transcript of audio for guatemala's challenge justice

7/30/2019 Transcript of Audio for Guatemala's Challenge Justice

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Wednesday May 1, 2013

The historic trial of former head of state Efrain Rios Montt and his chief of military intelligence,

Mauricio Rodriquez Sanchez had been suspended since Friday, April 19, but yesterday it the trial

reconvened amid complex legal challenges, powerful political forces, and intense emotions by

the people of Guatemala. Many Guatemalans have been protesting peacefully outside theConstitutional Court for the trial to continue and had come from long distances, from the

mountainous region of Ixil, requesting that the trial continue. To speak with us more about this

historic trial is our special guest: Kelsey Alford-Jones of the Guatemala Human Rights

Commission based in Washington, D.C. and Emi MacLean, Legal Officer at the Open Society

Justice Initiative, in New York.

The show can be heard here:

http://hablaguate.com/recordings/122-guatemala-s-challenge-with-justice

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mesapublica/2013/05/01/mesa-pblica

Bios:

Emi MacLean is a legal officer for freedom of information and expression with the Open Society

Justice Initiative. Her work focuses on freedom of information and expression internationally.

MacLean worked previously as a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights on issues

related to Guantnamo and other forms of executive detention, including through litigation,

legislative reform, and international advocacy. She also worked for Mdecins Sans Frontires

(MSF, or Doctors without Borders) as the deputy head of mission for MSFs HIV/AIDS care and

treatment project in South Africa, and later as the U.S. director of the MSF Campaign for Accessto Essential Medicines.

http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/people/emi-maclean

Kelsey Alford-Jones is directed of Guatemala Human Rights Commission. She joined GHRC in

September of 2008. She came to Washington from Portland, Oregon, where she taught History

and Language Arts at a bilingual alternative school for Latino students and worked as a medical

interpreter. She moved to rural Costa Rica in 2006 to coordinate and develop an Environmental

Education Program at the Sarapiqu Conservation Learning Center, a small community non-

profit. Kelsey graduated with honors from Grinnell College in 2005 with a degree in History and

Spanish. You can reach Kelsey at [email protected] or 202-529-6599.

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http://hablaguate.com/recordings/122-guatemala-s-challenge-with-justicehttp://www.blogtalkradio.com/mesapublica/2013/05/01/mesa-pblicahttp://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/people/emi-macleanhttp://hablaguate.com/recordings/122-guatemala-s-challenge-with-justicehttp://www.blogtalkradio.com/mesapublica/2013/05/01/mesa-pblicahttp://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/people/emi-maclean


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SHOW TRANSCRIPTION FOLLOWS

Co-Host Kara Andrade: Good afternoon everyone and welcome to our Mesa Pblica, our

Public Round Table. We feature guests and discussions, commentary and analysis about currentevents and trends in Central America. I'm Kara Andrade in Texas and I'm the host for the show.

Nic Wirtz also joins us from Guatemala. Hi Nic.

Co-Host Nic Wirtz: Happy to be on the show as co-host.

Kelsey: Today's show is called Guatemala's Challenge with Justice. The historic trial of former

Head of State Efrain Rios Montt and his chief of military intelligence Mauricio Rodriguez

Sanchez had been suspended since Friday, April 19. But yesterday, the trial reconvened amid

complex legal challenges, powerful political forces, and intense emotions. Many Guatemalans

have been protesting peacefully outside the Constitutional Court for the trial to continue and had

come from long distances from the mountainous regions of Ixil requesting that the trial move

forward. To speak with us more about this historic trial are our special guests Kelsey Alford-

Jones, Director of a Guatemalan Human Rights Commission based in Washington, DC, and Emi

McLean, legal officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative in New York. Emi and Kelsey, are

you both there?

Kelsey: This is Kelsey.

Emi: Yes, this is Emi. I am here and glad to be here.

Kara: Great, so let's begin. To provide some background for listeners, the fate of the genocidetrial against former dictator Efrian Rios Montt remains unclear at best. This week, Guatemala's

constitutional court passed the case over to a judge who last week called for all testimonies to be

annulled, a move which would have put the trial back to square one, back in November of last

year. Despite Gloria Patricia Porras' rulings, a constitutional court will decide if the proceedings

were legal. So far the court has voted on 6 of 12 petitions in the case but there is no clear

resolution to this. Nic, would you like to begin?

Nic: Youve been observing the trial and are one of the coordinators of the Rios Montt trial blog

and the bilingual summaries on the website which helps because a very complex and confusing

process which has many in the local media and international media confused and there's beensome incorrect reporting during the trial. Can you talk about where this is now and the case has

not been annulled? How long before we get to hear a final verdict on where the case has been

annulled and what would happen if it is annulled?

