GOP Congressman engaged to accused war criminal's daughter

[Cocoa]

Note that Montt is still active in Guatemalan politics, and the daughter is working with him in his attempt to return to power...

http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-weller09.html

WASHINGTON -- The upcoming marriage of Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) to a Guatemalan congresswoman -- whose father was once a brutal dictator of the country -- is drawing fire from his Democratic rival.

Democratic nominee Tari Renner, chairman of the political science department at Illinois Wesleyan University, called for Weller to step down from his post on the House International Relations Committee because "international security" may be compromised.

Weller, 47, replied in a statement, "To tarnish one life's joys, marrying the woman you love, is simply beyond the bounds of decency."

His betrothed, Zury Rios Sosa, is the daughter of Jose Efrain Rios Montt, considered by human-rights groups to be responsible for waves of genocide within his country in the 1980s. Montt ran for president last November and lost. Renner said that since the daughter worked for Montt's election, Weller needed to denounce her ties to the former dictator.

more...

[HarveyBriggs]

1. For a moment, I thought he was marrying a Bush girl! nt

[Warpy]

2. yeah, that was my thought, too

Although I usually don't visit the sins of the fathers on the children, there's something that just aint right with the Bush family, and it progresses through the generations.

Don't know about the Guatemalan gal. I hope her daddy's evil died with him, but if she's marrying a Repuglican, it might not have.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Plus Rios Montt (her daddy) is still alive,

unlike the thousands his death squads killed.

(Republicans will swear up and down that the death squads were just free-lance thugs like our right-wing militias, but somehow, no one ever seemed to catch them, even though most people knew their identities.)

[readmylips]

4. Maria Schriver got away with marrying Ahnold the Nazi...

and he's now the supreme nazi leader of California. Nice going Maria....go eat a sandwich.

[struggle4progress]

5. The Illinois Congressman and the Dictator's Daughter

<snip>
Representative Jerry Weller, a Republican from the small farm town of Morris, surprised friends and supporters this week by announcing that he is engaged to a member of the Guatemalan congress. His fiancée, Zury Ríos Sosa, is the daughter of General Efraín Ríos Montt, a former Guatemalan dictator who presided over one of the most brutal military campaigns in modern Latin American history.

Mr. Ríos Montt, who is under house arrest pending trial on charges of organizing a political riot last summer, remains a major political figure in Guatemala. His daughter has for years been one of his principal advisers and strategists.

Because Mr. Weller is a member of the House Committee on International Relations and sits on its western hemisphere subcommittee, his newly announced tie to one of Guatemala's most notorious political figures has added spice to his re-election campaign. His opponent, Tari Renner, a political science professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, has made it a campaign issue.
<snip>

Mr. Ríos Montt seized power in a military coup in 1982, and immediately launched what the Guatemalan press called a "scorched earth" campaign against leftist insurgents. A United Nations commission later concluded that during his period in power, which lasted less than two years, the army committed 626 massacres of civilians. The commission's chairman, Christian Tomuschat, said Mr. Ríos Montt's government was responsible for "acts of genocide against groups of the Mayan people."
<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/10/national/10illinois.html?ex=1090123200&en=635dee2a54b710b4&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE