Rios Montt Gets 80 Years for Genocide: What About the Others?

Last week, Rios Montt, the 86-year old, former President of Guatemala, was convicted by a court in Guatemala of crimes of genocide against the indigenous Mayan Ixil population and sentenced to 80 years of imprisonment.

All these years, Rios Montt was able to avoid the legal consequences as he had immunity as a member of the legislature, which he lost in 2012. The judgement delivered by Judge Yassmin Barrios, is not the final word; it will now be appealed in higher courts, where the Guatemalan oligarchy may still be able to defeat the judgement. The current President, Perez Molinas, has also been identified during the trial as one of the perpetrators of the genocide, as indeed are many more including US officials, who were a party to the genocidal violence unleashed on the Guatemalan people. Ronald Reagan had endorsed Rios Montt, talking about the charges against him said he was being given a “bum rap”.

What was missing in the trial was the US role in the Guatemalan violence that killed an estimated quarter of a million. It was the CIA inspired coup in Guatemala getting rid of President Arabenz's government who was introducing land reforms there that started the train of events. It was the opposition to the US induced regime change in Guatemala that lead to widespread resistance and later armed struggle. It was the Mayan Ixil's opposition to the grabbing of their lands that created the alliance between the indigenous people and the opposition to the US backed, military government in Guatemala.

It was the Guatemalan coup that became the blueprint for the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. This can be seen from the document drafted by Allen Dulles, the then Director CIA.

The US was fully involved after the coup in training the Guatemalan military forces on how to “pacify” the country, carry out assassinations, “disappear” the opponents and all the elements that finally developed into the full-blown genocidal campaign unleashed on the Mayan Ixil population. It also became the standard US response to all nationalist figures in Latin America. Wanting national control over a country's resources was anti-American and pro-Soviet, and therefore worthy of the “Guatemalan treatment”.

Rigiberto Menchu, the Nobel Prize winner who has been fighting for the rights of the Mayan people played a very important role in the campaign for justice in Guatemala. Three women in Guatemala -- Rigoberto Menchu, the first woman attorney general, Claudia Paz y Paz and Judge Yassmin Barrios – have brought a former dictator to book, the first time that a former ruler has been ever convicted of genocide within his own country; in spite of open threats against themselves and their family. Incidentally, Victor Menchu, Rigoberto Menchu's father was one of the victims of the Guatemalan violence.

Latin America, has a history of discrimination against its indigenous population. The settler colonial stock – the Spanish, Portuguese and others from Europe – are a part of the land-owning aristocracy and now the emerging capitalist class. The conflict between the peasantry and the Latin American elite quite often takes a racial turn, with the military and the state apparatus being instrument of the landed. These sections also ally with companies such as United Fruit Company (now called Chiquita Brands International) who want cheap land and labour for developing their agribusiness. It is the same forces who are with the mining interests and expropriating the peasantry even today from its land.

The trial of one of their own in Guatemala has brought out the ugly face of racism once again. Throughout the trail, the response of the Guatemalan oligarchy was to wish away this part of the evidence. Instead, they talked about violence on both sides of the civil war, disregarding all evidence that violence was directed almost entirely by one side and also against the Mayan population. In private, they have much more to say, including that more Indians should have been killed and the Mayan women are ugly and therefore could not have been raped.

The liberal opinion is willing to concede that the US was involved with genocide, but only as an enabler – the actual genocide was committed by a racist Guatemalan elite, therefore the US is somehow less guilty. The problem with this somewhat sanitised picture is the wealth of evidence that the trial brought out, including the training, handbook, the method of “cleansing” villages and the direct participation of US Green Berets and other personnel. The CIA had even supplied a manual of how to kill – with guns, knives and even blunt instruments.

Guatemala is n

ot just about death squads and genocide. It is also about the US controlling the resources of the world, exclusively for itself and its allies, and the no-holds barred war it was willing to wage against any opposition. In Latin America, it was Guatemala, West Asia it was Iran and in Africa it was Congo. The world is still paying for the coups, assassinations, mass killings it arranged, quite often as if it was just another day in office. It is the rest of the world that has paid the price – in poverty, blood, and even genocide.

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