Emi: Thanks so much and I'm definitely glad to be here representing the Rios Montt Trial blog

which is RiosMontt-Trial.org. I'm glad that you've been able to access that. What is interesting is

it wasn't even that complex legally on procedural issues up until April 18th. Up until April 18th,

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there were days of testimonies from over a hundred witnesses. More than a dozen experts who

were providing testimony on the witness side about horrendous massacres in the area known as

the Ixil Triangle in Guatemala between 1982 and 1983. Sexual violence, the destruction of

houses and property, the forced displacement of large populations of predominantly Ixil

communities and on the witness and then on the expert side also information about military chain

of command. What genocide and crimes against humanity are in Guatemalan law and

international law and actually on April 18th, the trial was heading towards what many expected

to be an imminent conclusion with closing arguments that were believed to be a day or two days

away. And yet, on that day on April 18th, all of the defense attorneys walked of the trial in what

they said was a peaceful protest.

They reconvened in the afternoon in a different court, the court of Judge Flores who was the

judge who oversees some of the pretrial proceedings. She had previously been recused from the

case and had recently been reinstated as a pretrial judge. And what she said was that she was

annulling the entire trial and forcing the proceedings to be brought back to the day that she as

removed from the case which was November 2011. In November 2011, Rios Montt and

Rodriguez Sanchez, the two defendants in the case were actually not even defendants in the case.

Rios Montt was a congressperson in that time and was benefiting from congressional immunity.

And so really, the action by Judge Flores, this pretrial judge who oversees some of the

preliminary proceedings would have completely annihilated all of the advances in the case over

the last 17 months which have been very significant and it was really on the eve of the close of

the trial. So, what happened the next day when the trial reopened. the judge, the tribunal in the

trial court recognized that action to reopen the annulment of the entire trial only moments before

it was due to close.

The trial court recognized that as an illegal action and suspended the trial temporarily to allow

some of the legal challenges to proceed and to reach some sort of conclusion. And so that has

actually, you know, a trial that was actually dealing with the facts of what had happened, witness

statements, expert testimony, then became legal wranglings that as you rightly acknowledge

were very confusing for many people in dealing with procedural issues and looks like much

more of a mess than things had looked for people for the weeks before that. Only yesterday after

a number of decisions had been made by the constitutional court and by other courts was the trial

able to reconvene. However, a trial that was, as I mentioned, only moments from reaching

closing arguments was yesterday caught up in legal wranglings around who the defense attorneys

are, whether public defenders could represent the defendants when the defense attorneys whohad walked out did not reappear, whether there were violations of defense rights that could be

remedied. And so, again the trial seems to be caught up in some of these, some procedural issues

and some substantive issues, but not expecting closing arguments when the trial reopens

tomorrow but expecting some other legal challenges that may complicate things further.

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Kara: We were originally going to have Kate Doyle speak with us but she had to do an

emergency plane ride down to Guatemala. So, is it too much to hope that tomorrow we get a

verdict?

Emi: I think it's probably too much to hope that tomorrow we'll get a verdict. I do think a verdict

is possible in the case which of course no one had thought would be the case you know monthsago or years ago when this trial started and I think everyone needs to recognize that the fact that

this trial is happening at all decades after the crimes were committed against a military head of

state and his then chief of military intelligence is a phenomenal advance in a challenge to

impunity is the first time that there's a genocide trial against a former head of state that's

happening in a domestic court rather than an international tribunal. But when the trial reopened

yesterday after about a week and a half of suspension, there were new attorneys who were

representing the defendants and so that raises a whole array of other issues with the attorneys

requesting additional time to prepare some of those questions left outstanding. The order to annul

the proceedings that was made by this preliminary judge still unresolved by any higher court. I

would certainly be surprised if there was a final verdict tomorrow. I do believe a final verdict

still could be imminent but would certainly not stake too much on that because there are

definitely challenges that are still outstanding.

