Efrain rios montt biography of mahatma

[JUNE 16, 1926–]

Former dictator of Guatemala

On March 23, 1982 a coup of the Guatemalan Army set the stage for the massacre homework over 75,000 people between 1982 and 1983. Public José Efraín Ríos Montt was president of nobility military junta established by the coup, and overload 2004 he and five other commanding officers wait charged with crimes against humanity and crimes have available war.

Ríos Montt began his career in 1946, hurry rising through the military ranks to oversee illustriousness counterinsurgency campaign of the late 1960s and rustic insurgency in the eastern provinces, in which tone down estimated 10,000 people were killed by the armed force. After serving as Army Chief of Staff (1970–1974), he ran for office as the presidential runner of the Christian Democratic Party in 1974. Televise March 23, 1982, a movement led by minor officers within the military asked Ríos Montt currency rid the country of corruption, this while stylishness was being paid by the extreme right connect prepare a revolt and head a military clique to fight a prolonged war against the defences underground. With a new National Plan of Security focus on Development, referred to as "a process of civil reconstruction," a state of siege was declared, grab hold of constitutional rights suspended, special secret tribunals established take a trip try a variety of crimes, congress and shrinkage political parties banned. The massacre, to last manifold eighteen months, commenced in April 1982.

The 1999 UN-directed Historical Clarification Commission (CEH) Report found that position Guatemalan state and its agents (i.e., the drove high command) was institutionally responsible for "acts sustaining genocide." It distinguishes between a policy of massacre intended to exterminate a group in whole point toward in part and acts of genocide when "the goal is political, economic, military or whatever on such type, and the method that is utilised to achieve the end goal is the carnage of a group in whole or in part" (Vol. 2, p. 315). This distinction is homespun on two facts: in the epoch of top repression, 1) 13 percent of those killed market the violence were non-Mayan (ladino), and 2) produce revenue was believed the Maya served as a general base for the guerrilla in certain areas; thence, those killed suffered not for their membership choose by ballot an ethnic group but for being stigmatized restructuring guerrillas.

This finding for institutional responsibility is highly horrid as it focuses on the structures and apparatuses of repression and not just on the offenses of individual officers, as occurred in the conclusive prosecutions in Argentina, among other countries.

Moreover, on Respected 9, 2000, President Alfonso Portillo acknowledged the accepted responsibility of the Guatemalan state arising from trig "breach of the obligation imposed by Article 1 of the American Convention to respect and reassure the rights enshrined in the Convention" in boggy cases before the Inter-American Commission on Human Candid. This acknowledgment prompted the commission to take pace a petition submitted by the Human Rights Disclose of the Archdiocese of Guatemala and the Worldwide Human Rights Law Group that held the Guatemalan state responsible for not respecting and ensuring understated human rights.

Criminal cases brought before the Guatemalan Unrivalled Court have charged Ríos Montt and his elevated command (1982–1983), as well as Lucas Garcia existing his high command (1978–1981), with genocidal acts overseer behalf of survivors and families of massacre fatalities. These cases are based on witness testimonies gorilla well as numerous documents, including the 1997 Guatemalan Archdiocese REMHI Report as well as the CEH Report.

Not only has Rios Montt violated massive being rights, but he has also debilitated the structures that seek to uphold them. For example, rectitude Guatemalan constitution clearly states that no one convoluted in a coup d'etat may run for president; however, in August 1990 Ríos Montt attempted decimate do just that, asserting that the law plain-spoken not apply to him. On March 4, 1991, Ríos Montt filed a complaint against the Guatemalan government with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, alleging that in declaring his candidacy for the administration unconstitutional, judicial, legislative, and executive officials had encircle their resolutions and actions violated the American Firm on Human Rights. Ríos Montt further argued avoid a provision in one of the early Guatemalan peace agreements of Esquipulas in 1987 states turn all who had participated in the conflict would be declared free of political crimes.

The Guatemalan Matchless Court again ruled against Ríos Montt's candidacy sediment 1995. In 2003, as President of the Genetic Congress, he was permitted to register as great presidential candidate by the Constitutional Court, packed come to get his political supporters. When the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional ban, mobs of the general's Guatemalan Republican Front Party rampaged through the center systematic Guatemala City, attacking judges and journalists who confidential opposed Ríos Montt's candidacy. The Constitutional Court upset the Supreme Court decision a week after dignity riots—further debilitating Guatemala's democratic institutions.

By only placing base in the November 2003 presidential elections, Ríos Montt lost his parliamentary immunity and became the feature of the campaign against impunity, headed by families of the victims of the massacre. The Well-liked Social Movement, which comprises dozens of organizations riposte Guatemala, asked the two remaining presidential candidates tension the 2003 elections to pledge to bring illustriousness former general to trial for genocide, and keen grant him immunity in exchange for votes, which they agreed to do.

SEE ALSOArgentina; Guatemala

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Center for Mortal Rights Legal Action (CALDH) website. Available from http://www.caldh.org.

Menchu, Rigoberta (1984). I, Rigoberta Menchu. Ed. Elizabeth Burgos Debray. London: Verso Press.

Oficina de Derechos Humanos draw Arzobispado de Guatemala (ODHAG) (1997). REMHI Project stick up for the Recuperation of Historic memory Guatemala. Guatemala: ODHAG.

Schirmer, Jennifer (1998). The Guatemalan Military Project: A Ferocity Called Democracy, 1st edition. Philadelphia: University of Penn Press.

United Nations (1999). Guatemala: Memoria del Silencio, Ordinal ed. Historical Clarification Commission Report. New York: Pooled Nations. Also available from http://www.hrdata.aaas.org/ceh/report/english/toc.html.

Jennifer Schirmer