Excerpt:
Without Rios Montt, Guatemala Would Have Succumbed to Communism
Former Guatemalan President Efrain Rios Montt was key in wiping out the threat of Communist-backed terrorism in Guatemala.
Karina MartÃnBy Karina MartÃn Last updated Apr 4, 2018
Former Guatemalan President Rios Montt was key in wiping out a Communist insurgency in Guatemala during the 1980s (PanAm Post).
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Some insist on pointing to Montt as a dictator who committed genocide against more than 1,700 indigenous people of the Ixil ethnic group, from the north of the country. However, the ex-general was never sentenced. Although in 2013 he was found guilty and set to spend 80 years in prison, the Constitutional Court suspended the verdict only ten days later because of inconsistencies in the sentencing process.
“I never authorized it. I never signed anything. I never proposed it. I never ordered that a race, ethnicity, or religion be threatened. I never did it and despite all that they have said there has not been evidence of my participation,†declared the former president during the first trial.
Those who accuse the political leader of genocide and the death of the Ixils often do so without understanding that genocide is the deliberate extermination of a group for ethnic or racial religious reasons and in the war, the Ixils were not the only victims, but also the Ladinos, quichés, and foreigners, among many others.
Article: https://panampost.com/karina-martin/2018/04/04/without-rios-montt-guatemala-would-have-succumbed-to-communism/
Rios Montt is so vilified, one can read articles and just, assume he did these bad things because of the slant of the press.