Kara: You know, I wanted to give a space for Kelsey to jump in too. I want to hear more about

what your organizations have been doing around the trial and specifically your work with the

communities rallying to support the trial. Kelsey, could you jump in there and maybe after that

Emi, maybe you could talk about what the partnership that you pioneered with the Open Society

Foundation and the (NOT SURE)

Kelsey: The Guatemala Human Rights Commission has been carefully monitoring the process,both from our office in Guatemala city as well as from Washington, and I think first and

foremost working to ensure that those brave survivors in Ixil, the lawyer's case, the prosecutors

and the judges are able to do their work and carry out their testimony without fear of violent

repercussions, of threats, of attacks and that's been a huge concern considering the fact that a

number of the actors in the case have already received numerous threats throughout the evolution

of the case and there's a lot of concern about their safety. So that's one focus. We have also been

staying in close contact with the other organizations supporting the case in Guatemala and have

been coordinating efforts to provide both international (NOT SURE) that we're doing in

coordination with organizations like the Open Society Justice initiative. And our staff members

have been in the courtroom to help provide up-to-date information to the international

community. In fact, one of our staff members actually testified as an expert witness in the case

around her prior work as an anthropologist with the forensic anthropology foundation. So, we've

been working very closely with those involved in the case.

We've also been doing a lot of work from the DC office to keep the international community

educated about what's going and engaged in helping because we feel that the attention from the

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international community is incredibly important in helping keep the trial on track. And, we've

done a lot of work to keep the US Embassy and US State Department engaged in the process for

the very same reason. And we were pleased to see that the US Ambassador to Guatemala, Mr.

Chacon, did finally arrive at the trial in mid-April and was there again towards the end of April.

And we're also very pleased to see that the Ambassador-at-large for Global Criminal Justice

Steven Rapp was able to travel to Guatemala and meet with a lot of the actors involved with the

case and make some strong public comments regarding the importance of justice for a country

like Guatemala in their process working towards peace and reconciliation.

So our advocacy efforts have also been a key part of our work over the last month and finally

we've done some strong efforts to engage the international league and most recently we

facilitated both a series of letters written to the Guatemalan constitutional court from different

groups that were interested in expressing the importance of upholding the rule of law and we also

did a grassroots action in which almost five thousand people from the US and all around the

world wrote to the constitutional court magistrate calling on them again to uphold the rule of law

and to respect the victims' right to justice and this effort I think has been really important and a

lot of the pressure on the case and a lot of the tension in Guatemala is coming from public

pressure on the case and the fact that there are threats being published daily in the Guatemala

press. There are constant pressures on the judges and there is really an effort to make this a

political case rather than a case that's really being carried out in the court room by following the

proper procedures and the rule of law and so we're coordinating a large international effort

seeking to push the case back into the realm of the courtroom and to try to counteract the very

detrimental and kind of aggressive public statements that have been coming out from sectors that

are working to ensure that impunity is maintained for these high level public officials.

Kelsey: And Emi, I just wanted to reaffirm what Kelsey said about the importance of

international attention on ensuring the integrity of the trial and the security of all that are

involved. The fact that there is an opportunity for due process to take place and for the trial to

move forward is something that needs to be protected and is protected as long as there is a public

in Guatemala and a public international league that maintains an interest in the case and

monitoring of the case and for that reason we are working together with Center for Justice and

International Law, the International Center for Transitional Justice, the National Security

Archives based in Washington, DC, and Plaza Publica which is Guatemalan investigative media

outlet, online investigative media outlet to engage in international monitoring. We have a

website, RiosMontt-Trial.org and monitors who are in Guatemala from the beginning of the trialuntil the end of the trial we hope recording what is happening on a day to day basis doing legal

analysis as well as broader political analysis to what is happening to make sure that we can

ensure an accurate representation of how the trial proceeds. And given all that we have seen, the

confusing legal wrangling over the last week and a half, especially the really fast paced

testimony of witnesses and experts over the first few weeks. It has been quite a valuable tool and

certainly a very interesting process to monitor. And one of the things about the website, the Rios

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Montt Trial website is that it may be one of the few sources of public information about the trial

so I think in that way it already is making an impact. You know, I want to get back to something

you said to me which really resonated with me and I've heard Kate Doyle say. You said that its

the first time ever that a genocide trial has been pushed through a domestic court. And I think

that Kate always says that in the history of the world. Could you talk about the significance of

this trial for Guatemala and the world because Guatemala is such a small country that a lot of

times people just don't even know what's happening but why is it significant that this is

happening?

Emi: Well, for decades, victims and survivors have pushed for the brutality that they have been

affected by, the human rights violations that they have experienced to be heard by anybody.

There has been numerous cases that have been brought before the interamerican commission of

human rights and the interamerican court of human rights where the interamerican court has

recognized the obligation of the Guatemalan government to investigate human rights violations

and prosecute, identify those who are accountable and exhume bodies and has identified that

there is sufficient evidence to support that crimes have been committed and that crimes need to

be prosecuted or that human rights violations have been committed and there needs to be a

prosecution for the violations. This case in particular was brought in 2000. So, its really 13 years

after the initiation of the case that we're seeing the prosecution move forward. And for the first

years after the case was brought, very, very, very little happened. So the fact that we're actually

seeing this case move forward is a result of a variety of different factors. Its at a really critical

moment.

