Guatemala's Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu has been successful in her petition to Spain's special antiterrorist court to begin hearings into crimes against humanity allegedly committed by three former Guatemalan heads of state and five former army chiefs.
This is the court which sought Gen Pinochet's extradition from Britain. She has been given 10 days to present her evidence, which, if it convinces the court, could make it very difficult for those she has accused to leave Guatemala without facing prosecution.
The list includes retired Gen Efrain Rios Montt, current head of Guatemala's Congress, who seized power in 1982, launching a scorched earth campaign against 440 indigenous communities. Mr Montt enjoys immunity due to his current post and an amnesty law approved as part of a 1996 peace accord which put an end to 36 years of civil war.
Last December Mr Montt's Guatemalan Republican Front, (FRG) took power in coalition with President Alfonso Portillo, who is said to be "concerned" at the latest developments.
Guatemala's civil war cost 200,000 lives, mostly indigenous farmers, butchered by army and state-linked death squads. The 1997 report of the national Historical Truth Commission, (Remhi), concluded that state killers accounted for 93 per cent of all the deaths, for which no one has been punished.
Gen Oscar Mejia Victores and Gen Fernando Lucas Garcia, the other two heads of state mentioned in the case, also seized power through military coups, between 1978 and 1983.
"Let's hope this doesn't go the way of the Pinochet trial," said Ms Menchu, whose father was killed inside the Spanish embassy in 1980 along with 36 other protestors who occupied the building to focus attention on demands for land reform.
Many of the relatives of Guatemala's disappeared citizens are afraid to speak out or testify against the army, which still wields huge influence and total immunity thanks to a blanket amnesty law, although crimes against humanity were excluded from the amnesty law.
Guatemala's Mutual Support Group, (GAM), is co-accuser with the Rigoberta Menchu Foundation, insisting that only a foreign tribunal can challenge the all-powerful armed forces.
Meanwhile, Mr Rios Montt said he plans to proceed with plans to visit the US and France this year despite the risk of a Pinochet-style arrest. "I fear only God," said Mr Rios Montt. Mr Montt is a pentecostal evangelical whose commitment to la mano dura has made him a vote-winner in democratic times.
On the day before Ms Menchu filed charges in Spain, December 19th last, army lawyer Mr Julio Cindron Galvez presented his own case against Ms Menchu, accusing her of treason, a charge which, in the unlikely of event of its succeeding, could result in the death penalty.