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Guatemala—Rios Montt genocide trial, Day 20. Will case be thrown out by Constitutional Court?

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:43:15 +0000

Rios Montt, moments after his attorneys walked out in protest today, seated alone w/co-defendant Sanchez. Photo: @xeni.

I am blogging from inside the Guatemalan Supreme Court in Guatemala City this morning, on day 20 of the trial of former Guatemalan General and genocide and de factor dictator Rios Montt, and his then-head of intelligence Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez. Ríos Montt's 1982-1983 regime was supported by the United States; during this era many thousands of non-combatant civilians were killed.

UPDATE, 9:48am Guatemala time: Attorneys for Rios Montt just walked out of the courtroom in protest; they'd demanded the trial to be canceled. Ríos Montt's supporters stand and cheer. Judge Jazmin Barrios yells "Stop! Stop!" after them; demands that security follow defense lawyers and bring them back to the courtroom; her order met with massive screams and cheers and applause throughout courtroom. Ríos Montt speaks for the first time: I'm trying to call my attorneys, but they aren't answering. I have another lawyer, but he's busy with another case. Co-defendant Sanchez tells judge he lacks funds to hire a new lawyer. Barrios offers to provide them with public defenders. Follow this Twitter list for live tweets from the courtroom.

Today, the defense renewed their demands that the trial be shut down and annulled. Supreme Court Judge Jazmin Barrios has denied their request. Judge Carol Patricia Flores will convene the Constitutional Court of Guatemala at 2pm to consider suspending the trial, as the defense have demanded.

It's not clear what will happen today, but it seems the trial will likely come to some form of closure today or tomorrow.

Rios Montt's fate now essentially rests in the hands of 2 female judges. As one reporter said, “One gets the sense the shit is about to hit the fan.”

My report from Tuesday's proceedings is here; my post from Wednesday is here.

From a recap by Kate Doyle at www.riosmontt-trial.org:

Wednesday, April 17, was a chaotic and tense day in the courtroom. Judge Yassmin Barrios began by observing that once again only two defense witnesses were present to testify before the tribunal, while some ten witnesses remained to be heard. The judge ordered Ríos Montt’s counsel, Marco Antonio Cornejo, to leave the room and personally call each of them on the phone to advise them that they were legally required to attend. Before permitting Cornejo to exit, she called the first witness present, Gustavo Porras, into the chamber and asked him to take his place in the witness chair facing the tribunal. Porras and the entire courtroom of several hundred spectators then waited in silence until the lawyer returned some 15 minutes later.

Things became more dramatic as the day went on.

In the Guatemalan Supreme Court, reporters swarm as appeal introduced by Constitutional Court to throw out genocide trial. Photo: @xeni.

Judge Barrios ended the trial early at mid-day, because the defense lacked admissible evidence, nor were qualified witnesses present. And then, minutes after the court adjourned, a representative from Guatemala's Constitutional Court came in with a document, and approached the prosecution's table. A sudden rush of reporters swarmed the table; it was an "amparo," or appeal, proposing that the trial be thrown out.

The Constitutional Court is set to decide whether to annul the case at 2pm today. Meanwhile, the trial keeps moving forward in Judge Jazmin Barrios' courtroom, here inside the Supreme Court building.

The Constitutional Court has issued similar appeals to close down the tribunal multiple times (three, I believe?); none have succeeded. But that doesn't mean this new one won't.

The defense attorneys seemed calm, confident, and pleased when the Constitutional Court's appeal document was hand-delivered moments after court ended. And it's good news for the defense.

Speaking to a reporter moments after the "amparo" was delivered, defense Marco Antonio Rossell said the trial was unjust and must be suspended for its many faults. Rossell is best known in Guatemala for defending the man who was ultimately convicted of murdering Guatemalan Roman Catholic bishop and human rights defender Juan José Gerardi Conedera.

Represented in the courtroom throughout the trial: members of the Guatemalan Foundation Against Terrorism, who support Ríos Montt, condemn the trial, and who published a 20-page insert in the Sunday paper here.

The insert linked those supporting the existence of the genocide trial to the International Marxist Conspiracy, which they say was enabled by subversive members of the Catholic Church.

