Efrain Rios Montt

José Efraín Ríos Montt (Huehuetenango, June 16, 1926-Guatemala City, April 1, 2018) was a Guatemalan politician, dictator and military man, Head of State of Guatemala between 1982 and 1983, a position he reached through a coup.

Ríos Montt is considered one of the toughest representatives of the Central American military governments he was tried and found guilty in Guatemala of genocide, however the sentence was annulled by rulings during the trial proceedings; same that could not be concluded due to his death.

He was director of the Polytechnic School, he was a general when he presented his candidacy in the 1974 presidential elections and was defeated, he also founded the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) party that in 2000 brought Alfonso Portillo to the Presidency. He was a candidate for the Presidency of Guatemala for the FRG in the 2003 general elections, having come in third place. On May 10, 2013, he was sentenced to 80 years for genocide and crimes against humanity, but this sentence was annulled on May 20, 2013 by the Constitutional Court of Guatemala, because Judge Jazmín Barrios, president of the First High Risk Court A, did not abide by the rulings issued by said court, being a higher-ranking legal authority.

Biography

He was born in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, on June 16, 1926, into a Catholic family. He married María Teresa Sosa Ávila, with whom he had three children: Homero, Enrique and Zury. In 1978 he renounced Catholicism and became an ordained minister in the Pentecostal Church of the Word.

In 2004, his daughter Zury married lawyer and US congressman Jerry Weller, originally from Illinois (United States), in Antigua Guatemala. In 2006, her first granddaughter, Marizú Catherine Weller Ríos, was born in a hospital in Guatemala City.

On May 10, 2013, he was sentenced by a Guatemalan court to 50 years in prison for crimes of genocide and 30 years for crimes against humanity perpetrated against the Ixil population. (80 years) Likewise, this sentence was annulled by the Constitutional Court.

At the time of his death at the age of 91, Efraín Ríos Montt was the longest-serving former president in Guatemalan history.

Military career

Rios Montt in 1960.

Raised in a rural environment, in 1943, at the age of 17, he entered the army as a military policeman at the army headquarters in the Fort of San Rafael de Matamoros and in 1946 he entered the Polytechnic School as a cadet, a military academy that It was on Avenida de la Reforma, zone 9. In 1950 he obtained the military and academic stripes of Infantry officer and Roadmaster. Subsequently, he followed specialization courses at Fort Gulick, in the Panama Canal Zone under US sovereignty, an instruction center highly frequented by Central American officials and which would later become the School of the Americas. From then on he developed a rapid military career that culminated in his being appointed director of the country's Military Academy.

In January 1973, he reached the rank of brigadier general and was appointed chief of the General Staff of the Guatemalan Army in April of that year.

Sansirisay Massacre

In May 1973, during the government of General Carlos Arana Osorio, the Sansirisay hamlet in the Palo Verde village of Jalapa had 45,425 inhabitants, of whom 18,433 were Poqomam indigenous people. The first news of the massacre was given on May 28, 1973, in the newspaper El Imparcial, indicating that peace reigned in the border area between Jalapa and El Progreso, after the 24-hour riots that left 17 dead and 5 injured.. The riots arose from a land dispute that originated in 1771, and occurred between peasants from El Progreso and Jalapa, and itinerant military police who wanted to impose order.

The army reported that itinerant military policemen were attacked by peasants, leaving six policemen and eleven peasants dead. Ríos Montt, as chief of the Army General Staff, flew over the area of the disturbance and was able to verify that the spirits had calmed down and that he was already working on identifying the dead.

Sectors that distrust the official version accused General Ríos Montt of having ordered the massacre at the site, but this could never be confirmed because there were no other sources of information available, since in 1973 human rights violations had not yet been investigated in Guatemala.

Presidential candidacy

Shortly after achieving the highest military promotion, which exalted his career, Ríos Montt opted to resign his commanding positions in the militia to run for the presidential elections on March 3, 1974, from which he would emerge the successor of General Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio.

