trying to have the judges dismissed. And the constitutional court ruled on Monday that the trial should have been suspended while his appeal was heard.

There are still powerful forces aligned with the likes of Montt - I’m guessing the implications for the sitting President, as well as possible connections to former U.S. officials and Guatemala’s ruling oligarchy are a motivating factor here. Here’s Alan Nairn, who covered the genocide in 1982, speaking on Democracy Now! last week:

Well, now this—now that Ríos Montt has been convicted for the actions that the Guatemalan army took in the highlands, the next logical step is to look at those who were implementing the plan of Ríos Montt. And the field commander on the ground at that time in the Ixil region was Pérez Molina, who is now the president. With the ruling of the judge, this is more than just a logical conclusion that Pérez Molina should be investigated. It’s now a legal mandate from the court, because the court said that the attorney general of Guatemala is ordered to investigate everyone who could have been involved in the crimes for which Ríos Montt was convicted.

› U.S. Guilty of Genocide in Guatemala Should be real headline | Ajamu Baraka

Last week news coverage around the world heralded the conviction of Efrain Rios Montt on the charges of genocide against the Mayan people during his 17 month tenure as Guatemala’s head of government and military strongman. The three-judge panel led by Jazmin Barrios determined that evidence presented to the court established that there was a clear and systematic plan to exterminate the Ixil people as a race and that the plan developed and executed by the Montt government satisfied the definition of genocide. With this conviction, the 86 year-old ex-dictator was sentenced to 80 years in prison.

This is a tremendous victory for the people of Guatemala that is a powerful expression of justice and accountability for human rights abuses that offers hope to the many victims of atrocities around the world. This victory, however, doesn’t end with the sentence of the Guatemalan dictator. Another chapter needs to be opened with a more thorough examination of the relationship between Montt, the Guatemalan military and the United States government which, if examined objectively, establishes a clear chain of moral and legal culpability. A relationship that even with a cursory understanding of the history of the conflict in Guatemala would lead logically to the inescapable conclusion that if Efrain Rios Montt, and by extension the Guatemalan military, are guilty of the crime of genocide, the U.S. government and its officials are just as guilty as Rios Montt and that justice in Guatemala remains unfulfilled until everyone, including those responsible for pulling the strings in Guatemala, are also brought to justice. [++]

› Speaking of Abrams, What Did He Know About Genocide in Guatemala? | Jim Lobe

[On Friday, a] Guatemalan court … found former President Efrain Rios Montt guilt of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the indigenous Mayan Ixil population as a result of the counter-insurgency campaign he directed as president from 1982 to 1983; that is, in the middle of Elliott Abrams’ tenure as the Reagan administration’s assistant secretary of state for human rights. While human rights, church groups, and the American Anthropological Association repeatedly denounced that campaign (with some actually calling it “genocide”), the administration moved during that period to restore and increase military aid to the government. In fact, after visiting personally with Rios Montt in Honduras in early December, 1982, Reagan himself declared that the born-again president was getting a “bum rap” from rights groups and journalists and that he was “a man of great personal integrity” who faced “a brutal challenge from guerrillas armed and supported by others outside Guatemala.”

[…] Clearly, [Friday’s] conviction should prove rather embarrassing for Abrams, as this genocide occurred “on his watch,” so to speak, and there’s no on-the-record indication that he ever disagreed with the defense that the administration mounted on Rios Montt’s behalf or that he opposed its repeated efforts to provide Guatemala’s army with military aid. Nor, of course, did Abrams resign in protest over those efforts.

Precisely what his stance vis-a-vis Guatemala policy was during this period remains somewhat cloudy, as the American Republic Affairs (ARA) bureau, then led by the late Tom Enders (the man who oversaw the secret bombing of Cambodia), was the main public spokesman for the administration’s policy. Hopefully, the National Security Archive, whose dogged work played a major role in making Rios Montt’s prosecution possible, will soon release declassified documents that will shed light on what Abrams did or did not do on Guatemala during this period and specifically whether he signed off on/objected to/tried to amend testimony and other public statements made by Enders and other officials. (It would be very interesting to find out whether he may have, as the chief human rights official, personally briefed Reagan before the “bum rap” statement.) […]

› State of Siege: Mining Conflict Escalates in Guatemala

With the world’s attention focused on the on-again off-again genocide trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt and his head of military intelligence in Guatemala City, there has been little international reporting on other events in the Central American nation. Meanwhile, as the trial continues, conflicts involving rural communities and Canadian mining companies are escalating, to the point that a State of Siege was declared last night.

Fifty miles southeast of the capital, private security guards working for Vancouver-based mining firm Tahoe Resources shot and wounded several local residents on Saturday in San Rafael Las Flores, on the road in front of Tahoe’s El Escobal silver mine. The mining company’s head of security was arrested while attempting to flee the country. A police officer and a campesino were killed during conflicts earlier this week. Through it all, demonstrations against the mining project have continued amid conflicting reports and government misinformation.

