Perhaps it was the Constitutional Court's recent ruling (Petición de Nulidad (2395-2006)) upholding his being barred from running for president. Perhaps it was his incredibly low support in recent opinion polls (on 15-01-07 it was 1.8%). Or perhaps it was a nagging fear that his day in court on counts of genocide and crimes against humanity might just be a very real possibility.
By declaring that he's running for Congress, Rios Montt will once again get immunity from prosecution from April when he'll be able to register his candidacy formally with the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). It's timely then, to read Elias Lawless's interview in WireTap Magazine with Antonio Caba, an Ixil Maya activist who currently serves as president of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR). Here's an excerpt:
"Wiretap: What happened to you and your family following the massacre in 1982?
Antonio Caba: We went to live on the Santa Delfina plantation, and we were there about one year living as slaves, working the plantation without a salary. The military kept the people from Ilom living there under surveillance. After that we had to tolerate hunger since there was no food, because everything we had they burned. They set fire to our houses, our corn, our beans, and we remained with nothing -- only the clothes that we wore when we left.
And when we were on the plantation, after three or four days, the children began to die; over 150 children died. It was under Rios Montt's regime that these hundreds of children died -- of sickness, of hunger, of cold, of fear -- because they had no homes, because they lived in the rain. Sometimes one child would die each day, or two, or three. Every day children died... back when we were living as slaves. [Part one of the full interview here]"
Update (19-01-07)Antonio Caba: We went to live on the Santa Delfina plantation, and we were there about one year living as slaves, working the plantation without a salary. The military kept the people from Ilom living there under surveillance. After that we had to tolerate hunger since there was no food, because everything we had they burned. They set fire to our houses, our corn, our beans, and we remained with nothing -- only the clothes that we wore when we left.
And when we were on the plantation, after three or four days, the children began to die; over 150 children died. It was under Rios Montt's regime that these hundreds of children died -- of sickness, of hunger, of cold, of fear -- because they had no homes, because they lived in the rain. Sometimes one child would die each day, or two, or three. Every day children died... back when we were living as slaves. [Part one of the full interview here]"
Amnesty USA has made the following appeal with Rios Montt's announcement: "Amnesty International Again Calls for Ríos Montt to Either Be Tried in Guatemala or Extradited to Spain to Face the Charges Against Him". In Guatemala, Siglo XXI covered the story with an interview of Rigoberta Menchu: "Menchú pide repudiar posible candidatura de Ríos".
