Genocide trial of former Guatemala dictator Rios Montt opens

The trial of former Guatemalan dictator Gen. Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity has finally started in the Central American country.

The trial for crimes, which the US-backed strongman allegedly committed during his 1982-1983 rule, opened on Tuesday in a Guatemala City courtroom. The three-judge panel is hearing the case.

“It’s historic,” Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz said ahead of the trial. “We cannot leave thousands of deaths unpunished. We must deliver justice to the victims.”

Rios Montt was not prosecuted for decades since he was protected as a congressman by a law that grants immunity to public officials in Guatemala.

The 86-year-old left Congress in January 2012 and was ordered to stand trial. On January 26, 2012, Rios Montt appeared in court and was formally indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Prosecutors allege Rios Montt turned a blind eye as army soldiers used rape, torture, and arson against leftist rebels of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) and targeted indigenous people during a counterinsurgency offensive that killed at least 1,771 members of the Ixil group of Mayan Indians.

Prosecutors argued that Rios Montt’s regime put indigenous people in concentration camps and ordered soldiers to use rape and torture as a means of terrifying the population.

Rios Montt’s defense lawyer accused one of the judges of being hostile to his client. Francisco Garcia Gudiel was dismissed from the case by chief judge Iris Yasmin Barrios.

More than 200,000 civilians, most of them of Mayan descent, were killed during the 1960-1996 civil war.

“This is the first time anywhere in the world that a former head of state is being put on trial for genocide by a national tribunal,” United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Until quite recently, no one believed a trial like this could possibly take place in Guatemala, and the fact that it is happening there… should give encouragement to victims of human rights violations all over the world,” she added.