Efraín Ríos Montt

Efraín is married to María Teresa Sosa Ávila—the couple have three children, Zury Ríos Montt, Enrique Ríos Sosa and Homero Ríos Sosa. Zury is also a politician in Guatemala, who is contesting the 2015 Presidential elections, even though she does not belong to any political party.

José Efraín Ríos Montt was born in the Huehuetenango municipality of Guatemala on June 16, 1926.

In 1946, he started his military training in the 'Military Academy of Guatemala'. Five years later, he enrolled in the United States Department of Defense Institute, 'School of the Americas', which is now known as the 'Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation'.

This young military officer played an insignificant role in the US CIA-led uprising against the then Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, which took place in 1954.

Ríos was appointed as the Deputy Chief of the 'Staff of Army', in 1968. Two years later, President of Guatemala, Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio designated Montt as 'Chief of Staff' and 'Brigadier General' of the Guatemalan Army.

In 1973, Efraín decided to contest in the Presidential elections to be held the following year, and gave up his office at the Washington embassy. However, he was easily defeated by right-wing candidate, Brigadier General, Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García.

He served at the Guatemalan embassy in Spain till 1977, as a military attaché. The next year he became a pastor of the Pentecostal 'Church of the Word' in California. In the meantime, General Fernando Romeo Lucas García became the President of Guatemala.

The election of García was suspected to be rigged and many poverty-stricken peasants suffered under his rule. To overcome the turbulent situations, peasants belonging to the Catholic-Mayan ethnic group of Guatemala came together and formed the ‘Peasant Unity Committee’. The organization fought for human rights and land reforms that would benefit Guatemalan farmers.

Some peasants began revolting against President García, and on March 23, 1982, he was deposed. Coup leaders Horacio Egberto Maldonado Schaad and Francisco Luis Gordillo Martínez formed a committee led by Ríos.

A 1983 movie titled 'When the Mountains Tremble', by Pamela Yates, an American documentary film director, and human rights activist, has been used as evidence against this tyrannical Ex-President of Guatemala. The former head of state is the first to have been convicted in his country, for crimes of genocidal nature.