London: Guatemala is in danger of "slipping back into a state of impunity" a year after it annulled the genocide conviction against former president Efrain Rios Montt, Amnesty International warned Tuesday.
The rights group said that victims of the country's 36-year civil war were having their hopes of redress undermined by the replacement of key judicial figures and the passing last week of a resolution -- proposed by Rios Montt -- that stated no genocide had taken place in the conflict.
The 87-year-old has been accused of ordering the massacre of more than a thousand indigenous Ixil Maya people, suspected of supporting guerrillas during the war that ended in 1996.
However, that same month, the Constitutional Court struck down the conviction and the sentence on grounds the ex-dictator was denied due process.
"Guatemala owes a debt of justice to those victims, as well as to the rest of the estimated 200,000 victims of the conflict."
It said that last week's passing of the non-binding resolution by Congress went against the United Nation's 1999 investigation, which concluded that genocide and crimes against humanity had occurred.
"Congress should support efforts to hold accountable those alleged to have committed mass human rights atrocities, not strengthen a climate of impunity and discrimination against Indigenous People in Guatemala," he added.
Rios Montt's presidency was one of the bloodiest stretches of Guatemala's civil war.
The rights group said that victims of the country's 36-year civil war were having their hopes of redress undermined by the replacement of key judicial figures and the passing last week of a resolution -- proposed by Rios Montt -- that stated no genocide had taken place in the conflict.
The 87-year-old has been accused of ordering the massacre of more than a thousand indigenous Ixil Maya people, suspected of supporting guerrillas during the war that ended in 1996.
However, that same month, the Constitutional Court struck down the conviction and the sentence on grounds the ex-dictator was denied due process.
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"Guatemala owes a debt of justice to those victims, as well as to the rest of the estimated 200,000 victims of the conflict."
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It said that last week's passing of the non-binding resolution by Congress went against the United Nation's 1999 investigation, which concluded that genocide and crimes against humanity had occurred.
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"Congress should support efforts to hold accountable those alleged to have committed mass human rights atrocities, not strengthen a climate of impunity and discrimination against Indigenous People in Guatemala," he added.
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Rios Montt's presidency was one of the bloodiest stretches of Guatemala's civil war.
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