Efraín Ríos Montt José Efraín Ríos Montt ( ; born June 16 , 1926 ) is a former " de facto " President of Guatemala , dictator , army general and former president of Congress . A General in the Guatemalan Army , Ríos Montt came to public office through a coup d ' état on March 23 , 1982 . In turn , he was overthrown by his Defense Minister , Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores , in another coup d ' état on August 8 , 1983 . In the 2003 presidential elections , he unsuccessfully ran as the candidate of the Guatemalan Republican Front ( FRG ) . In 2007 Ríos Montt returned to public office as a member of Congress , gaining prosecutorial immunity , including from a pair of long - running lawsuits alleging war crimes against him and a number of his former ministers and counselors during their term in the presidential palace in 1982 - 83 . His immunity ended on January 14 , 2012 , when his term in office ran out . On January 26 , 2012 Ríos Montt appeared in court in Guatemala and was formally indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity . Huehuetenango - born Ríos Montt remains one of the most controversial figures in Guatemala . Two Truth Commissions , the REMHI report , sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church , and the CEH report , conducted by the United Nations as part of the 1996 Accords of Firm and Durable Peace , documented widespread human rights abuses committed by Ríos Montt ' s military regime , including widespread massacres , rape , torture , and acts of genocide against the indigenous population . Supporters maintain that there was no genocide , just a bloody civil war . Ríos Montt , at times , had close ties to the United States , receiving direct and indirect support from certain of its agencies , including the CIA . Ríos Montt is best known outside Guatemala for being tried for heading a military regime ( 1982 – 1983 ) that was partly responsible for having defeated the guerrillas through the " guns and beans " campaign , maintaining " If you are with us , we ’ ll feed you , if not , we ’ ll kill you " . Guatemala ' s 36 - year civil war ended with the signing of a peace treaty in 1996 . The civil war pitted Marxist rebels against the Guatemalan state , including the army , with huge numbers of civilians , both indigenous Mayas and mestizo Ladinos , caught in the crossfire . Up to 200 , 000 Guatemalans were killed and missing during the conflict , making it one of Latin America ' s most violent wars in modern history . Indigenous Mayas suffered disproportionately during Ríos Montt ' s rule , and it is documented that his government deliberately targeted thousands of indigenous people since many were suspected of harboring sympathies for , supporting , or participating in the guerrilla movement . Under the Cold War - era strategy of containment the Guatemalan state sought to eliminate the spread of communism inside its borders . The UN - backed Historical Clarification Commission found that the resulting counterinsurgency campaign , significantly designed and advanced during Ríos Montt ' s presidency , included deliberate " acts of genocide " against the indigenous population . On 28 January 2013 , judge Miguel Angel Galves opened a pre - trial hearing against Rios Montt and retired General José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez for genocide and crimes against humanity . On 10 May 2013 , Ríos Montt was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity , and was sentenced to 80 years imprisonment . On 20 May 2013 , the Constitutional Court of Guatemala overturned the conviction . Background . Montt enrolled in the Military Academy of Guatemala in 1946 . He attended the School of the Americas in 1951 . In 1954 , the young officer played a minor role in the successful CIA - organized coup against President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán . Following the coup , Ríos Montt rose swiftly through the army ranks , becoming deputy chief of staff in 1968 . In 1970 , under the military regime of President General Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio , he was promoted to brigadier general and chief of staff of Guatemalan Army . In 1973 , Ríos Montt resigned from his post at the Washington embassy to participate in the March 1974 presidential elections as the candidate of the National Opposition Front ( FNO ) . He lost the election to a rival right - wing candidate , General Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García , by 70 , 000 votes . Since Laugerud didn ' t get a majority , the election was thrown to the government - controlled National Congress , which promptly elected Laugerud . According to some accounts , Ríos Montt appeared to be on his way to a majority when the government abruptly halted the count and manipulated the results to make it appear Laugerud had won by a narrow plurality . Ríos Montt denounced