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José Efraín Ríos Montt (; 16 June 1926 – 1 April 2018) was a
Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by Hon ...
n military officer and politician who served as ''
de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...
''
President of Guatemala The president of Guatemala ( es, Presidente de Guatemala), officially known as the President of the Republic of Guatemala ( es, Presidente de la República de Guatemala), is the head of state and head of government of Guatemala, elected to a s ...
in 1982–83. His brief tenure as chief executive was one of the bloodiest periods in the long-running
Guatemalan Civil War The Guatemalan Civil War was a civil war in Guatemala fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. The government forces have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of ...
. Ríos Montt's
counter-insurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionar ...
strategies significantly weakened the
Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...
guerrillas Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tacti ...
organized under the umbrella of the
Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (in Spanish: ''Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca'', URNG-MAIZ or most commonly URNG) is a Guatemalan political party that started as a guerrilla movement but laid down its arms in 1996 and b ...
(URNG), while also leading to accusations of war crimes and
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...
perpetrated by the
Guatemalan Army The Guatemalan Armed Forces ( es, Fuerzas Armadas de Guatemala) consists of the National Army of Guatemala (''Ejercito Nacional de Guatemala'', ENG), the Guatemalan National Defense Navy (''Marina de la Defensa Nacional'', includes Marines), the ...
under his leadership. Ríos Montt was a career army officer. He was director of the Guatemalan military academy and rose to the rank of
brigadier general Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointe ...
. He was briefly chief of staff of the Guatemalan army in 1973, but was soon forced out of the position over differences with the military high command. He ran for president in the 1974 general election, losing to the official candidate General
Kjell Laugerud Kjell is a Scandinavian male given name. In Denmark, the cognate is Kjeld or Keld. The name comes from the Old Norse word ''kętill'', which means " kettle" and probably also "helmet" or perhaps "cauldron". Examples of old spellings or forms are ...
in an electoral process widely regarded as fraudulent. In 1978, Ríos Montt controversially abandoned the
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...
and joined an
Evangelical Christian Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...
group affiliated with the Gospel Outreach Church. In 1982, discontent with the rule of General
Romeo Lucas García Romeo Montague () is the male protagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Romeo and Juliet''. The son of Lord Montague and his wife, Lady Montague, he secretly loves and marries Juliet, a member of the rival House of Capulet, through a priest ...
, the worsening security situation in Guatemala, and accusations of electoral fraud led to a
coup d'état A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
by a group of junior military officers who installed Ríos Montt as head of a government junta. Ríos Montt ruled as military
dictator A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a small clique. The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in time ...
for less than seventeen months before he was overthrown in another coup led by his defense minister, General Óscar Mejía Victores. In 1989, Ríos Montt returned to the Guatemalan political scene as leader of a new political party, the
Guatemalan Republican Front The Institutional Republican Party ( es, Partido Republicano Institucional), until 2013 known as the Guatemalan Republican Front (''Frente Republicano Guatemalteco''), was a right-wing to far-right political party in Guatemala. History It was cre ...
(FRG). He was elected many times to the
Congress of Guatemala The Congress of the Republic ( es, Congreso de la República) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of the Guatemala, Republic of Guatemala. The Guatemalan Congress is made up of 160 Chamber of Deputies, deputies who are elected by univer ...
, serving as president of the Congress in 1995-96 and 2000–04. A constitutional provision prevented him from registering as a presidential candidate due to his involvement in the military coup of 1982, but the FRG obtained both the presidency and a congressional majority in the 1999 general election. Authorized by the
Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...
to run in the 2003 presidential elections, Ríos Montt came in third and withdrew from politics. He returned to public life in 2007 as a member of Congress, thereby gaining
legal immunity Legal immunity, or immunity from prosecution, is a legal status wherein an individual or entity cannot be held liable for a violation of the law, in order to facilitate societal aims that outweigh the value of imposing liability in such cases. Su ...
from long-running lawsuits alleging war crimes committed by him and some of his ministers and counselors during their term in the presidential palace in 1982–83. His immunity ended on 14 January 2012, when his legislative term of office expired. In 2013 a court sentenced Ríos Montt to 80 years in prison for
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...
and crimes against humanity, but that sentence was quashed by the Constitutional Court and his retrial was never completed.


Early life and career

Efraín Ríos Montt was born in 1926 in
Huehuetenango Huehuetenango () is a city and municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The city is situated from Guatemala City, and is the last departmental capital on the Pan-American High ...
, into a large family of the rural middle class. His father was a shopkeeper and his mother a seamstress, and the family also owned a small farm. His younger brother
Mario Enrique Ríos Montt Mario Enrique Ríos Montt, C.M. (born March 17, 1932 in Huehuetenango, Guatemala) is an emeritus auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Guatemala, public figure and human rights activist. He is the brother of the late former general ...
became a Catholic priest and would serve as prelate of Escuintla and later as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Guatemala. Intent on making a career in the army, the young Efraín applied to the Polytechnic School (the national military academy of Guatemala), but was rejected because of his
astigmatism Astigmatism is a type of refractive error due to rotational asymmetry in the eye's refractive power. This results in distorted or blurred vision at any distance. Other symptoms can include eyestrain, headaches, and trouble driving at n ...
. He then volunteered for the
Guatemalan Army The Guatemalan Armed Forces ( es, Fuerzas Armadas de Guatemala) consists of the National Army of Guatemala (''Ejercito Nacional de Guatemala'', ENG), the Guatemalan National Defense Navy (''Marina de la Defensa Nacional'', includes Marines), the ...
as a private, joining troops composed almost exclusively of full-blooded
Mayas The Maya peoples () are an ethnolinguistic group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people ...
, until in 1946 he was able to enter the Polytechnic School. Ríos Montt graduated in 1950 at the top of his class. He taught at the Polytechnic School and received further specialized training, first at the U.S.-run officer training institute that would later be known as the
School of the Americas The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as the School of the Americas, is a United States Department of Defense school located at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, renamed in the 2001 National Defen ...
, and later at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and the Italian War College. From the start of his career, Ríos Montt acquired a reputation as a devoutly religious man and as a stern disciplinarian. Ríos Montt did not play any significant role in the successful
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
-sponsored coup of 1954 against President
Jacobo Arbenz Jacobo is both a surname and a given name of Spanish origin. Based on the name Jacob. Notable people with the name include: Surname: * Alfredo Jacobo (born 1982), Olympic breaststroke swimmer from Mexico * Cesar Chavez Jacobo, Dominican professio ...
. He rose through the ranks of the Guatemalan army, and in 1970-72 served as director of the Polytechnic School. In 1972, in the presidential administration of General Carlos Arana Osorio, Ríos Montt was promoted to
brigadier general Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointe ...
and in 1973 he became the Army's Chief of Staff (''Jefe del Estado Mayor General del Ejército''). However, he was removed from that post after three months and, much to his chagrin, dispatched to the
Inter-American Defense College The Inter-American Defense College (IADC) is the educational entity of the Inter-American Defense Board, an independent entity of the Organization of American States. The College states that faculty, staff and student body are international, and ...
, in Washington, D.C. According to anthropologist David Stoll, writing in 1990, Ríos Montt was "at odds with the army's command structure since being sidelined by military president Gen. Carlos Arana Osorio in 1974."


