One of the worst genocides in our hemisphere’s history took place some thirty years ago when the Guatemalan military, confident after decades of strong support from the United States, decided to crush a Leftist insurgency by methodically decimating the population in the regions of conflict. These lands are primarily in Guatemala’s northwestern highlands, the most densely populated area in the entire Mayan world, a realm that extends into southeast Mexico, Belize, and partially into Honduras and El Salvador. As many as 200,000 civilians, overwhelmingly of Mayan ancestry, were killed outright during the height of the Guatemalan Civil War (1978-83) in the government’s war against Leftist insurgents that officially spanned 36 years. Hundreds of thousands of Maya found themselves caught between the heavily armed Cold War proxy armies, enduring severe physical and psychological assaults in the army’s deliberately gruesome program of torture and abuse. Even the Leftist guerrilla armies attacked rural Mayan communities, committing some 3-5% of the total number of atrocities. Tens of thousands of survivors were forced to flee into the lowland forests on foot and attempt to cross the northern border into Mexico, sometimes even while under direct military attack. Those Maya left behind in Guatemala endured severe suffering in a deliberately gruesome military program of torture and abuse. Some 400 communities were erased completely from the face of the earth and as much a quarter of Guatemala’s Maya people were displaced in one of the most shameful chapter’s in the history of the Americas.
The scale of this relatively recent tragedy is difficult to fathom. A similar scale of carnage directed against the current United States population of over 312 million would yield a staggering total of approximately 15 million civilian deaths. Shockingly, one of the major culprits in this genocidal bloodbath, General Efraín Ríos Montt, an 85 year-old man who in other times might have been executed after a Nuremburg-like trial, has instead enjoyed a life of privilege among Guatemala’s political elite, including a stint as the head of the national congress and even a run at the presidency in 2003. The former dictator and fiery Pastor for the Church of the Word had primary responsibility for the extreme and deliberately inflicted suffering of millions of Guatemalan souls and has until just last week enjoyed total immunity, immersed in the sumptuous lifestyle of Guatemala’s old-guard hardcore military elite. It’s a bit like having a Hitler-like character living next door, enjoying drinks around the swimming pool. The larger world has largely ignored the unceasing calls for justice from Guatemala’s indigenous majority, an astonishingly diverse and vital population speaking 21 different languages. K’iche’ Maya Nobel Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchú in particular has been active in seeking justice in the case of “El General.”
Ríos Montt’s astonishing ability to avoid justice came at least temporarily to an end on January 26 when the aging leader of Guatemala’s most conservative party (the FRG) was forced to pay bond and placed under house arrest inside his luxury home in Zone 15 of Guatemala City. He was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity, having recently lost his legal immunity as a national congressman. These particular accusations against the ex-General focus on his “scorched earth” campaign in the so-called Ixil Triangle in Guatemala’s western highlands which was notoriously ravaged by government troops.
Unfortunately, the horrific mass slaughters of men, women and children perpetrated by Ríos Montt’s troops came about as an unforeseen consequence of a CIA-supported military coup against Guatemala’s freely elected and popular government in 1954. The deranged Cold War mentality of some in the Eisenhower government justified almost anything in the cause of stopping Communism. Just a year earlier, another CIA-assisted coup had toppled Iran’s own civilian government for similar reasons. That was the United States’ style in those days. To avoid future problems, Guatemala was placed into military hands with U.S. military training and support. Ríos Montt himself even attended the infamous School of the Americas in the United States, notorious for training some of the most abusive military leaders in Latin America. The new “Presidente” Castillo Armas was flown into Guatemala City on the American ambassador’s airplane and together they inaugurated a period of over thirty years of disastrous and exceedingly violent military rule. After putting down a rebellion in the early sixties led by young Guatemalan officers disgusted with senior military leadership, the junta of generals faced a far stronger revolt brewing in an area heavily populated by a variety of Native peoples. The ruling generals decided to defeat the Leftists with a vicious program that included public mutilation and unspeakable degradation of people of all ages.
Ríos Montt had emerged within the radically conservative background of Guatemala’s military elite with a profound sense of Hispanic superiority over his indigenous subjects. This sense of moral supremecy was fed by Christian missionary zeal acquired though his delusional “ministry” in a Protestant fundamentalist group from California. His “faith” became the moral basis for the violent actions of his regime meant to destroy those he viewed as atheistic Communists. Ríos Montt’s speeches to the nation resembled rambling tent sermons more than standard political discourse. His friends included Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and he was strongly defended by President Ronald Reagan as “a man of great personal integrity” while supplying this madman with weaponry. Recent opening of CIA archives shows that the U.S. government knew fully about the numerous massacres of civilians that were being carried out under the orders of the Guatemalan generals but deliberately chose to ignore them for political reasons. The General came to power in a 1982 coup deposing the previous dictator Romero Lucas Garcia, promising to end the mass killings. He aimed to end the widespread corruption and integrate the Maya population into his nationalistic plan he called “Beans and Rifles” which ended up costing the deaths of tens of thousands of Maya civilians. Ríos Montt himself was removed from office after another coup by military officers in August of 1983. After his presidential bid in 2003 was suspended by the Guatemalan Supreme Court, Ríos sent armed thugs into the streets of Guatemala City as a show of force in what is now known as “black Thursday,”
In a novel by one the Mayan world’s most prolific writers, Gaspar González imagines a grotesque “General” seated on his toilet “becoming ‘enlightened’ to carry out one of his infernal plans, that of scorched earth, … his hatred of indigenous people” reaching its peak as he takes sits for his morning bowel movement. This extremely unflattering portrait, coming from one of the most genuine and humble souls I have the pleasure of knowing (Mr. González), only hints at the harsh feelings held by many Guatemalan Maya who now at least know that this former tyrant cannot flaunt his invulnerability in public.
About the Author
Robert Sitler’s immersion in Mayan culture began with a transformative spiritual experience more than three decades ago in the ruins of Palenque, Mexico. Led by a local to a nearby Mayan village, Sitler discovered firsthand what traditional Mayan life was like—a community of people living in peace with each other and their physical surroundings. In The Living Maya, Sitler shows how following “the Mayan way” can help us ground our lives in harmony with nature, broaden our perspectives on human existence, connect us with our capacity for compassion, and use the vaunted cataclysm of 2012 as a unique chance for growth.
Thank you for sharing this, Robert. I lived in Panama when I was a wee thing, so I know a lot about the terrible actions by Noriega, but Montt from Guatemala was not a name I knew before this news broke. I appreciate your shedding light on this for those of us who maybe aren’t as familiar with the story. I am not a supporter of the death penalty, but I certainly hope that Montt receives whatever is the maximum punishment. I can’t say it’s “unbelievable” that he has gone this long without punishment because, as we’ve seen with leaders like Noriega, these kind of abominable crimes often go unpunished unless they do something to piss off another country like the US. I am just glad he’s finally getting his day in court.