Watch PBS NewsHour tonight (Wednesday, May 8, 2013) for a report that science correspondent Miles O’Brien and I produced from Guatemala on the role forensic science plays in the genocide trial of José Efraín Ríos Montt and José Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez.
Screengrab: Juana Sanchez Toma, of San Juan Cotzal, El Quiché, Guatemala. We interviewed her in her dirt-floor home about her experience as a victim of sexual violence committed by Army troops under Ríos Montt’s command in Nebaj in 1982.
Some of the other people we interviewed for this piece said that she and other Ixil Maya “querrelantes” in the trial (criminal witnesses for the prosecution) were making up stories about mass rapes, execution, torture, infanticide, and other atrocities because they were offered financial rewards for participating in a neo-Marxist political plot to unfairly condemn the former General and head of state.
You can watch and decide for yourself.
Check local listings for showtimes. Video will be online this evening, I’ll post links when the video is up.
Read more in our Boing Boing archives of reports from Guatemala about the genocide trial.