Early political involvement

While in the US, Ríos Montt was approached by the leaders of the
Guatemalan Christian Democracy Guatemalan Christian Democracy (, DCG) was a political party in Guatemala. A moderate, reformist and anti-Communist party, it was a member of Centrist Democrat International, Christian Democrat International.Peter Calvert (2004) ''A Political an ...
with an invitation to run for president at the head of a coalition of parties opposed to the incumbent regime. Ríos Montt participated in the March 1974 presidential elections as the presidential candidate of the National Opposition Front (FNO). His running mate was Alberto Fuentes Mohr, a respected economist and
social democrat Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soc ...
. At the time, Ríos Montt was generally regarded as an honest and competent military man who could combat the rampant corruption in the Guatemalan government and armed forces. In the run-up to the election, United States officials characterized the candidate Ríos Montt as a "capable left-of-center military officer" who would shift Guatemala "perceptibly but not radically to the left".


1974 presidential elections

The official candidate for the 1974 election was General
Kjell Laugerud Kjell is a Scandinavian male given name. In Denmark, the cognate is Kjeld or Keld. The name comes from the Old Norse word ''kętill'', which means " kettle" and probably also "helmet" or perhaps "cauldron". Examples of old spellings or forms are ...
, whose running mate was
Mario Sandoval Alarcón Mario Sandoval Alarcón (May 18, 1923 – April 17, 2003) was a Guatemalan politician. Biography He is the founder in 1960 of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (MLN) which was a nacionalist anti-communist political party. In 1954, he helpe ...
of the far-right National Liberation Movement. Pro-government posters warned "voters not to fall into a communist trap by supporting Ríos", but Ríos Montt proved to be an effective campaigner and most observers believe that his FNO won the popular vote by an ample majority. According to the official tally, however, Ríos Montt lost the popular election by 71,000 votes to Laugerud. This result was widely seen as fraudulent, with the government halting the vote count on election night and manipulating the results to make it appear that Laugerud had obtained a narrow plurality. Since Laugerud did not have an outright majority of the popular vote, the election was decided by the government-controlled
National Congress ''National Congress'' is a term used in the names of various political parties and legislatures . Political parties *Ethiopia: Oromo National Congress *Guyana: People's National Congress (Guyana) *India: Indian National Congress *Iraq: Iraqi Nati ...
, which chose Laugerud by a vote of 38 to 2, with 15 opposition deputies abstaining. According to independent journalist Carlos Rafael Soto Rosales, Ríos Montt and the FNO leadership accepted the fraudulent outcome of the 1974 elections because they feared that a popular uprising "would result in disorder that would provoke worse government repression and that a challenge would lead to a confrontation between military leaders." General Ríos Montt then left the country to take up an appointment as
military attaché A military attaché is a military expert who is attached to a diplomatic mission, often an embassy. This type of attaché post is normally filled by a high-ranking military officer, who retains a commission while serving with an embassy. Opport ...
at the Guatemalan embassy in
Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
, where he remained until 1977. It was rumored that the military high command paid Ríos Montt several hundred thousand dollars in exchange for his departure from public life and that during his exile in Spain his unhappiness led him to excessive drinking.


Religious conversion

Ríos Montt retired from the army and returned to Guatemala in 1977. A spiritual crisis caused him to leave the Roman Catholic Church in 1978 and to join the ''Iglesia El Verbo'' ("Church of the Word"), an
evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...
Protestant church affiliated with the Gospel Outreach Church based in
Eureka, California Eureka (Wiyot: ''Jaroujiji'', Hupa: ''do'-wi-lotl-ding'', Karuk: ''uuth'') is the principal city and county seat of Humboldt County in the Redwood Empire region of California. The city is located on U.S. Route 101 on the shores of Humboldt B ...
. Ríos Montt became very active in his new church and taught religion in a school affiliated with it. At the time, his younger brother Mario Enrique was the Catholic prelate of Escuintla. Efraín Ríos Montt's conversion has been interpreted as a significant event in the ascendency of Protestantism within the traditionally Catholic Guatemalan nation (see
Religion in Guatemala Christianity has dominated Guatemalan society since its Spanish colonial rule, but the nature of Christian practice in the country has changed in recent decades. Catholicism was the official religion in Guatemala during the colonial era and ...
). Ríos Montt later befriended prominent evangelists in the US, including
Jerry Falwell Jerry Laymon Falwell Sr. (August 11, 1933 – May 15, 2007) was an American Baptist pastor, televangelism, televangelist, and conservatism in the United States, conservative activist. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, ...
and
Pat Robertson Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (born March 22, 1930) is an American media mogul, religious broadcaster, political commentator, former presidential candidate, and former Southern Baptist minister. Robertson advocates a conservative Christian ...
.