a " massive electoral fraud " , blaming Catholic priests who had questioned the mistreatment of the Catholic Mayans , and claimed that the priests were leftist agents . It is alleged that he was given a payoff of several hundred thousand dollars along with the post of military attaché in the embassy in Madrid , Spain , where he stayed until retiring in 1977 . In 1978 , he left the Roman Catholic Church and became a minister in the California - based evangelical / pentecostal Church of the Word ; since then Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have been personal friends . Ríos Montt ' s brother Mario Enrique Ríos Montt is a Catholic bishop , and in 1998 succeeded the assassinated Bishop Juan Gerardi as head of the human rights commission uncovering the truth of the disappearances associated with the military and his brother . Military regime . 1982 coup . On March 7 , 1982 , General Ángel Aníbal Guevara , the official party candidate , won the presidential election , universally denounced as fraudulent by opposition parties . On March 23 , with the support of fellow soldiers , General Horacio Egberto Maldonado Schaad and Colonel Francisco Luis Gordillo Martínez , Ríos Montt deposed General Romeo Lucas García in a coup d ' état and seized power , an act which the United States was neither complicit with nor had even foreseen . They set up a military junta with Ríos Montt at its head . The junta immediately suspended the constitution , shut down the legislature , set up secret tribunals , and began a campaign against political dissident s that included kidnapping , torture , and extrajudicial assassinations . The coup was described as being of the " Oficiales jóvenes " ( " young officers " ) , and prevented Guevara from being installed as president on July 1 . Because of repeated vote - rigging and the blatant corruption of the military establishment , the coup was initially welcomed . Initially , there was some expectation that the extremely poor human rights and security situation might improve under the new regime . Drawing on his Pentecostal beliefs , Ríos Montt invoked a modern apocalyptic vision comparing the four riders of the Book of Revelation to the four modern evils of hunger , misery , ignorance and subversion , as well as fighting corruption and what he described as the depredations of the rich . He said that the true Christian had the Bible in one hand and a machine gun in the other . On April 10 , he launched the " National Growth and Security Plan " whose stated goals were to end the extermination and teach the populace about nationalism . They wanted to integrate the campesinos and indigenous peoples into the state , declaring that because of their illiteracy and " immaturity " they were particularly vulnerable to the seductions of " international communism . " ' Frijoles y Fusiles ' . On June 9 , the other two members of the junta were forced to resign , leaving Ríos Montt as the sole leader , head of the armed forces , and minister of defense . Violence escalated in the countryside , was stopped with the defeat of the guerrilla through a campaign known as " frijoles y fusiles " ( beans and guns ) . This was an attempt by Ríos Montt to win over the large insurgent groups to his version of the rule of the law , unleashing a scorched earth campaign on the nation ' s Mayan population , particularly in the departments of Quiché and Huehuetenango , that , according to the 1999 United Nations truth commission , resulted in the annihilation of nearly 600 villages . One example was the Plan de Sánchez massacre in Rabinal , Baja Verapaz , in July 1982 , which saw over 250 people killed . The administration established special military courts that had the power to impose death penalties against criminals and suspected guerrillas . Tens of thousands of peasant farmers fled over the border into southern Mexico . Meanwhile , urban areas saw a period of relative calm . The June 1982 amnesty for political prisoners was replaced by a state of siege in the following month that limited the activities of political parties and labor unions under the threat of death by firing squad . In 1982 , an Amnesty International report estimated that over 10 , 000 indigenous Guatemalans and peasant farmers were killed from March to July of that year , and that 100 , 000 rural villagers were forced to flee their homes . According to more recent estimates , tens of thousands of non - combatants were killed by the regime ' s death squad s in the subsequent eighteen months . At the height of the bloodshed under Ríos Montt , reports put the number of killings and disappearances at more than 3 , 000 per month . US backing . Given Ríos Montt ' s staunch anticommunism and ties to the United States , the Reagan administration continued to support the general and his regime , paying a visit to Guatemala City in December 1982 . During a meeting with Ríos Montt on December 4 , Reagan declared : " President Ríos Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment . . . . I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice . " President Ronald Reagan claimed Guatemala ' s human rights conditions were improving and used this to justify several major shipments of military hardware to Rios Montt ; $ 4 million in helicopter spare parts and $ 6 . 