This trial is unprecedented: it is the first time any former head of state has been tried in a domestic court for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Kate Doyle wrote more here about the strong statements of concern, including from Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, polarizing public opinion in Guatemala around the trial.

The historic trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity of Efrain Ríos Montt, the former general who ruled Guatemala from 1982-3, has been ongoing since March 19. After nearly five weeks, the trial is expected to come to a close later this week.

However, in recent days there has been very strong pressure in opposition to the trial from prominent voices in Guatemala, and assertions that the trial is inconsistent with peace in the country—indeed that the trial is “betraying the peace and dividing Guatemala.” This statement was formally endorsed on Tuesday by Guatemala’s President Otto Perez Molina.

And since Monday, it has been clear that the environment both inside and outside of the Supreme Court's third floor courtroom has become very tense. And, all of this is taking place in a nation where political violence and common street violence are widespread. But there is a sense that this story is moving rapidly toward some form of closure.

Here's a Twitter list of observers who have been diligently live-tweeting from the trial. Among them: NISGUA Guate (Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala), Plaza Publica, and Rios Montt Trial (a project of the Open Society Initiative).

Many observers in Guatemala who are anti-Ríos Montt, pro-civilian-victims are tweeting with the hashtag #SiHuboGenocidio. A quick search of that hashtag is an interesting glimpse into one element of the Guatemalan zeitgeist.

Overhead snapshot of Guate Constitutional Court trial suspension amparo, moment was delivered to prosecution table. twitter.com/xeni/status/32…
— Xeni Jardin (@xeni) April 17, 2013

Constitutional Court rep with appeal document arguing for suspension of trial. Ríos Montt atty Cornejo speaking to TV. twitter.com/xeni/status/32…
— Xeni Jardin (@xeni) April 17, 2013

Constitutional Court rep with appeal document arguing for suspension of trial. Decision due tomorrow AM. twitter.com/xeni/status/32…
— Xeni Jardin (@xeni) April 17, 2013

Guatemala: Rios Montt genocide trial, day 18. "If I can't control the Army, then what am I doing here?"

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 18:06:26 +0000

Rios Montt listens to a prosecution witness, during the tribunal.

I am blogging from inside the Supreme Court in Guatemala City, where the trial of former Guatemalan Army General and US-backed dictator Guatemalan José Efrain Rios Montt and his then chief of intelligence Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez has reconvened for the 18th day. Here's a good recap of Monday's proceedings, and here's another.

For the past two weeks, I have been here in Guatemala with Miles O'Brien, observing the trial in court and interviewing people involved in the story for a forthcoming report on PBS NewsHour. We have interviewed Rios Montt's daughter, Zury Rios, who is her father's most diligent defender. We have interviewed scientists whose work is entered as evidence in the trial. We traveled to the Ixil area where the conflict at the center of this trial took place, and we interviewed Ixil Maya survivors about their experiences in the US-backed counterinsurgency attacks. We interviewed government officials who worked closely with Ríos Montt, who believe that what happened was not genocide, but the unfortunate collateral damage of a just war against "International Communism."

As covered in previous Boing Boing posts, the past few weeks of the trial have included personal testimonies from dozens of Ixil Maya survivors of mass killings, rapes, torture, forced adoption, and displacement. More than two dozen forensic anthropologists from the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG) have testified about human remains exhumed and analyzed from mass graves. Many other expert witnesses, or "peritos," have testified: among them, Patrick Ball of hrdag.org, who analyzed data of deaths during the armed conflict, to help judges make their decision about whether the mass killings constituted a focused attack by the Guatemalan Army, led by Ríos Montt, against the Ixil Maya ethnic group.

In other words: Was this genocide?

Not according to "The Foundation Against Terrorism," which published a 20-page paid newspaper supplement over the weekend here in Guatemala. "The Farce of Genocide in Guatemala: a conspiracy perpetrated by the Marxists with the Catholic Church." It's an interesting read.

The 18th day of the tribunal began this morning with defense witnesses for Ríos Montt and Sanchez.

