Or Will Reagan
Administration Loyalists Evade Accountability for Genocide?
By William Boardman
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The Guilty Get Some
Breathing Room, But Not Safety Yet
Former members of the Reagan administration are breathing easier now that they are somewhat less likely to face criminal charges for their part in the Guatemalan genocide of 1982-83, supported by Reagan policies.
The threat that former officials might be held accountable for genocidal policies of the Reagan administration increased on May 10, when a Guatemalan lower court convicted the country's former president, Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, 86, of genocide and crimes against humanity for his part in the killing of thousands of Guatemalan civilians.
Rios Montt's conviction and sentence included an order by Judge Iris Yassmin Barrios to Attorney General Paz Y Paz to further investigate everyone else involved in Rios Montt's crimes, an investigation that would include many Guatemalans including the country's current president, as well as U.S. military advisors, CIA and other American agents, and Washington officials like Elliott Abrams and others directly involved in supporting the Guatemalan governmental genocide.
But this threat of prosecution for accessories and accomplices to genocide didn't last long, as Guatemala's highest court, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala ruled, by a vote of 3-2 on May 20, that the lower court's proceedings going back to April 19 were dismissed, thus annulling the verdict.
The Genocidal General's
Trial May Yet Begin Again
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