Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina gives CICIG extension green light.
| Autor | Reynolds, Louisa |
President Otto Perez Molina announced on April 23 that he would ask UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to extend the mandate of the Comision Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (CICIG) for an additional two-year period. The decision was made under intense pressure from civil society as well as the international community following revelations of top government officials' involvement in a massive customs fraud scandal (NotiCen, April 23, 2015).
The next step in the process will be for the government to send an official letter to the UN in the coming days asking to extend the collaboration for a further two-year period.
CICIG was established in 2007 to help dismantle criminal structures and train Guatemalan prosecutors. Its mandate, which has already been extended three times, was set to expire in September.
Although it has achieved impressive results and has contributed to legislative changes that have improved Guatemalan institutions' capacity to prosecute organized crime, the Perez Molina administration has been adamantly opposed to its presence in Guatemala.
Tensions with CICIG date back to the 2013 trial of former dictator Efram Rms Montt (1982-1983). After the trial was suspended because of a legal technicality (NotiCen, Jan 23, 2014), CICIG made a statement regarding the need to move forward with the trial and guarantee judicial independence that vexed the current administration.
In September 2014, Perez Molina made it clear that he would not consider extending CICIG's mandate, citing concerns that foreign countries were growing fatigued from supporting the commission, despite donors' statements that they were willing to continue supporting it. Vice President Roxana Baldetti echoed these sentiments, stating that "ten years is enough" and that donor money would be better used to respond to the country's drought crisis. Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla urged Guatemalans to take responsibility for themselves and use their own human resources to fill the gap left by CICIG once its mandate expired.
Even after US Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Guatemala in March this year and urged Perez Molina to renew CICIG's mandate, stressing that Central American leaders must respond to the US government's offer of a US$1 billion assistance package to address security and governance challenges known as the Plan for the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle (NotiCen, April 30, 2015), the president's decision was far from...
Para continuar leyendo
Solicita tu pruebaCOPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