The first witness to be called by the defense today was General Mauricio Illescas García, a lieutenant during Rios Montt's regime. Garcia's testimony focused on the notion that Ríos Montt wasn't in the know about everything troops were during his 1982-1983 regime, nor did he know at the time about damning Army documents which have been leaked in recent years.

The second witness called by the defense today is Alfred Antonio Kallschmit Luhan, the executive director of FUNDAPI (Foundation to Help Indigenous People). As the internal armed conflict ravaged Ixil communities during Ríos Montt's rule, the Guatemalan state implemented various programs in cooperation with international evangelical Christian groups. Ríos Montt's "Frijoles y Fusiles" (beans and bullets) program was implemented first, then "Techo, Trabajo, and Tortillas" (roofs, work, and tortillas) to rebuild razed villages. These programs were officially overseen by the state organization known as the National Reconstruction Committee (CRN), originally created to rebuild after the 1976 earthquake that devastated Guatemala. But much of the state's programs in the Ixil region during Ríos Montt's rule were driven by FUNDAPI, which was a state-sanctioned NGO operated by evangelical Christian and church groups. Most prominent among them was Ríos Montt's own "El Verbo" evangelical church, which had interesting origins in Eureka, California, and was supported by American evangelical leaders such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, as well as members of the Reagan administration such as Ed Meese III and James Watt.

During Ríos Montt's rule, El Verbo operated an "emergency aid group" known as the International Love Lift, which was supported with funds from evangelical Christian groups in the United States.

Virginia Garrard-Burnet's "Terror in the Land of the Holy Spirit: Guatemala Under General Efrain Rios Montt," includes a section detailing FUNDAPI's structure and relationship with the US government and evangelical groups.

The short version: FUNDAPI was formed by El Verbo, and inextricably linked with El Verbo. FUDAPI operated, effectively, as a "humanitarian Christian extension" of the Guatemalan Army under Ríos Montt.

In Thomas R. Melville's "Through a Glass Darkly," this section details how Christian groups in the US organized "Love Lifts" to Guatemala during the armed conflict. They raised millions of dollars and successfully lobbied for support of then-US President Ronald Reagan's policies supporting the Ríos Montt regime.

In his court testimony today, Kaltschmitt argued that the "model villages" in the Chajul/Cotzal/Nebaj area into which Ixiles were forcibly relocated in 1982-1983 were aid camps to help victims of guerrilla aggression. "They weren't concentration camps, that was a hoax invented by who knows who."

"There was so much hunger in the countryside," he added; "Crops were pulled up and destroyed by one side or the other, or stolen, because hunger was so great; this was the greatest sin during the war... The policy of the state was to help and assist the civil population and end the conflict."

"This was the army's best moment," said Kaltschmitt. "History was fixed for the Ixils, the region was pacified." He testified that Ixil people could enter and leave at free will, when they pleased, in contradiction to testimony by witnesses and experts for the prosecution. "It is clear that there was no genocide."

Kaltschmitt further explained that the civil patrols into which Mayan people were forcibly recruited "restored people's dignity."

After Kaltschmitt completed his testimony, something even more interesting happened in court.

The judge called for footage from Pamela Yates "Granito" documentary production to be played in court. Yates directed two films about Guatemala: her first, "When the Mountains Tremble," was released in the mid-1980s and amplified global attention toward Guatemala and Rigoberta Menchu, the film's narrator and central character. Yates' second film, Granito, was released in 2011 and revisits the conflict and the decades-long struggle over justice, reparations, and impunity.

The first video clip presented in court today from Yates' 1982 footage was an interview with General Jose Efrain Rios Montt.

Here in the courtroom, one could feel great tension and excitement as the video began.

On screen, a Guatemalan Army general at the height of his potency and confidence smiled, spoke rapidly, leaned towards the camera at times; his dark brown eyes glistened with conviction and force. Immediately below the screen, a grey-haired 86-year-old man leaned back, silent and expressionless.

They are the same person.

The defense of Ríos Montt in this trial has focused largely on the argument that while he was in power, he could not and did not have control of everything the Army did; he could not know everything that was going on in the remote, rural Ixil region, and cannot be held responsible for any atrocities committed by rogue soldiers.

But the video played in court seemed to contradict this argument.

