Salvadoran government nixes Guatemala-style anti-impunity commission.
| Autor | Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin |
Guatemala's Comision Internacional contra la Impunidad (CICIG), a powerful judicial instrument established nearly a decade ago in collaboration with the UN, has become a major subject of debate in neighboring El Salvador following remarks made last month by a key US diplomat.
During an early July visit to San Salvador, Thomas Shannon, a top-level US State Department advisor who has also been active of late in Venezuela (NotiSur, May 1, 2015), suggested to reporters that El Salvador and Honduras would do well to follow Guatemala's lead and set up anti-impunity commissions of their own. "Each country would have to determine what the structure would be, but the CICIG has worked well," he said.
El Salvador, together with Honduras and Guatemala, form what security analysts call the Northern Triangle, an area plagued by crushing poverty and a ghastly homicide rate that ranks among the world's highest. Shannon's visit was part of a diplomatic push involving the US government's Plan of the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle (NotiCen, April 30, 2015), which calls for some US$1 billion to be spent on development and crime-fighting efforts as a way to stabilize the three countries and reduce the number of US-bound immigrants they produce (NotiCen, Aug 14, 2014, and Aug. 28, 2014).
The US government firmly supports the work being done by CICIG, as evidenced by remarks made by US Vice President Joe Biden during his own Alliance for Prosperity visit to Central America this past March. "Impunity is a huge problem in the Northern Triangle, period. For that reason it's very important that the CICIG continue to operate," he said.
Since going into operation in 2007, the internationally funded CICIG has participated in a number of high-profile cases, including the Caso Rosenberg, which began in 2009 when Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano, a Guatemalan attorney, was found dead after first posting a video insisting that, in the event of his murder, then President Alvaro Colom (2008-2012) should be held directly accountable (NotiCen, Jan. 21, 2010).
The commission is currently involved in a massive customs-fraud investigation that led to the resignation, in May, of Vice President Roxana Baldetti and forced Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina--who is also implicated in the scandal and had been openly opposed to CICIG--to extend its mandate an additional two years (NotiCen, April 23, 2015, and July 2, 2015).
"Not very appropriate"
Salvadoran administration...
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