EFRAIN RIOS MONTT
Country: Guatemala
Training: Montt attended a training course at SOA in 1950.
Back home: More than three decades of civil war and military dictatorship began in Guatemala following the U.S.-backed coup that overthrew leftist President Jadobo Arbenz Guzman in 1954. In 1982, following an election widely viewed as fraudulent, Montt -- by then a general -- seized power in yet another CIA-backed coup.
Montt led the country for only 18 months before he was himself overthrown in a coup, but during that time thousands of peasants were killed as the military hunted down leftist opponents in the countryside. Despite CIA reports of an increasing number of bodies "appearing in ditches and gullies," the Reagan administration lifted the U.S. arms embargo on Guatemala during this period. He was also a close friend of U.S. preachers Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who praised his anti-Communist Christian message.
During his time out of power, Montt was accused of having ties to organized crime. In 2003 he made an unsuccessful run for the presidency of Guatemala. In January 2012, he was indicted on charges of genocide against native Guatemalans and crimes against humanity. The prosecution has implicated him in the deaths of at least 1,771 people.
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