Guatemala soldiers jailed 7,710 years for massacre

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Guatemala soldiers jailed 7,710 years for massacre
AFP
March 21, 2012, 4:06 pm

GUATEMALA CITY (AFP) - A Guatemalan court on Tuesday ordered five former paramilitaries to 7,710 years each in prison for their part in a 1982 massacre of 256 Indians during the country's civil war.

Judge Jazmi Barrios gave each of the soldiers 30 years for each person killed in the massacre plus 30 for crimes against humanity, saying the group acted with "wickedness and cruelty" towards their victims.

Four of the defendants were part of the Civil Self-Defense Patrols (PAC) while the fifth served as military commissioner.

The massacre of Achi Maya Indians occurred on July 18, 1982 in the northern Guatemalan municipality of Rabinal, during the 1982-1983 administration of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt.


Read more: http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/13227776/guatemala-soldiers-jailed-7-710-years-for-massacre/

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[center]

Guatemalan genocidal dictator, Efraín Ríos Montt and his ally, Ronald Reagan.[/center]

May 26, 1999
Reagan & Guatemala’s Death Files

After his election, Reagan pushed aggressively to overturn an arms embargo imposed on Guatemala by President Carter because of the military's wretched human rights record.

Reagan saw bolstering the Guatemalan army as part of a regional response to growing leftist insurgencies. Reagan pitched the conflicts as Moscow's machinations for surrounding and conquering the United States.

The president's chief concern about the recurring reports of human rights atrocities was to attack and discredit the information. Sometimes personally and sometimes through surrogates, Reagan denigrated the human rights investigators and journalists who disclosed the slaughters.

Typical of these attacks was an analysis prepared by Reagan's appointees at the U.S. embassy in Guatemala. The paper was among those recently released by the Clinton administration to assist the Guatemalan truth commission’s investigation.

More:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/052699a2.html

[gratuitous]

1. "Crimes against humanity"

What a quaint old concept, no longer applicable in the mighty United States of America.

But if it ever comes back into vogue, word of this verdict should cause more than a few tightened sphincters when it reaches certain ears.

[marble falls]

2. They'll be out in 4,000 years with good behavior. Why aren't their bosses .....

sitting beside them??

[a la izquierda]

3. Ahhh, delightful.

I just got through explaining the Guatemalan civil war to a class full of college freshman. They looked ill.

The guy who came before Rios Montt was a real monster too (and Venezuela refused to extradite him to Spain for trial). About half of Lucas Garcia's dirty work occurred while Carter was President, the other under Reagan.