Since 1960 the existence of the Communist Party was prohibited and the persecution of the Marxist and democratic left leaders began. Electoral politics was closed to all groups that identified with the left. This motivated the emergence of the guerrilla, because the insurgents decided to take power by force, given the refusal of political participation that the country gave them. Leaders of the democratic left, among them Alberto Fuentes Mohr, Manuel Colom Argueta, Vinicio Cerezo, decided in 1973 that if they did not have real options to gain power at the polls, because they would not be recognized for their victory, they could propose the presidential candidacy to the member of the most progressive Army, through the Guatemalan Christian Democracy party. And that is how the candidacy and electoral triumph of the pairing Efraín Ríos Montt and Alberto Fuentes Mohr arose: they won the elections, but their victory was not recognized either. Later (and under accusations of fraud) General Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García would obtain the victory. Reincorporated into the army, Ríos Montt was appointed ambassador to Spain between 1974 and 1977. The violence increased and Colom Argueta and Fuentes Mohr were assassinated.

Coup d'état of March 23, 1982

On March 23, 1982, Fernando Romeo Lucas-García was deposed by a coup led by middle officers of the Guatemalan Army. In the first communications, it was indicated that the military coup d'état was led by a group of "young officers" from the Guatemalan Army, whose objective would be "to end corruption." The insurgents took control of Guatemala City and managed to get General Fernando Romeo Lucas-García to surrender to the military who hours before had surrounded the National Palace.

Six military garrisons, five of them from the Guatemalan capital, supported by the air force, were at the origin of the uprising, one of whose visible heads is aviation general Hernán Ovidio Morales. The rebellious garrisons asked the police to hand over their weapons and join them. There were no armed confrontations in the capital, although in the interior of the country there were some minor clashes. La Aurora International Airport remained closed for several hours, and numerous international flights were canceled or held up; members of the air force controlled the terminal, and combat planes and helicopters flew over the capital in a show of force by the rebel military. The rebels also occupied the Congress building, which immediately dissolved its session; the national communications company, Guatel, and all the important official buildings in the Guatemalan capital. Two helicopters have been parked in the main square of the capital, next to the government palace, to take the president and his companions out of it. The personal secretary of General Romeo Lucas, Jorge García Granados, general secretary of the Revolutionary Party, official, entered the government palace in handcuffs.

After surrendering, Fernando Romeo Lucas-García was taken under military escort to the airport, to be expelled from the country; Just half an hour before, the deadline given by the insurgents for President Lucas to surrender peacefully had expired, and the troops had taken positions for a possible assault on the palace, located in the center of the city. Meanwhile, the streets of Guatemala City were taken over by armored cars, vehicles with machine guns, and a large display of soldiers in campaign uniform. The streets of Guatemala were left deserted, and both shops and establishments closed their doors. Great tension reigned in the capital, after Guatemala's private television channels interrupted their regular programming when they received "advice" from the rebel military to join the national network. Through the state radio and television network, Guatemalans were constantly asked to remain calm, inside their homes and to obey only the orders emanating from the representative Government Junta.

The winner of the elections that had been held only a few weeks before, the pro-government candidate and former Defense Minister, General Aníbal Guevara, was on vacation in Miami the day of the coup. The center-right opposition, which was joined by a far-right party, denounced a fraud in the elections. The president-elect was to take office in the first days of next July, when General Romeo Lucas would relinquish power. After the departure of Fernando Romeo Lucas-García, the leaders of the rebels requested his appearance at the general's palace Ríos Montt and the vice-presidential candidate for the fascist National Liberation Movement party in the last elections, Lionel Sisniega Otero.

