In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically elected Guatemalan president, ushering in a series of brutal military dictators and a decades-long civil war. This was the backdrop to Efraín Ríos Montt’s rise to power — an ascent that saw him determined to not only end the civil war, but transform the nation into a godly one. And yet just months into his reign, Montt would oversee the deaths of thousands. 

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