"If I can't control the Army," 1982 Ríos Montt said on screen, "Then what am I doing here?"

In the interview, he effectively claimed to have total control over the Guatemalan military; they were proudly fighting a just counterinsurgency war against the threat of international Communism that was aided by the USSR, Cuba, and Nicaragua. This subversive Communist menace, he said, said threatened to destroy Guatemala.

In the 1982 footage, Ríos Montt smiles and laughs, punctuating briskly-delivered answers with a wide grin. When annoyed or emphasizing a point, he raises his voice. His posture, voice, and words reflected confidence.

Below that image in the courtroom today, Ríos Montt was not smiling.

Since the trial began on March 19, Ríos Montt has maintained silence during court sessions as an act of protest against what he believes is an unjust trial.

He said in the 1982 interview that behind every one guerrilla, there are 10 guerrilla supporters. "If people go to another country, it's because they have committed crimes," the man on screen says when asked about the thousands of indigenous refugees streaming into Mexico.

"I'll shoot anyone who doesn't turn himself in."

Is there repression against the civilian population, filmmaker Pamela Yates asked him in the film? "There is no repression being committed on the part of the Army," he replies.

As the Ríos Montt footage played, the two defense attorneys at his side appeared bored and tired. By the end of the clip, attorney César Calderón was leaning on the table, head resting on his fists, elbows on the table, periodically massaging his furrowed brow.

“Muchissimas gracias,” Pamela Yates says to Rios Ríos Montt at the end of the 1982 footage playing on-screen in court.

No, thank *you*, Ríos Montt replies to her.

End tape.

The court then screened two more interviews conducted by Yates with two other Guatemalan Army leaders in 1982: General Francisco Luis Gordillo, and Horacio Egberto Maldonado.

"Water is to the fish as people are to the guerrilla," Gordillo said during his interview, echoing a line repeated by a number of military leaders in interviews and public appearances during this era.

"A fish without water dies; a guerrilla without people dies."

And indeed, in the Guatemalan Army's attempt to wipe out the insurgency, many people died.

"The Army is fighting against subversives," Gordillo says on-screen. "Not only domestic subversives but also international subversives."

Yates: "Is it true the Army is attacking people in rural areas?"

Gordillo: "Yes, the Army is attacking the elements of International Communism."

The Gordillo interview ended, and then the court played Yates' 1982 interview with Maldonado.

"The U.S. has proven to be open to our needs," says Maldonaldo, "They are completely willing to collaborate with us."

In this footage, he, Ríos Montt, and Gordillo each emphasized how important the US-provided helicopters were in their fight against "subversives," and how valuable they were in the state-run programs that provided "aid and assistance" to devastated communities.

"The Army is no longer just to be spreading lead in these communities," he says.

"Many priests were guerrillas," Maldonado added in the 1982 footage. "I call them ungrateful. They used the indigenous as cannon fodder."

Towards the end of the clip with Maldonado, Yates asks him if he has any final comments.

"A big brotherly hug to the people and government of the United States, to thank them for their ongoing support, which we need so much now to fight this battle."

Judge Jazmin Barrios ended the court session prematurely today, because Ríos Montt's defense team did not have additional witnesses ready and present to testify. Court will reconvene tomorrow, presumably with more witnesses for the defense. Judge Barrios scolded them for not having more witnesses; you should have a dozen a day, she said. And indeed, it seems odd that the defense isn't doing more to defend.

The sense among people close to the process here is that those in charge want it to end soon. It is possible that the trial will end as early as tomorrow or Thursday; a verdict could be delivered by the end of this week, or next Monday.

(This post was prepared in part with references to live-tweets in the courtroom from @pzPenVivo and @NISGUA_Guate.)

NYT op-ed: "On the Brink of Justice in Guatemala"

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:10:53 +0000

Anita Isaacs, in a NYT op-ed: "I have spent the past 15 years researching and writing about postwar justice in Guatemala. I am encouraged that, a decade and a half after peace accords ended 36 years of civil war, Guatemala is being given a chance to show the world how much progress it has made in building democracy. The trial gives the Guatemalan state a chance to prove that it can uphold the rule of law and grant its indigenous Mayan people, who suffered greatly under Mr. Ríos Montt, the same respectful treatment, freedoms and rights the rest of its citizens enjoy." [NYTimes.com]

Guatemala genocide trial: Day 6. "If I die, the story of what I lived will never be forgotten"

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:43:14 +0000

Photo: NISGUA. A witness testifies in the trial of Rios Montt, with aid of court-appointed Nebaj Ixil interpreter.

