Not A Lot Of People Know That…
Congressman Jerry Weller, R-Morris, and his fiancee, Zury Rios Montt, announced their engagement in July 2004.
…there’s a Republican congressman married to a legislator from another country who’s tainted by genocide and who’s been banned from participating in an election. Meet Rep. Jerry Weller of Illinois; he’s married to the daughter of a Guatemalan dictator:
Guatemala’s Constitutional Court ruled that former dictator Efra?n R?os Montt will not be allowed to present his candidacy in the next presidential election, overturning a previous verdict which green-lighted his 2003 candidacy despite an explicit constitutional ban.
“We asked the verdict’s cancellation because it represents a dangerous judicial precedent”, said lawyer Mario Fuentes Destarac, who presented the appeal.
R?os Montt, 81, was Guatemala’s de facto president during the 18 bloodiest months of the 1960-96 civil war.
The former dictator appeared unmoved by the Court’s verdict.
The Constitution extends the presidential ban also to family members. Rios Montt’s daughter, Zury R?os, a parliamentarian married to Jerry Weller, cannot therefore participate in the next presidential election. Weller is a Republican US congressman who represents the 11th congressional district of the state of Illinois. The marriage of Weller to Zury Rios is the only known such pairing of national legislators in the Americas. [My emphasis]
According to Aristides Crespo of the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG), R?os Montt’s right wing party, several political movements fear that the old general might still intend to run for the presidency.
Three years ago his candidacy, in open violation to the Constitution, sparked clashes and violent demonstrations. Furthermore, Spanish authorities issued arrest warrants against R?os Montt and seven former officers accused of “genocide, torture, terrorism and kidnapping”.
Under the dictatorships of R?os Montt, Oscar Humberto Mej?a Victores and Fernando Romeo Lucas Garc?a (deceased in May), who ruled the country from 1978 to 1986, 200,000 people were allegedly killed, especially among the Maya indigenous people.
Which the US supported. Wikipedia:
U.S. backing
Given R?os Montt’s staunch anticommunism and ties to the United States, the Reagan administration continued to support the general and his regime, paying a visit to Guatemala City in December 1982. [1] During a meeting with R?os Montt on December 4, Reagan declared: “President R?os Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment. … I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice.”
Reagan later agreed, in January 1983, to sell Guatemala millions of dollars worth of helicopter spare parts, a decision that did not require approval from Congress. In turn, Guatemala was eager to resurrect the Central American Defense Council, defunct since 1969, in order to join forces with the right-wing governments of El Salvador and Honduras in retaliations against the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua.
In light of those and other acts by the US administration and of the torture laws passed recently by Bush’s congressional apparatchiks, I’d say that Weller & Rios are the perfect All-American, totalitarian match.
There’re rumours that Weller is about to resign his position for reasons as yet unspecified. How true that is I really don’t know, but a little peek at his backstory raises some interesting possibilities. Ethics issues have been raised before re Rep Weller’s Guatemalan connections, according to this beautifully clear and concise bit of reporting from Dennis Conrad of the AP in January this year:
1/30/2006 4:06:00 PM
Weller marriage still raising ethics questions
Congressman has acted on trade issues, legislation impacting Guatemala
By Dennis Conrad
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) ? From coffee to hurricanes, U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller has faced a series of ethics questions since his marriage just over a year ago to a Guatemalan senator, the first time a member of Congress has ever wed a foreign lawmaker.
The Morris Republican has promised to avoid Guatemalan issues to prevent any conflicts of interest, but that hasn?t kept Guatemalan groups from seeking his support. It also hasn?t kept him from acting on legislation and trade issues that include Guatemala.
After his marriage, the National Coffee Association of America wanted him as their keynote speaker, providing him a free trip to their annual conference at a Florida resort and flying his wife, Zury, in from her coffee-growing nation.
Weller, a firm believer in free trade, helped give the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, a two-vote victory in the U.S. House. Guatemala, among several other nations, stands to benefit from the treaty.
After Hurricane Stan ravaged Guatemala, human rights activists turned to Weller for help lobbying the Bush administration to allow Guatemalans already here, regardless of their legal status, to remain in the United States. Weller refused to get involved, they said.
He did, however, co-sponsor a nonbinding resolution calling attention to the hurricane damage in the region and urging the U.S. government to help in recovery efforts.
Meanwhile, Weller, a six-term Republican congressman from rural north-central Illinois, remains a member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee and the International Relations Committee, where he is vice chairman of the Western Hemisphere subcommittee that covers Guatemala.
At least one group has called for him to resign from the International Relations Committee because his wife?s father, Efrain Rios Montt, installed himself as Guatemala?s dictator for 18 months in 1982-83.
Critics accuse Montt of leading one of the bloodiest campaigns in the nation?s 36-year civil war, which killed 200,000 people. His daughter, Zury Rios Sosa, has been an active supporter and close political ally, including during her father?s recent failed presidential campaign.
