On August 31, 2018, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said he would close the United Nations-sponsored International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), which is conducting a criminal investigation of him for alleged illicit campaign financing.[1]
As he spoke in front of civilian and military leaders whose army vehicles surrounded the CICIG’s headquarters, Morales explained he had informed the UN secretary general of his decision to revoke CICIG’s mandate and “immediately” start transferring its capacities to Guatemalan institutions.
Subsequently, Morales said the CICIG would remain in the country until September 3, 2019, during the transition period. Hence, the CICIG will have one year to finish the contemplated mandate. It appeared that Guatemala had sent U.S.-donated army vehicles to the CICIG headquarters in an effort to intimidate. the CICIG.
Morales’ surprise announcement follows a long history of friction between his office and the CICIG.[2]
In August 2017, Morales announced that he was declaring “non grata” and immediately throwing out of the country Ivan Velasquez, CICIG’s chief. However, the Guatemalan Supreme Court blocked his order hours later. Morales also said he was firing Foreign Minister Carlos Raul Morales for failure to execute the expulsion.[3]
By midday on the day following Morales’ expulsion order, Francisco de Mata Vela, head of Guatemala’s constitutional court, said that court had issued a temporary injunction blocking the order to expel Velasquez. The court said it would analyze the case before reaching a definite decision.[4]
The CICIG was instrumental in the investigation and prosecution of former Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, who had to resign in 2015 and is now in prison.[5]
On August 31, Morales accused the CICIG of “violating our laws, inducing people and institutions to participate in acts of corruption and impunity,” and “selective criminal prosecution with an ideological bias.”[6]
During the 2015 campaign investigators suspect Morales of obtaining at least US$1 million in undeclared contributions. He has denied any wrongdoing.
The week before Morales’ announcement the Guatemalan Supreme Court granted a request of CICIG and Guatemalan prosecutors to remove Morales’ immunity from prosecution to go to Congress for its deliberation. If 105 legislators vote to approve the request, then Morales could stand investigation for possible illicit campaign financing.[7]
Almost immediately, human rights officials and advocates criticized the announcement.[8] Four former Guatemalan foreign ministers and its former Ambassador to the U.S. Francisco Villagrán de León released a statement, criticizing the displays of military and police force and the fact that with respect to the CICIG, Morales is abandoning reliance on the support of his civilian cabinet or on leaders from civil society. They said it seemed that, when Morales’ term ends in 2020, he wants to ensure that CICIG will not exist to investigate him. They observed that the professional investigative capacity of the national police, which took more than 20 years to develop after the Guatemalan Peace Accords, has been systemically dismantled in recent months.[9]
On September 4, 2018, Guatemala’s human rights ombudsman, Jordán Rodas, issued a statement that the government’s actions destabilize the rule of law, and expressed his dismay at “the arbitrary measures of the Government of the Republic that undermine democracy”.[10]
Morales’ military deployment occurred the same day Nicaragua expelled a UN human rights team after the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published a critical report accusing President Daniel Ortega’s government of violent repression of opposition protects.[11]
After Guatemalan’s civil war (1960-1996) it was decided to eradicate the leading role of Guatemala’s Illegal Entities and the Clandestine Security Apparatus (Cuerpos Ilegales Aparatos Cladestinos de Seguridad or CIACS). The Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights of 1994 required their elimination. However, the CIACS continued,coopting the nomination process for the attorney general and Guatemala’s top-tier courts in order to ensure impunity for their growing criminal enterprises, including alliances with drug cartels in Mexico and Colombia.[12] In 2006, when the public security situation became even direr and an international scandal exposed the complicity of the CIACS, the Guatemala Congress consent to the establishment of CICIG. The goal of CICIG was the following:
To support, strengthen and assist institutions of the State of Guatemala responsible for investigating and prosecuting crimes allegedly committed in connection with the activities of illegal security forces and clandestine security organizations and any other criminal conduct related to these entities operating in the country, as well as identifying their structures, activities, modes of operation and sources of financing and promoting the dismantling of these organizations and the prosecution of individuals involved in their activities.[13]
While the CICIG and civil society have identified the clandestine structures that infiltrated and suborned the institutions of law enforcement and administration of justice in Guatemala and brought to justice many prominent figures, the latter are far from dismantled. They continue to seek impunity for their members, civilian and military.[14] The tension between the CICIG and civil society on one hand and the clandestine structures continues to unfold.[15]
[1] Associated Press, Guatemala president won’t renew UN anti-corruption commission investigating him, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Aug. 31 2018.
[2] Id.
[3] Associated Press, Guatemala top court blocks president’s move to expel UN anti-corruption chief, CBC, Aug. 27, 2017.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] Associated Press, Guatemala president won’t renew UN anti-corruption commission investigating him, supra.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] An Alarming Decision on the Future of CICIG, Letter of former Guatemalan ministers and diplomats: “An alarming decision on the future of CICIG, Sept. 4, 2018, https://www.univision.com/univision-news/opinion/an-alarming-decision-on-the-future-of-cicig.
[10] Alarm as Guatemala bans head of UN anti-corruption body from country, The Guardian, Sept. 5, 2018.
[11] Associated Press, Guatemala president won’t renew UN anti-corruption commission investigating him, supra.
[12] Carlos Castresana, Guatemala: Illegal Entities and the Clandestine Security Apparatus, Criminalized Power Structures: The Overlooked Enemies of Peace (Michael Dziedzic, ed.) 53 (2016).
[13] CICIG Agreement, Article 1.
[14] Castresana, supra, at 72-73.
[15] For an article supporting Moarles’ decision to close CICIG, see Mary Anastasia O’Grady, Guatemala’s President Defends Democracy Against the U.N., Wall St. J., Sept. 5, 2018, at A17, col. 1.
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