GUATEMALA: Guatemala's constitutional court yesterday confirmed former dictator Gen Efrain Rios Montt's right to compete in November's presidential elections, overruling a previous ban imposed by the Supreme Court. Michael McCaughan reports.
Last week's decision to suspend Gen Rios Montt's candidacy was greeted with violent street protests while army units mobilised around the capital city this week, prompting fears of a coup d'état should the ruling go against the retired general.
The street protests were organised with military precision as youths wearing Che Guevara T-shirts targeted a wealthy neigbourhood where courts and foreign embassies are located.
Gen Rios Montt now has 72 hours to register his candidacy after all avenues of judicial appeal were exhausted.
"The civilians have had their chance," said the conservative Guatemalan Military Veterans' Association. "Now it's time for the military to take power."
Gen Rios Montt, the current leader of Guatemala's ruling Republican Party, seized office in 1982, annulled the constitution, disbanded congress and instituted secret courts to try political suspects. The anti-communist evangelical preacher unleashed a wave of repression in the Guatemalan highlands that resulted in the destruction of 440 indigenous villages, causing an estimated 60,000 deaths.
Of the violence, Amnesty International said: "People of all ages were not only shot, they were burned alive, hacked to death, disembowelled, drowned, beheaded. Small children were smashed against rocks or bayoneted to death."
In an effort to win hearts and minds the retired general, aged 77, has now taken up the banner of the poor, declaring himself an enemy of the nation's oligarchs.
The genocidal campaign against the indigenous communities deprived the country of thousands of leaders and activists, while the impunity of the armed forces annulled the right to investigate crimes committed during that period.
Preliminary polls indicated that Gen Rios Montt's candidacy enjoyed just 4 per cent of voter approval but the campaign has just begun and the retired general's promise of a crackdown on crime is music to the ears of a weary population beset by street crime.