?There?s still a lot of scars left with the Guatemalan community because of the actions of the father-in-law during the war,? said Maricela Garcia, president of the Chicago-based Coalition of Guatemalan Immigrants.
Weller refused repeated requests to discuss his marriage?s impact on his work in Congress.
Spokesman Chris Kennedy said the congressman is keeping the promise he made when he announced his upcoming marriage in 2004 and said he would no longer deal with issues limited to Guatemala. Weller views that promise as letting him vote on a bill that involves Guatemala if it is just one of many countries affected, the spokesman said.
?He wants to do the right thing ethically in all circumstances, and the right thing morally,? Kennedy said.
Caroline Portlock, executive director of the Grundy County Chamber of Commerce in Weller?s hometown of Morris, said some voters were concerned about the marriage initially but seem to accept it now.
?If there was buzz about it in the beginning, there?s certainly no buzz about it now. We haven?t seen any difference in how he?s supported or attended events,? she said, adding that he has helped obtain federal money for important road improvements.
This election year, Weller?s new Democratic opponent, John Pavich, a 29-year-old attorney from Beecher, has already cited his concern about the ethics of Weller?s CAFTA vote.
Judy Nadler, a senior fellow in government ethics at Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, said the appearance of a conflict of interest is as damaging as an actual conflict.
?Anything he votes on that has to do with her constituency has the potential to be a conflict,? Nadler said. ?What could he do to assure people ? outside of verbal assurance ? that he was impartial??
Other ethics experts warn that Weller could go too far in avoiding Guatemalan issues, leaving his district without any representation on those questions.
Kathleen Clark, a professor of law who teaches government ethics at Washington University in St. Louis, said Weller should vote on everything. ?Let the voters know. If they don?t like it, they can kick him out,? she said.
Those in search of help for Guatemala after the hurricane say they are bitterly disappointed that Weller didn?t help them seek temporary protection status for Guatemalans already in this country.
Garcia, of the Coalition of Guatemalan Immigrants, said she visited Weller?s office in early November to make their case to a Weller aide. The office has no record of the meeting, Kennedy said, but Weller is aware of the issue.
?He chose not (to) be involved,? added the spokesman.
Kennedy did say that Weller historically opposes temporary protection status. ?He considers it a loophole that tends to be abused by illegal immigrants.?
Weller?s wife has also been silent on the refugee issue, said Carlos Gomez, coordinator for the Chicago-based Foundation for Human Rights in Guatemala, but the Guatemalan government has asked the Bush administration to approve temporary protection, letting hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans work here for up to 18 months.
The National Coffee Association paid nearly $2,000 to bring Weller and his wife to their conference at a resort near Miami. He flew in from Washington, and she came from Guatemala City.
Weller delivered a speech called ?Coffee: A Taste of Freedom? that linked coffee to ?economic growth, narcotics eradication, and poverty reduction in our own hemisphere,? according to a text released by his office.
Robert Nelson, president of the coffee group, said Weller was ?of particular interest to us? because of his work on the Western Hemisphere subcommittee. The group also supported CAFTA, although Nelson said the U.S. coffee industry didn?t benefit from the agreement.
Nelson said Weller?s marriage to a Guatemalan lawmaker had nothing to do with the speech, although he acknowledged Weller had never before been invited to the conference. Weller has no financial interests in coffee in Guatemala, nor to his knowledge do his wife or her family members, Kennedy said.
Both Weller?s office and the National Coffee Association say the congressman has done nothing to push legislation benefiting the group, but he has taken an interest in coffee.
Two months after the conference, Weller was scheduled to co-host a briefing on coffee issues for his fellow lawmakers. He also co-wrote a letter to colleagues discussing the difficulties of small-scale coffee growers competing in the global market.
Kennedy also said Weller?s legislative director recalled seeing Weller?s signature on a letter concerning coffee, but Kennedy would not release the letter or say whether it was the different from the ?Dear Colleague? letter on coffee-growing problems.
Weller has no financial interests in coffee in Guatemala, nor to his knowledge do his wife or her family members. Oh really? The former dictator who wants to run for president again, has no assets in his country’s major product and export crop? How very surprising.
That’s the point where the reporter fell down, just accepting those statements at face value. Or maybe he sensed a tangle of trouble and didn’t want to unravel the thread by challenging that assertion and checking on their assets himself. The US’ involvement in Guatemala can be a sticky subject for journalists.
Topically enough, Guatemala is a crucial ally of the US right now; John Bolton is relying on Guatemala to stop Venezuela and Hugo Chavez getting a seat on the UN Security Council.
In any other times than these, the fact that a congressman has such close ties to a brutal dictator and such a glaring potential if not actual conflict of interest would have been a huge scandal splashed over all the mass media – especially so had Weller been a Democrat – but as it is it barely rated a column in a provincial paper.
Though if the rumours about Weller’s resignation are in fact true, maybe that’s about to change.
Read more: US Politics, US Foreign Policy, Central America, Guatemala, US Congress, Illinois, Jerry Weller, Rios Montt, Dictators, Genocide, IOKIYAR
