Rights groups fear further delay in ex-president's retrial destroys faith in justice system, civil war survivors concerned that no one will be held to account for genocidal killings in 36 years of war
BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The decision by a Guatemalan court to delay until January 2015 the retrial of former dictator Jose Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity is a setback for thousands of war victims seeking justice and fosters a climate of impunity, rights group Amnesty International has said.
In May, Guatemala's highest court overturned the conviction of 87-year-old Rios Montt on the ground that his trial had been flawed and ordered a retrial. A court official said this week that the retrial would take place in 2015.
Rios Montt had been sentenced to 80 years in prison for genocide and crimes against humanity for his role in the killings by state security forces of at least 1,771 members of the Maya Ixil indigenous group during his rule from 1982 to 1983.
Rios Montt, who pleaded not guilty, remains under house arrest.
“This decision to further delay (the retrial) is a letdown for genocide victims and their families who have already waited over three decades, and fought hard to ensure Rios Montt was held to account in the courts,” Sebastian Elgueta, Guatemala researcher at Amnesty International, said in a statement on Wednesday.
Rights groups had hailed Rios Montt's conviction as a victory for war victims and the justice system in a country still recovering from the 1960-96 civil war, during which around 200,000 people died and 45,000 disappeared. He was the first Guatemalan ruler to stand trial for atrocities committed during the war.
“It was hoped that the retrial, made necessary by the Constitutional Court’s decision, would take place much earlier given the huge delay victims have already suffered and the importance of this landmark case,” said Elgueta.
The delay in the retrial worsens an already fragile justice system in the Central American nation, according to an editorial in Guatemala’s Prensa Libre newspaper on Thursday. “This delay in the process contributes in no way to strengthening legal certainty in the country,’ the editorial said.
An opinion piece in the same newspaper titled ‘The country of impunity’ asked: ‘What’s going on in our Guatemala? Could it be that we want to reaffirm that there are sectors of the population that are above justice no matter what they do?’
News of the delay comes days after Guatemala’s highest court raised the possibility of an amnesty for those accused of genocide and crimes against humanity during the civil war, Amnesty said.
A United Nations-backed Truth Commission set up under the 1996 peace accords that ended the conflict concluded that the military was responsible for more than 85 percent of the war’s human rights violations.
Earlier this week, representatives of the Maya Ixil victims filed a complaint with the Washington-based Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, alleging that they had been denied justice because of the annulment of Rios Montt’s conviction.
“It is unfortunate to see how, 30 years on, the victims of horrendous human rights violations in Guatemala feel obliged to look for justice outside their country,” Amnesty’s Elgueta said.
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