Following a Cabinet meeting late last night, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina declared a 30-day State of Siege in four municipalities around the El Escobal mining project: San Rafael Las Flores and Casillas in the department of Santa Rosa, and Jalapa and Mataquescuintla in the department of Jalapa. The measure is in effect as of today. Initial reports indicated that the constitutional rights suspended include freedom of movement, freedom of assembly and protest, and certain rights of detainees and prisoners.

Even before the measure was declared, communities were denouncing army mobilization in the region last night. When he announced the State of Siege, Pérez Molina stated that security forces reported for duty at three military bases last night and that operatives would begin early this morning.

“We fear for the lives of our leaders,” stated a message circulated online by the Xinka People’s Parliament, denouncing the mobilization of armed forces in Jutiapa with the alleged intention of arresting Xinka leaders in Santa María Xalapán, Jalapa. “We’re returning to the 1980s, with the persecution of leaders, extrajudicial execution and forced disappearance.” [continue]

› Genocide Trial of Former Dictator Ríos Montt Suspended After Intervention by Guatemalan President | Democracy Now! [video]

A historic trial against former U.S.-backed Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity came to an abrupt end Thursday when an appeals court suspended the trial before a criminal court was scheduled to reach a verdict. Ríos Montt on was charged in connection with the slaughter of more than 1,700 people in Guatemala’s Ixil region after he seized power in 1982. His 17-month rule is seen as one of the bloodiest chapters in Guatemala’s decades-long campaign against Maya indigenous people, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Thursday’s decision is seen as a major blow to indigenous victims. Investigative journalist Allan Nairn reported last night Guatemalan army associates had threatened the lives of case judges and prosecutors and that the case had been annulled after intervention by Guatemala’s president, General Otto Pérez Molina. Ríos Montt was the first head of state in the Americas to stand trial for genocide. Nairn flew to Guatemala last week after he was called to testify in Ríos Montt’s trial. He was listed by the court as a “qualified witness” and was tentatively scheduled to testify on Monday. But at the last minute, Nairn was kept off the stand “in order,” he was told, “to avoid a confrontation” with the president, General Pérez Molina, and for fear that if he took the stand, military elements might respond with violence. In the 1980s, Nairn extensively documented broad army responsibility for the massacres and was prepared to present evidence that personally implicated Pérez Molina, who was field commander during the very Mayan Ixil region massacres for which the ex-dictator, Ríos Montt, had been charged with genocide.

See also: Exclusive: Allan Nairn Exposes Role of U.S. and New Guatemalan President in Indigenous Massacres

› Profiting From Genocide: The World Bank's Bloody History in Guatemala | Upside Down World

The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) supported genocide in Guatemala and ought to pay reparations, according to a recent report by Jubilee International.

This well-documented accusation surfaces as the Central American nation becomes the first country in the Americas to try a former president for genocide and crimes against humanity in a domestic court. But the prosecution of war criminals and the accusations against International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have so far done little to protect vulnerable communities from the ongoing expansion of mining, oil and other economic interests invading their territories and violating their human rights.

“Generating Terror,” the Jubilee Debt Campaign’s report issued in December, examines how international lending and debt by IFIs such as the World Bank and the IDB helped legitimize Guatemala’s genocidal regimes of the late 1970s and early 1980s and essentially subsidized their terror campaigns.”

The lending of Western States and banks and the multilateral banks they control (importantly including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Inter-American Development Bank) was an important element in sustaining the long period of military rule which followed the coup against President (Jacobo) Arbenz in 1954,” the report states. “Particularly worrying, however, is the very dramatic increase in lending that coincided with the highest waves of terror, which reached genocidal proportions in the late 1970s and early 1980s.”

Jubilee’s report uses the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam project as a case study.

“Communities threatened by new similar projects should not let their rights be violated because these projects result in the destruction of the social fabric and even in death,” said Juan de Dios, a Mayan Guatemalan who since 2005 has been spearheading, along with others, the formal Chixoy Dam Reparations negotiation process with the government of Guatemala on behalf of all the Chixoy Dam-harmed communities.

The World Bank and IDB initially agreed to fund the project with the murderous military regime of Fernando Romeo Lucas García in 1978. Between 1978 and 1989, the banks lent $400 million for the project. Between March 1980 and September 1982, there was a series of planned massacres carried out against the Mayan Achi villagers of Rio Negro in the area of Guatemala where the dam project was constructed, resulting in the murder of 440 men, women and children.

These massacres effectively “relocated” the village of Rio Negro to make way for the Chixoy Dam flood basin, and were part of a scorched-earth counterinsurgency campaign targeting the country’s indigenous population. According to the United Nations, this amounted to a genocide resulting in more than 200,000 murders, more than 45,000 people “disappeared” and other war crimes such as torture and rape.

Representatives from the World Bank and IDB failed to return phone calls and emails before this article’s publication.

“The institutions that finance and profit from international development are responsible for their actions, and organizations such as the World Bank, as a United Nations-chartered institution, are obligated to act in ways that reflect international human rights law,” said environmental anthropologist Barbara Rose Johnston, senior research fellow at the Center for Political Ecology who authored the “Chixoy Dam Legacy Issues Study.” “The major conclusion emerging from the Chixoy Dam Legacy Issues Study is that hydroelectric energy development occurred at the cost of land, lives and livelihood in violation of national and international laws, and considerable profits were achieved.”

