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rios mont and the american genocide
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Subject: rios mont and the american genocide From: ollaimh Date: 01 Feb 13 - 01:36 PM rios mont was charged with genocide a few days ago. he was the guatemalian dictator who with massive american goverb]=nement and evangellical christian support massacred a quarter million natives of guatemala in the name of fighting communism. he is a monster. ronald reasgan who funded and supported this was a genocidal monster, and pat robertson who raised a lot of money for rios mont--who joined his church is a genocidal monster. this is the world we live in. many american think these american hitlers are moral and cultural leaders. it is nice thst mont is finally being tried but the american government and all those who helped mont should also be tried for gemocide. pat robertson was particularily disgusting. he revealed years ago he knew aht was going on but didn't appreciate the magnitude of the genocide and saif "mistakes were made" when these monsters "make mistakes " the poorest most oppressed people on earth die in the hundreds of thousands , but when a leader, be he chavez or danny williams in newfoundland want world prices for their oul then they are anti freedom. to these american monsters freedom means the freedom to plunder the world and kill any one who gets in the way |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 01 Feb 13 - 02:39 PM Please delete |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: pdq Date: 01 Feb 13 - 02:44 PM second that request |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Tiger Date: 01 Feb 13 - 02:55 PM (piling on) Not even worthy of BS ... lol |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: GUEST,999 Date: 01 Feb 13 - 03:01 PM His last name is spelled Montt. |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Phil Edwards Date: 01 Feb 13 - 05:23 PM Please *don't* delete, but please do relocate below the line. ollaimh - try a bit more water with it. |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 01 Feb 13 - 05:49 PM Is this really particularly controversial? Unless the assumption is that it's just the American government that has colluded in this kind of thing over the years. It's what pretty well all powerful countries do. |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Joe Offer Date: 01 Feb 13 - 06:52 PM José Efraín Ríos Montt (born June 16, 1926) was President of Guatamala in 1982-83. For some reason, he was immune from prosecution until 2012, when he was indicted in January indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity. Guatemala and El Salvador were strongly backed by the Reagan Administration in the 1980s, and both nations were infamous for human rights atrocities. Guatemala was especially known for the misdeeds of its secret police. Still, that's almost thirty years ago. People change dramatically in thirty years. It's hard for me to get too upset about what they did that long ago. Perhaps we need to prosecute Nancy Reagan for the misdeeds of her husband's administration. She's 91 now. Maybe it's time for her and her astrologer to pay the price... Actually, not. Despite my lingering disdain for Nancy Reagan, I think we should forget about recriminations once a person hits the age of 80. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Ed T Date: 01 Feb 13 - 07:29 PM There is planty of material on the internet on Efraín Rios Montt, Guatemala's former dictator and the horrific events in Guatemala. I suspect we will hear more of it as the trial moves forward. ""Many also believe (the late) Defense Minister (1987 to 1990) Héctor Gramajo Morales bore major responsibility. From 1982 to 1983 -- while Gramajo was Army Vice Chief of Staff and director of the Army General Staff -- the Guatemalan military killed 75,000 people and destroyed some 440 villages in a massive counterinsurgency campaign directed primarily against the country's Mayan inhabitants"". ""Both Montt and Morales studied at the School of the Americas" (renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Of the soldiers trained by the SOA/WHINSEC, 11 have become some of the most brutal dictators in the Western Hemisphere – Guatemala's Efraín Rios Montt, Argentina's Leopoldo Galtieri, and Chile's Augusto Pinochet being among the most notorious. Seven training manuals used at the SOA for many years advocated execution, torture, and blackmail. (Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Bolivia have now ceased sending their military and police corps to the SOA/WHINSEC)"" Hector Gramajo Morales |
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Subject: LYR ADD: If I Had A Rocket Launcher From: michaelr Date: 01 Feb 13 - 07:49 PM It's a music thread now: If I Had A Rocket Launcher (Bruce Cockburn) Here comes the helicopter -- second time today Everybody scatters and hopes it goes away How many kids they've murdered only God can say If I had a rocket launcher...I'd make somebody pay I don't believe in guarded borders and I don't believe in hate I don't believe in generals or their stinking torture states And when I talk with the survivors of things too sickening to relate If I had a rocket launcher...I would retaliate On the Rio Lacantun, one hundred thousand wait To fall down from starvation -- or some less humane fate Cry for Guatemala, with a corpse in every gate If I had a rocket launcher...I would not hesitate I want to