By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala — A Guatemalan judge began accepting evidence Thursday in the case against former dictator Jose Efrain Rios Montt.

The hearing to accept testimonies, documents, and other evidence marked the final step before Montt’s trial would begin.  Montt, who rose to power during a coup in March 1982, is accused of ordering the murder, torture, and displacement of more than 1,700 indigenous peoples between 1982 and 1983.

Earlier this week, Judge Miguel Angel Galvez ruled that Montt could stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in the so-called “scorched earth” campaign aimed at eliminating support for leftist guerrillas when he was president from 1982 to 1983, one of the bloodiest periods in Guatemala’s 36-year civil war.

Montt is the first former president to be charged with genocide by a Latin American court.  Many human rights advocates say his trial also will shine the spotlight on the United States’ involvement in Guatemala’s civil war.

In an effort to prevent the spread of communism into Latin America, the United States supported the Guatemalan government during the war — a government that was responsible for much of the human rights violations.

In 1983, despite confirmation of mass killings in Guatemalan villages by anti-guerrilla forces, U.S. President Ronald Reagan overturned an arms embargo imposed by U.S. President Jimmy Carter three years earlier.  Reagan pointed to improving human rights conditions in the Central American country.

Lifting the embargo allowed the United States to provide military, economic, and political assistance — including military weapons and vehicles — to the Guatemalan government.  Meanwhile, a CIA cable at that time highlighted an increase in suspicious violence resulting in more bodies being discovered in ditches.

Critics of the United States’ role in the Guatemalan war blame its actions decades earlier.  In 1954, the CIA helped organize a coup to remove a reformist government from power.  Many believe Guatemala’s civil war may not happened if the CIA had not exercised its influence in the coup.

The United States has tried to make amends since Guatemala’s civil war ended in 1996.  It released 1,400 pages of documents in 1997 about its role in the 1954 coup and the civil war.  Several of those documents have been used in trials in Guatemala.  In 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton apologized during a visit to Guatemala for the U.S. support during the conflict.

The United Nations estimated more than 200,000 people were killed during the civil war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996.  Human rights advocates have tried for years to have Montt prosecuted.  Montt’s attorneys argue he was never aware of the massacres committed by the army, and they planned to appeal the decision to let the trial move forward.

Also facing trial for the crimes against humanity is former general Jose Rodriguez.

For further information, please see:

Al Jazeera — Meet the First Head of State to Head to Trial in the Americas for Genocide — 31 January 2013

GlobalPost — Final Hearing Starts Before Guatemala Genocide Trial — 31 January 2013

Syracuse.com — Consider This: In Guatemala, Justice Is Delayed, but Not Yet Denied — 31 January 2013

The Washington Post — Judge Begins Accepting Evidence in Genocide Case Against Former Military Dictator Rios Montt — 31 January 2013

The New York Times — Ex-Dictator Is Ordered to Trial in Guatemalan War Crimes Case — 28 January 2013

The New York Times — Accused of Atrocities, Guatemala’s Ex-Dictator Chooses Silence — 26 January 2013

PBS — Timeline: Guatemala’s History of Violence

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala — A former dictator who ruled during one of the bloodiest periods of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war will stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

A Guatemalan court ruled on Monday that the trial of Efrain Rios Montt would convene this week.  Montt, 86, is accused of ordering the murder, torture, and displacement of more than 1,700 indigenous people between March 1982 and August 1983.

Judge Miguel Angel Galvez also threw out 13 appeals presented by Montt’s defense, finding sufficient evidence to prosecute Montt and retired Gen. Jose Mauricio Rodriguez for the killings.  Rodriguez is accused of ordering the mass killings, known as the “scorched earth” campaign.

Neither defendant reacted to the judge’s ruling, but families of victims, along with human rights workers, cheered and applauded before setting off fireworks outside, according to the Latin American Herald Tribune.

Human rights advocates called the Montt’s prosecution a symbolic victory for victims of one of the most devastating and horrific conflicts in Central America.

“Until recently, the idea of a Guatemalan general being tried for these heinous crimes seemed utterly impossible,” said Jose Miguel Vivianco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch.  “The fact that a judge has ordered the trial of a former head of state is a remarkable development in a country where impunity for past atrocities has long been the norm.”

Montt, who became de facto president during a coup in 1982 before being ousted in another coup in 1983, is the first former president to be charged with genocide by a Latin American court.