A fact that has not been lost on many people is that the current president of Guatemala, Otto

Perez Molina, was a former military leader. He actually had been implicated at an earlier stage

in the trial by one of the witnesses as having some role in some of the abuses. So that was

obviously something that was really controversial in Guatemala which the presidency made a

statement about but it definitely shows the sensitivity and the significance of the fact that this is

something that can happen in Guatemala and in the domestic process at a time where perhaps

you would not expect that to happen. Some of that is the result of some of the judicial reforms

that have taken place in Guatemala. In recent years, certainly some of the significant credit is due

to the attorney-general of Guatemala, Claudia Paz y Paz, who has pushed for a number of

important cases in his not allowed impunity to reign, not just in human rights cases, but also in

narcotrafficing cases, corruption cases, and other cases. So there's a variety of factors that are in

play and so a lot of people are looking at this trial and saying this is significant not just for theprosecution of human rights violations, not just for ensuring that genocide and crimes against

humanity will not go unpunished but also demonstrating that there have been significant reforms

in Guatemala both on the political side to ensure that there is some independence in the judiciary

and that the process can go forward unimpeded.

Kelsey: With everything that Emi has said and just wanted to reiterate that this case is maybe not

the only trial that passed in the Guatemalan courts in the past couple of years. Reforms have

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made it possible for these kind of high impact or high risk courts to [push through] very historic

cases of massacres and forced disappearances. But this particular case because of the elements

that Emi was mentioning of holding such powerful former head of states accountable implicating

none other than the current president shows that this case can be a kind of barometer for the

house of Guatemalan judicial system and public kind of seeing where Guatemala is as far as

actual separation of powers, transparency, and kind of the political will available to uphold the

rule of law in Guatemala and the implications of the case are important for all of the reasons that

Emi mentioned around issues of... But also looking at the other types of human rights violations

that are occurring in Guatemala right now. Its really important for Guatemalans to know that

there is a functioning judicial system and if impunity remains for crimes of the past it would be

very difficult for justice for crimes of the present. And in the last month over the period of time

that the genocide trial has unfolded, there has been an unending string of attacks (NOT SURE) of

community leaders, of land rights leaders, of Guatemalan leaders speaking (NOT SURE) repeat

in Guatemala and one of the important things about this case outside the importance of

accountability in this particular case is the larger issue of (NOT SURE) historic memory andjustice looking forward as a step to saying never again in Guatemala. And that is right now as we

see this similar patterns unfold of violence against community leaders and many of them again

are carried out without the (NOT SURE) and the Guatemalan state has been unable or unwilling

to provide appropriate protection to community leaders and human rights activists, has done little

to investigate and in fact has been complicit in the criminalization of these same activists or the

violence itself of the military's massacre of indigenous protesters in October of last year. And so

if this case can come to a conclusion and if the judge is able to make an independent ruling based

on the evidence presented and if their able to do that without being threatened or killed and if the

witnesses are able to give their testimonies in court, and we are able to see accountability, that

can go hopefully, to ensuring that Guatemala is moving forward in a process that can ensurejustice for the crimes that we are seeing everyday. But it is as an organization that is working not

only on these justice issues but also on the issue of access to land and natural resources and

violence against women, and these other areas on which human rights violations is occurring, its

heartbreaking to see the trial move forward at the same time that our partners are being killed

again. The trial has immense implications for all sectors in Guatemala.

Kara: Thanks Kelsey. Nic, you had some questions on the specifics of the trial.

Nic: I did. I wanted to dig in a bit deeper into the trial itself. I was wondering if possibly both the

defenses actions (INAUDBILE) but also what is Rios Montt's defense against the allegationsmade against him.

Emi: Kelsey, you want me to take that or you want me to try to respond.

Kelsey: Go ahead and I'll jump. And you'll get to ask.

