Otto Perez Molina, New Guatemalan President, Wants To Regain U.S. Military Aid
Otto Perez Molina, New Guatemalan President, Wants To Regain U.S. Military Aid
By ROMINA RUIZ-GOIRIENA | 01/12/12 02:54 PM ET
GUATEMALA CITY -- Former general Otto Perez Molina takes office as Guatemala's new president Saturday with a top priority of ending a long-standing U.S. ban on military aid imposed over concerns about abuses during the Central American country's 36-year civil war.
Perez, who was a top military official during the war, has long insisted there were no massacres, human rights violations or genocide in a conflict that killed 200,000 civilians, mostly Mayan Indians.
But he won the presidency campaigning on a pledge to crack down on soaring crime, including one of the highest murder rates in the Western Hemisphere, and he will need U.S. help to battle the Mexican drug gangs that have overrun Guatemala.
Close advisers say he supports meeting the conditions set by various U.S. congressional appropriations acts for restoring aid that was first eliminated in 1978 halfway through the civil war.
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