MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – Survivors of Guatemala’s bloody civil war relived the massacre of relatives as they testified yesterday against former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, who is accused of overseeing genocide during the 36-year conflict.
Rios Montt, 86, the first ex-head of state to stand trial for crimes against humanity in his own country, was not prosecuted for years for alleged atrocities committed during his 1982-1983 rule because of his protected status as a congressman.
But after retiring last year, Rios Montt was ordered to face trial by a judge who found sufficient evidence linking him to the killing of more than 1,700 indigenous people in a counterinsurgency plan executed under his command.
On the second day of the landmark trial, civil war victims recounted horrific tales of watching their family members killed and their homes torched by soldiers.
“They came and they massacred my mother, my brother and my brother-in-law. They burned homes,” said Tomas Chavez, 45, in tears as he recalled the November 1982 massacre in Nebaj in the northwestern state of Quiche.
Santiago Perez, described the murder of his son in July 1982 near the same village.
“We were at home with other people and a man came. He tied up (my son), putting a lasso around his neck and hung him. Then he took him out, pulled him and killed him. They shot him dead,” Perez said. He fled to the woods and returned two weeks later to find his home and crops burned, his sheep killed.
Prosecutors allege Rios Montt turned a blind eye as soldiers used rape, torture and arson against leftist insurgents and targeted indigenous people in a “scorched earth” offensive that killed at least 1,771 members of the Mayan Ixil group.
The defense argues that Rios Montt did not control battlefield operations and that there was no genocide.
“It’s not possible to prove these crimes. It’s impossible at this moment to prove that there was a genocide in Guatemala and that is what we will prove,” said Marco Antonio Cornejo, a lawyer for Rios Montt.