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Emi: So there's defense in very political trials like this one or trials that become very political or

politicized. It is not very surprising that you see a defense strategy include both legal elements

and political elements and that is certainly something that we've seen here. The defense strategy

has, I think, more heavily weighed on the political side than on the legal side. Whichever defense

attorneys have been present. The defense attorney for instance, Garcia Gudiel, who as there

yesterday spoke to journalists after the brief hearing reopened the trial after the suspension and

spoke about the three judges as criminals and actually Nazis. And that's very strong language and

not the first time that the defense attorneys have really relied on the media to impugn the

integrity of the trial and impugn the trial itself and the independence of the judges as part of a

broader strategy in their representation of the defendants. In terms of the legal challenges, some

of what we have seen and actually the defense, on the other side of that, the defense attorneys

have actually been very slow in bringing their witnesses forward. The reason that the trial did not

conclude already is because defense witnesses who had been identified to the court did not

appear on either two or three consecutive days before the trial had been suspended and when the

court tried to identify where they were, were unable to identify where they were, and so at thispoint the judge is giving the defense attorney a final period to identify the remaining witnesses.

So there's certainly been a strategy that is both political and legal of trying to delay the process as

much as possible both through political and legal means. In terms of the questions that they've

asked, that the defense attorney's have asked the witnesses and the experts, I would say a lot of

them fall along the lines of asking witnesses or survivors of massacres who have testified about

things that they have experienced in their community, whether they had or knew of guerrillas

who were in their community before a massacre had occurred. I think partly to challenge the

credibility of some of the witnesses and partly to identify from the defense perspective that they

saw something of a legitimate military strategy and response. Another part of the defensestrategy gleamed from the questions that you've seen from the defense attorney to the witnesses,

there have been both questions about the ethnicity of both the victims and the communities and

also the ethnicity of the alleged perpetrators of the military of the self defense patrols and what I

would gleam from that in terms of what the legal strategy of the defense to be, would be

something to challenge the genocide claims by asserting that there wasn't necessarily targeting of

an ethnicity group.

That there was a broader group of people who were victims and that some of those that were

alleged to be perpetrators also may have been part of the indigenous population as part of a

defense strategy to say that this could not have been genocide. Genocide also requires, has acomponent, has an intent to requirement, and I think one of the other things that you've seen in

the defense's legal strategy, to the extent that it has come out already is an assertion that there

was not demonstrated intent. And I would say lastly in terms of the legal side and not the

political side, you see questions about whether there was sufficient command responsibility

whether you could demonstrate that there was actually knowledge of Rios Montt and his head of

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military intelligence Rodriguez Sanchez, the two defendants, where they had knowledge of the

massacres and the violations that have been alleged.

Kelsey: I would...

Emi I would definitely reiterate the points I made at the beginning. Sorry Kelsey. That I thinkmany have noted and that we have seen reaffirms this that the strategy appears more to be a

strategy of delay and of political challenges have more so than a development of legal

challenges.

Kelsey: Yeah, I meant to reiterate that as well. I think that it has been actually quite shocking in

the case to see how the defense lawyers employed just constant theatrics (NOT SURE) to dredge

its kind of make a mockery I think of the process and that contrast starkly with the case of the

prosecution which Emi mentioned in the beginning brought forward over a hundred witnesses,

dozens of expert witnesses, thousands of documents. They have built a strong legal case and they

are in the court room ready to move forward in accordance with the proper legal procedures andthey are coming up against a defense that is very political and is very much focused on

distracting and deferring the process and the kind of tactics that they've employed such as

leaving, trying to, even from the very first day when the Rios Montt Case was new and needed

more time to prepare for the case and up until the last day before the trial was suspended when

the whole legal (NOT SURE) got up and left. The decorum has been I think really at least

watching from afar has been pretty shocking to see how little effort has gone into actually

carrying forward a legal defense and a legal strategy and I wonder if that's because perhaps they

never really thought that it would go to trial or they never really though that the case would

actually move forward and the closer that the trial got to coming to a close perhaps the more

threatened they felt or the more political tactics they had to employ because there really has beenactually very little legal strategy employed by them.

Kara: You know, I want to follow up a bit with that because last week an organized delegation

of international judges and human rights leaders who went to Guatemala specifically to monitor

the trial and I was transcribing that press conference and I found some comments that Avelino

Guilln de Per said. This really caught my attention he said, "Nunca hemos conocido este tipo

de juicio. I've never known a trial like this. He went on to state where the legal procedures that

were happening in Guatemala in the Rios Montt trial were in a sense being used to stall the very

machine of justice. And it showed, he was just completely appalled at the process and it kind of

goes at what you're saying Kelsey that all these different tactics are being used to kind of to stall.And I guess, I wanted to get both of your impressions on that. Why would anyone want to stall

this kind of procedure? What's behind it?