''De facto'' presidency


1982 military coup

The security situation in Guatemala had deteriorated under the government of General
Romeo Lucas García Romeo Montague () is the male protagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Romeo and Juliet''. The son of Lord Montague and his wife, Lady Montague, he secretly loves and marries Juliet, a member of the rival House of Capulet, through a priest ...
, and by early 1982 the
Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...
guerrilla groups belonging to the
Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (in Spanish: ''Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca'', URNG-MAIZ or most commonly URNG) is a Guatemalan political party that started as a guerrilla movement but laid down its arms in 1996 and b ...
(URNG)
umbrella organization An umbrella organization is an association of (often related, industry-specific) institutions who work together formally to coordinate activities and/or pool resources. In business, political, and other environments, it provides resources and ofte ...
had made gains in the countryside and were seen as threatening an attack on the capital,
Guatemala City Guatemala City ( es, Ciudad de Guatemala), known locally as Guatemala or Guate, is the capital and largest city of Guatemala, and the most populous urban area in Central America. The city is located in the south-central part of the country, ne ...
. On March 7, 1982, General
Ángel Aníbal Guevara Ángel Aníbal Guevara Rodríguez () is a Guatemalan soldier and politician. He was born in La Democracia, Escuintla in 1924. Having served as defense minister in the previous administration, Guevara was victorious in the 7 March 1982 preside ...
, the official party's candidate, won the
presidential election A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President. Elections by country Albania The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public. Chile The p ...
, a result denounced as fraudulent by all opposition parties. An informal group described as ''oficiales jóvenes'' ("young officers") then staged a
military coup A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
that overthrew Lucas and prevented Guevara from succeeding him as president. On March 23, the coup culminated with the installation of a three-man
military junta A military junta () is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the national and local junta organized by the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Spain in ...
, presided by General Efraín Ríos Montt and composed also of General Horacio Maldonado Schaad and Colonel Luis Gordillo Martínez. Ríos Montt had not been directly involved in the planning of coup and was chosen by the ''oficiales jóvenes'' because of the respect that he had acquired as director of the military academy and as the presidential candidate of democratic opposition in 1974. The events of March 1982 took the U.S. authorities by surprise. Because of repeated vote-rigging and the blatant corruption of the military establishment, the 1982 coup was initially welcomed by many Guatemalans. Ríos Montt's reputation for honesty, his leadership of the opposition in the 1974 election, and his vision of "education, nationalism, an end to want and hunger, and a sense of civic pride" were widely appealing. In April 1982, U.S. Ambassador Frederic L. Chapin declared that thanks to the coup of Ríos Montt, "the Guatemalan government has come out of the darkness and into the light", though Chapin soon afterwards reported that Ríos Montt was "naïve and not concerned with practical realities". Drawing on his Pentecostal beliefs, Ríos Montt compared the
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are figures in the Christian scriptures, first appearing in the Book of Revelation, a piece of apocalypse literature written by John of Patmos. Revelation 6 tells of a book or scroll in God's right hand t ...
to the four modern evils of hunger, misery, ignorance, and subversion. He also pledged to fight corruption and what he described as the depredations of the rich.


Dictatorship

The government junta immediately declared martial law and suspended the constitution, shut down the legislature, and set up special tribunals (''tribunales de fuero especial'') to prosecute both common criminals and political dissidents. On April 10, the junta launched the ''National Growth and Security Plan'' whose stated goals were to end indiscriminate violence and teach the populace about Guatemalan nationalism. The junta also announced that it sought to integrate peasants and
indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
into the Guatemalan state, declaring that because of their illiteracy and "immaturity" they were particularly vulnerable to the seductions of "international communism." The government intensified its military efforts against the URNG guerrillas and, on April 20, 1982, launched a new
counter-insurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionar ...
operation known as ''Victoria 82''. On June 9, General Ríos Montt forced the other two members of the junta to resign, leaving him as sole head of state, commander of the armed forces, and minister of defense. On 17 August 1982, Ríos Montt established a new ''Consejo de Estado'' ("Council of State") as an advisory body whose members were appointed either by the executive or by various civil associations. This Council of State incorporated, for the first time in the history of the central Guatemalan government, several representatives of Guatemala's indigenous population. Under the motto ''No robo, no miento, no abuso'' ("I don't steal, I don't lie, I don't abuse"), Ríos Montt launched a campaign ostensibly aimed at rooting out corruption in the government and reforming Guatemalan society. He also began to broadcast regular TV speeches on Sunday afternoons, known as ''discursos de domingo''. According to historian Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Ríos Montt's moralizing message continued to resonate with a significant part of Guatemalan society after he departed from power in 1983. In 1990, anthropologist David Stoll quoted a development organizer who told him that she liked Ríos Montt "because he used to get on television, point his finger at every Guatemalan, and say: 'The problem is you!' That's the only way this country is ever going to change."


Counter-insurgency: ''Fusiles y Frijoles''

