Photos: Throughout Latin America, protests demand justice for Guatemala after genocide trial overtur

[Judi Lynn]

Photos: Throughout Latin America, protests demand justice for Guatemala after genocide trial overturned

Xeni Jardin at 12:22 pm Sat, May 25, 2013



Protesters in Guatemala and other Latin American countries gathered on Friday to denounce the Guatemalan Constitutional Court's recent decision to overturn the genocide trial and guilty verdict of Ríos Montt. About 1,500 people, mostly indigenous Maya from Guatemala, gathered in Guatemala City. They marched along what posters described as the "Route of Impunity," from the Supreme Court where the ex-General was convicted on May 10 and sentenced to 80 years in jail, to the Constutional Court which threw out the trial ten days later.

Photos from the Guatemala City march below, along with images from Nicaragua, Honduras, and Mexico, which were among the other countries where protests took place. Also below, snapshots from a pro-Ríos Montt protest that took place today in a suburb of Guatemala City: about 15 people gathered to denounce Communism and terrorism, and chant that "In Guatemala, there was no genocide."


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Protesters in Guatemala City, Friday May 24, 2013. Photo: Daniel Hernández-Salazar; more in this Facebook album.[/font]

Also on Friday, former Guatemalan president Alfonso Portillo was extradited by the Guatemalan government to the United States, where he is wanted on allegations he laundered some $70 million through US banks.

Portillo ruled Guatemala from 2000-2004, and was elected on the platform of the FRG party, which Ríos Montt founded and led.

In 2010, the United States filed charges against him for what a prosecutor called “converting the office of the Guatemalan presidency into his personal A.T.M.”

More:
http://boingboing.net/2013/05/25/throughout-latin-america-prot.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Ríos Montt Genocide Verdict Annulled, But Activists Ensure US-Backed Crimes Will Never Be Forgotten

Ríos Montt Genocide Verdict Annulled, But Activists Ensure US-Backed Crimes Will Never Be Forgotten
Thursday, 23 May 2013 13:16 By Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video

As Guatemala's high court annuls former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt's genocide conviction, we're joined by two people who have worked tirelessly to bring perpetrators of war crimes in the country to justice. Helen Mack, one of Guatemala's most well-known human rights activists, fought for years to prosecute the government forces who assassinated her sister, anthropologist Myrna Mack on Sept. 11, 1990. A Right Livelihood Award Winner, today she heads the Myrna Mack Foundation, named after her sister. We also speak with Kate Doyle, a senior analyst of U.S. policy in Latin America and the director at the Guatemala Documentation Project at the National Security Archive, who is featured in the documentary, "Granito: How to Nail a Dictator." Both Mack and Doyle attended Ríos Montt's recent trial.

TRANSCRIPT

Juan Gonzalez:We turn now to Guatemala. The country's top court has overturned the genocide conviction of former U.S.-backed military dictator Efraín Ríos Montt. In a historic verdict earlier this month, Ríos Montt was sentenced to 80 years for genocide and crimes against humanity in the killings of more than 1,700 Ixil Mayan people in the early 1980s. But now the status of the verdict is in question. In a three-to-two ruling Monday, the Guatemalan constitutional court dismissed all the case's proceedings dating back to a month ago. It was then that the court first annulled the case amidst a dispute between judges over jurisdiction. This is Constitutional Court Deputy Secretary Giovanni Salguero.

Giovanni Salguero: (translated) Everything said in the phase of moral and public debate of the legal process will be intercepted under the process ofamparo from April 19, 2013. All proceedings before that date are annulled.

Juan Gonzalez:In the run-up to its latest decision to overturn, the court had come under heavy lobbying from Ríos Montt supporters, including the military and Guatemala's powerful business association. Ríos Montt remains in a military hospital, where he was admitted last week. His legal status is now up in the air. He will likely be released into house arrest, and it is unclear when or if he will return to court.

Amy Goodman: For more, we're joined by Helen Mack, one of Guatemala's most well-known human rights activists, president of the Myrna Mack Foundation, named after her sister, a Guatemalan anthropologist who was assassinated in Guatemala September 11, 1990. Helen spent 14 years bringing the officers and generals responsible for her sister's murder to justice. She recently attended and monitored parts of the Ríos Montt genocide trial.

And we're joined by Kate Doyle, senior analyst of U.S. policy in Latin America and director of the Guatemala Documentation Project at the National Security Archive. She also attended the Ríos Montt genocide trial in Guatemala, filing reports from inside the courtroom for the Open Society Foundation. She is winner of the ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism and featured in the documentary Granito: How to Nail a Dictator.

More:
http://www.truth-out.org/video/item/16555-rios-montt-genocide-verdict-annulled-but-activists-ensure-us-backed-crimes-will-never-be-forgotten

[Catherina]

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