Trump Is Backing His Scandalous Ally In Guatemala

News related to Guatemala typically doesn’t generate much buzz with foreign-policy analysts or international media. However, if there is a tie-in to Donald Trump, it has a chance of gaining exposure.

Unfortunately, a brilliant report by McClatchy didn’t receive the attention that it deserved. It pointed to an underhanded diplomacy gesture by the Trump administration to minimize Guatemala’s independent anti-corruption organization, CICIG.

Long story short, the extensive corruption within the Guatemalan government prompted the creation of the CICIG, which is backed by the U.N. The list of high-level Guatemalan officials who have caught in these types of scandals is quite lengthy. It includes the ex-Presidents, Otto Perez Molina, Alvaro Colom, and Alfonso Portillo.  

Likewise, the former Vice President, Roxana Baldetti, is facing corruption charges, along with allegations that she accepted a $250,000 bribe from the Zetas cartel. The former Minister of the Interior also allegedly accepted a $1.5 million bribe from Los Zetas.

Again, this list can go on forever. Hence, there’s an absolute necessity to maintain the strength and independence of the CICIG. However, the President of Guatemala, Jimmy Morales, has taken several measures to tear down this institution.

Jimmy Morales - Flickr - US Embassy in Guatemala

In particular, Morales tried to deport the head of the CICIG, Ivan Velasquez, who is a Colombian. The reason being, Morales and his family are the targets of a wide range of political scandals. Much like Trump, he has tried to paint these scandals as “fake news.” They range from money laundering, links to drug traffickers, corruption, campaign finance laws, and more.

Anyhow, did the thought of deporting the head of the CICIG remind you of the Comey firing? Well, there are numerous other apt comparisons. In fact, there are too many to list in a blog post. However, I have an article with openDemocracy, “Trump-style Latin American Leaders,” which details the many uncanny resemblances between the Trump and Morales administrations. (A series of sexual assault allegations have been directed at Morales since that article was published.)

Morales responded, in kind, by moving the Guatemalan embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and that certainly showed solidarity with Trump. With that in mind, the McClatchy article pointed to pressure exerted by the Trump administration to weaken the CICIG in a variety of ways. All in all, this is another example of the disgraceful transactional foreign policy of the Trump administration. 

Even more despicable is the administration that is being enabled by the U.S. government. A recent article, “The Assassinations of Indigenous Leaders in Guatemala Trigger Fear as Political Cycle Begins,” in Truthout by Jeff Abbott absolutely drives home the point.

I’d definitely recommend reading that article, along with the aforementioned McCarthy article, to understand the extreme implications associated with this decision by the Trump administration. Unfortunately, it falls in line with so many other disastrous foreign policy decisions that have propped up so many tyrants, kleptocrats, dictators, etc.

Mayor of Juarez Threatens to Kill Journalist - Long-Term Trend of Impunity Against Journalists in Latin America

Two weeks ago, the mayor of Cuidad Juarez, Armando Cabada Alvídrez, threatened to kill a prominent local journalist, Hector Gonzalez. The mayor was brazen enough that he made these threats in public and threw a punch at one of Gonzalez’s companions. 

This was nothing new for Gonzalez. As a matter of fact, this type of intimidation against reporters is widespread throughout Mexico. Also, the crimes against journalist are rarely punished. Of the 426 reported instances of violence against journalists in 2016, only 0.25% of those cases resulted in a conviction! (My free ebook, “America’s Drug War is Devastating Mexico,” goes into full detail explaining the severity of the problem.) 

This is an issue in which the worlds of organized crime and politics intermingle. It’s well known that reporting on crime in Mexico is a dangerous occupation because the cartels enforce a brutal form of censorship. However, in many instances, reporting on politics can be just as, if not more, dangerous. The reason is that the cartels have deeply corrupted politics and the government provides little to no protection for journalists.

My last book focused on Mexico, but this is a problem throughout Latin America and one of the primary causes of this violence is the war on drugs. Last month, a Guatemalan newspaper reporter, Laurent Ángel Castillo Cifuentes, and radio station worker, Luis Alfredo de León Miranda, were murdered. 

Their bodies were discovered in Suchitepéquez with clear signs of torture. This coastal-region state is a major transshipment point for South American cocaine. Consequently, the area is overrun with organized crime and reporters have faced extreme violence in this region. The Associated Press had previously reported that 10 journalists had been killed in this one state over the last ten years.

Nonetheless, the U.S. government has a complicit role in this wave of violence. Clearly, the prohibition of drugs in the U.S. has created a culture of black market violence throughout Latin America. Worst of all, the U.S. has aided, supported, armed, and financed some of the most corrupt governments throughout Latin America as long as these countries have been geopolitical allies.

There are too many examples of this hypocrisy to list in a blog post. However, since Guatemala is the current focus, we’ll examine the U.S. government’s relationship with the last President of Guatemala, Otto Perez Molina.

Molina received training at the infamous School of the Americas (now WHINSEC) in Fort Benning, GA. This former general was involved with numerous human rights abuses during the U.S.-supported Civil War in Guatemala, including the Ixil massacre. As a matter of fact, many historians identify this Civil War as a genocide because the vast majority of victims of government death squads were indigenous civilians.

Nonetheless, a 2007 WikiLeaks document during his presidential campaign shows that U.S. officials were aware of information connecting Molina with the country’s top drug cartel. However, they weren’t highly concerned based on this quote from the document. 

“Given that Guatemala is awash in narco-money, it is improbable that none of it has found its way into Perez Molina's campaign, but we currently have no grounds to suspect that Perez Molina knowingly accepted narco-funds.”

Ultimately, it turned out that the rumors were well substantiated. Molina is currently in jail on charges of corruption. His Vice President, Roxana Baldetti, is also in jail awaiting trial for drug and corruption charges. She reportedly accepted a $250,000 bribe from Los Zetas. Likewise, the Minister of Interior, Mauricio Lopez Bonilla, reportedly received a $1.5 million bribe from Los Zetas.

This same destructive political dynamic with U.S. complicity is visible throughout Latin American. Much of my work has focused on exposing these truths, particularly in El Salvador, Honduras, Peru, Colombia, etc. (Please read and share the articles from the links in the previous sentence. However, for a more thorough explanation, grab a copy of my book, The Drug War: A Trillion Dollar Con Game, which will make it abundantly clear that the drug war is often nothing more than a geopolitical bargaining chip.)