Violence escalated in the countryside under the Guatemalan military's plan ''Victoria 82'', which included a rural pacification strategy known as ''Fusiles y Frijoles'' (), often rendered into English as "beans and bullets" to preserve the alliteration of the original. The "bullets" referred to the organization of the Civil Defense Patrols (''Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil'', PAC), composed primarily of indigenous villagers who patrolled in groups of twelve, usually armed with a single M1 rifle and sometimes not armed at all. The PAC initiative was intended both to provide a pro-government presence in isolated rural villages with a majority Mayan population, and to deter guerrilla activity in the area. The "beans" component of the counter-insurgency strategy referred to programs seeking to increase civilian-military contact and cooperation by improving the infrastructure and resources that the government provided to the Mayan villages. This was meant to create a link in the minds of the indigenous and peasant communities between better access to resources and their own cooperation with the Guatemalan government in its military struggle against the insurgents. General Ríos Montt's government announced an
amnesty Amnesty (from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία, ''amnestia'', "forgetfulness, passing over") is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power offici ...
in June 1982 for all insurgents willing to lay down their arms. That was followed a month later by the declaration of a
state of siege A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...
, curtailing the activities of political parties and labor unions, under the threat of death by firing squad for subversion. Critics have argued that, in practice, Ríos Montt's strategy amounted to a
scorched earth A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy that aims to destroy anything that might be useful to the enemy. Any assets that could be used by the enemy may be targeted, which usually includes obvious weapons, transport vehicles, commun ...
campaign targeted against the indigenous
Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a popul ...
population, particularly in the departments of Quiché,
Huehuetenango Huehuetenango () is a city and municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The city is situated from Guatemala City, and is the last departmental capital on the Pan-American High ...
, and
Baja Verapaz Baja Verapaz () is a department in Guatemala. The capital is Salamá. Baja Verapaz contains the Mario Dary Biotope Preserve, preserving the native flora and fauna of the region, especially the endangered national bird of Guatemala, the Resplen ...
. According to the 1999 report by the UN-sponsored
Historical Clarification Commission In 1994 Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification - La Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (CEH) - was created as a response to the thousands of atrocities and human rights violations committed during the decades long civil war th ...
(CEH), this resulted in the annihilation of nearly 600 villages. One instance was the
Plan de Sánchez massacre The Plan de Sánchez massacre took place in the Guatemalan village of Plan de Sánchez, Baja Verapaz department, on 18 July 1982. Over 250 people (mostly women and children, and almost exclusively ethnic Achi Maya) were abused and murdered by ...
in
Rabinal Rabinal is a small town, with a population of 15,157 (2018 census),Citypopulation.de
Population of cities & to ...
, Baja Verapaz, in July 1982, which saw over 250 people killed. Tens of thousands of peasant farmers fled over the border into southern
Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...
. In 1982, an
Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and s ...
report estimated that over 10,000 indigenous Guatemalans and peasant farmers were killed from March to July of that year, and that 100,000 rural villagers were forced to flee their homes. According to more recent estimates presented by the CEH, tens of thousands of non-combatants were killed during Ríos Montt's tenure as head of state. At the height of the bloodshed, reports put the number of disappearances and killings at more than 3,000 per month. The 1999 book ''State Violence in Guatemala, 1960-1996: A Quantitative Reflection'', published by the
American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
, states that Rios Montt's government presided over "the most indiscriminate period of state terror. More state killings occurred during Ríos Montt’s regime than during any other, and in the same period the monthly rate of violence was more than four times greater than for the next highest regime." On the other hand, the United Nations special rapporteur for the situation of human rights in Guatemala, Lord Colville of Culross, wrote in 1984 that the lot of the rural population of Guatemala had improved under Ríos Montt, as the previous indiscriminate violence of the Guatemalan Army was replaced by a rational strategy of
counter-insurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionar ...
. Colville also indicated that extrajudicial "killings and kidnappings virtually ceased under the Ríos Montt regime". According to anthropologist David Stoll, "the crucial difference" between Ríos Montt and his predecessor Lucas García was that Ríos Montt replaced "chaotic terror with a more predictable set of rewards and punishments". According to analysts Georges A. Fauriol and Eva Loser of the
Center for Strategic and International Studies The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. CSIS was founded as the Center for Strategic and International Studies of Georgetown University in 1962. The center conducts policy ...
, "an important component in the 'normalization' of the Guatemalan environment was a marked decrease by late 1982 in the state of fear and violence, which allowed the repositioning of Guatemala's civilian urbanized leadership toward a more vital role in national affairs." Sociologist and historian Carlos Sabino, in a work originally published in 2007 by the ''
Fondo de Cultura Económica Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE or simply "Fondo") is a Spanish language, non-profit publishing group, partly funded by the Mexican government. It is based in Mexico but it has subsidiaries throughout the Spanish-speaking world. It was founded in ...
'', noted that the army's counter-insurgency in the Guatemalan highlands had been launched at the end of 1981, before the coup that put Ríos Montt in power, and that the reported massacres peaked in May 1982 before dropping off rapidly as a consequence of the policies implemented by the Ríos Montt regime. According to Sabino, the guerrillas were effectively defeated by the PACs organized by Ríos Montt's regime, which grew to involve 900,000 men and which, "though only very partially armed, completely took away the guerrilla's capacity for political action", as they could no longer "reach the villages and towns, organize rallies, or recruit fighters and collaborators among the peasants." According to French sociologist Yvon Le Bot, writing in 1992, In a similar vein, historian Virginia Garrard-Burnett concluded in 2010 that General Ríos Montt's military's successes "were unprecedented in Guatemala’s modern history" and that, "had the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
remained the primary lens of historical analysis, emight well be remembered as a visionary statesman instead of an author of crimes against humanity." Even some of Ríos Montt's harshest critics have noted that, in his later political career during the 1990s and 2000s, he enjoyed particularly strong and enduring electoral support in the departments of Quiché,
Huehuetenango Huehuetenango () is a city and municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The city is situated from Guatemala City, and is the last departmental capital on the Pan-American High ...
, and
Baja Verapaz Baja Verapaz () is a department in Guatemala. The capital is Salamá. Baja Verapaz contains the Mario Dary Biotope Preserve, preserving the native flora and fauna of the region, especially the endangered national bird of Guatemala, the Resplen ...
, which had seen the worst violence during the 1982-83 counter-insurgency campaign. According to David Stoll, "the most obvious reason Nebajeños like the former general is that he offered them the chance to surrender without being killed."


Support from US and Israel

In 1977, the
Carter administration Jimmy Carter's tenure as the 39th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. A  Democrat from Georgia, Carter took office after defeating incumbent Republican Preside ...
had suspended aid by the United States to Guatemala, due to the grave violations of human rights by the Guatemalan government. In 1981, the new
Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over ...
authorized the sale to the Guatemalan military of $4 million in helicopter spare parts and $6.3 million in additional military supplies, to be shipped in 1982 and 1983. President
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
traveled to
Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
in December 1982. He did not visit Guatemala, but met with Efraín Ríos Montt in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on December 4, 1982. During that meeting, General Ríos Montt reassured Reagan that the Guatemalan government's counter-insurgency strategy was not one of "scorched earth", but rather of "scorched Communists", and pledged to work to restore the democratic process in the country. Reagan then declared: "President Ríos Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment... I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice." Guatemala's poor record on human rights and the refusal of General Ríos Montt to call immediately for new elections prevented the Reagan administration from restoring US aid to Guatemala, which would have required the consent of the
US Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washin ...
. The Reagan administration did continue the sale of helicopter parts to the Guatemalan military, even though a then-secret 1983 CIA cable noted a rise in "suspect right-wing violence" and an increasing number of bodies "appearing in ditches and gullies." Israel, which had been supplying arms to Guatemala since 1974, continued its aid provisions during Ríos Montt's government. The cooperation did not just involve hardware, but also included providing intelligence and operational training, carried out both in Israel and in Guatemala. In 1982, Ríos Montt told
ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast '' ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include morning news-talk show '' Good Morning America'', '' ...
that his success was due to the fact that "our soldiers were trained by Israelis." There was not much outcry in Israel at the time about its involvement in Guatemala, though the support for Ríos Montt was no secret. According to journalist
Victor Perera Victor Perera was the first Governor of Northern Province and former Sri Lankan Inspector General of Police. Police career Perera joined the Sri Lanka Police Service in 1974 as an Assistant Superintendent of Police. Serving as the most sen ...
, in 1985 at a cemetery in
Chichicastenango Chichicastenango, also known as Santo Tomás Chichicastenango, is a town, with a population of 71,394 (2018 census), and the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same name in the El Quiché department of Guatemala. It is locate ...
, relatives of a man killed by the military told him that "in church they tell us that divine justice is on the side of the poor; but the fact of the matter is, it is the military who get the Israeli guns."


