PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) at 12th anniversary commemoration of genocide conviction
Photo by Marco Hernandez/FGER.
On May 9, PBI-Guatemala posted:
“Today #PBIacompanies in [the town of] Nebaj [in the department of El Quiché] the Association for Justice and Reconciliation -AJR- in the acts of commemoration of the historic sentence that condemned General Efrain Rios Montt for the #GenocidioIxil.
“This is how justice is done; thanks to the struggle of the surviving family members who bravely gave their testimonies and participated in the process” said the Coordinating Committee of Ixil Organizations (COI) in a press conference, “only with our efforts we will force the justice system to punish the war criminals”. COI called on all the people of Guatemala to continue fighting impunity and not allow the corrupt pact to be imposed.
During the events, the Indigenous Mayor and representatives of organizations presented awards to the witnesses and surviving witnesses of the massacres.
On September 9, the trial for genocide against Luis Enrique Mendoza Garcia, head of operations during the time of Rios Montt, will begin.”
The Guatemalan Federation of Radiophonic Schools (FGER) also posted on Facebook: “The Coordinating Committee of Ixil Organizations in #Nebaj, commemorates the 12th anniversary of the historic sentence for genocide, handed down against General José Efraín Ríos Montt, on May 10, 2013, for the multiple massacres and Human Rights violations committed against the Maya Ixil people, during the Internal Armed Conflict.”
FGER then posted: “During the conference, lawyer Santiago Choc of the [PBI-Guatemala accompanied] Human Rights Law Firm #BDH recalled that, on September 09, 2025, a new trial for “genocide” will begin against Luis Enrique Mendoza García, former director of the Operations Section of the Montt government, responsible for the repressive and murderous operations applied in the Ixil Region.”
Efraín Ríos Montt committed genocide
On May 10 2013, Rios Montt was sentenced to 50 years in prison for the crime of genocide and 30 years for crimes against humanity. He was convicted of ordering the deaths of 1,771 people of the Ixil Maya ethnic group during his time as president in 1982 and 1983.
In August 2024, Agencia Ocote noted: “Ten days [after his conviction], the trial was annulled by the Constitutional Court, due to alleged defects in the process. Guatemala’s highest court orders a repeat of it. That repetition comes five years later. While the trial was taking place again, Ríos Montt died at the age of 91, in April 2018.”
Photo: Rios Montt in 1982.
General Luis Enrique Mendoza García
That Agencia Ocote article from August 2024 adds: “General Luis Enrique Mendoza García, head of Army operations during the Ríos Montt government, is pending trial. Mendoza is accused of executing Plan Sofia, another of the counterinsurgency plans executed against the Ixil people [in 1982]. His case was supposed to begin on June 4, but it has been delayed because his defense attorney is the same Public Defense attorney who represents [Manuel Benedicto Lucas García, chief of staff of the Army from 1981 to 1982].”
Further reading: PBI-Guatemala accompanies the trial of General Benedicto Lucas accused of genocide against the Maya Ixil people (April 27, 2024).
The Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) has also previously noted: “Luis Enrique Mendoza García was first accused of genocide and crimes against humanity in 2011 along with Ríos Montt and other members of his Military High Command. Nevertheless, he remained a fugitive for seven years. He was arrested in 2019 after leaving a voting center in Salamá, Baja Verapaz during Guatemala’s general elections.”
That article also explains that Luis Enrique Mendoza García was the “Chief of Operations (G3) of the General Staff of the Guatemalan Army during the dictatorship of Efraín Ríos Montt in 1982 – 1983. He is being accused of genocide and crimes against humanity against the Maya Ixil people.”
Genocide
The 36-year-long war (internal armed conflict) in Guatemala began in November 1960 (after a US-backed coup in June 1954) and ended in December 1996 with signing of the Agreement for a Firm and Lasting Peace.
The internal armed conflict killed an estimated 200,000 people and displaced more than one million people between 1960 and 1996.
45,000 people are still unaccounted, including 5,000 children.
The conflict between state military forces and guerilla combatants was underpinned by the poverty, marginalization and racism against Indigenous peoples.
The United Nations-backed Commission for Historical Clarification established in June 1994 determined that the Guatemalan military was responsible for 93 per cent of the atrocities – including forced disappearances, massacres and torture – and that 83 per cent of the victims were Indigenous Maya peoples.
The Commission concluded that acts of genocide occurred during the war.
Accompaniment
The Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) is a coalition of survivors from 22 communities in five regions of the country that suffered the scorched earth policy between 1978 and 1985.
PBI-Guatemala began accompanying the AJR Board of Directors in April 2024 and will continue to do so for the duration of this judicial process.
Further reading: PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) at #IxilGenocide trial (October 18, 2024).
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND
Aljazeera reports: “During the Cold War, the US backed military dictatorships in Latin America that suppressed leftist movements, [says] Jehad Jusef, the vice president of the Palestinian Union of Latin America, an association of Palestinian diaspora groups.”
The article adds that Israel served “as a major arms dealer to the US-backed military dictatorships in places like Guatemala and Argentina.”
NACLA has highlighted: “Israeli press reported that 300 Israeli advisors helped execute the [March 1982 military coup that brought General Efraín Ríos Montt to power]… Through the height of la violencia (“the violence”) or desencarnacíon (“loss of flesh, loss of being”), between the late 1970s to early 1980s, Israel assisted every facet of attack on the Guatemalan people. Largely taking over for the United States on the ground in Guatemala (with Washington retaining its role as paymaster, while also maintaining a crucial presence in the country), Israel had become the successive governments’ main provider of counterinsurgency training, light and heavy arsenals of weaponry, aircraft, state-of-the-art intelligence technology and infrastructure, and other vital assistance.”
Then-University of Pittsburgh graduate student Rosa De Ferrari has also noted in the university publication Panoramas: “Five years before Rios Montt’s coup, in 1977, the U.S. cut off military aid to Guatemala based on human rights violations committed by the military. In a move that many saw as becoming a proxy for the U.S., Israel began arm sales to the Guatemalan government. By the 1980s Israel had become the largest supplier of weapons, military training, and surveillance technology to Guatemala.”
Spring Magazine further explains: “The US suspended military aid to Guatemala in 1977—their human rights abuses were a bad look, so Israel stepped in for them. Israeli president Ephrain Katzir [the president from 1973 to 1978] signed an agreement supplying the Guatemalan military with $38 million worth of arms during the civil war period, including rifles, helicopters, equipment for surveillance, and training.”
Another article in Aljazeera adds: “Israel sold weapons to the South African apartheid government in 1975… Napalm and other weapons were supplied to El Salvador during its counterinsurgency wars [supported by the US government] between 1980-1992 that killed more than 75,000 civilians.”
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