Efrain Rios Montt

Part 1
Efrain Rios Montt
New Internationalist magazine, September 2001

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about General Efrain Rios Montt is his brother. In May 1998 Bishop Mario Rios Montt succeeded the assassinated Bishop Juan Gerardi as head of the Catholic Church's human-rights office in Guatemala. His task is to continue Gerardi's work, uncovering the truth behind the massacre or disappearance of upwards of 200,000 people during the prolonged and continuing 'civil war'- more accurately described as attempted genocide - against the indigenous Mayan majority of the Guatemalan population. The person who, in the early 19805, presided over the most vicious single episode in this genocide was none other than the Bishop's brother, the General. Efrain is also an ordained minister of the authoritarian, right-wing Gospel Outreach/Verbo evangelical church, based in California and one of several such churches that have been expanding fast

in the region, at the expense of the Catholic Church. General Rios Montt's evangelical zeal is linked to the military 'education' he received - like many of his peers in Latin America - from the School of the r Americas, run by the US military in Panama. From the 19505 onwards this notorious 'Coup School' taught its students how to contribute to US interests and the anti-Communist effort by usurping political power in Latin America by any available means, including assassination, torture and 'disappearance'. After a US-orchestrated military coup in 1954, Guatemala became a key component of US 'counter-insurgency' activity throughout Central America. So when Rios Montt grew to maturity and duly seized power in 1982 he set out to show what a good student he had been. He launched a 'Guns and Beans' offensive against Guatemala's persistent insurgents. A subsequent report commissioned by the UN found that at least 448 mostly Indian villages had been simply wiped off the map. The targeting of the Mayan peoples forced hundreds of thousands to flee to the mountains or to neighboring Mexico. Many of those who remained were corralled into 'hamlets' to produce cash crops for export.

According to Amnesty International, in just four months there were more than 2,000 fully documented extrajudicial killings by the Guatemalan army: 'People of all ages were not only shot, they were burned alive, hacked to death, disembowelled, drowned, beheaded. Small children were smashed against rocks or bayoneted to death.' The Catholic bishops said: 'Never in our national history has it come to such extremes.' US President Ronald Reagan, visiting Guatemala on a swing through Latin America, hailed Rios Montt as 'totally dedicated to democracy'.

So excessive was Rios Montt's dedication to democracy, however, that he threatened to become an international embarrassment and after only 18 months was replaced as President by another general. This did not remove him from power. The political party he founded, the ultra-right-wing Guatemalan Republican Alliance (FRG), expanded rapidly and now controls a majority in Congress, and Rios Montt himself has been elected as its President. The current President of Guatemala, Alfonso Portillo - a former guerrilla - is Rios Montt's protégé.

The General, now well into his seventies, is thought to be aiming to change the Constitution, which prohibits former dictators from running for president. His final 'vindication' would then be on the cards. It could even happen - given that three-quarters of the Guatemalan people routinely do not vote in elections - that there are now more guns than people in the country; that the abuse of human rights is on the increase again, despite UN-sponsored Peace Accords. The new Bush administration in the US can also be expected to support any ally in Central America who is able to identify a suitable enemy. Counting against the General is a recent scandal in which he is deeply implicated - legislation to increase taxes on alcohol and beverages was mysteriously, and illegally, modified at the behest of the alcohol industry after it had passed through Congress. And, since the arrest of General Pinochet- and now Slobodan Milosevic - a growing number of cases against Rios Montt are being taken out in courts around the world by those Guatemalans who do not yet aspire to amnesia. Among them is Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu. Meanwhile, as the 'civil war' continues, the Guatemalan people pay the price of impunity with the ruination of their lives.

***

Part 2
Rios Montt: Authoritarian Fundamentalist - by Velia Jaramillo, Proceso (liberal newsmagazine), Mexico City, Mexico, April 15, 2001, World Press Review July 2001

Efrain Rios Montt [Guatemala's former president] is known as "Guatemala's Pinochet," but until a few months ago, his fate seemed to be quite different from that of Chile's former dictator. While Pinochet was subjected to international prosecution, Rios Montt-17 years after a military coup that brought him to power for 16 months-became the president of the Guatemalan National Congress.

Rios Montt's position was not even jeopardized by the denunciation of Nobel Prize-winner Rigoberta Menchu before Spain's High Court, in which she accused Rios Montt of genocide. Spain's court ruled against prosecution of Rios Montt outside his country.