At that time, Ríos Montt was a leader of the evangelical church "El Verbo"; he was not discharged, but he enjoyed prestige among the middle officers who remembered him during his time as director of the Polytechnic School, considering him honest and not committed to the situations that he wanted to correct. Although he did not participate in the planning of the coup d'état that had taken place nor had he been consulted if he would accept taking over the government, they called him because they considered that he was the right person to get the country out of the crossroads it was at and fight the corruption. The coup leaders were apparently unaware of his new religious affiliation and his dedication to said activity.

Once the government junta was assembled, made up of General Ríos Montt, Colonel Horacio Maldonado Schaad and Colonel Francisco Luis Gordillo, it announced that it would call new elections, but did not specify the date. The Board, he announced, will prepare a "work plan that will be presented to the people as soon as possible." The Governing Board dissolved Congress and abolished the Constitution after the triumph of the coup. In an appeal broadcast on radio and television, the coup leaders asked for "international understanding" and affirmed that the military that governed Guatemala until March 23, 1982 had fostered an image of the country abroad that did not correspond to the true characteristics of the town. They also assured that they were democratic and that they respected "the human rights of all Guatemalans."

After the coup, the house of the former Minister of the Interior, Donaldo Álvarez Ruiz, was ransacked by an angry mob.

Head of State of Guatemala

Several months later, Ríos Montt dissolved the military junta that ruled the country and proclaimed himself president of Guatemala.

Starting on March 23, 1982, when Ríos Montt came to power, he abolished the death squads. The Council of State initiated the political debate and, with the participation of 30 percent of Mayan councillors, including an Ixil, proposed a total political opening. The old Electoral Council, in which the political parties were judge and party, became the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, sworn in by Ríos Montt in 1983. The electoral scheme was opened to the participation of the left. Delegations were sent abroad so that the exiles could return. The first informal contacts with the guerrillas began.^{[citation required]}

Economy

Civil War

So that the guerrillas could have free political participation, Ríos Montt granted amnesties to which more than 15,000 Guatemalans took refuge. All this came to open a political path to the left, denied since 1954. With this, the traditional, ultra-conservative and oligarchic extreme right, was displaced by a new anti-revolutionary radicalism that combined the declarations of social development of indigenous peoples and peasants, and of war of extermination of the communist guerrillas that sought to recruit them.^{[citation needed]}

During his government, the Civil Self-Defense Patrols (PAC) were created, which in 1985 had approximately 500,000 patrolmen throughout the country. They were created as groups of civilian men coercively organized by the armed institution as a complementary paramilitary force, that sought to isolate the guerrilla movement and control their communities. The PACs did not have a uniform start date. The military objective was to saturate the area of the armed confrontation with civilian patrol cars, prioritizing the departments that the Army had registered as "red zone" or "pink zone." The military presence increased in the departments with the greatest insurgency problems, and when military detachments and military zones were installed, control of the civilian population intensified.

By 1982, the guerrilla groups were in a very bad situation after the anti-guerrilla offensive of Benedicto Lucas-García, during the government of his brother Fernando Romeo Lucas-García. The guerrillas carried out economic recoveries, and thus called acts that bordered on banditry: terror for terror's sake, loss of perspective. They carried out economic kidnappings and carried out some activities, but during that time the fundamental thing was survival, and for this they assaulted gas stations, pharmacies, restaurants and buses. But even so, the different guerrilla groups carried out the following attacks during the Ríos Montt government:

International relations

State of siege and courts of special jurisdiction

In April 1982, on a national television network, Ríos Montt declared an amnesty for the subversive left to lay down their arms. After the scant response to his request, on June 9, 1982, Ríos Montt proclaimed himself head of state and "removed from power" colonels Héctor Maldonado Schaad and Francisco Luis Martínez Gordillo, while he concentrated all elements of the army in the barracks near the capital, where they rested for a month.

