Interview with Burden of Peace director

    Q: To some, “Burden of Peace” might seem like a record of futility because there is no real closure for the victims. What would you say to such people who interpret it that way?

    Joey Boink: I see the result of the genocide trial so far as representing two steps forward and one step backwards. To many survivors who gave testimony in court, it meant a lot to be able to tell their stories in front of a national judge. The trial allowed many Guatemalans to hear what happened to the Maya people in the Ixil area for the first time in their lives. Efraín Rios Montt was sentenced to 80 years for committing genocide and crimes against humanity, but the constitutional court ruled that the prosecutor had made procedural errors and annulled the sentence. To many, that meant steps have been taken towards justice but that there is still a lot to fight for.

    It would be too cynical to call the story a record of futility knowing that survivors feel proud to have been able to share their long-hidden experiences, that Rios Montt was sentenced for his crimes in a national court, and that lawyers and prosecutors continue to make efforts after each victory and each loss. There is no real closure for the victims of the armed conflict, but the people of Guatemala have not given up their struggle for justice.

    Q: Why is the film titled the “burden” of peace?

    Joey Boink: When the Dutch minister of foreign affairs, Bert Koenders, spoke at the film’s world premiere, he explained our title better than I could have done myself. He said: “The impact of civil conflict persists long after peace agreements have been signed. When violence has been the norm for so long, and there has been no law and order, the burden of peace is the long road to justice that begins where conflict ends.” I think the film illustrates this long road to justice.

    A second interpretation centers on Claudia’s personal struggle and sacrifice. Claudia’s surname, Paz y Paz, means “Peace and Peace.” It’s as though she was born with the heavy responsibility to fight for peace.

I'm looking forward to what appears to be a terrific film. Go check out the interview. I particularly appreciate Joey's closing comments.

Lawyers targeted in Guatemala

Louisa Reynolds provides some background on last week's apparent assassination of Guatemalan lawyer Francisco Palomo Tejada with 26 lawyers have been murdered in Guatemala in the past 3 years. Palomo was one of Efrain Rios Montt's lawyers for the recent genocide trial, but he has also been connected to a number of other high profile cases in recent years.

    Preliminary police reports state that Palomo’s murder was a hit, although the motives are still unclear. The fact that the murder occurred in the aftermath of a massive customs fraud scandal that has led to six consecutive weeks of nationwide demonstrations against the Pérez Molina administration has led to speculation that the killing could exacerbate the current climate of political instability.

    “This could have a deep impact on the middle-class protesters who have taken to the streets in recent weeks. People might see this as the beginning of a wave of selective repression and it could inhibit protest,” says Edgar Gutiérrez, director of the Institute for Addressing National Problems at the University of San Carlos.

    It is also unclear whether Palomo’s murder could have an impact on Ríos Montt’s retrial, which was scheduled for Jan. 5 but suspended after his defense team accused the presiding judge of bias. Although a new judge was appointed, no date has been set for the retrial.

    “Palomo specialized in technical procedures. What his [Ríos Montt’s] defense lawyers did was obstruct the case rather than defend him. It’s a very complicated case that’s moving at a snail’s pace. I’m not sure what impact it [Palomo’s murder] could have,” Gutiérrez said.

As of late last week, authorities were investigating three possible lines of investigation into Palomo's murder. The principal hypothesis is that we was killed because of a case that he was working on. However, the case is believed to be relatively low-profile. The murder comes during a brief uptick in the country's overall homicide rates as well as reasonable and questionable protests.


There's a good chance that authorities will find those responsible for the shooting death of Palomo. As I've said before, the MP's office has gotten pretty good at solving high-profile murders through the use of ballistics and video. Not perfect, but better.

Who benefits from the Patriotic Party's self-destruction?

For the last few weeks, Guatemalans have taken to the streets to protect gross corruption in their country, especially as demonstrated by the Otto Perez Molina administration. There's a strong sentiment that the protesters want him gone. However, that's not absolute. There's strong sentiment that they do not want Manuel Baldizon to be the next elected official to plunder the country's financial reserves, although I would imagine that the LIDER supporters are not on board with this. After that, there's some who are pushing for deeper reforms rather than a reshuffling of the deck chairs.


With an eye towards September's national elections, it's unclear what political party is going to be able to capitalize on the anti-corruption sentiment. The main opposition party, LIDER, has been holding hands with the Patriotic Party for the last few months. It's tough to see LIDER and Baldizon benefiting from the corruption scandals given that Baldizon himself, rightly or wrongly, seems to be associated with corruption. As the favorite, however, anything that hurt the PP should help LIDER to a certain.