As Emi McLean writes on the Open Society Justice Initiative's blog about the genocide trial in Guatemala, "Semana Santa (or Holy Week) seemed to slow down Guatemala City everywhere but in Judge Jazmin Barrios’s courtroom on Monday."

And the trial continues at breakneck speed. The prosecution of Jose Efraín Rios Montt, the Army general who ruled Guatemala from 1982-1983, and his then-chief of military intelligence Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez, re-opens for the 6th day today in Guatemala City. The charges of genocide and crimes against humanity they face are based on evidence of systematic massacres of Mayan citizens by Guatemalan troops and paramilitary forces during a most bloody phase of the country's 36-year civil war. The US government provided assistance to Ríos Montt and other Guatemalan military dictators that followed in that era, in the form of funding, training, military and CIA personnel, and weapons that were used against the indigenous population.

Watch live video from the courtroom here; listen to audio here. A Twitter list with accounts who are live-tweeting the trial is here.

On Monday, March 25, the court heard 13 witnesses for the prosecution recount horrifying accounts of atrocities they witnessed and survived, committed by soldiers under Ríos Montt's command.

Again, from McLean's account:

Witnesses continued to describe the way that they were treated as subhuman: “as if we were animals”. Some witnesses also described being liberated with the recounting.

NISGUA, the Network in Solidarity for the People of Guatemala, is also providing excellent live-blog coverage of the trial. From their account of Monday's proceedings:

Military allies were absent in the plaza on Friday, while a small demonstration in support of the defendants took place this morning. Anti-communist and anti-foreigner sentiments were expressed on banners held by demonstrators. The gathering dispersed shortly after the proceedings began and participants, including Zury Ríos Montt and former FRG party members, entered the courtroom wearing white.
To date the prosecution's witnesses have been primarily Ixil survivors, 51 since the start of the trial, with some utilizing the services of the Nebaj and Chajul Ixil court-appointed interpreters while others gave testimony in Spanish. The witnesses have shared testimonies on different acts committed by the military --massacres, disappearances, sexual violence, forced displacement, forced service in civil patrols-- each sharing the horrors they experienced and the terrible moments in which loved ones were killed.

Today, Tuesday, March 26, when the tribunal re-opened, Rios Montt's defense team demanded that judge Jazmin Barrios be removed from the case. Their complaint against her (tl;dr: she isn't impartial because she's had various in-court conflicts with members of his legal team over the years) was originally presented on March 21. The court deliberated over their complaint today, them rejected it.

"We are impartial judges and we don't accept threats of any kind," Barrios said. "At this point, no objection can delay the judicial process."

And then, the testimonies of the day began with an 87-year-old man, Clemente Vásquez.

Vásquez described how Ríos Montt's forces killed his wife and children, and methodically raped women in his village.

“I went to get corn and when I came back my wife was dead," he told the court. "The pain inside hurts me, it hurts, but I want justice.”

The second testimony of the day came from Magdalena Marcos de Leon, whose voice trembled as she took the witness stand.

"Do not be afraid, no one is going to harm you here," the judge told her. The judge recognized as she gave testimony that the woman was visibly frightened about speaking in court.

"When my husband died, they grabbed me, I was holding my baby," Magdalena later explained. "I was sick, and he tied me up."

She went on to describe how soldiers burned houses in their village, then arrived at their home and tied her and her husband up. The soldiers then chopped off her husband's head. "I don't know why my husband was killed, he wasn't guilty," she says. "We didn't have any weapons in the house."

Were you raped, an attorney for the prosecution asks her.

"Yes, because they threatened to stab me with knives."

She had 5 children with her. She somehow escaped to hide in the mountains with the children. They all suffered from malnutrition and exposure to the cold, during the six months they hid in the mountains, all their clothing and food and belongings destroyed. She describes how children children died of "susto" (trauma/fear) and hunger, including one of her sons. He was one year old.

