Guatemala's ex-despot Rios Montt has dementia: Doctors

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Guatemala's ex-despot Rios Montt has dementia: Doctors
By AFP 57 mins ago .

Guatemala's former dictator Efrain Rios Montt has dementia, doctors said Tuesday at a hearing to decide if he is fit to face retrial for genocide during the country's civil war.

The 89-year-old former general, who ruled the Central American country from 1982 to 1983, is accused of ordering the army to massacre more than 1,700 Ixil Maya indigenous people in northern Guatemala.

He was sentenced to 80 years in prison at an initial trial in 2013, but the Constitutional Court threw out his conviction on procedural grounds and ordered a retrial. His lawyers say he cannot face a new trial because he is no longer capable of understanding the charges against him.

After examining Rios Montt during a week of court-ordered tests at a private psychiatric facility, experts found he alternates between lucid moments and dementia, including hallucinations, said doctor Walter Rinze of the Federico Mora National Mental Health Hospital.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/guatemala-s-ex-despot-rios-montt-has-dementia-doctors/article/441435#ixzz3jCeVbWYV

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Efrain Rios-Montt and supporter, Ronald Reagan.[/center]

[forest444]

1. Ex-despot with dementia? For a second I thought this was about St. Ronnie.

Brothers from another mother, those two. Both of them social upstarts obsessed with status; both of them childish elitists and inveterate racists; and both of them going the same way (which is sad, even for them).

To be fair, I'm pretty sure Reagan wouldn't have been that brutal even if he had had the chance - but many of today's GOP headliners almost certainly would be.

[DBoon]

4. or Pinochet

someone who throws his political opponents from a helicopter into the ocean is obviously not right, mentally speaking

[forest444]

5. Definitely. Chile should have done what Argentina did, and drag the generals to court.

Excuses for why they've avoided it abound, not the least of which is the specter of a retaliatory coup. But while it's true that some in the Chilean military (and some in their elite) frequently threaten the nation's democracy should trials begin in earnest, the same was true in Argentina.

And yet: since immunity was revoked for Argentina's Dirty War suspects in 2003, over 1,600 defendants have been charged and over 500 have been convicted (including all four former dictators who presided over the Dirty War). Though largely ignored by the media, this made Argentina the only country in the world to have systematically prosecuted crimes against humanity regardless of perpetrators' rank or even civilian status at the time (rather than just a few former dictators and the top brass).

Did the Argentine military bitch and moan? Yes. Did their well-financed right-wing supporters try to destabilize the country in retaliation? Definitely - but the trials went through nonetheless.

My message to Chile would be this: man up. If Argentina could do it, so can you.

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. I diagnosed him as a murderous psychopath about 33 years ago.

[forest444]

3. Which is why CIA PR firm BursonMarsteller always told Latin dictators to come to D.C. in a nice suit

Couldn't have people see them like this, now could they:

[burrowowl]

6. The CIA has dementia

of the denying type and knowledgeable denial of memory!
They should be tried!