The Jubilee report notes that 33 communities were adversely affected by the dam, more than 3,500 Mayan community members were displaced, and as a result many of the surviving families were sentenced to lives of extreme poverty.”

With respect to the lives and livelihoods of the former residents of the Chixoy River Basin, these profits have been accrued at their personal expense, and hydroelectric development has by no measure improved their quality of life,” said Johnston. “Many of those that survived the massacres were robbed of their ability to live sustainably as a result of forced displacement.”

Johnston documented in the Legacy report that all of the actors involved knew about the violence. This is evidenced by a formal complaint to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after the initial massacre at the village of Rio Negro in March 1980, as well as World Bank field reports and internal communications, news articles, and human rights reports by NGOs and the United Nations. But even before these massacres took place, there were articles and human rights reports during the 1970s that revealed the use of violence, torture and repression by the Guatemalan government and military. Nevertheless, this did not deter these IFIs from entering into loans with Guatemalan governments who paid no regard to human rights or international law.

“When even the US government came under pressure to reduce support for the regimes in Guatemala, these institutions were able to continue supporting these regimes without accountability to western parliaments, let alone the people of Guatemala,” the “Generating Terror” report stated. “But the general impact of propping up these regimes of terror means that debt accrued in this period should be regarded as ‘odious’: loaned to illegitimate and unaccountable governments, detrimental to the people of Guatemala, with the full knowledge of the lender. Successor governments should not repay odious debts, and should receive compensation for any debts that have been paid.” [more]

› Guatemala genocide trial continues | Xeni Jardin

› US-Backed Guatemalan Dictator to Face Charges of Genocide

After 13 failed appeals, a Guatemalan court on Monday ordered 86-year-old former US-backed dictator Efrain Rios Montt to face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

“Prosecutors allege Rios Montt, who ruled as commander-in-chief for 17 months, 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 tribe,” Reuters reports.

Rios Montt wasn’t the only one turning a “blind eye.” He came to power in a military coup and “was a close ally of Washington who received training at the infamous “School of the Americas,” writes Cyril Mychalejko. The Reagan administration…

not only covered up, but aided and abetted war crimes and genocide in Guatemala. For example, President Reagan traveled to Guatemala in December 1982 to declare that Rios Montt was getting a “bum rap”, while praising the dictator’s “progressive efforts” and dedication to democracy and social justice. Just a few days after Reagan’s presidential visit the Guatemalan military massacred 251 men, women and children in Las Dos Erres.

The United States was party to an extensive list of human rights violations and possible crimes against humanity going back to the Eisenhower administration, when in 1954 the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by the CIA.

The 1960-96 conflict in Guatemala, with consistent US intervention on the side of the government and paramilitary groups, saw some 200,000 people, predominantly indigenous Mayan, murdered or disappeared. The height of the bloodshed occurred under US ally and beneficiary Ríos Montt, during which the number of killings and disappearances reached more than 3,000 per month.

Montt’s forces, with the help of his chief of staff Fuentes, slit the throats of women and children, beat innocent civilians and doused them in gasoline to be burned alive, tortured, and mutilated thousands of innocent indigenous peasants. The UN commission investigating the atrocities has already concluded it constituted acts of genocide.

Montt may finally face trial. No one has dared to suggest that those in Washington who supported, and were complicit in, his crimes ought to face similar justice.

(Source: jayaprada)

› Tom Engelhardt, Washington Invested in War | TomDispatch

On August 29th, the Associated Press reported that a “team of 200 U.S. Marines began patrolling Guatemala’s western coast this week in an unprecedented operation to beat drug traffickers in the Central America region, a U.S. military spokesman said Wednesday.”  This could have been big news.  It’s a sizeable enough intervention: 200 Marines sent into action in a country where we last had a military presence in 1978.  If this wasn’t the beginning of something bigger and wider, it would be surprising, given that commando-style operatives from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration have been firing weapons and killing locals in a similar effort in Honduras, and that, along with U.S. drones, the CIA is evidently moving ever deeper into the drug war in Mexico.

In addition, there’s a history here.  After all, in the early part of the previous century, sending in the Marines — in Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Repubic, and elsewhere — was the way Washington demonstrated its power in its own “backyard.”  And yet other than a few straightforward news reports on the Guatemalan intervention, there has been no significant media discussion, no storm of criticism or commentary, no mention at either political convention, and no debate or discussion about the wisdom of such a step in this country.  Odds are that you didn’t even notice that it had happened.

Think of it another way: in the post-2001 era, along with two disastrous wars on the Eurasian mainland, we’ve been regularly sending in the Marines or special operations forces, as well as naval, air, and robotic power.  Such acts are, by now, so ordinary that they are seldom considered worthy of much discussion here, even though no other country acts (or even has the capacity to act) this way.  This is simply what Washington’s National Security Complex does for a living. [READ]