To my surprise, UNE still exists as a political party. I thought that the fiasco surrounding Sandra Torres' run for the presidency in 2011 would doom the party. However, she now has to be one of the favorites to advance to a runoff later this year. While El Periodico had claimed her husband's administration's legacy to the people of Guatemala would be corruption, we haven't seen any hammers fall on the Colom's or their party since Alvaro left office. She remains popular because of various social programs that she oversaw as first lady. The PP's self-destruction definitely helped UNE, but I'm not sure that the party will be able to build on the anti-corruption sentiments.


One political grouping that hopes to build upon the rejection of Otto Perez Molina and the political establishment is the Frente Amplio Winaq-URNG. The Frente Amplio recently chose its presidential and vice-presidential candidates for September with Miguel Ángel Sandoval and Mario Gerardo Ellington Lambe. Sandoval is a familiar face. The political groupings on the left have failed to capitalize on citizen frustration with corruption and conflicts over mining and natural resource projects in the past. They were never able to build upon the pink tide sentiment of the last decade either. They have not benefited electorally from the calls for transitional justice.


They might be able to capitalize on the anti-corruption sentiment this year. A handful of analysts with whom I have spoken have voter for the URNG in the past as a protest vote. Perhaps more Guatemalans will do so this year. However, that probably means their binomial will capture between 5-10% of the total vote and 5-9 congressional seats. Minimal but better than previous showings.


The URNG (one of the Frente Amplio members) arguably has had one of the strongest political parties in the countries in terms of a clearly defined ideology political platform and regular departmental and national meetings. However, they don't have the resources to compete against the other political parties.

Prensa Libre

Guatemalans have come to expect food and other handouts at political rallies and for their vote. The URNG generally has not been able to afford such enticements. In the photo above, Baldizon's LIDER party raffled off bicycles and a motorcycle at one of their campaign events this weekend. They encouraged everyone to stay to the end of the rally as they were giving food away afterwards. Will greater numbers of Guatemalans reject this type of politics in 2015?


Perhaps the anti-corruption sentiment will help the Frente Amplio this year. 

Another day, another resignation in Guatemala

Another day, another resignation.

    The general secretary of the Presidency resigned Tuesday, leaving the President Otto Perez Molina without much support after a series of forced resignations and arrests of state officials caught up in a corruption scandal.

    Gustavo Martinez explained that his decision was linked to the allegations made against him in the media in recent weeks, which he said was unnecessarily eroding executive power.

    “Here, one should not cling to public positions,” said the state official, emphasizing that the case of Perez Molina was different since he was elected by the people.

    Various national media have been reporting properties and real estates that Martinez obtained in dubious circumstances during his mandate – allegations he always denied.

Unexplained wealth? Properties one should not be able to afford on a government salary?


I'm sorry. I thought that they were talking about President Otto Perez Molina. From what I contributed to Freedom House's report last year:

    Despite efforts to combat corruption, serious problems remain. Vice President Baldetti has been linked to several high-profile scandals and has purchased expensive homes with unexplained wealth. President Pérez has also been linked to unexplained wealth, including a luxury property in Zaragoza.

Perez Molina was one of the reasons why CICIG was created in the first place. We all know how this is going to end. 

How corrupt was Hernandez's campaign?

RAJ tries to get to the bottom of the claim that Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez admitted that his party's last electoral campaign was funded by proceeds from a corruption scandal involving the Honduran Institute of Social Security (IHSS) with "If" Makes All the Difference: Hernández on the Corruption Scandal.

    For JOH, protests against generalized "corruption" are fine, because he has nothing to do with it. But when the call is for him to step down-- well, that's quite another thing: you must be on the side of organized crime.

    Reuters reported the part of Hernández statements that speaks to the over-arching narrative being constructed about corruption and protest in Central America, in which Guatemala and Honduras are merged. But each country has its own issues, and what gets left out from original coverage is where we find the traces of real politics.

    It may be reassuring to suggest that the president of Honduras has admitted his party did something wrong, and has directed it be corrected. But that doesn't seem to actually be what has happened; holding himself above the fray, Juan Orlando Hernández minimized the depth of corruption, and managed to use the opportunity to continue to undermine political rivals within and outside his own party.

It doesn't sound as if Hernandez is taking responsibility for what people are saying he is taking responsibility for. And I was going to link to the article before I even noticed that RAJ linked to my post from Monday.

Nicaraguan Canal Plan Riles Landholders

John Otis has a good article on Nicaragua's building of a new canal to compete with that of Panama for the Wall Street Journal with Nicaraguan Canal Plan Riles Landholders: Sandinista push to build Chinese-led shipping route across country sparks concerns over property rights. Everybody is trying to use the 1980s land reforms to frame their preferred narrative.