Removal from power

By the end of 1982, Ríos Montt, claiming that the war against the leftist guerrillas had been won, said the government's work was one of "''techo, trabajo, y tortillas''" ("roofs, work, and
tortilla A tortilla (, ) is a thin, circular unleavened flatbread originally made from maize hominy meal, and now also from wheat flour. The Aztecs and other Nahuatl speakers called tortillas ''tlaxcalli'' (). First made by the indigenous peoples of M ...
s"). Having survived three attempted coups, on June 29, 1983, Ríos Montt declared a
state of emergency A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to be able to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state du ...
and announced elections for July 1984. By then Ríos Montt had alienated many segments of Guatemalan society by his actions. Shortly before the visit to Guatemala by
Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
in March 1983, Ríos Montt refused the Pope's appeal for clemency to six guerrillas who had been sentenced to death by the regime's special tribunals. The outspoken
evangelicalism Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...
and the moralizing sermons of the general's regular Sunday television broadcasts (''discursos de domingo'') were increasingly regarded with embarrassment by many. The military brass was offended by his promotion of young officers in defiance of the Army's traditional hierarchy. Many middle class citizens were unhappy with the decision, announced on August 1, 1983, to introduce the
value-added tax A value-added tax (VAT), known in some countries as a goods and services tax (GST), is a type of tax that is assessed incrementally. It is levied on the price of a product or service at each stage of production, distribution, or sale to the en ...
for the first time in Guatemalan history. One week later, on August 8, 1983, his own Minister of Defense, General Óscar Mejía Victores, overthrew the regime in a coup during which seven people were killed. The leaders of the 1983 coup alleged that Ríos Montt belonged to a "fanatical and aggressive religious group" that had threatened the "fundamental principle of the separation of Church and State". However, historian Virginia Garrard-Burnett considered that the main underlying reason for his removal from power was that Ríos Montt "had severely stanched the flow of
graft Graft or grafting may refer to: *Graft (politics), a form of political corruption * Graft, Netherlands, a village in the municipality of Graft-De Rijp Science and technology *Graft (surgery), a surgical procedure *Grafting, the joining of plant t ...
to military officers and government officials" and was not responsive to the powerful interest groups represented by the Army's high command. Political violence in Guatemala continued after Ríos Montt was removed from power in 1983. It has been estimated that as many as one and a half million Maya peasants were uprooted from their homes. American journalist
Vincent Bevins Vincent Bevins is an American journalist and writer. From 2011 to 2016, he worked as a foreign correspondent based in Brazil for the ''Los Angeles Times'', after working previously in London for the ''Financial Times''. In 2017 he moved to Jakart ...
writes that by corralling indigenous populations from suspect communities into state-established "model villages" (''aldeas modelos'') that were "little more than deadly
concentration camps Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
," Ríos Montt waged genocide in a different fashion than his predecessors, although massacres continued apace. This, Bevins argues, was part of Montt's new strategy for fighting
communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
: "The guerrilla is the fish. The people are the sea. If you cannot catch the fish, you have to drain the sea." Efraín Ríos Mont's sister Marta Elena Ríos de Rivas was kidnapped on 26 June 1983 in Guatemala City by members of the leftist
Rebel Armed Forces The Rebel Armed Forces ( es, Fuerzas Armadas Rebeldes, FAR) was a Guatemalan guerrilla organization established in 1961 and lasting until the peace agreements in 1996. In the late 1960s, the Guatemalan government began a United States-backed cou ...
(FAR), when she was leaving the primary school where she worked as a teacher. At the time she was five months pregnant. After General Ríos Montt was deposed in August of that year, the FAR proceeded to kidnap the sister of the new ''de facto'' president, General Mejía Víctores. The new government flatly refused to negotiate with the kidnappers, but the family of General Ríos Montt obtained the release of his sister Marta on 25 September, after 119 days in captivity, by procuring the publication of an FAR comuniqué in several international newspapers.


Later political career

Ríos Montt founded the
Guatemalan Republican Front The Institutional Republican Party ( es, Partido Republicano Institucional), until 2013 known as the Guatemalan Republican Front (''Frente Republicano Guatemalteco''), was a right-wing to far-right political party in Guatemala. History It was cre ...
(FRG) political party in 1989. In the run-up to the 1990 general election, polls indicated that Ríos Montt was the most popular candidate, leading his nearest rival by as many as twelve points. He was ultimately prevented from appearing in the ballots by the courts because of a provision in the 1985
Constitution of Guatemala The Constitution of Guatemala is the supreme law of the Republic of Guatemala. It sets the bases for the organization of Guatemalan government and it outlines the three main branches of Guatemalan government: executive branch, legislative branc ...
that banned people who had participated in a military coup from becoming president. Ríos Montt always claimed that the corresponding article had been written into the Constitution specifically to prevent him from returning to the Presidency and that it could not legitimately be applied retroactively. In the 1990s Ríos Montt enjoyed significant popular support throughout Guatemala and especially among the native Maya population of the departments of Quiché,
Huehuetenango Huehuetenango () is a city and municipality in the highlands of western Guatemala. It is also the capital of the department of Huehuetenango. The city is situated from Guatemala City, and is the last departmental capital on the Pan-American High ...
, and
Baja Verapaz Baja Verapaz () is a department in Guatemala. The capital is Salamá. Baja Verapaz contains the Mario Dary Biotope Preserve, preserving the native flora and fauna of the region, especially the endangered national bird of Guatemala, the Resplen ...
, where he was perceived as ''un militar recto'' (an honest military man), even though those had been the populations most directly affected by the counter-insurgency that Ríos Montt had led in 1982–83. According to anthropologist David Stoll According to political scientist Regina Bateson, in this new phase of his career Ríos Montt embraced
populism Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term develop ...
as his core political strategy. He was an FRG congressman between 1990 and 2004. In 1994, he was elected president of the
unicameral Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one. Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multi ...
legislature. He tried to run again in the 1995–96 Guatemalan general election, but was barred from entering the race.
Alfonso Portillo Alfonso Antonio Portillo Cabrera (born 24 September 1951) is a Guatemalan politician who served as President of Guatemala from 2000 to 2004. He took office on 14 January 2000, representing the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG), the party then ...
was chosen to replace Ríos Montt as the FRG's presidential candidate, and he narrowly lost to
Álvaro Arzú Álvaro Enrique Arzú Yrigoyen (; 14 March 1946 – 27 April 2018) was a Guatemalan politician and businessman who served as the 32nd President of Guatemala from 14 January 1996 until 14 January 2000. He was elected Mayor of Guatemala City on ...
of the conservative
National Advancement Party The National Advancement Party ( es, Partido de Avanzada Nacional) is a conservatism, conservative political party in Guatemala. It was founded in 1989. In the 1990 and 1995 elections its presidential candidate was Álvaro Arzú who won in 1995 ...
. In his youth, Portillo had been affiliated with the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), one of the Marxist insurgent groups that later became part of the
Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (in Spanish: ''Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca'', URNG-MAIZ or most commonly URNG) is a Guatemalan political party that started as a guerrilla movement but laid down its arms in 1996 and b ...
(URNG) and which Ríos Montt had combated during his term as president in 1982–83. The
Guatemalan Civil War The Guatemalan Civil War was a civil war in Guatemala fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. The government forces have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of ...
officially concluded in 1996 with the signing of the peace accords between the Guatemalan government and the URNG, who thereafter organized as a legal political party. In March 1999, U.S. President
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...
declared that "for the United States, it is important I state clearly that support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression n Guatemalawas wrong and the United States must not repeat that mistake." Ríos Montt's FRG party was successful in the 1999 Guatemalan general election. Its candidate,
Alfonso Portillo Alfonso Antonio Portillo Cabrera (born 24 September 1951) is a Guatemalan politician who served as President of Guatemala from 2000 to 2004. He took office on 14 January 2000, representing the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG), the party then ...
, was elected president and the party also obtained a majority in the National Congress. Ríos Montt then served four consecutive one-year terms as president of Congress, from 2000 to 2004. President Portillo admitted the involvement of the Guatemalan government in human rights abuses over the previous 20 years, including two massacres that took place during Ríos Montt's presidency. The first was in
Plan de Sánchez Plan de Sánchez is a village in the municipality of Rabinal, Baja Verapaz department, Guatemala. On July 18, 1982, while General Efraín Ríos Montt was President of Guatemala, a massacre was committed there by government forces during which ...
, in
Baja Verapaz Baja Verapaz () is a department in Guatemala. The capital is Salamá. Baja Verapaz contains the Mario Dary Biotope Preserve, preserving the native flora and fauna of the region, especially the endangered national bird of Guatemala, the Resplen ...
, with 268 dead, and in Dos Erres in Petén, where 200 people were murdered.


