Guatemala increases persecution of corrupt people
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — The Guatemalan government’s effort to undo more than a decade of United Nations-backed anti-corruption work moved even beyond its borders this week, in what experts say is an election year attempt to assure conservative voters its like won’t be seen again.
Guatemalan prosecutors announced their intention to pursue legal action against Colombian Iván Velásquez, who led the U.N.’s anti-corruption mission in Guatemala. Velásquez, who is now Colombia’s defense minister, and prosecutors the U.N. helped train dealt blow after blow to Guatemalan corruption over 12 years until the government refused to renew their mandate in 2019.
Foreign governments have accused the administration of President Alejandro Giammattei of systemically seeking out those who worked with U.N. Mission, better known as its Spanish initial CICIG.
After facing legal action from the government, some 30 magistrates, judges, and prosecutors involved with the investigation or processing these cases of corruption were forced to flee.
Giammattei will not be eligible to re-elect himself in June. However, his Vamos party will nominate a national lawmaker for its candidate. With 30 parties taking part, the election promises to be free for all. Guatemala’s party has never been reelected for consecutive terms to the presidency.
“This fits with an electoral purpose. It is an indirect electoral offering for those sectors that are benefitting or are going to benefit from the dismantling of everything that has to do with the CICIG,” said Tiziano Breda, a Latin America expert with the Italy-based Istituto Affari Internazionali. “And it assures that in the case of the continuation of this government the dismantling will continue.”
Perhaps the CICIG’s greatest achievement was the investigation and prosecution of President Otto Pérez Molina, who was forced to resign along with his Cabinet in 2015.
In addition to reversing the achievements made against corruption, Breda said, the current government’s campaign against those associated with anti-corruption efforts “tries to change the narrative about what CICIG came to do in the country and what it accomplished.”
Guatemala’s current anti-corruption prosecutor, Rafael Curruchiche Cacul, alleges Velásquez improperly entered into a cooperation agreement with Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht while investigating that firm’s extensive bribery operations across the region. A Guatemalan judge approved the cooperation agreement.
Curruchiche Cacul was sanctioned last year by the United States for allegedly hindering corruption investigations. Instead, he pursued investigations against former anticorruption prosecutors.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro defended Velásquez, saying the corrupt are now pursuing him even years after he left Guatemala.
Gabriela Carreta, a political scientist at Rafael Landivar University, said the actions of Curruchiche Cacul aim to send “a clear message that never again will there be investigations against corruption, nor a seach for justice, much less with foreign intervention.”