    Still, for many here, the expropriation plan recalls one of the most contentious policies of the Sandinista revolution that toppled U.S.-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.

    Mr. Ortega’s government back then ordered the confiscation of coffee groves, cattle ranches and other properties belonging to Somoza and his cronies. Under an agrarian reform, the government handed out more than 1.5 million acres to peasant farmers. But the Sandinistas also helped themselves to properties belonging to opposition leaders, people who had fled the country or simply those with choice farms.

    Michael Healy Lacayo recalled how the Sandinistas expropriated his family’s 600-acre sugar cane plantation in 1980 for having supplied a mill owned by Somoza. The family eventually recovered the farm, but Mr. Healy said such arbitrary decisions turned many against the Sandinistas.

    “We are worried because we remember the 1980s,” said Mr. Healy, now president of the Nicaraguan Farmers Union, the country’s largest agro-industry group. “It opens a lot of old wounds.”

One paragraph stood out more than the others:

    Octavio Ortega, who has been organizing anticanal protests around the country, said many landowners distrust the project because it has been shrouded in secrecy. He said it was cynical for the developers to base their offers on the assessed tax value, knowing that many property owners lowball this figure to reduce their tax burden.

This sounds so much like the 1952 Agrarian Reform Law in Guatemala. Arbenz and the Guatemalan government offered to compensate landowners for the assessed values of their land. They pretty much said that they were lying about the lands' real value and that they should be paid ten times more. The rest is history.


Nicaragua is all about family relationships. Octavio Ortega is probably not related to President Daniel but I'm not sure about which "Lacayo" to which Michael Healy Lacayo is connected.

That's right, 635 May homicides in tiny El Salvador

One year into President Salvador Sanchez Ceren's term, the country's security situation worsens. In May, 635 Salvadorans were murdered, an average of 20.5 per day.

    Most of the killings came during turf battles involving gang members mixed up in drug trafficking and extortion rackets, officials said Tuesday. Authorities described a deliberate attempt by criminal organizations to ramp up violence as a means of pressure.

    Justice Minister Benito Lara also blamed gang reaction to recent transfers of 2,600 jailed gang members, including a number of capos who were sent to a maximum-security prison and lost many benefits they had previously enjoyed in other lock-ups.

    National police director Mauricio Ramirez Landaverde said 60 percent of the victims were criminals killed by rival gangs or by colleagues in the same criminal group.

Unfortunately, June has started off even worse with 38 deaths on June 1. The year end rate is likely to be much worse than that estimated after the first four months of the year.


In other news, Gains in Education and Poverty Reduction Continue During Salvadoran President's First Year in Office and Salvadoran President Emphasizes Social Gains in 1st Year Speech. These are real improvements, if true, but hard to see how they are going to be sustainable amidst the current violence.


El Salvador has also signed onto a multilateral convention to fight tax evasion.


Fortunately, the economy looks to be growing again. Sanchez Ceren envisions growth to arrive at 2.5% in 2015 which is still rather poor even if it is better than it has been the last few years.


I'm going to be in El Salvador for two weeks in July. Shoot me an email if you are interested in meeting up.

Why is the US giving Central America any money at all?

Here's Dana Frank writing about Honduras in Al Jazeera America

    Since 2009, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández has helped depose a democratically elected president in a military coup, ousted part of the country’s Supreme Court and facilitated the illegal appointment of Honduras’ sitting attorney general. He's jettisoned the Honduran constitution through militarized policing, helped abolish presidential term limits and he even pushed through Congress a law that says that the Honduran constitution doesn't apply in new, privately-run “model cities.”

    Yet the Barack Obama administration continues to champion Hernández as a key regional partner and wants to send even more money to shore up his regime. Just how heinous should Honduras have to be before the U.S. stops supporting it?

And now Mary Anastasia O'Grady writing about El Salvador in the Wall Street Journal

    This case exposes the deliberate destruction of the rule of law. In 2000 The Wall Street Journal/Heritage Index of Economic Freedom ranked El Salvador the ninth freest economy in the world. It now sits at 62. Last week the U.N.’s Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean said that in 2014 El Salvador received a piddling 3% of all foreign direct investment to Central America.

    Nevertheless, Washington hasn’t stopped flooding Salvador with foreign aid. As part of Vice President Joe Biden’s $1 billion Central America aid initiative, the State Department has requested $119 million for development assistance for El Salvador for fiscal year 2016. This doesn’t include spending on security. The new MCC infusion raised its commitments to El Salvador in the last seven years to more than $700 million.

