Efrain rios montt biography of rory davis

On March 23, a coup of the Guatemalan Army set the stage for the massacre of over 75, people between and After serving as Army Chief of Staff — , he ran for office as the presidential candidate of the Christian Democratic Party in With a new National Plan of Security and Development, referred to as "a process of national reconstruction," a state of siege was declared, all constitutional rights suspended, special secret tribunals established to try a variety of crimes, congress and all political parties banned.

General José Efraín Ríos Montt was president of the military junta established by the coup, and in he and five other commanding officers remain charged with crimes against humanity and Missing: rory davis.

The massacre, to last some eighteen months, commenced in April This distinction is based on two facts: in the epoch of greatest repression, 1 13 percent of those killed in the violence were non-Mayan ladino , and 2 it was believed the Maya served as a social base for the guerrilla in certain areas; hence, those killed suffered not for their membership in an ethnic group but for being stigmatized as guerrillas.

This finding for institutional responsibility is highly significant as it focuses on the structures and apparatuses of repression and not just on the offenses of individual officers, as occurred in the eventual prosecutions in Argentina, among other countries. Moreover, on August 9, , President Alfonso Portillo acknowledged the institutional responsibility of the Guatemalan state arising from a "breach of the obligation imposed by Article 1 of the American Convention to respect and ensure the rights enshrined in the Convention" in ten cases before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

This acknowledgment prompted the commission to take up a petition submitted by the Human Rights Office of the Archdiocese of Guatemala and the International Human Rights Law Group that held the Guatemalan state responsible for not respecting and ensuring basic human rights.

José Efraín Ríos Montt was a Guatemalan military officer, politician, and dictator who served as de facto President of Guatemala from to His brief tenure as chief executive was one of the bloodiest periods in the long-running Guatemalan Civil War. Ríos Montt's counter-insurgency strategies significantly See more.

Not only has Rios Montt violated massive human rights , but he has also debilitated the structures that seek to uphold them. In , as President of the National Congress, he was permitted to register as a presidential candidate by the Constitutional Court , packed with his political supporters. The Constitutional Court overturned the Supreme Court decision a week after the riots—further debilitating Guatemala's democratic institutions.

The Popular Social Movement, which comprises dozens of organizations in Guatemala, asked the two remaining presidential candidates in the elections to pledge to bring the former general to trial for genocide, and not grant him immunity in exchange for votes, which they agreed to do. Menchu, Rigoberta I, Rigoberta Menchu. Elizabeth Burgos Debray.

London: Verso Press. Schirmer, Jennifer