I'm guessing that they think that that's their best strategy at this point. What's been interesting is

that the actual facts of this case have not been brought so much into question and in fact as the

trial has unfolded there have been more public statements by (NOT SURE) himself recognizing

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the historic nature of this case, recognizing the fact that he was in Ixil, recognizing the fact that

there were massacres, and I think the defense themselves are in fact not questioning the number

of deaths. They aren't questioning the fact that these massacres occurred but they are saying they

were carried out in the context of war. And so I don't really have an answer other than they

probably see a political battle as easier to win than probably a legal battle given the evidence at

hand.

Kara: Nic, I think that Nic dropped off you got a question. Nic, are you there? Ok. I got Nic's

question here. Its on the list as my question as well and it has to do in part with what is going on

with Judge Barrios and Judge Flores and however (NOT SURE) and just the way they are

bouncing this back and force. And Nic's question is, is this a professional issue or something

deeper at work and one of the questions we're having is there have been a lot of editorials and

Presses leaving (NOT SURE) that all this is to demonstrate that the right is fragmented in

Guatemala and there is fragmented interest. I'm wondering what both your thoughts are on this.

Emi: I would go back to one of the thoughts that Kelsey made earlier on about how this trial is asmuch about historical truth and memory in Guatemala and the creation of a reputable set of

historical facts that can stand the test of time, as much about as the trial of these two individuals I

think for many in Guatemala. The rallying cry of the people, of the protesters on the street on

both sides, or the protesters presenting in commentary has been hubo genecido or no hubo

genecido, there was genocide or there was not genocide. And that's not an accident. its not about

whether or not Rios Montt was guilty or innocent. The protesters are crying its about whether a

particular atrocity was committed or was not committed. And that something it was point that

was made somewhat delicately but with great significance by the truth commission in

Guatemala, the prosecution certainly and the civil parties that were involved in this case really do

see the significance of putting forward the facts before a judicial body to lay the groundwork for

the case of genocide in the Ixil community and the question is going to be whether the trial court

sees that there are, if the trial court can get to that point, whether the trial court sees that there are

sufficient factual evidence and legal evidence presented to justify the claim of genocide and I do

think that your question speaks to whether the splits in Guatemala and what those come down to

and I really think that is to the base of this and something that is being hotly debated in

Guatemala right now and I would say that that probably does have some role. That the positions

that have been taken, the legal resolutions that have been taken by some of the judicial

authorities in this case and some of the judicial inciting that you see among the different judicial

bodies which includes both Judge Flores who annulled the proceedings and in a verycontroversial decision, the actions of the trial court, the actions of the appellate court, and the

actions or inactions of the constitutional court, some of the interplay is happening at that level as

well although not in ways that have been made public at this point.

Kara: What's true also is that in the midst of this historic trial, we've also seen President Alfonso

Portillo who went in extradition to United States, he was facing corruption charges in Guatemala

and yet was released from them. Its almost as if there are two Guatemalas, one that wants to see

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this brave new dawn of a Guatemalan justice system and there is this other Guatemala that is so

mired in the corruption and military mano dura? I wonder if you agree with that.

Kelsey: I would definitely agree. One thing that this genocide has made clear and kind of made

very to the international community is are the deep tensions and divisions in the Guatemalan

society and that's in civil society, that's in public institutions, that's in judiciary, that's amongforeign and current public officials, it's among stuff that were part of the revolutionary

movements. Guatemala is living a very complex time and a lot of that has to do with a lack of

really of true reconciliation of dealing with the atrocities that were committed and really looking

to move forward by recognizing the truth and of what happened in the past and holding people

accountable and moving forward in a way that hopefully ensures that these types of violations

don't occur again but there are many sectors that benefit from impunity.

Its not necessarily those that were directly involved in the conflict but there are sectors that are

linked to economic interest for example and current political interest. What is happening on the

streets in Guatemala is happening more strongly under the surface where there are ongoingthreats and intimidations against those on the case and I mentioned other people working for

positive change like land rights activists and indigenous activists. And so the genocide case has

kind of thrust that all more into the people's eyes but its nothing new. And I think the judiciary

enlisting the kind of division between the decisions between Judge Barrios and Judge Flores

reflect that and then also reflect kind if the immense pressure the judges are under given a case of

this magnitude. And the I'll just mention, listeners may not know that Judge Flores was actually,

her decision was not only controversial but the attorney general of the country was concerned

that it was in fact an illegal decision, Judge Flores is now being investigated by a UN backed

body called the (NOT SURE) Anti-Impunity Commission, she's been denounced by the director

of the International Commission of Jurists in Central America and so its seemed that there is still

enough pressure on those involved in the judiciary that they pushed into making decisions that

don't fit into the rule of law and that is a direct reflection of I think of the immense momentum

and power of those sectors to ensure impunity remains.