raise every voice -- at least I've got to try Every time I think about it water rises to my eyes. Situation desperate, echoes of the victims cry If I had a rocket launcher...Some son of a bitch would die The OP is quite right in his assessment of Mont, Reagan, and Robertson. Scumbags all. |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: GUEST,Stim Date: 01 Feb 13 - 07:52 PM Though Ollaimh uses a lot of 60s leftist rhetoric, which, one must admit, does not age well, his points are difficult to refute. For a fairly detailed account of the conflict in Guatemala as well as the current issue, check this:About Rios Montt From that article, this quote, from 1968, which demonstrates that the American role in the situation predated our Mr. Reagan. In 1968, the then deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Guatemala, Viron Vaky, expresses his concerns about the human rights situation in the country. In a report he presents to the US Department of State, Vaky states, "The official squads are guilty of atrocities. Interrogations are brutal, torture is used and bodies are mutilated. ... "In the minds of many in Latin America, and, tragically, especially in the sensitive, articulate youth, we (the US) are believed to have condoned these tactics, if not actually encouraged them. Therefore our image is being tarnished and the credibility of our claims to want a better and more just world are increasingly placed in doubt. ... "This leads to an aspect I personally find the most disturbing of all - that we have not been honest with ourselves. We have condoned counter-terror; we may even in effect have encouraged or blessed it. We have been so obsessed with the fear of insurgency that we have rationalised away our qualms and uneasiness. "This is not only because we have concluded we cannot do anything about it, for we never really tried. Rather we suspected that maybe it is a good tactic, and that as long as communists are being killed it is all right. Murder, torture and mutilation are all right if our side is doing it and the victims are communists. After all hasn't man been a savage from the beginning of time so let us not be too queasy about terror. I have literally heard these arguments from our people." |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Ed T Date: 01 Feb 13 - 08:00 PM ""I think we should forget about recriminations once a person hits the age of 80"" I can't attest to the involvement of anyone outside the two people from Guatemala that I mentioned in my last post (Regan or otherwise) as I haven't looked into that aspect to form an opinion. However, Joe O. Is your statement above not a double standard? WW2 criminals were prosecuted for crimes regardless of their age. Would what you propose encorage others to do similar things. Is it not also insensitive to the victims and their famaly? I suspect USA citizens would have chased Osama Bin Laden to the ends of the world and dealt with him in any way possible for revenge, regardless of his age - and he was involved with 2,000 or so deaths, not 75,000. |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: GUEST,Stim Date: 01 Feb 13 - 08:06 PM Montt continued to excercise power, if not control of the Guatamalan Gov't until very recently. He has been charged with a variety of war crimes, but was able to avoid prosecution, in part because he could maintain immunity as long as he was an elected official. In any event, if you read the article posted above, you will see that these issues are not a part of the remote past at all, and that they are part of a political and human rights struggle that is still playing out today. |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Ed T Date: 01 Feb 13 - 08:09 PM I was reluctant to discuss USA historic involvement in Guatemala, and Latin America, as it rtends to diffuce the issue. However, since Guest Stim has raised it, I link an article from a publication (I know little about, so I can't vouch for the accuracy), that recently got my attention- titled Rios Montt on Trial for Genocide (A warning, the publication and publication it seems left wing leaning). Counter Punch |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: GUEST,Jack Sprocket Date: 01 Feb 13 - 08:37 PM Q? pdq? Tiger? |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Joe Offer Date: 01 Feb 13 - 08:38 PM No double standard, Ed T. I think prosecution of World War II war criminals, should have stopped after the passage of time. I see no purpose in prosecuting elderly people who are no longer capable of committing crime, or of prosecuting middle-aged people for crimes they committed when they were young. I think ten years after the crime is, for the most part, a reasonable "statute of limitations." -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 01 Feb 13 - 09:16 PM Ten years? Of course that would have covered Osama so far as 911 was concerned. Punishment years later seems a bit irrelevant and almost trivialises the horror. The important thing is to make sure that responsibility is firmly and permanently attached to the guilty, most especially perhaps the people who are guilty without getting their hands dirty. The memorials and the obituaries, where in stone, in print, or on screen should always have to tell the full truth. Whether they die in a jail or not is not really significant - in fact it can even tend to turn them into a kind of victim. Remember Rudolph Hess? |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: meself Date: 01 