In the few interviews [since then], the Guatemalan general said that allegations of the extermination of 440 Mayan villages known as the "scorched-earth" policy-which according to the country's Historical Clarification Committee brought death to tens of thousands of peasants-"was invented by the guerrillas" and that "there was no genocide" in Guatemala, "only a war." After temporarily overcoming that stormy weather, the specter of being prosecuted within his own country has begun to pursue Rios Montt-just as it did Pinochet. But not for war crimes, including extrajudicial executions, summary trials, and persecution of community and opposition leaders. Rather, for a crime that is much lower on the scale: illegally altering a law passed by the legislature.

Last August, opposition legislators went before the Supreme Court of Justice to charge Rios Montt and 24 other legislators from the Guatemalan Republican Front (Frente Republicano Guatemalteco-FRG) party with altering the Law on Alcoholic Beverages by publishing a tax lower than the one approved by Congress and altering legislative session records to cover up their action. Video and audio versions of the session in question disappeared.

On March 6, a Supreme Court ruling removed the 24 legislators' immunity from prosecution and ordered criminal proceedings against them to begin. With this resolution, the general should have had to step down from the congressional president's seat, but a few days before the ruling, legislators from his party changed the internal congressional regulations -an action provisionally repealed by the Constitutional Court on March 21. Two days after the latter ruling shots were fired at the home of the president of the Constitutional Court. [On April 24, a judge dismissed the charges against Rios Montt. Human-rights groups will appeal the ruling.-WPR]

Political scientist Edmundo Urrutia, a researcher at Rafael Landivar University, warns: "We can't say we're close to prosecuting Rios Montt for his past actions. At least in Guatemala, that is still a long way off." And, as for the lesser charge, Urrutia foresees "an endless process of appeals. If all the legal avenues are used, a definitive trial can be delayed for the four years [of his term as congressional president], and neither the civil society nor opposition parties have the capacity to change this situation." Urrutia adds that Rios Montt is in a completely different position than other Latin American dictators at the time of prosecution. He is at the height of power. "This is an extremely important issue, and I think the international community is very conscious of the precariousness of Guatemala's institutions and the need to strengthen them. Countries like Spain and the United States know what's at stake at this particular moment in Guatemala, and if they didn't go after Pinochet precisely to avoid affecting the status of institutions in Chile, it's even less likely they would do so to Rios Montt." The Guatemalan Conference of Catholic Bishops declared the following in May 1982 with regard to the massacres committed during Rios Montt's rule: "Not even the lives of the elderly, pregnant women, or innocent children were spared. We have never in our history seen such serious extremes."

In 1982, when Rios Montt headed the military junta that overthrew Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcia-and when Montt also became a pastor of the Word fundamentalist church-he "demonstrated a very complicated personality," writes Hector Rosada, a military analyst. "A combination of a disappointed presidential candidate [he won the 1974 presidential elections but they were not officially recognized], a Protestant pastor, and a military man determined to win the war against the guerrillas. This combination took on the form of a messianic personality."

Rios Montt is now the president of the National Congress, the permanent leader of the political party he created, and he wields powerful influence over political life. His daughter Zury Rios is the congressional vice president, and his second son, Enrique Rios Sosa, is head of finances for the army. As in days gone by, the general maintains ironclad control over legislators from his party in Congress and over legislative activities. He's revived the moralistic speeches common during his regime in the 1980s.

Nineth Montenegro, a founder of the Mutual Support Group organization that works to find those disappeared during the war and a local legislator for the leftist New Guatemala Democratic Front, describes the general's leadership as "extremely messianic, very individual, authoritarian, and totally lacking in democracy. Because of this, he's made a lot of errors. He doesn't discuss; he imposes. He thinks it's the same as when he headed a de facto government." One of the reforms under his leadership in Congress has been to "keep himself as congressional president for four years, since previous legislation established that a new president had to be named each year."

The unity of FRG legislators has begun to fall apart with the March 16 resignation of two of the 63 legislators from the official party that still maintains the majority in the Congress of 113 representatives. Juan Carlos Gutierrez, one of those who resigned, said the legislative bloc from the official party is characterized by a militaristic structure controlled by an intelligence apparatus and by legislators who are former military men. "He runs a theocratic government, but in this case God is called Rios Montt," Gutierrez added. Despite the possibility that Montt could lose his prestigious seat in Congress, there are rumors that he could become his party's candidate for the country's presidency in the next elections. And Urrutia believes his position will be further weakened, making this impossible. But Hector Rosada warns: "The last word on the general who's maintained his presence in the country's political life for 20 years has yet to be said: He has an incredible ability to be born again, and he's very good at operating from the trenches. He retreats, digs in, waits as long as it takes, and then emerges once again."

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