Kara: I think we've lose Emi and we've lost Nic so we're going to get Emi back in here, I'm

going to dial her up right now. Why don't you get back to the judges? Because there's a lot of, I

mean you've kind of touched on that a little bit. But might be good to talk to Emi as well, if she's

around. Might be able to get Nic too. You think we may have lost her. So lets, Nic are you with

us? He's ringing too. Yes, we've got Nic. Can you hear us Nic?

Nic: Hello again.

Kara: We were just actually about to get into some of the procedural areas which I know is one

of your favorite things to talk about. If you want to talk about that.

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Nic: Its sounds quite exciting at Texas at the moment.

Kara: You know, we get a little excitement here. You know, Kelsey, can you talk about the

potential of there being a mistrial? And if there is a mistrial, would we have to go back to the

trial as it was in November?

Kelsey: I think that question is still up in the air its been unclear from the ruling by both Judge

Flores as well as the response from the constitutional court what exactly a mistrial would mean

and as far as we've been able to understand there's a possibility that the trial began on March

19th would be annulled and the actual witness testimony and so forth would have to be repeated

under a different judge or a different panel of judges. There are other thoughts that it could go

back to November of 2011 which would in fact undo all of the indictment of Rios Montt himself.

Then there's a possibility that is perhaps unlikely is that the case simply moves forward from the

point it left off and there may be a few witnesses whose testimonies are not allowed because they

testified in moments in which the defense council was not present which has been one of the

complaints from the beginning is that when Rios Montt's lawyers switched the very first day ofthe trial the judge did not allow them to take time to review the case because she saw it as an

obstruction of justice and ruled that the case should move forward and they are claiming that

those testimonies from the time that Rios Montt was not in fact protected did not have legal

council should be in fact annulled. So, I think its unclear.

The constitutional court has not given clear statements and therefore we're left with kind of this

battle between the possible annulment by Judge Flores and the rulings by Judge Barrios which

repeatedly by trial must move forward and she is really working to uphold the precedence of the

(NOT SURE) which says that these types of judicial obstacles that seek to delay the judicial

process are in fact illegal or unconstitutional and that the judges have a right to move a trialforward if there are these types of illegal obstacles thrown in the path of the trial but at this point

I think we are all just waiting to see what kind of rulings will come out but what happens

tomorrow when the trial is back in session it is possible that it is delayed again but that remains

to be seen how much will get annulled if anything and what that means for all the witnesses and

for the actors of all the case.

Kara: Thanks Kelsey, I'm going to try to patch in Emi again. She was trying to call in.

Hopefully, we can get. Have 15 minutes left in the show. We have a couple more questions left.

Might be missing each other. Nic, do you want to go ahead? You had a couple of questions that

when you dropped of you were on the point of asking.

Nic: Sure, I'm trying to think that a size of mistrial Rios Montt's main hope is to implicate the

current president Otto Perez Molina. I think this will happen and is it possible that President

Molina will never not be immune from prosecution.

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Kelsey: Well, I think there's definitely a battle happening behind the scenes in Guatemala on the

side of the defense and the current former military. There's been a lot of speculation about how

much the current administration is willing to add in to the public realm and how much they really

want to keep classified and never actually confront or let into the public realm for discussion.

The issue of the president's own role during the conflict and particularly during 1982 and 1983

the period in which he was a commander in the Ixil region under Rios Montt and is totally over

the last year starting with his campaign for election as president, he has admitted to the fact that

yes he was stationed in Ixil and yes he did participate in some of these actions and more recently

that he was Major Tito Arias and so slowly that information has been coming out. There does

seem to be a strategy by the defense that maybe the chain of command only got up so far to the

regional commanders and did not reach all the way to the halls of power in Guatemala city and

that strategy to implicate President Otto Perez Molina because he was the regional commander in

the Ixil and of course he mentioned the witness who did mention President Molina by name. This

isn't the first time that President Molina has been accused. There are actually two, well one case

in particular, that names him, that has been shut down by the court so far since he has beenpresident. He has also been implicated in acts of torture in later years in the early 1990s so this is

definitely not the first time the President Perez Molina's name has come up when talking about

these types of atrocities. I think only time will tell what happens. It depends on the verdict in this

case and I think it depends on what victims and civil society organizations are interested in doing

down the line when he no longer enjoys diplomatic immunity as he does as head of state. The

evidence is definitely there to show his participation. The question is its really what Guatemalans

are going to want to do as far as the cases that it presents to the courts.

