Tag Archives: Otto Perez Molina

The CICIG Crisis in Guatemala: How the Trump Administration Is Undermining US Anticorruption Leadership

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Back when Donald Trump was first elected, a lot of people—me included—worried about the implications of his presidency for US leadership in the global fight against corruption. Some of the dire predictions have not (yet) come to pass; for example, so far US enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) does not seem to have abated despite Trump’s well-documented and ill-informed hostility to that statute. But even if US enforcement of the FCPA has proceeded without much discernible effect (so far), there are other, less easily measurable respects in which the Trump Administration’s foreign policy, and its own cavalier disregard for ethics, may be undermining US leadership on anticorruption issues, and consequently undermining anticorruption efforts and bolstering those who would seek to undermine such efforts.

As just noted, much of this effect is diffuse and hard to observe directly, but there are a few examples where the Trump Administration and its allies are undermining the global fight against corruption is more evident. Perhaps the most striking and disheartening is the situation unfolding in Guatemala, ably documented in a compelling piece by Colum Lynch on Foreign Policy’s FP Blog earlier this month. Long story short: The Trump Administration and its allies in Congress appear to be supporting, or at least tacitly accepting, the efforts of Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales to shut down Guatemala’s UN-sponsored anti-impunity commission, known by its Spanish acronym CICIG, which has proved instrumental in fighting high-level corruption in Guatemala, and forced the resignation of President Morales’s predecessor, Otto Perez Molina. President Morales campaigned on an anticorruption platform, but he now wants to shut CICIG down, apparently because it’s investigating his own family members and associates. And the US, which had supported CICIG in the past and pressured President Molina to renew its mandate when he was inclined to terminate it to protect himself, seems to be backing Morales rather than CICIG.

I won’t go into all the details here, as the story is ably laid out in Mr. Lynch’s excellent piece. I’ll just highlight some themes that emerge from the reporting that Mr. Lynch and others have done, which illustrate connections—some direct, some indirect—between the Trump Administration’s approach to government and the dissipation of US leadership on anticorruption issues, as illustrated by the CICIG debacle. Continue reading →

Guest Post: A Breakthrough in Guatemala’s Fight Against Judicial Corruption

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GAB is honored to welcome Judge Claudia Escobar, who contributes the following guest post:

Guatemala usually does not get a lot of attention from the international media, and when it does it is usually because of widespread violence or political instability. But lately the country is gaining recognition for its serious efforts to fight corruption and impunity. Partly due to the legacy of 36 years of internal armed conflict, Guatemala has been plagued by a culture of impunity, as well as a legacy of criminal structures that infiltrated government institutions—structures that are still operating today, more than a decade after the 1996 Peace Accords. In response to this problem, the Guatemalan government to ask the United Nations for help in rebuilding the rule of law, and in response, the International Commission against impunity in Guatemala—CICIG—was created in December 2006 when the Guatemala Government and the UN signed the agreement. This new institution was conceived as an independent body to support the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the National Police, and other state law enforcement institutions. The ultimate goal of CICIG is to strengthen institutions within the judicial branch so that they will be able to confront illegal groups and organized crime.

CICIG has already been hailed as a major success and a potential model for other countries in the region to follow. Its most well-known impact to date is that its investigation into systemic corruption in the government of President General Otto Perez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti ultimately forced both of them to resign. Another, more recent development has gotten much less attention in the international press, but is also a crucial step forward in Guatemala’s struggle to build the rule of law: On October 2016, as a result of a CICIG investigation that commenced two years earlier, former Congressman Godofredo Rivera and attorney Vernon Gonzalez were found guilty on corruption-related charges for attempting to influence a judge. Sentencing two white-collar defendants, with strong political connections, to lengthy prison terms for attempting to influence a judge is unprecedented in Guatemala, and a major step forward. This case was the first case of corruption to be presented against a high official in power by the office of the Attorney General Attorney and CICIG since the Commission was established. It is also the first sentence handed down under the anticorruption law approved in 2012 (which, coincidentally, Congressman Rivera signed into law when he was president of Congress).