On June 30, 1982, Ríos Montt, in a speech titled "We are ready for honesty and justice to reign," said that the government realized that there were Guatemalans who for fear of being assassinated had not done so. use of amnesty, because the "communist comrades" had declared themselves enemies of these populations and that for this reason the government was going to fight subversion by any means it wanted, but that it was going to do so with open, completely fair trials, at the same time with energy and rigor. He reported that for this purpose he had established "special jurisdiction courts" that would fulfill this purpose and declared that from that moment on there was a death penalty by firing squad for those who kidnapped, set fires, and attacked and damaged defense installations. Finally, he announced that as of July 1, 1982, a state of siege was established throughout the country, and that he was going to mobilize troops to combat subversion, to begin the "final battle". The state of siege lasted eight months and three continuous weeks and the mobilization of army troops was 60% to concentrate them in the northwestern part of the country. There was also forced recruitment for military service of men between the ages of 18 and 60.

The courts of special jurisdiction, directed by unknown officials, civilian or military, appointed by the president, and who tried and sentenced, drastically and quickly, in parallel with the Judicial Branch, more than five hundred people accused of trying to violate the country's legal, political, economic, and social institutions were a judicial body subject to the Executive Power. In total, 15 people were shot to death with no way to prove their guilt, because in less than a month after their capture, the courts with anonymous judges ―faceless and without records― sentenced them to death and the arguments on which their ruling was based were never made public. In addition, another 582 people who were not sentenced to death were tried.

When the decree-law of the courts of special jurisdiction was published, one day after the celebration of Army Day, on July 1, 1982, the government of Ríos Montt did not expect that there would be challenges, appeals and less shelters; Decree-Law 46-82 stated: "There is no appeal against the resolutions of the Courts of Special Jurisdiction in this class of proceedings," therefore almost nothing or very little was expected of the defense. Conrado Alonso, who was a defense attorney for one of the defendants, wrote a detailed book in 1986 which he called Fifteen shot at dawn . In the book there are photos of those sentenced, of the courts without judges, and of policemen with rifles in hand on the outskirts of the cemetery. Defenders who, against the clock, drafted amparo appeals before midnight, and magistrates who received them, who came and went, with the notification of suspension, searching since three in the morning, for the non-existent seat of the Courts of Special Jurisdiction, either in the National Palace or in the Second Corps of the National Police, next to the church of La Merced; Thanks to the proceedings of the magistrates, the non-existence of the headquarters for the special courts was made clear, despite the fact that they had already been operating for more than six months, and that by September 18, 1982 they had already been shot. four people.

The courts functioned under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense, then in charge of General Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores.

After the visit of the IACHR (Inter-American Court of Human Rights) at the end of 1982, Ríos Montt decided to suspend all existing executions under the death penalty, without disclosing the names of those convicted, taking into account some suggestions from the international human rights body. After receiving the IACHR report, the law would undergo modifications; among them, that the defense could have at least a discreet participation and the creation of a second instance for the processes submitted to these courts. On December 14, 1982, the changes were published in the Diario de Centro América, official gazette, Decree Law 111-82. The defense was able to at least activate a mechanism within the Official Justice System, that although he was unable to prevent the executions, he at least postponed them for a few days.

Asking for justice: a man raises a poster asking for justice for genocide. The poster contains photographs by Germán Chupina, Benedicto Lucas-García, Efraín Ríos Montt, Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores, Romeo Lucas-García, Ángel Aníbal Guevara, Pedro García Arredondo and Donaldo Álvarez Ruiz.

According to the Commission for Historical Clarification, the Special Tribunals were the element of urban repression that was implemented within the army's counterinsurgency project; This was necessary because since 1976, the banned left-wing political parties, such as the Guatemalan Labor Party, had infiltrated unions, popular organizations, and even student associations and the authorities of the University of San Carlos. During the government of Fernando Romeo Lucas-García, they demonstrated their power of convocation and organization with massive protests in July and August 1978 that put the government in check, and in 1981 when the government ―with the help of computer equipment recommended by the dictatorship (1976-1983) and by Israeli technicians― found and dismantled 35 guerrilla strongholds in Guatemala City. The government of Fernando Lucas-García increased the repression through a wave of terror in the city to the point that by 1982 the subversive left was dismantled. In the case of the Tribunals de Fuero Especial, these were a continuation of the military plan from the government, with nothing more than a change of leadership.