2003 presidential candidate

In May 2003 the FRG nominated Ríos Montt for the November presidential election, but his candidacy was rejected again by the electoral registry and by two lower courts. On 14 July 2003, the
Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...
, which had had several judges appointed by the FRG government, approved his candidacy for president on the grounds that the prohibition in the 1985 Constitution did not apply retroactively. On 20 July the
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
suspended Ríos Montt's campaign and agreed to hear a complaint brought by two right-of-centre parties that the general was constitutionally barred from running for president. Ríos Montt denounced the ruling as a judicial manipulation and, in a radio address, called on his followers to take to the streets to protest against it. On 24 July, in an event that came to be known as '' jueves negro'' ("Black Thursday"), thousands of masked FRG supporters invaded the streets of Guatemala City, armed with machetes, clubs, and guns. They had been bussed in from all over the country by the FRG, and it was alleged that public employees in FRG-controlled municipalities were threatened with the loss of their jobs if they did not participate in the demonstrations. The protestors blocked traffic, chanted threatening slogans, and waved machetes as they marched on the courts, the opposition parties' headquarters, and newspapers. Incidents of torching of buildings, shooting out of windows, and burning of cars and tires in the streets were also reported. A television journalist, Héctor Fernando Ramírez, died of a heart attack while running away from a mob. After two days the rioters disbanded when an audio recording of Ríos Montt was played in loudspeakers calling them to return to their homes. The situation was so volatile over the weekend that both the UN mission and the US embassy were closed. Following the rioting, the Constitutional Court overturned the Supreme Court decision, allowing Ríos Montt to run for president. However, the ''jueves negro'' chaos undermined Ríos Montt's popularity and his credibility as a law-and-order candidate. Support for Ríos Montt also suffered because of the perceived corruption and inefficiency of the incumbent FRG administration under President Portillo. During tense but peaceful presidential elections on November 9, 2003, Ríos Montt received 19.3% of the vote, placing him third behind
Óscar Berger Óscar José Rafael Berger Perdomo (; born 11 August 1946) is a Guatemalan politician who served as the President of Guatemala from 2004 to 2008. Early years and family Berger was born to an upper-class family with large sugar and coffee hol ...
, head of the conservative Grand National Alliance (GANA), and
Álvaro Colom Álvaro Colom Caballeros (; born 15 June 1951) is a Guatemalan politician who was the President of Guatemala from 2008 to 2012, as well as leader of the social-democratic National Unity of Hope (UNE). Early years Colom was born in Guatemala Ci ...
of the center-left
National Unity of Hope The National Unity of Hope ( es, Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza, UNE) is a political party in Guatemala. It was founded in 2002 and defines itself as a social-democratic and social-christian party. It is the largest political party in Guatemala ...
(UNE). As he had been required to give up his seat in Congress to run for president, Ríos Montt's 14-year legislative tenure also came to an end. In March 2004, a court order forbade Ríos Montt from leaving the country while it determined whether he should stand trial on charges related to ''jueves negro'' and the death of Ramírez. On November 20, 2004, Ríos Montt had to request permission to travel to his country home for the wedding of his daughter Zury Ríos, to U.S. Representative Jerry Weller, a
Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
from
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...
. On January 31, 2006, manslaughter charges against him for the death of Ramírez were dropped.


Charges of crimes against humanity

The Inter-Diocese Project for the Recovery of the Historic Memory (REMHI), sponsored by the
Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...
, and the
Historical Clarification Commission In 1994 Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification - La Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico (CEH) - was created as a response to the thousands of atrocities and human rights violations committed during the decades long civil war th ...
(CEH), co-sponsored by the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
as part of the 1996 peace accords, produced reports documenting grave violations of human rights committed during the
Guatemalan Civil War The Guatemalan Civil War was a civil war in Guatemala fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. The government forces have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of ...
of 1960–1996. That war had pitted
Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...
rebels against the Guatemalan state, including the
Guatemalan army The Guatemalan Armed Forces ( es, Fuerzas Armadas de Guatemala) consists of the National Army of Guatemala (''Ejercito Nacional de Guatemala'', ENG), the Guatemalan National Defense Navy (''Marina de la Defensa Nacional'', includes Marines), the ...
. Up to 200,000 Guatemalans were estimated to have been killed during the conflict, making it one of Latin America's bloodiest wars. Both the REMHI and CEH reports found that most of the violence had been carried out by the Guatemalan state and by government-backed
death squad A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings or forced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in which they are f ...
s. Since the victims of this violence had disproportionately belonged to the indigenous
Mayan Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...
population of the country, the CEH report characterized the counterinsurgency campaign, significantly designed and advanced during Ríos Montt's presidency, as having included deliberate "acts of
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...
". The REMHI and CEH reports formed the basis for legal actions brought against Ríos Montt and others for crimes against humanity and genocide. Ríos Montt admitted that crimes had been committed by the Guatemalan army during his term as president and commander in chief, but he denied that he had planned or ordered those actions, or that there had been any deliberate policy by his government to target the native population that could amount to genocide. In 1998,
Mario Enrique Ríos Montt Mario Enrique Ríos Montt, C.M. (born March 17, 1932 in Huehuetenango, Guatemala) is an emeritus auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Guatemala, public figure and human rights activist. He is the brother of the late former general ...
, younger brother of Efraín Ríos Montt, succeeded murdered bishop Juan Gerardi as head of the Office of Human Rights of the Archdiocese of Guatemala. That office took a leading role in denouncing human rights abuses committed by the state during the
Guatemalan Civil War The Guatemalan Civil War was a civil war in Guatemala fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. The government forces have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of ...
, including during the government of General Ríos Montt.


