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THREE SMALL STEPS TOWARD JUSTICE IN GUATEMALA.

Article Excerpt
Efrain Rios Montt, former general, president, congressional leader, and presidential candidate (See NotiCen, 2003-07-24 and 2004-01-08) has been indicted in connection with the death of a journalist. He is under house arrest, and has been subpoenaed to testify before the Spanish judge who threw the book at Augusto Pinochet.

After winning the right to run for President in 2003 despite a constitutional prohibition written specifically to exclude him, Rios unleashed an electoral campaign unequalled in recent times for its violence and bloodshed.

Guatemalan judge Victor Hugo Herrera of the Juzgado Quinto de Instancia Penal issued an indictment in early March against Rios for premeditated murder, coercion, and threats, and ordered the foundering strongman to a kind of modified house arrest allowing some freedom of movement.

The charges arose out of the events of July 24 and 25, 2003, when mobs of sympathizers of the Frente Republicano Guatemalteco (FRG) raged through the capital, allegedly on orders of Rios Montt, the party leader. A journalist, Hector Ramirez, suffered a heart attack while being chased by the mob and died.

The judge said he found cause to bind Rios Montt over for trial on evidence presented by the Ministerio Publico (MP) but acknowledged that the investigation is weak. He gave prosecutors six months to sustain the allegations.

Human rights organizations called the judge's order historic and positive. Said Gustavo Meono of...

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