Amy Goodman
@DemocracyNow·3.2M subscribers·19.4K videos
Exclusive: Allan Nairn Exposes Role of U.S., New Guatemalan President in Indigenous Massacres 1 of 2
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April 19, 2013
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23:05Now PlayingIn 1982, investigative journalist Allan Nairn interviewed a Guatemalan general named "Tito" on camera during the height of the indigenous massacres. It turns out the man was actually Otto Pérez Molina, the current Guatemalan president. We air the original interview footage and speak to Nairn about the U.S. role backing the Guatemalan dictatorship. Last week, Nairn flew to Guatemala where he had been scheduled to testify in the trial of former U.S.backed dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, the first head of state in the Americas to stand trial for genocide. Ríos Montt was charged in connection with the slaughter of more than 1,700 people in Guatemala's Ixil region after he seized power in 1982. His 17month rule is seen as one of the bloodiest chapters in Guatemala's decadeslong campaign against Maya indigenous people, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. The trial took a surprising turn last week when Guatemala President Gen. Otto Pérez Molina was directly accused of ordering executions. A former military mechanic named Hugo Reyes told the court that Pérez Molina, then serving as an army major and using the name Tito Arias, ordered soldiers to burn and pillage a Maya Ixil area in the 1980s.
Watch part 2 of this report at
Click here to hear our live update of the trial from Nairn in Guatemala City
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