3 million in additional military supplies in 1982 and 1983 respectively . The decision was taken in spite of records concerning human rights violations , by - passing the approval from Congress . Meanwhile , a then - secret 1983 CIA cable noted a rise in " suspect right - wing violence " and an increasing number of bodies " appearing in ditches and gullies . " In turn , Guatemala was eager to resurrect the Central American Defense Council , defunct since 1969 , to join forces with the right - wing governments of El Salvador and Honduras in retaliations against the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua . Like Guatemala ' s other suppliers of arms , Israel ( which had been supplying arms to Guatemala since 1974 ) continued its aid provisions . The cooperation did not just involve material support , but also included providing intelligence and operational training , carried out both in Israel and in Guatemala . In 1982 , Ríos Montt told ABC News that his success was due to the fact that " our soldiers were trained by Israelis . " There was not much outcry in Israel at the time about its involvement in Guatemala , though the support for Ríos Montt was no secret . The Israeli link was not lost on the average Guatemalan : At a cemetery in Chichicastenango , relatives of a man killed by the military told Perera , " In church they tell us that divine justice is on the side of the poor ; but the fact of the matter is , it is the military who get the Israeli guns . " Coup removing Rios Montt from office . By the end of 1982 , Ríos Montt , claiming that the war against the leftist guerrillas had been won , said that the government ' s work was one of " " techo , trabajo , y tortillas " " ( " roofs , work , and tortilla s " ) . Three coups had been attempted since he came to power . On June 29 , 1983 , he declared a state of emergency , and announced elections for July 1984 . On August 8 , his own Minister of Defense General Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores overthrew the regime in a near - bloodless coup ( seven people were killed ) . The unpopularity of Ríos Montt was widespread , exacerbated by his refusal to grant clemency to six guerrillas during the visit of Pope John Paul II . The military was offended by his promotion of young officers in defiance of the Army ' s traditional hierarchy . Many citizens in the middle class were alienated by his decision on August 1 to introduce the value - added tax , never before levied in Guatemala . The killings continued even after Ríos Montt was eased from office in 1983 . It has been documented that as many as one and a half million Maya peasants were uprooted from their homes , and that many were forced to live in re - education concentration camps and to work in the fields of Guatemalan land barons . The Mayan Indian and campesino population suffered greatly under Ríos Montt ' s government . Ríos Montt along with several other men who served high positions in the military governments of the early 1980s are defendants in several lawsuits alleging genocide and crimes against humanity ; one of these cases was filed in 1999 by Nobel Peace Prize - winning K ' iche ' - Maya activist , Rigoberta Menchú . In early 2008 the presiding judge , Santiago Pedraz , took testimony from a number of indigenous survivors . The genocide cases have seen little progress due to a climate of ongoing and entrenched impunity in Guatemala . Comeback . Ríos Montt founded the Guatemalan Republican Front ( FRG ) political party in 1989 . He tried to run for president in 1990 , but was prohibited from entering the race by the constitutional court due to a constitutional provision banning people who had participated in military coups from becoming president . He was an FRG congressman between 1990 and 2004 . In 1994 , he was elected president of the unicameral legislature . He tried to run again in 1995 , and was also barred from the race . Alfonso Portillo was named to replace him as the FRG candidate , and narrowly lost . However , he won in 1999 . Guatemalan campaigners on behalf of Maya survivors of the civil war , such as Nobel laureate and Mayan human rights advocate Rigoberta Menchú , were amazed , in March 1999 , when U . S . President Bill Clinton apologised for U . S . support of Ríos Montt ' s regime . Clinton declared : " For the United States , it is important I state clearly that support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong and the United States must not repeat that mistake . " The