“It’s the beginning of a new phase of this struggle,” said Paul Seils in an interview with the Associated Press.  Seils is vice president of the International Center for Transitional Justice, which has worked on war-crimes cases in Guatemala.  He said the decision to prosecute was “a good step forward,” but he expected the trial would face stiff resistance from loyalists to government-allied forces during the civil war.

A United Nations commission estimated 200,000 people were killed during the war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996.  The commission attributed 93 percent of the human rights abuses it documented to government forces, concluding the military committed “acts of genocide.”

Montt will stay under house arrest until his trial, according to the Judge Galvez’s order.  He is currently in custody at a military hospital, where he was admitted last year for health problems.

The trial is scheduled to convene on Thursday.

For further information, please see:

Human Rights Watch — Guatemala: Rios Montt Trial a Milestone for Justice — 28 January 2013

Latin American Herald Tribune — Guatemalan Ex-Dictator to Stand Trial for Genocide — 28 January 2013

National Public Radio — Guatemala Ex-Dictator to Stand Trial on Genocide — 28 January 2013

Reuters — Guatemala Court Orders Trial of Former Dictator, Rejects Appeals — 28 January 20

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

WASHINGTON, United States — In a protest of Russia’s repression on civil rights and activism, the U.S. State Department announced on Friday that it was leaving a bilateral group aimed at promoting civil society in both countries.

Thomas Melia, deputy secretary of state in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, said the Working Group on Civil Society of the Russian-American Bilateral Presidential Commission was not working.

“[The group] is no longer an appropriate or effective forum that would facilitate the development and strengthening of civil society,” Melia said in an interview with Interfax.

A spokesperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin called the United States’s decision to withdraw “regrettable.”

But Matthew Rojansky of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace blamed Putin’s government for the U.S. withdrawal.  Rojansky told the Washington Post that the Russian government is not taking any of the necessary steps to ensure a civil society.

“We take these things seriously,” Rojansky said in the Post interview, characterizing the American message.  “And you have shown you don’t take them seriously.”

The American pull out comes amid tense relations between Washington and Moscow.

In the last year, Russia has clamped down on demonstrations amid opposition protests that the government blamed the United States for supporting.  Putin’s government also began prosecuting many political activists, as well as requiring nonprofit electoral and human rights groups receiving money from abroad register as “foreign agents.”

In December, the United States imposed financial and visa sanctions against corrupt Russian officials.  Russia responded by banning American adoption of children from Russia.

Russia also has outlawed the U.S. Agency for International Development.  And most recently, just last month, Putin signed a law that bans American organizations considered involved in political activity.

When asked the U.S. withdrawal from the working group, Melia’s Russian counterpart, Konstantin Dolgov, said he had not received official notice yet.

“We have not yet received any written official documents on Washington’s decision to withdraw from this format of dialogue with Russia,” Dolgov told Interfax.

“We will react officially when we get official notification,” he added.  “We can now say that Russia has made specific proposals to our U.S. colleagues to call another meeting of the working group, which was to be held in Moscow throughout 2013.”

The working group was one of about 20 in a bilateral U.S.-Russia commission started in 2009 by President Barack Obama and Russia’s then-president, Dmitry Medvedev, as relations between the two countries were warming.

For further information, please see:

RT — Moscow Regrets US Pullout from Bilateral Commission on Human Rights — 26 January 2013

Chicago Tribune — U.S. Quits Bilateral Civil Society Group in Rebuke to Russia — 25 January 2013

Russia Beyond the Headlines — Washington Quits U.S.-Russia Civil Society — 25 January 2013

Washington Post — U.S. Quits Joint Panel with Russia on Civil Society — 25 January 2013

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

WASHINGTON, United States — A report out Thursday from the Human Rights Watch accused the Washington, D.C. police department of failing to investigate roughly a third of reported sexual assaults during a three-year period.

Now, the head of the city’s public safety committee hopes to hold a hearing on the report’s findings.

“This deserves a very cautious and thoughtful review to be sure we don’t respond with window dressing,” said Councilmember Tommy Wells.  “We want to find a way to reassure people that have been victimized through sexual abuse that they have a government that will effectively respond to what they need.”

The New York based human rights group released the 197-page report, called “Capitol Offense,” on Thursday.  It said that Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department failed to take women’s rape claims seriously or to investigate their allegations properly.

