Pamela Yates, the film-maker with Skylight Pictures, recently presented a piece marking the ten year anniversary of the guilty verdict against General Efraín Ríos Montt for genocide and crimes against humanity.
Today (May 10, 2023) marks the day when General Efraín Ríos Montt was declared guilty of genocide against the indigenous people of Guatemala and sentenced to 80 years in prison. That this small country built an airtight case and created a legal precedent for Guatemala, Latin America, and the world, was a great human rights victory to be celebrated. Even though later the Guatemalan political and business elites could vacate the verdict on technical (not evidentiary) grounds, and Ríos Montt died before he could be retried, he died a convicted genocidaire. As they say in Guatemala, El veredicto está vigente – The verdict stands.
I was at the trial, filming for our feature documentary 500 Years and our web series Dictator in the Dock (which you can watch on our Facebook page). Our interview with Riós Montt from 1982 was part of the key forensic evidence presented at the trial that helped convict him. When a journalist asked Ríos Montt if he remembered being filmed by me in 1982, he replied, “I don’t remember her, but now I’ll never forget her.”
I asked five Guatemalans who were all at the trial, who testified, documented, and wrote about it, to tell us their thoughts about its legacy ten years later.
The five are, Kaxh Mura’l, Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj, Dr. Marta Elena Casaús Arzú, Daniel Hernández-Salazar, and Andrea Ixchiu.
You can read the full piece, with photos and links to the web series Dictator in the Dock, here, The Lasting Legacy of the Rios Montt Guilty Verdict.
Categories: Genocide, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Indigenous peoples, Justice, Military, Racism, Rios Montt, Video, Violence
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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