Impunity Reigns Supreme in Guatemala

This is turning in to a rough week for Guatemala and for the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). The only good news is that several people were indicted for the murder of Victor Rivera. Now the bad news.

Alfonso Portillo and two other defendants were found not guilty on charges of embezzling several million dollars from the Ministry of Defense during Portillo's term in office. According to two of the three judges that ruled on the case, the prosecution, supported by CICIG, failed to prove that Portillo and the others were directly involved in the theft. The UCN is already planning to run Portillo for congress.

CICIG and the Mutual Support Group (GAM) expressed their dissatisfaction with the court's ruling and the prosecutor's office is appealing the case.

The Monday ruling "reflects the true state of justice in Guatemala," said the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), an office created by the United Nations to clean up the country's legal system.

Costa Rican former attorney general Francisco Dall'Anese, who heads the CICIG, said his office believes it supplied enough evidence to convict the three former officials.

And a rights group known as the Mutual Support Group (GAM) threatened to sue two of the judges on the panel that acquitted Portillo.

In addition to ruling on the appeal, the courts will also have to weigh in on the extradition request submitted by the US so that it can try Portillo on charges of embezzling over million dollars in foreign donations intended to buy school supplies.

On Tuesday, in another sign of impunity in Guatemala, the country's high risk court ordered the release of Alejandro Giammattei, the country's former prison director. Giammattei was accused of participating in the murder of seven inmates during a 2007 uprising at Pavon prison and the alleged execution of three inmates who escaped from the “El Infiernito” prison in 2005.

Two other accused are fighting extradition requests from Switzerland and Spain. CICIG had accused Giammattei, Vielmann, and Sperisen, as well as another 16 people, of belonging to a criminal organization that carried out executions both inside and outside the country's prisons.

The Portillo and Giammattei cases were supposed to bring an end to impunity in Guatemala. Convictions would have sent a former president and former presidential candidate to jail on corruption and murder charges. The international community's investment in CICIG would have been validated. Instead, CICIG's major success remains solving a suicide.

Any one else get the impression that the UN made a mistake extending CICIG's mandate before there was tangible proof that Guatemala had turned a corner in establishing the rule of law? The Guatemalan people deserve better.