same August President Portillo admitted involvement of the Guatemalan government in human rights abuses over the previous 20 years , including for two massacres that took place during Ríos Montt ' s presidency . The first was in Plan de Sánchez , in Baja Verapaz , with 268 dead , and in Dos Erres in Petén , where 200 people were murdered . Presidential candidate 2003 . The FRG nominated Ríos Montt , in May 2003 , for the November presidential election , but his candidacy was initially , and once again , rejected by the electoral registry and by two lower courts . In July 2003 , Guatemala ' s highest court , which had had several judges appointed from the FRG , overruled the lower courts and allowed Ríos Montt to run for president . Over the years , he ' d claimed the ban on former dictators making a bid for the presidency had been written specifically to prevent him from standing . Later , however , the Supreme Court suspended his campaign for the presidency and agreed to hear a complaint brought by two right - of - center parties that the general was constitutionally barred from running for the presidency . Ríos Montt denounced the ruling as judicial manipulation and , in a radio address , called on his followers to take to the streets to protest against this decision . On July 24 , in a day known as " jueves negro " ( black Thursday ) thousands of masked FRG supporters invaded the streets of Guatemala City armed with machetes , clubs and guns . They had been bussed in from all over the country by the FRG amidst claims that people working in FRG - controlled municipalities were being blackmail ed with being sacked if they did not attend the demonstration . The demonstrators blocked traffic , chanted threatening slogans , and waved their machetes about . They were led by well known FRG militants , including several known congressmen , who were photographed by the press early in the morning while co - ordinating the actions , and the personal secretary of Zury Ríos Montt , the general ' s daughter . Indeed , a picture of a prominent FRG congressman adjusting his mask to talk on his cell phone was seen around the world . The demonstrators marched on the courts , the opposition parties headquarters , and newspapers , torching buildings , shooting out windows and burning cars and tires in the streets . A TV journalist , Héctor Fernando Ramírez , died of a heart attack running away from a mob . After two days of wreaking havoc on the main streets of Guatemala City , rioters disbanded when an audio recording of Ríos Montt was played in loudspeakers calling them to return to their homes . The situation was so chaotic over the weekend that both the UN mission and the U . S . embassy were closed . Following the rioting , the Constitutional Court , packed with allies of Ríos Montt and Portillo , overturned the Supreme Court decision . The legal reasoning behind the final decision was not immediately made public . Legal reasoning had nothing to do with it ; the riots were effective in scaring everyone into silence . However , Ríos Montt had argued that the ban on coup leaders , formalized in the 1985 Constitution , could not be applied retroactively to acts before that date . Many Guatemalans expressed anger over the Court ' s decision . In the post - Cold War environment , U . S . support for Ríos Montt had subsided . In June 2003 , the State Department publicly announced that it would prefer to deal with a less tarnished figure . During tense but peaceful presidential elections held on November 9 , 2003 , Ríos Montt received just 11 percent of the votes , putting him a distant third behind businessman Óscar Berger , head of the conservative Grand National Alliance ( GANA ) , and Álvaro Colom of the National Unity of Hope ( UNE ) . As he was running for president , he could not also run to be a member of Congress at the same time , and thus ended his 14 years there . In March 2004 , a court order forbade Ríos Montt from leaving the country to see if he is eligible for trial on charges related to " jueves negro " and the death of Ramírez . On November 20 , 2004 , Ríos Montt had to ask permission to travel to his country home for the wedding of his daughter Zury Ríos Montt , to U . S . Representative Jerry Weller ( a Republican from Illinois ) . But Ríos Montt has not been charged with any crime and , on January 31 , 2006 , manslaughter charges for the death of Ramírez were dropped against Ríos Montt . Legal proceedings charging Ríos Montt with crimes against humanity . In Spain . In 1999 , Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú presented charges for torture , genocide , illegal detention and state - sponsored terrorism against Ríos Montt and four other retired Guatemalan generals , two of them ex - presidents . Three other civilians that were high government official between 1978 and 1982 were also indicted . The Center for Justice and