The report found that out of 480 sexual assaults reported between October 2008 and September 2011, at least 171 did not have initial police reports filed or file numbers issued for tracking.

“It was really disappointing that in one of our largest cities that police still seem to have the same attitudes toward sexual assault and [do] not actively pursue these cases more aggressively,” said Sara Darehshori, Human Rights Watch’s senior counsel, in an interview with Reuters.

The police department disputed the findings.  D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier released a statement after the report’s release, saying “sweeping allegations that are not backed by facts undermine the credibility of HRW.”

Both sides have requested that federal investigators from the U.S. Justice Department review the report’s findings.  A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed the requests to the Washington Post but said no decision has been made.

The Human Rights Watch report contained summary from more than a dozen women.  Police said that is a fraction of the 1,500 rapes investigated in the three-year period contained in the report.

Still, the department also said it had acted to remedy some reported shortcomings.  Chief Lanier said she wanted police interviews with victims to be recorded to document the detective work.  Prosecutors, however, are not so eager.

“While videotaping victims’ statements can be beneficial in some kinds of cases, we believe that the practice carries a risk of adding to the trauma and discomfort already felt by victims of sexual assaults,” Kelly Higashi told the Washington Post.  Higashi is chief of the sex offense and domestic violence section of the U.S. attorney’s office.

For further information, please see:

Chicago Tribune — Washington, DC, Police Ignored Some Sex Assaults–Rights Group — 24 January 2013

Salon — Report: DC Police Treatment of Sexual Assault Victims “Traumatizing” — 24 January 2013

Washington Times — Rights Group Faults D.C. Police on Rape Cases — 24 January 2013

Washington Post — Public Safety Chair Wants Hearing on Report that D.C. Police Didn’t Investigate Rape Cases — 24 January 2013

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

CANBERRA, Australia — As the Australian government tries to overhaul anti-discrimination legislation, the Christian lobby is rejecting any effort to eliminate religious exemptions in the bill.

The draft of the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill integrates five current discrimination laws into one law, but it allows religious organizations to discriminate against certain groups lawfully when hiring or firing someone.

“Anti-discrimination laws should be about protecting those affected by discrimination, not protecting those who conduct the discrimination themselves,” said New South Wales independent MP Alex Greenwich, who has been a long-term campaigner for gay and lesbian rights.

Greenwich and others urged Prime Minister Julia Gillard to reconsider whether the religious exemptions should be allowed, especially when taxpayer money is involved.

“I hope the government seizes the opportunity of this review,” Greenwich told ABC News, “to make some real change to help those who are affected by discrimination on a daily basis.”

But Jim Wallace, head of the Australian Christian Lobby, said religious groups need to be able to hire people who share and reflect their values and philosophies.

“The church wants to reflect through its staff the philosophy of Christ,” he said to Sky News.

Wallace also downplayed the issue and described the effort to characterize the exemption as a “freedom” to discriminate gays and other people they consider sinners as “a complete beat-up.”

“I’m not aware of any Christian organization that has refused to hire anyone (based on their sexuality,” he told reporters.  “I’ve looked.”

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Australian Human Rights Commission received nearly two dozen complaints in 2012 from people claiming they were discriminated against at work based on their sexuality.  While the commission kept no record of whether the work was with a religious organization, its president said some of the complaints were against religious groups.

“We can and do receive complaints about discrimination in employment with faith-based organizations on the ground of sexual preference,” Gillian Triggs told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Some critics of the exemption also worry that faith-based groups, including schools and hospitals, will be able to refuse to hire women who are pregnant or potentially pregnant.

Anna Brown, the advocacy and strategic litigation director of the Human Rights Law Centre, called the bill a “missed opportunity” to narrow the broad exemptions available to religious groups.

Still, Triggs called the bill an important first step in creating a coherent federal human rights system.  But she added that more work needs to be done.

“In a secular society such as Australia,” she said, “one does not want to give any sort of particular priority to one freedom above the right of people to non-discriminatory employment.”

For further information, please see:

Sydney Morning Herald — Religious Groups Free to Discriminate Against Pregnant Women — 17 January 2013

Sydney Morning Herald — Review ‘Missed Opportunity’ to Separate Church and State — 17 January 2013

ABC News — Christian Lobby Rejects Push to Remove Religious Exemptions — 16 January 2013

Herald Sun — Sinners Story a Complete Beat-up, Says Australian Christian Lobby — 16 January 2013