Between Tuesday, February 22, and March 4, 1983, the six sentenced to death made headlines again. It had not been easy, but the defenders had achieved a public hearing, due to hasty sentences, the Special Jurisdiction Courts made mistakes. What remained was to request a public hearing of the sentenced, to which the Ministry of Defense was reluctant; but he could not disagree with the decision of the magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice and accordingly, in front of the reporters, before the magistrates of the CSJ, the television cameras, the Public Ministry, and the absence of the judges of the Court of Special Jurisdiction, one by one, the six convicted were able to testify. That day the accusations, torture and express interrogation to which each of them had been subjected was learned. The hearing room of the Judicial Branch was full.

On March 3, 1983, General Mejía Víctores, Minister of Defense, forced the CSJ magistrates to go to the National Palace ―now known to be the headquarters of the Special Jurisdiction Courts― to that, finally, they reviewed the documents. After conferring with the judges in the Palace, the CSJ magistrates found only small errors, and consequently those sentenced would be shot. Ten hours later, the six defendants ―Héctor Adolfo Morales López, the brothers Walter Vinicio and Sergio Roberto Marroquín González, Carlos Subuyuj Cuc, Pedro Raxón Tepet and Marco Antonio González― arrived at the General Cemetery at dawn together with the firing squad of policemen and army and the forensic doctor. The execution had great repercussions in Guatemala and in the world, because it occurred just a few days before the visit of Pope John Paul II to Guatemala, who had asked for leniency for those convicted.

A week later, General Mejía Víctores announced new executions and other severe penalties. The Special Jurisdiction Courts not only sentenced the death penalty, since according to their decree-law, they could double the prison sentence in their sentences. And it was combined between the National Police through the intelligence body of the Technical Investigations Department with the army officers who acted as judges in the Special Jurisdiction Courts to decide who were tried in those courts. By April 30, 1983, the Government attested that 80% of those consigned had been released, and there were, however, a total of 112 cases. By June 1983 there were some 200 prisoners in the Second Corps of the National Police. The Special Jurisdiction Courts were in force throughout the Ríos Montt government and it was never known who the judges were.

Visit of Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II visited Guatemala for the first time on Sunday, March 6, 1983. A few days before, six criminals were sentenced to death and later shot, despite the fact that the pope had asked that the executions stop. Despite the atmosphere of fear that this situation produced, John Paul II was received by thousands of faithful who arrived at the La Aurora International Airport terminal to wait for him. The next morning, thousands of faithful revived the traditional elaboration of carpets from sawdust and flowers and the pope, seeing such a demonstration, asked if it was possible to take one of these as a souvenir and was surprised when he learned what they were made of.

Perhaps the most memorable event of his first visit was the celebration of mass on the Champ de Mars before an estimated crowd of between one and a half million and two million people, which until then was the largest in the country's history. The pope also had a meeting in the Llanos de Olintepeque, Quetzaltenango, with just over half a million people who attended the coronation of the revered image of the Virgen del Rosario, patron saint of the place. On that occasion, the Pontiff also placed a rosary brought from the Vatican in the hands of the baby Jesus, and delivered a message in the Quiché language.

Protestantism

One of the main points of contention during his rule was religion. As the months of his government passed, his attitude gradually became that of a Protestant pastor who preached to the people of Guatemala using the phrase "You Dad, You Mom!"

