Latin America Human Rights Roundup

New developments on human rights in Latin America in the past few days:

In Guatemala, Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu criticized the courts for not taking action against military officials accused of participating in the genocide of civilians during the 1980s civil war. She filed a case in Spain and the Guatemalan legal system has refused to honor the indictments or hand over the accused.

In Argentina, on the other hand, the former head of the army during the 'dirty wars' in the 1970s and 1980s was sentenced to some 20 to 25 years for his abuses, including murders and torture, against civilians. However, he is 80 and in ill health and will probably not serve time.

Finally, in Mexico, it is the 10th anniversary of the Acteal massacre, in which pro-government supporters massacred a group of Zapatista supporters in an effort to intimidate the peasant community. Few of the perpetrators have been brought to justice and live side by side with families of the victims. Perhaps, luckily for the murderers, the victims were members of a pacifist group, Las Abejas (the Bees), who support the Zapatista uprising, but are personally non believers in violence.