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A judge in Guatemala has ordered the trial of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt for genocide in a case relating to the killings of more than 1,750 indigenous people during his 1982-83 reign.
Relatives of some of the victims lit firecrackers outside the Supreme Court to celebrate the decree.
“There were hundreds of witness testominies and forensic reports for this case, that has been nearly a decade in the making,” Mercer said.
“This decision is unparalled in Guatemala - this is Guatemala’s Pinochet. Activists say that he managed to escape justice for many years”.
This is the first time that genocide proceedings have been formally initiated in the Central American country over the 36-year civil war that ended in 1996. The war left an estimated 200,000 people dead, according to the UN.
Rios Montt is known for his “scorched earth” campaign against people the government claimed were leftist rebels but were often in fact members of indigenous Maya communities who were not involved in the conflict.
Human Rights Watch called the decision to prosecute Rios Montt a “major step forward for accountability in Guatemala.”“The fact that a judge has ordered the trial of a former head of state is a remarkable development in a country where impunity for past atrocities has long been the norm,” said the group’s Americas director, Jose Miguel Vivanco.
”– http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/01/201312823657688765.html