New York Times weighs in on Justice Interrupted in Guatemala

The New York Times editorial board weighed in on the legal happenings in the Rios Montt genocide verdict in Guatemala yesterday with Justice Interrupted in Guatemala. Unfortunately, I really don't understand what they are arguing.

Even if the case goes forward, there are obstacles. Some witnesses have been threatened and will need to be protected so they can testify again. Any retrial may be handled by another judge who doesn’t have the reputation for toughness and integrity as the one who delivered the conviction. Then there is the influence of President Otto Pérez Molina and the powerful business federation. Both have made clear their opposition to the genocide verdict.

For 30 years, victims sought to bring General Ríos Montt to justice. His trial has been seen as a turning point both for Guatemala and for the international quest to deal with human rights abuses. The United States, which supported the general and his regime during the war and apologized for that in 1999, provides aid for the justice system. It should urge that the case be pursued through an independent process. It would be a travesty if a mishandled legal proceeding were to deny victims justice now.

The summary of what has happened to date is fine but what does the US "should urge that the case be pursued through an independent process mean"? The US ambassador to Guatemala and the US ambassador at-large for war crimes have been supporting the trial all along which I don't think that people appreciate enough.

And "an independent process"? I'm thinking that it means that politics should not play a role in the Constitutional Court's decision but that doesn't really seem to be a reasonable suggestion. It could mean that the president and CACIF should not have weighed in on the trial while it was ongoing. (Like President Obama not weighing in on the health care law while the Supreme Court was considering its constitutionality?) Or it could mean that the process should not be affected by threats - I agree with that one.

It's tough. From the first day, the defense tried to sabotage the trial and to lay the groundwork for an appeal. Rios Montt switched defense counsel at the last hour in an attempt to have the trial delayed and to get two of the judges removed. Instead, the judges ejected Garcia Gudiel from the courtroom to the cheers of those in the gallery. Garcia Gudiel was eventually returned to the defense but apparently the trial court should have really suspended the trial and waited for an appeals court to weigh in on what they had done.

The defense's strategy unfortunately worked.

If I had a Rocket Launcher

Will Moore from Political Violence @ a Glance and Will Opines posted a video of "If I had a Rocket Launcher" on Facebook today which I had never heard. I thought I'd share it here because it was written following Bruce Cockburn's trip to Guatemalan refugee camps in Mexico, which the musician did following the Rios Montt regime.



From Wikipedia:

"If I Had a Rocket Launcher" is a song by Bruce Cockburn, from his 1984 album Stealing Fire.

The song was inspired by Cockburn's visit, sponsored by OXFAM, to Guatemalan refugee camps in Mexico following the counterinsurgency campaign of dictator Efraín Ríos Montt.[1] Although Cockburn had occasionally touched on political themes in his earlier songs, "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" was his first explicitly political song to be released as a single, and earned him a new reputation as an outspoken musical activist.

In the song, Cockburn despairs of waiting for a political solution to the crisis, and expresses the desire to take matters into his own hands. Each verse ends with a line stating what Cockburn would do if he had a rocket launcher: in the first verse, I'd make somebody pay. In the second, I would retaliate. In the third, I would not hesitate.

The fourth and final verse ends with the song's most famous and controversial lyric: If I had a rocket launcher, some son-of-a-bitch would die.

In a later interview, Cockburn stated that the song "is not a call to arms; this is a cry."[1]

What members of Guatemala's CACIF and El Salvador's ANEP fear most

From Argentina:

Three former Ford Motor Co. executives were charged Tuesday with crimes against humanity for allegedly targeting Argentine union workers for kidnapping and torture after the country's 1976 military coup.

All three men are now in their 80s. Their case is part of a new wave of prosecutions focusing on corporate support for the dictators who ran Argentina in 1976-1983, and the 150-page indictment written by Judge Alicia Vence reads like a history lesson, going to considerable lengths to explain why their actions constitute crimes against humanity and why it has taken nearly four decades to result in criminal charges.

Just fuhgeddaboudit.