The sentence also has a great deal of personal meaning for me, because I was the judge who Rivera and Gonzalez tried to corrupt, and I was the one who filed the case with CICIG. Continue reading →

CICIG’s Achilles Heel: Suggestions for Reforming the Guatemalan Judiciary

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In 2015, an innovative institution in Guatemala—the International Commission Against Impunity (CICIG)—got a lot of attention (including from me on this blog). Among CICIG’s triumphs last year were the resignations and arrests of former Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina and Vice President Roxanna Baldetti on corruption-related charges following a Guatemalan Spring of sorts. Perez was formally charged in December with illicit association, customs fraud, and bribery. He maintains his innocence, claiming to be a scapegoat and arguing that nothing has changed about corruption in Guatemala except that he is now in jail. Unfortunately, without major changes he is likely to be right on the latter point. To be sure, removals of corrupt leaders like Perez and Baldetti are victories. But while Perez’s fall from grace and the general outpouring of public anticorruption sentiment in Guatemala are cause for great optimism, there is reason for trepidation as his case moves toward trial this year.

The reason is a decade-old compromise made during CICIG’s founding based on national sovereignty concerns. A Guatemalan court ruled that CICIG would be unconstitutional if empowered to try cases outside of the Guatemalan judicial apparatus. As a result, the success of CICIG and its proposed spin-offs remains inextricably tied to the strength of domestic institutions. CICIG can investigate and support prosecutorial efforts, but must rely on the domestic judiciary to hear its cases. Unfortunately, domestic governments across Central America remain notoriously corrupt. Even after a decade of CICIG’s efforts toward capacity building, the Guatemalan government is no exception. The Guatemalan court system is largely defined in Guatemalan citizens’ political consciousness by its inability to obtain convictions in important cases. Reform of the judiciary must be a central focus of anticorruption efforts going forward. The following challenges should be prioritized: Continue reading →

Not Corrupt, Not a Thief, But Not the Answer: Jimmy Morales and Corruption in Guatemala

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Last month, Guatemalans went to the presidential runoff polls and elected former comedian Jimmy Morales in a landslide over former first lady Sandra Torres. Morales ran as an anticorruption candidate; his slogan, “not corrupt, not a thief,” says it all. Not being a thief might seem like a low bar for a presidential candidate, but Morales’s election shows that such qualifications are apparently and alarmingly sufficient in Guatemala. Despite never having held public office or having been involved much in politics as a private citizen (unless racism and cultural insensitivity count), Morales was a well-known and available outsider in the right place at the right time. Indeed, Morales seems to have gotten elected not despite but rather because of his lack of experience and prior political involvement—characteristics that were valuable assets against the backdrop of widespread public outcry against corruption in Guatemala over the last several months, culminating in the resignations and arrests of President Otto Perez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti in September.

Many hail Morales’s victory as an indication that the anticorruption movement reached a tipping point and created change in Guatemala. But there are at least three reasons to worry that far from an anticorruption success, electing Morales may be a setback or at least a non-event for anti-corruption and democracy in Guatemala. Continue reading →

CICIG’s Success in Guatemala: Independence Is Not Enough

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Few contemporary developments in the struggle against impunity for high-level corruption are as extraordinary—and encouraging—as recent events in Guatemala, culminating last month in the resignation, and subsequent indictment, of President Otto Perez Molina in connection with a corruption ring in the customs service (known as the “La Linea” scheme). Perez, the first Guatemalan president ever to resign, has been on the impunity radar ever since the end of Guatemala’s 30-year civil war in 1996. These latest accusations against him are just a step, though perhaps the most successful step, in the sustained campaign to hold him accountable for various transgressions.

Before he was elected, Perez was the military general responsible for a remote region in Guatemala that saw some of the bloodiest massacres of the civil war. New evidence corroborates what many in Guatemala already strongly suspected – that he not only knew about but actually ordered the raids, murders, and torture that occurred under his watch. Perez—the military’s representative during negotiation of the 1996 Peace Accords—is also implicated in the murder of a Catholic bishop which occurred days after the Bishop published a report about the military’s culpability for genocidal war crimes.

Compared to these other alleged crimes, the customs fraud that triggered Perez’s resignation may seem, if not benign, then at least relatively mild. That is not to diminish the significance of the “La Linea” scheme: Hundreds of thousands of dollars (at least) that could have been spent to improve the welfare of Guatemalan citizens instead wound up in the pockets of corrupt leaders. But it does seem peculiar that a man who not only evaded prosecution but also became president amid allegations of genocide is now facing justice not for these violent crimes but rather for stealing money. (That said, additional charges related to his war crimes could and perhaps must still be filed against Perez. Yet it remains the case that it was the corruption scandal, not the war crimes allegations, that ultimately forced his resignation.) Why has this campaign to force Perez to answer for his crimes been successful, where past attempts have failed? Continue reading →