Guate: Rios Montt genocide trial / 2nd day of conclusions, Prosecution wraps up

[Catherina]

6. CALDH lawyer Vivar closing... sexual violence was state policy. Killing "chocolates"

NISGUA ‏@NISGUA_Guate

- Lawyer Vivar beings his #GenocideGT closing arguments on behalf of CALDH. (Centre for Human Rights Legal Action)

- Vivar: I speak on behalf of the victims, names now engraved in our mind. Read testimonies from 1st days of trial

- Viviar: This case is heard in the natl courts…That we be seen as a civilized ppl capable of confronting our dark history.

- Francisco Vivar: We want to be seen as a civilized ppl capable of confronting our dark history. That we serve as an example to all.

- Vivar: Guatemala has an obligation to fulfill international law. An obligation to respect fundamental rights.

- Vivar: The Geneva Convention is applicable to domestic armed conflicts, as in the case of Guatemala.

- Vivar: We have proof, testimonial evidence. With their stories, between 80-90% of witnesses proved that these events happened.

- The #GenocideGT courtroom is packed today, w/ppl sitting on the stairs in order to hear the closing arguments.

- Vivar: The testimonies demonstrate there was pillage, destruction, forced labor, slavery by the military.

- Vivar: Women came to...share their story (of sexual violence) despite being stigmatized. We have to hear their voice.

- Vivar: Rape constitutes torture.

NISGUA ‏@NISGUA_Guate
- Vivar references Blanca Nieves & Paloma Sorias. Read about their & other expert witness testimony

- CALDH lawyer Vivar closing: Paloma Sorias testified sexual violence was state policy.

The proceedings on April 11, day 15 of the genocide trial, started with a formal protest by the prosecution, with Edgar Pérez filing a formal protest that entrance to the courtroom and public bathroom access has been limited to the indigenous survivors coming to witness the historic trial against Efraín Ríos Montt and José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez.

Edgar Perez: The acts of racism that are committed below toward the victims who enter the courtroom are incredible. #GenocideGT
— NISGUA (@NISGUA_Guate) April 11, 2013

Edgar Perez: I see patterns of racism and xenophobia from the internal armed conflict being repeated in the courtroom. #GenocideGT
— NISGUA (@NISGUA_Guate) April 11, 2013

The day continued with extensive testimony by expert witnesses, most notably that of political analyst Marco Tulio Álvarez Bobadilla, former director of the Peace Archives, and Ramón Cadena, President of the International Commission of Jurists.

Álvarez submitted a report on the displacement of children in the Ixil region analyzing the military plans Victoria '82, Firmeza '83 and Operation Sofia. He highlighted the broader guidelines established by the military, which translated into operations and actions in the field.

The displacement of children was not an isolated act but a policy followed by the military institution...children were included as an internal enemy [of the state]. ... Children are identified in the army manual, which includes enemies that were not participants in the subversion but supporters. This broadened the definition of internal enemy.

In a particularly disturbing example of children as targets, Álvarez read a military report from the field included in Plan Sofia. A woman was hiding and upon discovery soldiers killed her, "eliminating her and two chocolates". Chocolates, said Álvarez, were the military's designation for children.

Álvarez also named the military strategy targeting children as an attack against the Maya Ixil culture, an element of genocide.

In many cases the transfer of children meant forced disappearance, with family members unable to locate them afterwards. ...These children were denied their identity…the social fabric was destroyed in the attack against the Ixil culture.

...

Using key passages from military plans, Cadena illustrated not only the military's intention to dismiss international standards of protecting the civil population but also their blatant violation of civilians' rights.

The military Plan Victoria 82 says, “The great masses of indigenous in the highlands of the nation have found an echo in the proclamations of subversives.” Plan Operation Sofia names 100% of the Ixil population as supporters of the subversives.The military doctrine allows justification of cruel attacks against the civil population and genocide against the Ixil population. Plan Firmeza 83 establish on pages 5-8, “The principal objective is to reach their physical and psychological control of the population.”

By 1981, an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (CIDH) document concluded, "a situation has been created in Guatemala in which a lack of respect for human life and the laws that protect them predominate… The application of physical and psychological constraints of cruel and inhuman treatment has transgressed the limits of being a method of obtaining information or inflicting punishment, and has become a system of killing citizens."

....

www.nisgua.blogspot.com/2013/04/genocide-on-trial-days-15-16-experts.html

NISGUA ‏@NISGUA_Guate 29m

Vivar highlights terrifying testimonies of sexual violence. "There are too many stories from the women to share them all."