Rios Montt

In Guatemala in 1974, on election night the television screens suddenly went dead across the nation. When the country awoke the next morning, and the televisions came back on the "official government" candidate, Rios Montt,  had been declared a winner. A presidential election widely believed tobe fraudulent.

Once elected, Rios Montt did everything possible to wipe the Mayans off the planet Earth.

Meanwhile, Guatemalan human rights organisations petition the Spanish national court to hear a case charging Ríos Montt and seven other Guatemalan military and civilian officials with genocide, state terrorism and torture. The court decides not to proceed, arguing that while there was strong evidence against the accused there is no reason why the case could not be heard in Guatemalan courts. Members of the Guatemalan Parliament, including Ríos Montt, are immune from prosecution by law.

Rios Montt knew that he could not achieve presidency without becoming a Christian Evangelist. Rios Montt aligned himself with the Word Church from Eureaka, in California. Since he became a born-again, evangelical Protestant in the late 1970's, he has viewed himself as Guatemala's man of destiny.

General Ríos Montt was quoted in the New York Times of July 18, 1982 as telling an audience of indigenous Guatemalans, "If you are with us, we’ll feed you; if not, we’ll kill you."

After Ríos Montt took over, the level of violence increased tremendously.

This Figure shows how the number of state killings and disappearances rose even higher in April 1982, Ríos  Montt’s first full month in office.

Publicly, however, Reagan's officials continued to put on a happy face. On June 12, 1983, special envoy Richard B. Stone praised "positive changes" in Rios Montt's government and Reagan is reported as saying that Ríos Montt is "a man of great personal integrity" who is "getting a bum rap on human rights."

General Efrain Rios Montt worked closely with Reagan and the Bush administration. The US government  supplied the arms and trained the army in slaughter and interrogation techniques.

The Mayans were slaughtered in the most inhumane way. Girls were raped by 20-30 soldiers before being killed. Men were taken in the middle of the night from their homes. Baby's were banged against trees a then thrown in wells. Fetuses were torn from living pregnant women.

The Mayans were exposed to days of endless rain without cover and had little medicine, clothing, and food. Many were forced to forge for roots and when they returned to their villages in search of food they found their homes burned and their livestock killed. By cutting off the Mayans' food supply and waiting for them to return to town, starving became the army's strategy. As soon as they reappeared, they were shot down by gunfire.

This is the second massacre for the Mayans. The Cancuén massacre happened in 800 A.D. The same type of brutality is evident in both Mayan massacres.

Why such brutality for this tribe?

 This indigenous tribe holds knowledge of humanities potential future, which is unwelcome to the current political agenda.


 Virgil Armstrong:  former CIA/Author

Royal Maya Massacre - Masacre Maya - 1/5