Feb 13 - 11:37 PM I think that it is worth establishing the notion that if you commit certain types of crimes, you will be hunted down to the end of your days - whether that is fair or not. |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: GUEST,Stim Date: 02 Feb 13 - 12:32 AM Montt still had the power and influence necessary to order murders, Joe. In 2003, he called up large numbers of armed, masked rioters who plunged Guetemala City into chaos for several days because the supreme court had ruled he could not run for president. This is not simply about punishing an old man for an old crime. It is about exposing the atrocities of a repressive military/political regime in an effort to cleanse and heal the wounds of the Guatemalan Civil War. If you've forgotten about what happened, check this: American Nun Tortured in Guatemala Recalls the Nightmare |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Penny S. Date: 02 Feb 13 - 06:55 AM I remember from watching the Mahabharat that there was in India a concept that one could not be held to an oath once a period equal to age at the time the oath was taken had elapsed. So a child could not be held past childhood, and the older and wiser a person was deemed to be at the time, the longer the oath would bind. I think the same thing could well be applied to crimes. If comeone were, say, 40 at the time they committed the crime, then they could be pursued until 80. Penny |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Ed T Date: 02 Feb 13 - 09:03 AM I suspect it frequently has taken longer than ten years to track down and convict many serial killers. Also, I suspect in these cases what puts them in jail and prevents more killings is a conviction for one murder. Reaearch advances in forensics also has allowed police to zero in on murderers and convictions beyond ten years. With Joe's suggestion, many murders would go free,and I suspect some would murder again. |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: GUEST,Stim Date: 02 Feb 13 - 09:18 AM The Geneva Conventions, which specify that there can be no statute of limitations for War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. I take it that you disagree with this idea, Penny, and would like very much to understand your view better.. |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Greg F. Date: 02 Feb 13 - 10:12 AM So, simply put, you folks seeno problem with letting murderers and rapists go free? |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 02 Feb 13 - 10:18 AM "You folks" to distinguish you from everyone else with all their various views, Greg? A curious idiom... |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Ed T Date: 02 Feb 13 - 10:36 AM UN definition of genocide |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: GUEST,Stim Date: 02 Feb 13 - 10:42 AM It's sort of regional, comparable to "y' all" in the South, "Y'uns", "Youse" "You guys" and, "Dude, like you..." Some examples would be, "Y'all see no problem with letting murderers and rapists go free?" or "What, you'se got no problem letting murderers and rapist go free? or, "Dude, like, you're cool with this whole holocaust deal?" |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Lizzie Cornish 1 Date: 02 Feb 13 - 10:47 AM Thank you, ollaimh...I knew nothing of this. Joe, I disagree entirely with you on this one. I'm with the poster above and I too believe that those who have done very evil things in their lives should pay the price, no matter what their age. I also think that if these people had an ounce of humanity in them they would not ever live to the age of 80 (or middle age, which you also quote above) without publically acknowledging their crimes of earlier years and showing 100% willingness to accept whatever sentence they may be given. |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Ed T Date: 02 Feb 13 - 05:59 PM What I find disgusting is Montt was a fundamentalist Christian minister before taking part in a coup d'état and becoming the de facto president of Guatemala in 1982. Two good reads that provide some interesting information on the case and attempts to bring those responsible to justice throufghout the years. Warning: they are PDF files (the first two are different routes to the first document). The Guatemalan Genocide Cases Universal Jurisdiction and Its Limits By Paul "Woody" Scott The Guatemalan Genocide Case in Spain by Naomi Roht-Arriaza and Almudena Bernabeu |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: andrew e Date: 02 Feb 13 - 10:54 PM Q, pdq and Tiger. Could you tell me why you think this thread should have been deleted? It's given me info I wasn't aware of. |
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Subject: RE: rios mont and the american genocide From: Allan Conn Date: 03 Feb 13 - 04:57 AM "I think ten years after the crime is, for the most part, a reasonable "statute of limitations."" There are often people being prosecuted for serious crimes they've committed in the past whether it is major crimes against humanity or more likely ordinary murders etc. Are you really suggesting that if a child is murdered and the perpretator is either not found out for 10 years, or is found out but evades justice for 10 years, then they should get off with it? Or to your other point that someone over the age of 80 but still of sound mind shouldn't be treated exactly the same as a younger person? I find that pretty hard to grasp. |
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