In Spain

In 1999, Guatemalan
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolo ...
laureate
Rigoberta Menchú Rigoberta Menchú Tum (; born 9 January 1959) is a K'iche' Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the rights of Guatemala's Indigenous peoples during and after ...
filed a complaint before the ''
Audiencia Nacional The Audiencia Nacional (; en, National Court) is a centralised court in Spain with jurisdiction over all of the Spanish territory. It is specialised in a certain scope of delinquency, having original jurisdiction over major crimes such as those ...
'' of
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...
for torture, genocide, illegal detention, and
state-sponsored terrorism State-sponsored terrorism is terrorist violence carried out with the active support of national governments provided to violent non-state actors. States can sponsor terrorist groups in several ways, including but not limited to funding terroris ...
, naming Ríos Montt and four other retired Guatemalan generals (two of them ex-presidents) as defendants. Three other civilians that were high government official between 1978 and 1982 were also named in the complaint. The
Center for Justice and Accountability The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) is a US non-profit international human rights organization based in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1998, CJA represents survivors of torture and other grave human rights abuses in cases agains ...
and Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de España joined in the suit brought by Menchú. In September 2005 Spain's
Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...
ruled that Spanish courts could try those accused of
crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
, even if the victims were not Spanish nationals. In June 2006, Spanish judge Santiago Pedraz traveled to Guatemala to interrogate Ríos Montt and the others named in the case. At least 15 appeals filed by the defense attorneys of the indicted prevented him from carrying out the inquiries. On July 7, 2006, Pedraz issued an international arrest warrant against Efraín Ríos Montt and former presidents Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores and
Romeo Lucas García Romeo Montague () is the male protagonist of William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Romeo and Juliet''. The son of Lord Montague and his wife, Lady Montague, he secretly loves and marries Juliet, a member of the rival House of Capulet, through a priest ...
(the latter of whom had died in May 2006 in
Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
). A warrant was also issued for the retired generals Benedicto Lucas García and Aníbal Guevara. Former minister of the interior Donaldo Álvarez Ruiz, who remained at large, and ex-chiefs of police Germán Chupina Barahona and Pedro García Arredondo were also named on the international arrest warrants. Some of those warrants were initially admitted by Guatemalan courts, but they were all ultimately declared invalid in December 2007 by the country's
Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...
.


In Guatemala

On January 17, 2007, Ríos Montt announced that he would run for a seat in Congress in
the election ''The Election'' () is a political drama series produced by Hong Kong Television Network (HKTV). With a budget of HK$15 million, filming started in July 2014 and wrapped up on 28 October 2014. Popularly voted to be the inaugural drama of ...
to be held later in the year. As a member of Congress he would again be immune from prosecution unless a court suspended him from office. He won his seat in the September election and led the FRG's 15-member congressional delegation in the new legislature. Ríos Montt's immunity ended on January 14, 2012, when his term in office expired. On January 26, 2012, he appeared in court in Guatemala City and was formally indicted by Attorney General
Claudia Paz y Paz Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey (born 1966) is a criminal law specialist, scholar, judge and litigator who has worked for over 18 years to strengthen the justice system in Guatemala. As the first female Attorney General of Guatemala, from 2010 to 2014, ...
for genocide and crimes against humanity, along with three other former generals. During the court hearing he declined to make a statement. The court released him on bail, but placed him under
house arrest In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their residence. Travel is usually restricted, if al ...
pending trial. On March 1, 2012, a judge ruled the charges against Ríos Montt were not covered by the 1996 National Reconciliation Law, which had granted amnesty for political and common crimes committed in the course of the Guatemalan Civil War. On 28 January 2013, judge Miguel Angel Galves opened a pre-trial hearing against Ríos Montt and retired General José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez for genocide and crimes against humanity, in particular the killing of 1,771 Maya Ixil Indians, including children. Ríos Montt went on trial on those charges on 19 March 2013, marking the first time that a former
head of state A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and ...
was tried for genocide in his own country. The trial was suspended on 19 April 2013 by Judge Carol Patricia Flores, following a directive from the
Supreme Court of Justice of Guatemala The Supreme Court of Justice of Guatemala (''La Corte Suprema de Justicia''), or CSJ, is the highest court within Guatemala's judiciary branch. The Supreme Court, which is composed of thirteen justices, including a presiding President (currently ...
. The judge ordered the legal process to be set back to November 2011, before the retired general was charged with war crimes. On 10 May 2013, Ríos Montt was convicted by the court of genocide and crimes against humanity, and was sentenced to 80 years imprisonment. Announcing the ruling, Judge
Iris Yassmin Barrios Aguilar Iris Yassmin Barrios Aguilar is a judge and the president of one of Guatemala’s two High Risk Court Tribunals. She was the presiding judge in the case of Efraín Ríos Montt, a former dictator of Guatemala. In that trial Montt was found guilty ...
declared that " e defendant is responsible for masterminding the crime of genocide". She continued: "We are convinced that the acts the Ixil suffered constitute the crime of genocide... íos Montthad knowledge of what was happening and did nothing to stop it." The Court found that " e Ixils were considered public enemies of the state and were also victims of
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagoni ...
, considered an inferior race... The violent acts against the Ixils were not spontaneous. They were planned beforehand." Judge
Iris Yassmin Barrios Aguilar Iris Yassmin Barrios Aguilar is a judge and the president of one of Guatemala’s two High Risk Court Tribunals. She was the presiding judge in the case of Efraín Ríos Montt, a former dictator of Guatemala. In that trial Montt was found guilty ...
referred to evidence that 5.5% of the Ixil people had been wiped out by the army. On 20 May 2013, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala overturned Ríos Montt's conviction on the grounds that he had not been allowed an effective defense during some of the proceedings. Anthropologist David Stoll, though granting that large numbers of innocent civilians were killed by the army under Ríos Montt's presidency, questioned both the fairness of 2013 trial and the grounds for the charge of genocide. General Ríos Montt's retrial began in January 2015, but the court later ruled that the proceedings would not be public and that no sentence could be carried out on account of the defendant's age and deteriorating physical and mental conditions. The retrial had not been completed when Ríos Montt died in April 2018, and the court therefore closed the case against him. His co-defendant, former chief of military intelligence José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez, was acquitted in September 2018, although the court found that the counter-insurgency strategy of the Guatemalan army had amounted to genocide.