Although Ríos Montt shared command with Maldonado Shaad y Gordillo until June 9, 1982, it was evident that he held the reins of government from the beginning. He constituted a cabinet with proposals to institutions and other unions, excluding political parties; although he kept the private secretariat and the general secretariat of the Presidency for members of his church ―the Word―. At that time, Ríos Montt believed that his ascension to power was the work of God, and on Sunday afternoons he went out preaching like a pastor using the style and rhetoric of religious sermons and taking advantage of the television space of the national radio and television network. television. He gave advice, scolded, and always talked about family unity with his mom and dad phrase.On one occasion he said that you had to fight with the Bible in one hand and a machine gun in the other.

In a special act, he sent ministers, deputy ministers, general directors, advisers, secretaries and others to the National Theater, in order to make them swear by God and by the country that they would change their attitude. He would read a page and then make the attendees repeat, in chorus: "I promise before God and before the country to change, and to achieve, through all my actions, change Guatemala. I promise that my actions are within the law»; and then the motto arose: "I do not steal, I do not lie, I do not abuse" that all public employees had to wear on a badge. Alongside the motto, he used a right hand with outstretched fingers, which years later would become the symbol of his party, the Guatemalan Republican Front.

Overthrow

In June 1983, the United States Department of Defense received a message from its intelligence office in Guatemala, explaining that a coup against Ríos Montt was expected, which could occur between on June 30 - Day of the Army - and on August 2 - day of commemoration of the uprising of the cadets against the liberationists -. According to the US statement, the Minister of Defense, Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores, would be replaced by a soldier related to the uprising, who, after the overthrow of Ríos Montt, would call elections to form a national constituent assembly within a period of sixty days after the the coup occurred. The new constituent assembly would be the interim congress, in which general elections would be called, which the Americans considered would be in a matter of three years after the overthrow of Ríos Montt. The reasons why Ríos Montt would be overthrown were listed in the US statement:

• General Ríos Montt was a very popular public figure who liked the Guatemalan press, but people had been disappointed in him. His last Sunday presidential messages were practically evangelical sermons in which he said his remarked phrase “You, Dad!” using numerous variations on the family issue, expressed with growing frenzy until the messages ended.

Grafiti representing Efraín Ríos Montt on a wall of Zone 2 (Guatemala City), in December 2006.

• There was more corruption now than there had been in previous governments.
• A Guatemalan person who acted as a CIA agent reported that government officials asked him up to 20% in commissions for his purchases.
• The same agent reported that there were senior officials of the Rios Montt government who had erased the phrase “Republic of Guatemala”, in the government’s purchase orders, and replaced it by the expression “New Guatemala”, which referred to the evangelical Christians in power with Ríos Montt and who overwhelmed the Catholic majority of the country.
• It was also reported that Rios Montt had won the 1974 elections, in which General Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García was fraudulently successful; however, Rios Montt accepted the defeat in exchange for being appointed military attaché in Spain and receiving secret payments of six thousand dollars a month when he was in that country.
• It was also said that the general had been embezzling funds from the state to support his evangelical church.
• Finally, it was said that only the twenty-two officers who had forged the coup d ' état on 23 March 1982 and the wife of Rios Montt supported him in the government.

Ríos Montt was overthrown on August 8, 1983 by a coup carried out by General Mejía Víctores, his defense minister, who in effect began the transition to democratic regimes in the country. Most of the information collected by the US intelligence services turned out to be correct.

Later political career

Deputy of the Congress of Guatemala

Pancarta carried by students during the USAC strike in 2006.

He was elected deputy to Congress in the general elections of November 12, 1995, along with his daughter Zury Ríos. His party, the Guatemalan Republican Front, achieved a total of 21 deputies, this being the second party with the most deputies in congress. The presidential candidate for his party, Alfonso Portillo, came in second, Álvaro Arzú having won. After losing the 2003 presidential elections, Ríos Montt registered as a candidate for deputy on the national list together with his daughter for the FRG. On September 9, 2007 they were elected deputies and on January 14, 2008 they took office. They finished their term on January 14, 2012.

