Rios Montt gets a reprieve in Guatemala

On Monday, I gave a talk at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland on the Efrain Rios Montt trial. The campus was beautiful and I can honestly say that I am jealous about the resources available to the students and the faculty there. Thanks for the great opportunity.

Most of what I discussed during my talk is familiar to those of you who read the blog regularly. For some reason I was not surprised that Rios Montt was brought to trial. There had been a number of positive developments in the Guatemalan judicial system (CICIG and international support in general, Paz y Paz) and changes in the political system (the FRG's fall from grace and Rios Montt's loss of immunity).

I also thought that a guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion. Rios Montt was president at the time that the Guatemalan government carried out a state policy of repression that caused genocide and crimes against humanity. The court simply needed to reach a verdict to get to the expected decision. I can't say that I was overly surprised by the Constitutional Court's decision either. I still don't think that I understand the majority's legal rationale, but politically it seemed as if the court was set on voiding the conviction. It didn't matter how.

During Monday's talk I said that it was maybe 50/50 that Efrain Rios Montt would once again see the inside of a Guatemalan courtroom. The re-scheduling of the trial for April 2014 and the questions about how the trial would be restarted and who would oversee it, led me to be pretty pessimistic. Unfortunately, my fears (and those of many others) look to be coming realized.

A Guatemalan court official says the trial of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt will restart in January 2015 in response to the Constitutional Court throwing out an earlier conviction of the strongman for the massacre of thousands of Maya.

Court secretary Wilbert Molina said Tuesday that the panel of judges will be occupied with other trials in 2013 and 2014.

Molina says the trial is set to start Jan. 5, 2015, because appeals in the process have led to postponements.

As I've said before, the recent trial of Rios Montt was not so much about proving that genocide occurred (the UN truth commission and others have already found evidence that it did) as it was holding someone accountable (Rios Montt and Rodriguez Sanchez). The courts did find someone accountable before the Constitutional Court undid that ruling. However, the reversal of the conviction does not reverse the historical fact.

On the other hand, it is still possible that the rescheduling of the trial for January 2015 is nothing unusual and is simply the result of a backlog on the calendar. Remember, the trial against Rios Montt had originally been scheduled to start in August. In February, however, an opening on the docket appeared and the trial's start date was moved up to March 19th. The defense howled but few seemed to care. Now the shoe is on the other foot with a backlog causing the trial's delay.