The last ten years in Guatemala

On Monday, I wrote that President-elect Otto Perez Molina inherits a situation more favorable than his predecessor. The situation in Guatemala is by no means pretty. However, when I say that it is more favorable, I think back to the administrations of Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004)and Oscar Berger (2004-2008).

Portillo was accused of having stolen approximately $15-16 million dollars from the Defense Ministry in 2001. Former Defense Minister Eduardo Arevalo and former Finance Minister Manuel Maza were also accused of corruption. Portillo was found not guilty earlier this year. The US also accused Portillo of embezzling $3.9 million from the Defense Ministry and stealing at least another $1.5 million in donations from Taiwan that were intended to buy books for school libraries.

While Otto Perez and others have accused Colom of using state resources to benefit UNE and then LIDER, which might be illegal, one doesn't get the impression that Colom was stealing millions from the military and school kids. If the Perez administration finds that Colom and the rest of his administration were corrupt, I'll take it back.

During the Berger administration, there seems to be a good deal of evidence that death squads were operating out of various government agencies. Alejandro Giammattei, the country's former prison director, was accused of participating in the murders 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. 

Giammattei, former Interior Minister Carlos Vielmann, ex-police chief Erwin Sperisen, and sixteen other people are alleged to have belonged to a criminal organization that carried out executions (social cleansing) both inside and outside the country's prisons. While Portillo, Giammattei, Vielmann and Sperisen have so far avoided jail, it is just as important for Guatemala that they are not in positions of power today. Failing to bring these four to justice is a failure on the part of Colom, CICIG, and the Guatemalan justice system. However, having them out of government is a victory for Guatemala.  

In December 2010, a Guatemala court sentenced eight Guatemalans for their roles in killing three Salvadoran members of PARLACEN in February 2007. In May 2008, CICIG's Carlos Castresana estimated that approximately 25 percent of the country's murders were of the extrajudicial killing kind. While I doubt that extrajudicial executions by members of the National Civilian Police have ended, they do seem to occur much less frequently under Colom than under Portillo and Berger. If the Perez administration finds that Colom and the rest of his administration were carrying out extrajudicial executions from the presidential palace, I'll take it back as well. Send him and the rest to jail.

Finally, Guatemala was rocked by Rodrigo Rosenberg's May 2009 murder and his beyond the grave accusation against President Colom. Thousands of people took to the streets demanding that he resign and that Congress lift his immunity from prosecution. Those were pretty stressful times for the government and the country. Carlos Castresana and CICIG eventually found that Rosenberg orchestrated his own suicide. Rosenberg's suicide accomplices were found guilty earlier this year as were those who killed the Musas, those who sent Rosenberg down his doomed path.

In some ways, Colom never recovered from the Rosenberg murder. He had already been dealing with a congress and oligarchy with little interest in supporting his proposals. Appointing Conrado Reyes as Attorney General in 2010 and then the circus surrounding UNE's presidential candidate didn't help. Nor did the decapitations in 2010, the Los Cocos massacre, or Cabral's murder. 

I didn't see much hope on the horizon for Guatemala in 2009 and 2010. I thought that it would just muddle through for a awhile. While I remain somewhat pessimistic about the country's near-term prospects, I'm just not as pessimistic as I was a year ago. And these reasons don't even include the declining murder rate from 2009 to 2010 and probably from 2010 to 2011.

However, my opinion might change in the next two months when the former general takes the reins especially if he goes ahead with some of his campaign proposals. I hope that some of his proposals were just the stuff of campaigns, but we shall see.