El Salvador: I don't need no stinking media or constitutional court

El Salvador's Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice ruled that President Mauricio Funes' appointments of "retired" general David Munguía Payés as Minister of Public Security and "retired" general Francisco Ramón Salinas Rivera as PNC director violated the constitution's provision preventing the military from being in charge of domestic security. (See Tim and Hector and Steve).

I agree with the court's ruling and am happy that they reached this conclusion. Here's what I wrote in November 2011 in a post at Al Jazeera.

Personally, I think that Munguía Payés' appointment sets bad precedent. I am not worried so much about him as I am the fact that his appointment opens the door for additional appointments of former military officials to head state institutions. That's not a path that anyone wishes to see El Salvador travel down.

Given El Salvador's history, I thought that it would set bad precedent to allow "former" military officers to oversee domestic security officers. Now the Constitutional Chamber has also found their appointments to not only have violated the spirit of the peace accords but the law.

But it doesn't stop there. President Funes said something about the court which would have gotten everyone up in arms had it been said by Otto Perez Molina.

El Salvadorian President Mauricio Funes joined the prisoners in disagreeing with the Court's ruling. 'I have no doubt that behind the arguments of the court is a very clear anti-military bias.'

There's a lot not to like about President Funes, including his contempt for the media and the courts, essentially two of the country's most important institutions that are meant to check presidential power.

Chaos with all signs pointing to extrajudicial interference in Guatemala

So last night the Guatemalan Constitutional Court overruled the conviction of Rios Montt and the not guilty verdict of his co-defendant Rodriguez Sanchez. The Open Society Justice Initiative's Emi MacLean has a run down on why the justices' ruled the way that they did (3-2) and what she thinks that the ruling means. It's very good and I encourage you to read it for yourself. I can't say that I am clear on every detail even after reading it however.

As we saw on the first day of the trial, Rios Montt's new lawyer, Francisco Garcia Gudiel, was brought into the case at the last possible moment in an effort to have two of the judges removed and/or to plant the seeds for overturning a guilty verdict after the fact. While the court's final ruling was not overturned because of the judges' failures to recuse themselves (an appeals court and the Constitutional Court have ruled consistently in favor of the judges), Garcia Gudiel's tactics the first day seems to have paid dividends for the defense anyway. The due process violations relate to the court's decision to remove him from the case.

The Constitutional Court appears to have ruled that the High-Risk Court did not adequately comply with the Third Chambers' earlier ruling. Barrios and the High Court did respond to the Third Chambers' rulings and the Third Chamber even ruled that they had done so, so it's not entirely clearly (yet) in which ways they were allegedly deficient. It might be related to the High Risk Court's decision to continue with the trial when they should have suspended the proceedings.

So if I understand correctly, the Third Chamber ruled on May 9th that the High-Risk Court had complied with its order to reinstate Garcia Gudiel and to reconsider his recusal motions (they had already reinstated Garcia Gudiel and they, once again, considered and rejected his recusal motion). Rios Montt's attorney then  challenged the Chamber's ruling that the High Risk Court had in fact complied with what it had been ordered to do. And now the Constitutional Court has ruled in favor of Rios Montt and his attorney and is sending the trial back to April 19th.

The CC still has Barrios and her two colleague hearing the case but Garcia Gudiel is arguing that they will need to remove themselves from the case because they have already made their opinion known (the guilty verdict). The trial will have to be restarted with new judges who have not already formed opinions regarding the guilty or innocence of the accused.

Here's what I wrote on Twitter prior to the ruling.

Even if CC rules to overturn Rios Montt ruling, CACIF, Foundation against Terrorism, and others have made sure that everyone will blame...
— Mike Allison (@CentAmPolMike) May 21, 2013

political pressure, threats of violence; even if there was legal reason, it's gone now
— Mike Allison (@CentAmPolMike) May 21, 2013

Now, the Constitutional Court's decision might or might not have been influenced by the threats from CACIF, the Foundation against Terrorism, Rios Montt's lawyers, and others. We don't know for certain.

However, CACIF, the Foundation against Terrorism, and Garcia Gudiel's actions and statements during the trial and, especially, after the trial reached its conclusions, have made it nearly impossible to accept that the Constitutional Court acted according to the law and not according to extrajudicial interference.

