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Mexico City. Efrain Rios Montt, Guatemala’s former US-backed military dictator, was ordered by a Guatemalan judge on Thursday to stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. He is accused of orchestrating the razing of Indian villages decades ago during the country’s long civil war.

The ruling by Judge Carol Patricia Flores Blanco was a symbolic victory for the relatives of people killed in Guatemala’s 36-year civil war and for human rights groups, who have long argued that Rios Montt was behind much of the worst wartime violence.

It came at the end of a day-long hearing in which prosecutors described mass killings, torture and rape in distant mountain villages almost 30 years ago and stressed that Rios Montt, a former general, had full command over his troops and knowledge of their actions.

Nearly three hours into the prosecutors’ presentation, the judge asked Rios Montt, now 85, if he had any response. In a firm voice, he said, “I prefer to remain silent.” The judge ordered him to be detained under house arrest.

During the 17 months of Rios Montt’s rule in 1982 and 1983, the military carried out a scorched-earth campaign in the Mayan highlands as soldiers were ordered to hunt down bands of leftist guerrillas. Survivors have described how military units wiped out Indian villages with extraordinary brutality, killing all the women and children along with the men. Military documents of the time described the Indians as rebel collaborators.

A truth commission backed by the United Nations, set up after a peace accord in 1996, found that 200,000 people were killed during the civil war, mostly by state security forces. The violence against Mayan-Ixil villages amounted to genocide because the entire population was targeted, the commission concluded.

The military’s actions against those communities were at the forefront of the allegations at Thursday’s hearing, as the prosecution outlined 72 separate episodes that resulted in the deaths of at least 1,771 people.

A defense lawyer, Danilo Rodriguez, argued that Rios Montt took power as the country faced a guerrilla insurgency that had created a national crisis. “His intention was only to restore order and cooperation among the Mayan-Ixil,” Rodriguez said.

He argued that Rios Montt was not responsible for atrocities committed on the battlefield. “He did not determine the level of force that the army used,” Rodriguez said.

But prosecutors argued that as commander in chief of the armed forces and de facto president, Rios Montt was fully in charge. They cited military documents that they said called for “the extermination of subversive elements” in the region that includes the Indian communities. The prosecutors added that Rios Montt was on the documents’ distribution list.

He had “direct participation in the implementation of the plans,” prosecutor Manuel Vasquez said.

The New York Times