As Northern Triangle countries get ready to receive $750 million in aid, the CICIG issued new evidence indicating the extent to which ousted President Pérez Molina had turned the Guatemalan state into a vast criminal enterprise complicit with the private sector.
This week, Latin Pulse delves into a new report on atrocities in Mexico that have some calling for action by the ICC. The program also discusses moves toward justice in Guatemala for the indigenous Maya, including analysis of the genocide case against former dictator Efrain Rios Montt.
Jimmy Morales rode a wave of popular awakening and anger to the presidency. Since coming to power, he’s relied on a dubious group of advisors and the same corrupt tactics of his predecessors.
On the campaign trail, Jimmy Morales skillfully avoided any details about his platform or policy plans. That vagueness has left a lot of questions about what President Morales will do in office: chief among them is whether he will continue the prosecutions against the military for human rights abuses.
The Guatemalan electorate has spoken, electing the political neophyte, Jimmy Morales, with no clear policy platform and a group of retired military officers with shady ties to the past behind him. The good news is Guatemalan civil society is mobilized and ready.
On the eve of the October 25 second-round presidential elections in Guatemala and a month before the Seattle International Foundation’s Donors’ Summit, LatinAmericaGoesGlobal.org’s Chris Sabatini sat down to talk to Manfredo Marroquín to discuss the events of the past months, the need for a new political class, and the challenges for civil society and donors.
As former President Pérez Molina sits in jail, former comedian Jimmy Morales is the front-runner in the campaign for President of Guatemala. The Morales campaign was not central to the anti-corruption marches that brought down Pérez Molina, but he has become the politician most associated with the protest movement and the end of Pérez Molina. Is Morales the real face of the “Guatemalan Spring” or just the accidental beneficiary of the protests?
Part one of a two-part series, Doctor Perez here looks at the events leading up to the September 6 elections, their implications for the second-round presidential elections and the potential for long-term institutional reform (difficult). The second post will examine the political situation boiling in Guatemala’s neighbors, Honduras and El Salvador.
This past May, El Salvador suffered its highest murder rate since the end of the country’s civil war 23 years ago. But this grisly flash of news—what journalists in the region call the nota roja—doesn’t give the wider context. There’s another story to be told here beyond the numbers: how Latin American journalists are affected by the violence they cover and how, in turn, their coverage is creating a cultural acceptance of violence.
“The greatest risk is uncertainty and fragmentation and policy inconsistency, at a time when the country desperately needs to address corruption within the state and transnational crime,” said Chris Sabatini, an adjunct professor at Columbia University and founder of the policy website LatinAmericaGoesGlobal.org.