Magdalena: I looked for my husband, then we were able to exhume him. We buried him in the cemetery but I couldnt find his head. #IxilesSpeak
— NISGUA (@NISGUA_Guate) March 26, 2013

Military music is still blaring outside the courthouse. One protester remaining said protest is for equality and that there was no genocide.
— Rios Montt Trial(@RiosMonttTrial) March 25, 2013

Photo: Rodrigo Baires Quezada for Plaza Publica. "Residents of Santa Maria Xalapán accompany the coffin of Exaltation Ucelo Marcos, in the village of El Pito Laguna. Ucelo died in an attempted kidnapping along with three other Xinca activists Sunday night. Two escaped from their kidnappers.

Meanwhile in Guatemala, more political violence: the murder of indigenous activists who are protesting mining operations of the Canada-based multinational firm Tahoe Resources. Renata Avila writes at Global Voices:

While Guatemala attempts to bring former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt to justice in a landmark genocide trial, deadly violence elsewhere in the country continues unpunished. In less than one month, five activists and human right defenders struggling against mining companies and fighting for land and labor rights have been murdered in rural areas. (...) as No a la Mina (No to the mine) pointed out [es], the recent repression resembles the death squad operations that once left thousands of leaders killed in Guatemala. If social conflicts are going to be solved with a gun and left in absolute impunity, Guatemala's future looks just like its grim past.

The Center for International Environmental Law has a related petition here: "Call for investigation and company departure in response to recurring violence in area of Canadian-owned silver project."

Is increased biofuel demand in the US causing more poor in Central America to starve?

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:25:27 +0000

Richard Perry/The New York Times

A worthy and overlooked story in the NYT by Elizabeth Rosenthal about a new economic riptide hitting Central America, a result of America's changing corn policy. The US is now using 40% of our own corn crop to produce biofuel, and tortilla prices have doubled in Guatemala, which now imports about half of its corn.

"Recent laws in the United States and Europe that mandate the increasing use of biofuel in cars have had far-flung ripple effects, economists say, as land once devoted to growing food for humans is now sometimes more profitably used for churning out vehicle fuel."

Read the rest, and check out Richard Perry's photo slideshow.

Mayan Oxlajuj Baktun: "End of an Era, More of the Same," photo essay by James Rodriguez

Xeni Jardin — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 15:42:49 +0000

James Rodriguez, a brave and talented photojournalist in Guatemala, has a striking photo-essay up on his blog.

On this occasion I share a photo essay documenting events in the Guatemalan northern city of Huehuetenango during the much-awaited end of the Mayan Oxlajuj Baktun. These provide a clear reflection of the divisions and challenges faced by Mayan communities today. The media exploited erroneous apocalyptic rumors, the government and business sectors viewed it as an opportunity to gain economically through tourism, and progressive groups seized the opportunity “to strengthen ancestral wisdom and never-ending search for balance” while vindicating what seem never-ending struggles for justice, inclusion, and self-determination.

View the full essay here. Photo editors, you can license the pics (and support his work) here. Below, Anselma states: “I think it was the foreigners who invented this whole end-of-the-world scenario so they could make movies and profit from it.”

Guatemala: Former police chief convicted in 1980s disappearance

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:30:51 +0000

Justice at last, in one case from the US-backed 36-year civil war in Guatemala where some of the "harsh techniques" our military now uses in Iraq and Afghanistan and Gitmo were first perfected.

Three decades after Pedro Garcia Arredondo ordered the torture and "disappearance" of an agronomy student, the former chief detective of Guatemala's now-defunct National Police has been convicted and sentenced to 70 years in prison. From Amnesty International today:

Witnesses testified how [Édgar Enrique Sáenz Calito] was taken to “the little room” (“el cuartito”) where the Sixth Command typically interrogated guerrilla suspects.
The victim’s wife Violeta Ramírez Estrada told the court how she visited her husband in a prison hospital following his arrest and he bore signs of having been tortured – he had been subjected to beatings, water-boarding and cigarette burns, and electric shocks had been applied to his genitals.

(via @wolfe321)