Guatemala rebel convicted for killings during civil war

[alp227]

Source: BBC

A court in Guatemala has convicted a former left-wing rebel leader for his role in killings in 1988.

The court sentenced Fermin Felipe Solano to 90 years in prison for the murder of 22 pro-government farmers near Guatemala City.

It is the first time a rebel leader has been convicted of crimes committed during the country's civil war.

Guatemalan courts have previously convicted some army officers and soldiers for human rights abuses.

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-28173694

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NYT 5/17/13: Trial on Guatemalan Civil War Carnage Leaves Out U.S. Role:

Back in 1983, Elliott Abrams, the assistant secretary of state for human rights under President Ronald Reagan, once suggested that General Ríos Montt’s rule had “brought considerable progress” on human rights.

Mr. Abrams was defending the Reagan administration’s request to lift a five-year embargo on military aid to Guatemala. Brushing off concern from human rights groups about the rising scale of the massacres in Mayan villages, Mr. Abrams declared that “the amount of killing of innocent civilians is being reduced step by step.”

Speaking on “The MacNeil-Lehrer Report,” he argued, “We think that kind of progress needs to be rewarded and encouraged.”

After the 1954 coup deposed the reformist President Jacobo Arbenz, the United States supported a series of military dictators, particularly after the victory of the Cuban revolution in 1959.

But an emphasis on human rights by President Jimmy Carter’s administration led to the cutoff of military aid in 1977. Even though after 1981 the Reagan administration became intensely involved in supporting El Salvador’s government against leftist guerrillas, and contra rebels against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, the Guatemalan government was so brutal that Washington kept it at arm’s length for a time.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Genocide in Guatemala (1981–1983)

Genocide in Guatemala (1981–1983)

Guatemala is a mainly mountainous country in Central America. It was once at the heart of the remarkable Mayan civilization, which flourished until the 10th century AD. When Spanish explorers conquered this region in the 16th century, the Mayans became slaves in their own homeland. They are still the underprivileged majority of Guatemala's population.

Civil war existed in Guatemala since the early 1960s due to inequalities existing in the economic and political life. In the 1970s, the Maya began participating in protests against the repressive government, demanding greater equality and inclusion of the Mayan language and culture. In 1980, the Guatemalan army instituted “Operation Sophia,” which aimed at ending insurgent guerrilla warfare by destroying the civilian base in which they hid. This program specifically targeted the Mayan population, who were believed to be supporting the guerilla movement.

Over the next three years, the army destroyed 626 villages, killed or “disappeared” more than 200,000 people and displaced an additional 1.5 million, while more than 150,000 were driven to seek refuge in Mexico. Forced disappearance policies included secretly arresting or abducting people, who were often killed and buried in unmarked graves. In addition, the government instituted a scorched earth policy, destroying and burning buildings and crops, slaughtering livestock, fouling water supplies and violating sacred places and cultural symbols. Many of these actions were undertaken by the army, specifically through special units known as the Kaibiles, in addition to private death squads, who often acted on the advice of the army. The U.S. government often supported the repressive regimes as a part of its anti-Communist policies during the Cold War. The violence faced by the Mayan people peaked between 1978 and 1986. Catholic priests and nuns also often faced violence as they supported the rights of the Mayan people.

After 36 years, the Guatemalan armed conflict ended in 1996 when the government signed a peace accord (the Oslo Accords) with the insurgent group, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG). Part of the accords directed the United Nations to organize a Commission of Historical Clarification (CEH). It began work in July 1997, funded by a number of countries, including the United States. In February 1999, it released its report, “Guatemala: Memory of Silence,” which stated that a governmental policy of genocide was carried out against the Mayan Indians. The CEH concluded the army committed genocide against four specific groups: the Ixil Mayas; the Q'anjob'al and Chuj Mayas; the K'iche' Mayas of Joyabaj, Zacualpa and Chiché; and the Achi Mayas.

In November 1998, three former members of a “civil patrol” were convicted in the first case arising from the genocide. In September 2009, the courts sentenced Military Commissioner Felipe Cusanero to 150 years in prison for the crime of enforced disappearance of six members of the Choatulum indigenous community. In June 2011, General Héctor Mario López Fuentes was caught and charged with genocide and crimes against humanity. In August 2011, four soldiers were sentenced to 30 years for each murder plus 30 years for crimes against humanity, totaling 6,060 years each for the massacre in a village of Dos Erres in Guatemala's northern Petén region.

https://www.hmh.org/la_Genocide_Guatemala.shtml

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Ronald Reagan: Accessory to Genocide

May 11, 2013


Exclusive: More than any recent U.S. president, Ronald Reagan has been lavished with honors, including his name attached to Washington’s National Airport. But the conviction of Reagan’s old ally, ex-Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt, for genocide means “Ronnie” must face history’s judgment as an accessory to the crime, reports Robert Parry.


By Robert Parry

~snip~
Yet, while Guatemalans demonstrate the strength to face a dark chapter of their history, the American people remain mostly oblivious to Reagan’s central role in tens of thousands of political murders across Central America in the 1980s, including some 100,000 dead in Guatemala slaughtered by Rios Montt and other military dictators.

Indeed, Ronald Reagan – by aiding, abetting, encouraging and covering up widespread human rights crimes in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua as well as Guatemala – bears greater responsibility for Central America’s horrors than does Rios Montt in his bloody 17-month rule. Reagan supported Guatemala’s brutal repression both before and after Rios Montt held power, as well as during.

Despite that history, more honors have been bestowed on Reagan than any recent president. Americans have allowed the naming of scores of government facilities in Reagan’s honor, including Washington National Airport where Reagan’s name elbowed aside that of George Washington, who led the War of Independence, oversaw the drafting of the U.S. Constitution and served as the nation’s first president.

So, as America’s former reputation as a beacon for human rights becomes a bad joke to the rest of the world, it is unthinkable within the U.S. political/media structure that Reagan would get posthumously criticized for the barbarity that he promoted. No one of importance would dare suggest that his name be stripped from National Airport and his statue removed from near the airport entrance. But the evidence is overwhelming that the 40th president of the United States was guilty as an accessory to genocide and a wide range of other war crimes, including torture, rape, terrorism and narcotics trafficking. [See Robert Parry's Lost History.]

Green Light to Genocide

Regarding Guatemala, the documentary evidence is clear that Reagan and his top aides gave a green light to the extermination campaign against the Mayan Ixil population in the highlands even before Rios Montt came to power. Despite receiving U.S. intelligence reports revealing these atrocities, the Reagan administration also pressed ahead in an extraordinary effort to arrange military equipment, including helicopters, to make the slaughter more efficient.

More:
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/05/11/ronaldreagan-accessory-to-genocide/

[WinkyDink]

2. "an emphasis on human rights by President Jimmy Carter...."---Yeah, Carter was just so awful.