Dos Erres Murderer Deported to Guatemala

The US government deported Pedro Pimentel Rios to his native Guatemala on Tuesday. Pimentel was one of sixty or so kaibiles who carried out the murder of approximately 200 Guatemalans in December 1982 in what is known as the Dos Erres Massacre. He was turned over to Guatemalan authorities and is scheduled to have his first hearing on murder and human rights abuses on Thursday. (Yahoo)

It's great that the US arrested Pimentel and deported him to Guatemala to face charges for the crimes he committed in 1982. As I've mentioned before, I rather see accused war criminals arrested and deported to face charges in their native country rather than punished in the US on immigration charges.

"Our government basically supported all these goings on and now, you know, 20 years later, our government is trying to say, gee, no, we would have never done that, and all these people are terrible," Selph [Pimentel's attorney] said. (Yahoo II)

No he was not the only person responsible. But even if the intellectual authors of the scorched earth program and those who covered it up in the US government have not been brought to justice, that doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate Pimentel's arrest and deportation to face charges in Guatemala.  

The goal now should be to ensure that the legal proceedings initiated in the last few years do not die with the election of a new president in Guatemala.  I can't imagine that the prosecution of former military officers and PACs will be at the top of an Otto Perez Molina administration.