Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Ríos Montt will be tried for genocide and crimes against humanity committed during his brutal 17-month rule in the early 1980s, a time when civil war was raging and military leaders waged a “scorched earth” campaign against the country’s leftist rebels.

by Luisa Lopez

"I believe that there is enough evidence in these charges," said Judge Patricia Flores Thursday, agreeing with prosecutors that 85-year-old Rios Montt, as head of the government, should answer for the brutality under his rule, which included orchestrating the destruction of native Mayan villages during the bloodiest years of Guatemala's 36-year civil war.

Some 200,000 were killed--mostly indigenous people caught between the government and the rebels—in what a UN-backed commission has already termed a genocide committed by those in power.

Flores ordered Rios Montt to be placed under house arrest until a preliminary hearing in March.

No office, no immunity

Her decision comes a few days after the former dictator lost the parliamentary immunity that came with his being a deputy in the National Parliament. For two decades he avoided his country’s courts, but when his term in office expired this month, so did his immunity from prosecution.

Defence attorneys claim that Rios Montt did not control field operations (and was never even on the battlefield) and therefore cannot be held responsible. "Each commander is responsible for making decisions in his own post," attorney Danilo Rodriguez said.

But victims' organizations say Rios Montt bears criminal responsibility as the highest political and military leader during a time when thousands of crimes against humanity were committed in the early 1980s against the indigenous communities in the Ixil Triangle.

It is estimated that in the areas of Quiché, Huehuetenango and Petén, a countless number of massacres killed more than 3,000 Mayan people.

Mitigating circumstances?

Mario Polanco, the director of the Mutual Support Group, told Radio Netherlands that the plaintiffs are aware that Rios Montt’s voluntary appearance in court Thursday could serve as a mitigating circumstance at his trial: Ríos Montt has demonstrated to the court and Guatemalan society his willingness to cooperate.

But the big question is: How much is the former dictator willing to contribute? “Anything can happen,” says Polanco. “Remember that in times of victory, they are all friends and work together. But when the possibility of punishment arises, the betrayals start. Everything depends on the relationship between Ríos Montt and the other generals.”

Polanco emphasizes that “if the former military [leaders] decide to tell what they know, this would contribute a lot to justice in the genocide case in Guatemala.”

Another mitigating factor could be the age of the former dictator. The defense, as in other cases of crimes against humanity both inside and outside of Guatemala, could bring up medical and humanitarian grounds. But there is currently strong pressure for passing a congressional law that would reform the domestic penal code to allow convicts over the age of 80 who are sentenced for crimes to be put under house arrest.

Nation divided

According to Gustavo Porras, an analyst and signatory of the country’s 1996 Peace Accords, the trial of the General and other military prosecutions are dividing the country. “This has created a lot of tension, in which former militaries have sued former members of the revolutionary movement about the incidents that occurred during the armed conflict as a protest against the trials that are carried out against soldiers,” he says.

Porras explains: “Doing justice to human rights violators during the war is an issue that confuses most Guatemalans, because many of them were born after the war, and therefore it creates a conflict that we hope doesn’t harm the social cohesion that our country needs under the current circumstances.”

According to Porras, there are many in Guatemala who hope that the procedure will be similar to the one in South Africa: one of truth and forgiveness, intended to achieve the reconciliation between Guatemalans set out in the Peace Accords—even if that means an eventual pardon for Ríos Montt. But that could only happen, says Porras, with a social consensus and respect for the rule of law.