Candidate for the Presidency

In the middle of 2003, the FRG proclaimed Efraín Ríos Montt as its candidate for the presidency, at that time he was president of the Congress of the Republic, his candidacy culminated on Monday, July 21, 2003, when the Supreme Court of Justice failed to suspend his candidacy. On Thursday, July 24, 2003, FRG officials and supporters led a massive demonstration in Guatemala City to protest their disqualification from the presidential election. The demonstration degenerated into a bloody riot that resulted in the death of journalist Héctor Ramírez known as El Reportero X of Noti-7 and Radio Cadena Sonora. However, a week later on Thursday, July 31, the Constitutional Court annulled the prohibition of the Supreme Court of Justice and he was finally registered as a presidential candidate. He came in third place, with a total of 518,464 votes that represented 19.3%, behind Álvaro Colom and Óscar Berger, who won the election.

Timeline

Former Efraín Ríos Montt with guards in a police vehicle, five days after being convicted of genocide in Guatemala City (May 2013).

Criminal proceedings

El exgeneral Efraín Ríos Montt following his conviction for genocide on 10 May 2013 in Guatemala City.

In Spain

In 1999, the Guatemalan Rigoberta Menchú ―Nobel Peace Prize Laureate― filed charges of torture, genocide, illegal detention, and state terrorism against Ríos Montt and four other retired Guatemalan generals, two of them former presidents (Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores and Fernando Romeo Lucas-Garcia). Three other civilians were also charged. The Association for Human Rights of Spain and the Center for Justice and Accountability were co-complainants.

In September 2005, Spain's Constitutional Court ruled that a Spanish court can try those accused of crimes against humanity even if the victims were not Spanish. In June 2006, Judge Santiago Pedraz traveled to Guatemala to question Ríos Montt and other defendants. However, at least 15 appeals carried out by the defense prevented Pedraz from questioning the defendants.

On July 7, 2005, Pedraz issued an international arrest warrant against Efraín Ríos Montt, former presidents Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores and Fernando Romeo Lucas-García (who had allegedly died in Venezuela in May 2006), retired generals Fernando Lucas-García and Aníbal Guevara and three civilians: Donaldo Álvarez Ruiz (former Minister of the Interior), Germán Chupina Barahona (former Police Director) and Pedro García Arredondo.

At a press conference, Ríos Montt admitted that during his tenure the army had committed “excesses”, for which he – as commander in chief of the army – would not have had any responsibility.

Trial in Guatemala

María Soto and other ixil women celebrate after the Guatemalan ex-dictator Efraín Ríos Montt was found guilty of genocide against the ixil people in the 1980s. The companions of the Catholic agency Trócaire fought for 30 years to obtain justice for the ixil ethnic group. (Photo: Elena Hermosa).

On January 17, 2007, Ríos Montt announced that he would run for Congress in the elections that same year. As a member of Congress, he would enjoy parliamentary immunity and could not be impeached unless removed by a court. He obtained his parliamentary position on September 9, 2007 and led the 15 deputies of the FRG (Guatemalan Republican Front) in Congress.

His immunity ended on January 14, 2012, when he ceased to serve in Congress. On January 26, 2012, Ríos Montt appeared before a Guatemalan court and was formally charged with genocide and crimes against humanity along with three other former generals. During the appearance he refused to testify. The court placed him under house arrest pending his trial. On March 1, 2012, a Guatemalan judge rejected the defense's appeal, stating that Guatemala's Amnesty Law cannot be applied to charges of genocide.

