Not The Onion: Man totally dedicated to democracy to stand trial for Dos Erres massacre

Guatemalan Judge Claudette Domínguez ruled last week that Efrain Rios Montt will stand trial for 1982's Dos Erres massacre. Several soldiers have already been found guilty.

The Dos Erres' massacre occurred on December 6, 1982, just days after President Ronald Reagan met with Rios Montt in Honduras. Here's what Reagan had to say about the good general.

Q. Is President Rios Montt's announcement about—announcing the election laws in March of '83, setting in pattern the eventual election of a democratic government there. Is that enough to justify the resumption of military aid to Guatemala?

The President. Well, we've got a whole lot of material which he, very frankly, brought for us to study. I frankly think that they've been getting a bad deal. You know, he was elected President in 1974 and was never allowed to take office. So, when this particular coup came, the officers who conducted the coup came to him and put him into the office he'd been elected to.

But he is totally dedicated to democracy in Guatemala. And they have some very real problems that we, as I say, are going to—they brought and they made quite a presentation and brought a lot of information and material to us. And frankly I'm inclined to believe they've been getting a bum rap.

Q. Are you leaning toward resuming the aid—

The President. What?

Q. Are you leaning toward resuming the aid, based on what he told you in your talks?

The President. Well, this is going to depend, of course, on all this information that's been provided to us. But I would think so.

I only bring this up because Elliott Abrams is still attempting to whitewash US history in the region.

One might well ask, why refight this old war? Indeed, why–why did the Times find it necessary to use Deane Hinton’s obituary to do so? The Times’s story is that Hinton cared about human rights and Reagan did not. That is completely false, and the story of El Salvador shows it.

Deane Hinton was a wonderful man, a great colleague, and a superb ambassador who spent a lifetime serving his country. And Ronald Reagan was a great president under whom there were remarkable advances for human rights in Latin American and around the world. Let’s leave it at that.

Alternative facts are nothing new. Abrams can't possibly believe what he wrote, can he?