Guatemala’s anti-corruption commission (CICIG), which brought down a president, shuts down today after 12 years. Why was the UN-backed body so controversial? Our explainer from the archive:
THE United Nations has long sent peacekeepers to war zones and food to refugee camps. Around a decade ago it introduced a new kind of outfit. The International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala is an internationally staffed anti-corruption body that helps Guatemalan prosecutors dismantle death squads, drug cartels and money-laundering rings.
It has brought hope to a country known for high murder rates and weak institutions. It has also sparked a backlash. CICIG was originally meant to help a war-torn country make the transition to peace. Guatemala’s 36-year civil war ended in 1996, but the bands of ex-soldiers and police officers who had carried out secret counter-insurgency operations for the right-wing government during the war transmogrified into crime gangs in the years after. They made their money through extortion, smuggling, kidnapping and drug-trafficking, and infiltrated Guatemala’s judicial and political systems. In 2002, after an appeal from civil-society organisations, the UN agreed to help take them down. With Guatemala on the drug-trafficking corridor from South America to Mexico, UN member states feared that a further weakening of Guatemalan institutions could pose an international threat. Rising murder rates persuaded Guatemalan politicians to accept their help. After five years of negotiations, they settled on a model: CICIG would conduct its own investigations and then hand cases to local prosecutors. Its $15m annual budget would be provided by the UN, with around half from the United States.A string of high-profile cases proved the commission’s value, including the conviction on corruption charges of Alfonso Portillo, a former president, and the prosecution of rogue police officers. But it struggled against a hostile judiciary. Some prosecutors resisted oversight and some judges were loyal to the corrupt actors whom CICIG was investigating. Politicians, meanwhile, were growing weary. CICIG was discovering that political corruption reached the highest echelons of government. In 2015 Otto Pérez Molina, president at the time, nearly managed to get rid of CICIG by refusing to renew its two-year mandate. The commission was investigating him and his vice-president, Roxana Baldetti, for their roles in an embezzlement scandal involving the customs agency. International pressure persuaded him to reverse his decision. Months later, when hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans took to the streets, he was forced to step down. He and Ms Baldetti are currently in jail awaiting trial. CICIG has trained a new generation of Guatemalan prosecutors capable of handling complex investigations. It has helped push through legal reforms that facilitate such cases. But reforming the country’s political system has proved more difficult. Congress has rejected most of the constitutional reforms suggested by a civil-society coalition, and the current president, Jimmy Morales, has tried to oust CICIG’s crusading commissioner, Iván Velásquez . That may be because CICIG accused Mr Morales of illegal campaign-financing last August and has brought fraud cases against members of his family. But the president and his allies have managed to convince some Republicans in Washington, DC that CICIG’s role in prosecuting a Russian family convicted of using false identities might have been influenced by the Kremlin. Though the claim lacks compelling evidence and the family has been granted a new trial, the Republicans suspended $6m of CICIG’s funding. Its future is uncertain. At the same time a similar commission in Honduras appears to be sputtering out under government pressure. Other corruption-addled countries, like El Salvador and Mexico, have discussed adopting the CICIG model, but taken no action. Politicians are wary of its success.
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