Guatemala’s new president, Bernardo Arévalo, took office in January with a promise of battling corruption. This week, he introduced his anti-corruption team that’s going to lead the charge. But it is not an easy road ahead. The expectations are high and there are many challenges.
Guatemala’s former de facto president Jose Efrain Rios Montt is on trial for charges of war crimes and genocide committed under his brutal rule in the 1980s. After avoiding prosecution for nearly 30 years, Rios Montt faces a list of charges that shines a spotlight on the country’s unpleasant past.
The Guatemalan general who led the country through the bloodiest period of its long civil war, Efrain Rios Montt, has been jailed for 80 years for genocide and crimes against humanity in the early 1980s. BoingBoing’s Xeni Jardin has been tweeting the trial and its aftermath.
Kate Doyle of the Guatemala Documentation Project talks with host Marco Werman about the trail of former Guatemalan President Gen. Rios Montt. It’s the first and only genocide trial against a former head of state ever held in a domestic court.