Last night, Guatemalan human rights activist Emilio Tojin Lopez spoke to UW students about his experiences during the genocidal civil war in his home country and his efforts to bring those responsible for the war to justice.

Lopez intends to accomplish this through the Association for Justice and Reconciliation, a group that was formed to pursue legal action against leaders like former General Jose Efrain Rios Montt.

Lopez is currently on tour across the US to raise awareness and funding.

"I believe the tour will be effective," Lopez said in Spanish as Phil Neff, music director for Rainy Dawg Radio, interpreted. "The international pressure on the Guatemalan government will hold the perpetrators accountable."

Rios Montt was president of Guatemala for less than two years in the early 1980s. In that short span of time, his rule was marked by brutality and acts of terror. His government was funded by the US.

Many of the soldiers under Rios Montt, came from the same communities that they were commanded to massacre. They were forced to act in extreme acts of degradation that severed all of their ties to community and humanity. Some of their deeds included drinking blood and eating the brains of victims.

Jacob Galfano, a co-founder of the UW Journalists for Human Rights (JHR), teamed with Amnesty International and other groups to bring Lopez to UW.

Galfano hopes JHR will promote the concepts of global citizenship and solidarity both within and beyond the campus community with this event.

"It is our belief that our own standard of living is connected to that of other peoples even thousands of miles away through seemingly harmless market mechanisms as well as egregious, oppressive political relationships," Galfano said. "When that relationship becomes negative and deconstructive and manifests itself in human rights violations, it is our duty to at least be aware of the causal links. We hope this event will help promote that awareness."

Just recently, 31 US Representatives signed a resolution calling on the Guatemalan Attorney General to subpoena and arrest Rios Montt and his military high command for crimes against humanity.

Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich and Jesse Jackson Jr. were some of the congressional members on the resolution.

Christopher Benoit, a UW law student and former member of Unitarian Universalist Central America Network, noted that some prominent politicians were not helping with this issue. He indicated the marriage of US Representative Jerry Weller and Rios Montt's daughter, Zury.

"Before the move of the US Congress to Democrats, Mr. Weller served on the House International Relations Committee which oversees human rights issues abroad," Benoit said. "He has made no statements regarding his father-in-law's genocidal habits."

The US is currently on good terms with the Guatemalan government.

Immigration, however, is a hot topic. The workplace raid of hundreds of illegal Central American workers became a sore subject when deportations left dozens of Guatemalan parents separated from their US-born children.

Benoit believes that most Guatemalans are upset with the US government's lack of progress on immigration reform and its dissimilar list of priorities.

"Our military is working with [the Guatemalan government] on a number of anti-narcotic trafficking efforts, which has infuriated many human rights organizations in Guatemala who are very aware that all the leaders during the war were trained by the United States including Rios Montt," Benoit said. "Otherwise, the US has kept their hands out of Guatemalan politics in human rights matters."