Death

Ríos Montt died of a
heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...
at his home in
Guatemala City Guatemala City ( es, Ciudad de Guatemala), known locally as Guatemala or Guate, is the capital and largest city of Guatemala, and the most populous urban area in Central America. The city is located in the south-central part of the country, ne ...
on April 1, 2018, at the age of 91. The incumbent president of Guatemala,
Jimmy Morales Jimmy Morales (born James Ernesto Morales Cabrera, ; 18 March 1969) is a Guatemalan politician, actor and comedian. From 2016 to 2020, he served as the 50th president of Guatemala. Early and personal life Morales was born in Guatemala City ...
, expressed his public condolences over the death of General Ríos Montt.


In media and popular culture

Pamela Yates Pamela Yates is an American documentary filmmaker and human rights activist. She has directed films about war crimes, racism, and genocide in the United States and Latin America, often with emphasis on the legal responses. Biography Pamela Y ...
directed ''
When the Mountains Tremble ''When The Mountains Tremble'' is a 1983 documentary film produced by Skylight Pictures about the war between the Guatemalan Military and the Mayan Indigenous population of Guatemala. Footage from this film was used as forensic evidence in th ...
'' (1983), a documentary film about the war between the Guatemalan Military and the Mayan Indigenous population of Guatemala. Footage from this film was used as forensic evidence in the Guatemalan court for crimes against humanity, in the genocide case against Efraín Ríos Montt. ''Granito: How to Nail a Dictator'' (2011) by Pamela Yates, is a follow-up to ''When the Mountains Tremble''. The
University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...
's
Shoah Foundation USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, formerly Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Ho ...
, funded by director
Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Sp ...
, is undertaking an extensive analysis of the genocidal Guatemalan civil wars, documented by hundreds of filmed interviews with survivors.Spielberg's Shoah Foundation documents Guatemala genocide
'' ssociated Press', Sonia Perez-Diaz, December 28, 2015. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
The 2019 Guatemalan horror film ''
La Llorona ''La Llorona'' (; "The Weeping Woman" or "The Wailer") is a Hispanic-American mythical vengeful ghost who is said to roam near bodies of water mourning her children whom she drowned. Origins Early colonial times provided evidence that the lor ...
'' features a character named Enrique Monteverde, based on Ríos Montt.


See also

*
History of Guatemala The history of Guatemala begins with the Maya civilization (300 BC – 250 AD), which was among those that flourished in their country. The country's modern history began with the Spanish conquest of Guatemala in 1524. Most of the great ...
*
Guatemala National Police Archives In July 2005, in an abandoned warehouse in downtown Guatemala City, Guatemala, delegates from the country's Institution of the Procurator for Human Rights uncovered, by sheer chance, a vast archive detailing the history of the defunct National Po ...


References


Further reading

* Archivo Histórico de la Policía Nacional,
From Silence to Memory: Revelations of the AHPN
' (Eugene, OR:
University of Oregon Libraries Knight Library is the main facility of the University of Oregon's (UO) library system. It is located on the university's campus in Eugene, Oregon, United States. The library design is emblematic of the architecture of the university's older buildin ...
, 2013). * Carmack, Robert M. (ed.). ''Harvest of Violence: The Maya Indians and the Guatemalan Crisis'' (University of Oklahoma Press, 1988) * Dosal, Paul J. ''Return of Guatemala's Refugees: Reweaving the Torn'' (Temple University Press, 1998) * Falla, Ricardo (trans. by Julia Howland). ''Massacres in the Jungle: Ixcán, Guatemala, 1975–1982'' (Westview Press, Boulder, 1994) * Fried, Jonathan L., et al. ''Guatemala in Rebellion : Unfinished History'' (
Grove Press Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United Sta ...
, NY, 1983). * Goldston, James A. ''Shattered Hope: Guatemalan Workers and the Promise of Democracy'' (Westview Press, Boulder, 1989). * LaFeber, Walter. ''Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America''. (W.W. Norton & Company, NY, 1993). * Perera, Victor. ''Unfinished Conquest: The Guatemalan Tragedy'' (University of California Press, 1993). * Sabino, Carlos (trans. by Denise Leal). ''Guatemala, a Silenced History (1944-1989)'', vol. II: ''A Break in the Domino Effect (1963-1989)'', (Grafiaetc, Guatemala, 2018) . Originally published in Spanish as ''Guatemala, la guerra silenciada (1944-1989): El dominó que no cayó'', (Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico, 2007) . * Sanford, Victoria. ''Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala'' (Palgrave Macmillan, NY, 2003) * Sczepanski, David and Anfuso, Joseph (fwd. by Pat Robertson). ''Efrain Rios Montt, Servant or Dictator? : The Real Story of Guatemala's Controversial Born-again President'' (Vision House, Ventura, CA, 1984) * Shillington, John Wesley. ''Grappling with Atrocity: Guatemalan Theater in the 1990s'' (Associated University Presses, London, 2002). * Stoll, David. ''Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala'' (Columbia University Press, NY, 1993).


External links


Biography by CIDOB

Guatemala Human Rights CommissionIndicted for Genocide: Guatemala's Efraín Ríos Montt: U.S. and Guatemalan Documents Trace Dictator's Rise to Power
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing. Book No. 419. Posted - 19 March 2013. Edited by Kate Doyle
Site monitoring trial against Rios Montt in Guatemala
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rios Montt, Efrain 1926 births 2018 deaths Presidents of Guatemala Leaders who took power by coup Leaders ousted by a coup Members of the Congress of Guatemala Dirty wars Former Roman Catholics Anti-Marxism Genocide perpetrators Anti-communist terrorism Guatemalan generals Defense Ministers of Guatemala Guatemalan Pentecostals Guatemalan anti-communists Presidents of the Congress of Guatemala People of the Guatemalan Civil War People from Huehuetenango Department Institutional Republican Party politicians Guatemalan Christian Democracy politicians 20th-century Guatemalan people Politicide perpetrators People of the Cold War Reagan administration controversies