Graffiti covers a wall that reads in Spanish: "Neither forget, nor forgive," referring to Guatemala's former dictator Efrain Rios Mont on the day of his death in downtown, Guatemala City, yesterday
GENOCIDAL military dictator Efrain Rios Montt, who seized power in Guatemala through a coup in March 1982, has died aged 91, his lawyer announced at the weekend.
He presided over one of Guatemala's bloodiest periods when, backed by the administration of US president Ronald Reagan, he authorised troops to wage a brutal war to root out liberation movement fighters.
General Rios Montt, who was born into a conservative Catholic family, switched in the 1970s to a far-right California-based Pentecostalist sect in which he became a minister.
With US support he pursued a “beans and guns” pacification campaign, offering indigenous Mayan peasants food to betray guerillas or face a scorched earth policy, mass murder and rape.
He was convicted in 2013 of genocide and crimes against humanity for the massacre of 1,771 Ixil Mayans by security forces under his command, but the conviction was set aside and he was never well enough to face a second trial.