Take II: The Rios Montt genocide trial

In a three-to-two ruling Monday night, Guatemala's Constitutional Court overturned Efrain Rios Montt's guilty verdict and Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez's not guilty verdict and returned the trial to April 19th.

While the dust is still settling, April 19th would mean that witness and expert witness testimony will not need to be re-admitted. The court will be at the point at which it will be preparing to hear closing arguments.

Obviously, the ruling is good news for Rios Montt but it is bad news for Rodriguez Sanchez who is in jeopardy again. It's also bad news for the survivors who worked so very hard to secure the guilty verdict.

Now the ruling could be a sign of corruption and impunity. That would obviously be bad. Mauro Rodrigo Chacón y Gloria Porras were the two judges who ruled against overturning the verdict. Chacón represents the University of San Carlos and Porras was appointed during the Colom administration. The court's reversal comes following weeks of escalating attacks in the press from a powerful economic group, veterans' groups, and other right-wing groups.

Or it could be a sign that the Constitutional Court is doing its job and making sure that all parties adhere to established legal practices. That would be good as it doesn't help if justice cuts corners.

Here's what I wrote on Al Jazeera last week:

First, the prosecution still has to secure the final verdict. The trial itself has been full of intrigue with two different judges claiming they should be overseeing the trial. Pre-trial judge, Patricia Carol Flores, who was responsible for evidentiary and other matters of the case, held a hearing on the morning of Friday's verdict during which she tried to annul the trial, once again, and send it back to November 2011.

The Constitutional Court (CC) already ruled that Flores had overstepped her authority and had interpreted its ruling too broadly. It seems the CC only wanted her to incorporate new evidence that previously had been excluded and then send the case back to Judge Barrios. However, Flores' latest decision to re-annul the trial remains pending.

Following Friday afternoon's verdict, Rios Montt's attorney argued that the defence had already lodged four constitutional challenges and eight amparos which had not yet been ruled upon. Those legal challenges could threaten the conviction. Guatemalan lawyers have a history of using excessive, often frivolous, legal challenges to delay or deny justice so it is possible that all are resolved in favour of the prosecution. In this trial alone, the defence lodged over 100 legal challenges. 

Judge Barrios and her two colleagues must have decided that the best strategy to reach a verdict was to push the trial through to the end without waiting to resolve all the outstanding legal challenges rather than let the trial get bogged down.

If Judge Barrios and the other two judges remain in charge of the case and all that needs to be re-argued are closing arguments, the damage is minimal. If the CC determined that the trial court should not have proceeded when it did and it is now returning the case to the point in time at which it should have been stopped, April 19, that is justice in motion. That is a CC that takes its role seriously. However, the ruling might have gone beyond that.

As of tonight, though, the ruling's motivations and implications are not necessarily clear.

10 Questions on US involvement in Guatemala and Central America

In revisiting the US' role in Guatemala and Central America over the last ten years, I've often thought about the Iraq war (and no, just not the death squad parallels). It might be helpful to draw some potential parallels with the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

These are questions that people have been asking, more or less, over the last decade in regards to Iraq and elsewhere and they might be helpful to think of them in relationship to the US and Central America.

1. How much of what US policymakers were working from was the result of faulty intelligence?
2. How much did intelligence analysts / Embassy personnel / Washington advisers cook the books (they provided the intelligence that their superiors desired, that would help them earn promotions)
3. How much did the US rely on unreliable informants (Cuban exiles, traitors, double agents, people with their own agendas)? 
4. Was group think a problem?
5. Did they perfect Dick Cheney's 1% doctrine thirty years ago?
6. What did State know and do versus what CIA and Military know and do?
7. What do we think we know versus what do we have evidence for? We might be right (or wrong); however, we just don't have evidence to support our arguments one way or another?
8. What did we say publicly versus do/say privately?
9. How much are academics who study Central America stuck in an echo chamber?
10. How much do academics, policymakers, and the media love/hate Ronald Reagan that we assume the best / worst.?

Perhaps some of this has been asked already. I'm not sure. What do you think? Helpful? Anything that we should add? Remove?