Sentenced to eighty years in prison

On Monday, January 28, 2013, Miguel Ángel Gálvez (highest risk judge B) opened the trial against José Efraín Ríos Montt and José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez, for the crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity. In March 2013, he obtained a provisional protection from the trial. On Tuesday, March 19, 2013, a judge formally opened a trial against the octogenarian ex-dictator, accusing him of genocide against indigenous people during his regime (1982-1983), a crime for which he could have been sentenced to half a century in prison. On Friday, May 10, 2013, Ríos Montt was found guilty by Judge Yassmin Barrios, who handed down a sentence of fifty years in uncommutable prison for genocide and thirty more years for crimes against humanity, making Ríos Montt the first Latin American leader to be convicted of these crimes. For this conclusion, the specialized analysis of the operational plans generated during the Ríos Montt regime ―Plan Victoria 82, Plans Firmexza 82 and 83 and Plan Operativo Sofía― was fundamental. According to the expert Rodolfo Robles Espinosa, who analyzed the military documents, the high command, including Ríos Montt, had “control of the event and could stop the attacks on the civilian population by his subordinates. The state endorsed the existence of the internal enemy, existing combat operations planning and control. He demonstrated the responsibility of the head of the organization ». Therefore, the judges concluded "the defendant was aware of everything that was happening and did not stop it, despite having the power to prevent such perpetration."

Session of the High-Risk Tribunal on the day of the conviction of former Efraín Ríos Montt for genocide (10 May 2013).

Ríos Montt was therefore sentenced to eighty years in prison for the genocide committed against the Ixil people ―located in the Ixcán oil region in the Northern Transversal Strip― when he ruled dictatorially between 1982 and 1983, with the excuse of who collaborated with the communist guerrillas. In the sentence, it was considered proven that the military under his command had murdered 1,771 Ixils, in addition to having systematically raped Ixil women and girls, many of them turned into sexual slaves of their soldiers ―and some of them died for this cause―, and having committed all kinds of atrocities, such as opening the womb of a pregnant woman to remove the fetus, and harassment, such as forcing a father to watch his wife and children being tortured and raped. As stated by the Spanish lawyer Paloma Soria, who participated in the process against Ríos Montt:

Rigoberta Menchú, who had previously denounced Ríos Montt in Spain for genocide, said she was happy with the sentence handed down by Judge Jazmín Barrios.

The CACIF (Coordinating Committee of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Associations) asked the Constitutional Court of Guatemala to annul the ruling issued by Court A of Higher Risk. The president of said committee, Marco Augusto García, said that he did not support the ruling because "the specific intention of the State to exterminate a particular ethnic group has not been demonstrated."

Los Milicianos was a group formed in 1960 as a measure to defend the territory of Huehuetenango against the possibility of Mexican invasions. In 2013 it was made up of 40,000 people. On May 13, 2013, they rejected the ruling that sentenced Ríos Montt to 80 years for genocide.

Annulment of the conviction

The judgment of the trial was annulled by the Constitutional Court on Monday, May 20, 2013, for disobedience and contempt by the High Risk Court A for having ignored the rulings issued by said court.

According to the Spanish newspaper El País, the magistrates annulled the sentence ―with three votes in favor for Ríos Montt and two against― because they considered that the court did not resolve a challenge raised at the time against two of its members, therefore, all judicial proceedings held from April 19 to May 10, 2013, the day of the sentence, must be repeated.

It also includes the statements of Manfredo Marroquín, president of Acción Ciudadana (independent), who affirmed that the annulment of the trial is another example of the "extreme weakness of the Guatemalan justice system." It also includes the opinion of the journalist Gonzalo Asturias, who was the press secretary of the Ríos Montt presidency, in defense of the latter's actions.

The president of the Constitutional Court, Roberto Molina Barreto, said that he was unaware of the grounds of his colleagues (magistrates) who opposed the ruling that favored the former de facto president, moreover, they strongly criticized him and expressed their discontent. He added that the ruling of the Constitutional Court could have been avoided if the Public Prosecutor's Office and the plaintiff lawyers had warned Court A that the debate had effectively been suspended.

Death

Ríos Montt died in Guatemala City on April 1, 2018 at the age of 91. He was buried a few hours later in the private Villa de Guadalupe cemetery without receiving homage from Congress, for being a former president of power legislature, because his family rejected said honor.