Kara: You know, its also really interesting that we're talking now about Rios Montt because I

remember reading something that Alan Nairn wrote, Alan Nairn was in a documentary I think itwas a Danish documentary Titular de Hoy and he wrote a rather an indicting personal article it

was published in Common Dreams about how a plug is being pulled on this case and the fact that

his testimony led back to the current president, President Otto Molina. And I wonder what your

thoughts were first. There's been a lot of opposing comments about it not really true and relevant

and in the case of this trial. Then to a bigger point will this case, is the timing wrong on the case

because we have, there are still close ties to the past if you look at the present?

Kelsey: I'm not sure that there ever would be a right time to do a case of this magnitude and I

think that when the opportunity presented itself, the prosecutors and the lawyers had to take that

opportunity and so I think that its important to perhaps not to second guess the timing of the trialbut to say that no matter when these cases are brought to the court the responsibility (NOT

SURE) and the responsibility of the judicial system to carry forward and independent and

transparent process and be able to hold people accountable for past crimes. I think its interesting

and somehow ironic to prove that the case after 13 years that the case has its day in court under

President Otto Perez Molina but ultimately hopefully that won't impact the final outcome of the

case. As far as Alan Nairn's statement, I wanted to highlight some of the points that he made

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specifically regarding, in reference to the United States. One, he's off this story that often gets

left out when being discussed in the US press is the deep working relationship that the US

military and the US government had with the Guatemalan military both through millions and

millions of dollars of funding and direct training to Guatemalan forces, support with intelligence

gathering and the US we now know knew exactly what was going on, knew the extent of the

massacres in the indigenous highlands, understood the Guatemalan military's plan to issue, to

simply eradicate any population they saw as threatening which included women, children, the

elderly people that had no evidence linking them to any insurgency but it had Ixil Mayan living

in a region the military identified as dangerous.

So I think its important to remember that the US Role was important, integral to the ability to

carry out these operations, to carry out their campaign, and these acts of genocide. And Alan

Nairn, does a great job reminding of those kind of tragic truths about US foreign policy in the US

role and I think its important to remember that now because we're seeing US support in the

region being increasingly militarized. We are seeing the US again provide military training this

time under the guise of fighting organized crime. US marines were down in Guatemala to do

narcotics interdictions in August of last year. The US now works closely with Guatemalan

military to build up a military based in the border of Mexico. So timely reminders the Alan Nairn

has given about the past US role I think its important to work to ensure that the US role in the

region does not mimic the role of the past and that we are able to move past any type of kind of

focus around military support and look to the judicial strengthening that can move Guatemala

more to a kind of functioning democracy.

Kara: We have one last, we have saved the easiest question for last Kelsey.

Nic: I think an important point to make (INAUDIBLE) when Rios Montt went to the school inBenington, Georgia. My last question is why is this case happening now? There is a larger fear

by the RIGHT that this trial would create a national emergency that could spiral the country into

another era of conflict and chaos. Do you think this is possible and what do you think will be the

end verdict either way? Could it create a national emergency, could it spiral the country into

another era of civil conflict. Do you believe that this is possible?

Kelsey: I think that that is an important point. There is a huge effort underway by the right wing

and by current and former military to claim that this trial is harmful to Guatemala and their

public statements and paid ads in the Guatemalan press are really seeking to instill fear into the

population and its the same fear tactics that we saw in the 1980s and their claim is that justiceprocesses threaten stability and they will bring upon the Guatemalan people the same types of

violence that they saw in the past and that in fact is simply a threat. They are using the case to try

and frighten people into dropping, to scare people into moving forward but in fact, as we've

heard from so many national and international actors, justice is a necessary element of peace and

the nation won't find reconciliation or rule of law and won't be able to surpass eras of conflict if

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they have a functioning justice system and this case and justice in this particular case can go a

long way into ensuring that Guatemala is on a path to peace.

Kara: Thanks Kelsey. That sets it for our show. Sorry to cut you off. Thank you and Emi for

being on the show. You've managed to shed some light on an incredibly difficult trial. We'll be

tuning in for the rest of the week on what happens with that and for the audience members whomissed the podcast, the entire interview will be on our show page and Friday we'll be having a

show on storytelling for movement building. If you'd like to make any suggestions for our show

or comments about our show, email us at [email protected]. For Mesa Publica, this is Kara

Andrade from Texas.

Nic: I'm Nic Wirtz from Guatemala.

K: Thanks Kelsey. Thanks for being with us everybody.

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