Accountability and Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de España are co - counsel in the trial . In September 2005 Spain ' s Constitutional Court ruled that Spanish courts can try those accused of crimes against humanity even if the victims were not of Spanish origin . In June 2006 , Spanish judge Santiago Pedraz traveled to Guatemala to interrogate Ríos Montt and the others named in the case . However , at least 15 appeals filed by the defense attorneys of the indicted prevented Pedraz from carrying out the inquiries . On July 7 , Pedraz issued an international arrest warrant against Efraín Ríos Montt and former presidents Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores and Romeo Lucas García ( the latter of whom had died in May 2006 in Venezuela ) . A warrant was also issued for the retired generals Benedicto Lucas García and Aníbal Guevara . Former minister of the interior Donaldo Álvarez Ruiz , who remains at large , and ex - chiefs of police German Chupina Barahona and Pedro García Arredondo are also named on the international arrest warrants . For his part , Ríos Montt admitted in a July 2006 press conference that there were " excesses " committed by the army during his rule , but strenuously denied his culpability . In Guatemala . On January 17 , 2007 , Ríos Montt announced that he would run for a seat in Congress in the election to be held later in the year . As a member of Congress he would again be immune from prosecution unless a court suspended him from office . He won his seat in the election , which was held on September 9 , and led the FRG ' s 15 - member congressional delegation in the new legislature . His immunity ended on January 14 , 2012 , when his term in office ran out . On January 26 , 2012 , Ríos Montt appeared in court in Guatemala City and was formally indicted by Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz for genocide and crimes against humanity , along with three other former generals . During the court hearing he refused to comment . The court released him on bail , but placed him under house arrest pending commencement of his trial . On March 1 , 2012 , a judge declined to grant Ríos Montt amnesty from genocide charges , paving the way for a trial . This marked the first time a former head of state was tried for genocide in his home country . On 19 March 2013 , his trial for the genocide of at least 1 , 771 members of the Mayan Ixils began . But the trial was suspended by Judge Carol Patricia Flores following a directive from the Supreme Court on 19 April 2013 . This order was issued at the behest of current Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina , after he was implicated , through testimony at Montt ' s trial , as a participant and leader in the systematic genocide of indigenous Guatemalans during the Montt dictatorship . The judge ordered the legal process to be set back to November 2011 , before the retired general was charged with war crimes . A judge annulled the genocide trial in April 2013 , a ruling that might have forced prosecutors to begin the case all over again . On May 10 , 2013 , Ríos Montt was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity . He was sentenced to 80 years in prison ( 50 years for genocide and 30 years for crimes against humanity ) . Ríos Montt is the first former head of state to be convicted of genocide by a court in his own country . Announcing the ruling , Judge Yasmin Barrios declared that " [ t ] he defendant is responsible for masterminding the crime of genocide " . She continued : " We are convinced that the acts the Ixil suffered constitute the crime of genocide . . . [ Ríos Montt ] had knowledge of what was happening and did nothing to stop it . " The Court found that " [ t ] he Ixils were considered public enemies of the state and were also victims of racism , considered an inferior race . . . The violent acts against the Ixils were not spontaneous . They were planned beforehand . " Judge Barrios referred to evidence that 5 . 5 % of the Ixil people has been wiped out by the army . Ríos Montt ' s lawyers have said that he will appeal . On May 20 , the Constitutional Court of Guatemala overturned the conviction , voiding all proceedings back to April 19 and ordering that the trial be " reset " to that point , pending a dispute over the recusal of judges . Washington Office on Latin America Program Director Geoff Thale , an international observer of the trial , writes that Ríos Montt ' s defense team engaged in " litigio malicioso " , or unethical legal tactics , to derail the legal proceedings . While this tactic is not without precedent in Guatemala , Thale explains , its acceptance by the judicial system is " symptomatic of grave underlying problems in Guatemala ' s rule of law . " On 6 November 2013 , The trial of Guatemala ' s former military ruler Rios Montt has been scheduled to resume in January 2015 , officials say .