Otto Perez Molina has been jailed on charges of corruption just hours after bowing to massive popular protest and resigning as Guatemala’s president. “Democracy Now!” speaks to Nobel Peace Prize-winning Maya activist Rigoberta Menchu, whose lawsuits helped bring former U.S.-backed dictator Efrain Rios Montt to trial for his role in the killings of more than 1,700 Ixil Mayas.

Menchu’s father, mother and two brothers were killed during the Guatemalan genocide. She later won the Nobel Peace Prize for her campaign on behalf of Guatemala’s indigenous population. Menchu is now calling for Perez Molina to be tried for commanding troops in the El Quiche region in the 1980s, the site of some of the worst massacres by the military.

Also, investigative journalist Allan Nairn, who has reported on Guatemala since the 1980s, looks at how Molina could also be charged for his role in the mass killings of indigenous Guatemalans in the 1980s.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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