    This is only a spit in the U.S. government-budget ocean of almost $4 trillion. But it’s a lot of money for revolutionaries in a small country who have the goal of using the state’s monopoly power to dismantle democracy.

    Ms. McCue did not answer either of my requests for comment since January. Mr. Craner, who is no longer on the MCC board, told me in an email in January that he stands by his defense of El Salvador’s rule of law but that he did not know about the high-profile CEL-Enel case. He said he would “research” it. Last week he told me in an email that he now thinks the MCC should rethink its support.

    That’s cold comfort for the victims of the FMLN repression that the U.S. is underwriting.

Christine Wade and I tried to publish an op-ed on our Central American partners in July 2014 but it didn't get anywhere. Now's as good a time as any to publish it here.


Unaccompanied Minors Crisis Makes for Strange Bedfellows


On Friday President Barack Obama met with three people who would probably not have been invited to the White House under many other conditions. A retired general, a businessman, and former guerrilla commander, presidents of the three Central American countries at the heart of the border crisis, met with the US president to discuss the recent surge of unaccompanied minors and families on the US southern border. The divergent backgrounds of the four men demonstrate the difficulties that lie ahead for our countries as we seek long-term solutions to our shared challenges.


Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina is a retired general who has been linked to human rights violations during the Guatemalan civil war. A witness implicated him in crimes against humanity and genocide during last year's Efraín Rios Montt trial in Guatemala. Perez has advocated for drug decriminalization in some form, which has put him at odds with the White House. Perez, on the other hand, has been critical of the US government for not providing Guatemala with sufficient resources to fight the drug war and organized crime due to congressional restrictions on military assistance to the country in place since the Cold War.


Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who skipped previous high-level meetings to attend the World Cup in Brazil, also attended the White House meeting. Honduras is considered one of the US' most awkward allies. Hernandez has probably been the most outspoken president with regards to the US' contribution to the border crisis, emphasizing the critical role that the US appetite for drugs has played in Central America's crisis. While true, that argument distracts from Honduran and regional elites’ failures to root out corruption, strengthen democracy, and invest in their people.


The 2009 coup carried out by the right-wing in Honduras, including the current president, greatly opened the country to drug trafficking and organized crime. Though violence was increasing in the years prior to the coup, it is the failure on the part of current Honduran political and economic actors that have made Honduras the deadliest country on Earth.


Finally, President of El Salvador and former FMLN guerrilla  Salvador Sanchez Cerén will be attending - the most remarkable of visits. Sanchez Cerén and the FMLN fought against US-backed governments for over a decade in the 1970s and 1980s before becoming a political party following the country’s 1992 peace accords. The Salvadoran government is frustrated with the never-ending conditions emerging from Washington for the country to continue receiving economic and security assistance.


While the US and Salvadoran governments might have more reservations about engaging with each other than the other two countries, President Obama has bet his Central American policy on El Salvador in recent years - a second Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact, the Partnership for Growth Program, and a presidential visit. The US might not want to engage with the FMLN and the FMLN and Salvador Sanchez Cerén might prefer to work with other leftist governments in the region, but strong historic, people-to-people, and economic ties compel the two to work together.


The US government is allegedly discussing a proposal to provide refugee status to young people from Honduras and then, perhaps, to young people from the other countries. While all three countries suffer from high rates of criminal violence, Honduras' murder rate is approximately double its neighbors. While it might make sense to start with Honduras, President Perez has already stated that that the three Presidents perceive the problem (and solution) to be the same for all three countries, suggesting a coordinated strategy among the three presidents.


Still, there was some indication that presidents would push for consideration of individual issues. Guatemalan President Perez has stated that he intends to broach the subject of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Guatemalans living in the US once again, a status extended to eligible Hondurans following Hurricane Mitch and more than 200,000 Salvadorans following two 2001 earthquakes.


President Obama's decision to meet with these three leaders is a recognition of the shared interests / challenges that exist regardless of the ideological backgrounds of the region's leaders and governments. In fact, these divergent perspectives may be key to crafting a solution to the crisis.


While there is a pressing need to resolve the immediate humanitarian crisis, there must also be discussion of long-term solutions to deal with the causes of violence in Central America. That means that the region’s leaders must address not only poverty and inequality, but corruption and impunity as well. It also means that President Obama needs to take a long, hard look at the failed “War on Drugs” and the havoc that it has wreaked throughout the region. With a crisis as complex as the backgrounds of those tasked with solving it, don’t expect easy solutions to be forthcoming.

Postulator of Oscar Romero's beatification cause under investigation for embezzlement

The postulator of Archbishop Oscar Romero's beatification and canonization cause, Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, is now under investigation by Italian officials for embezzlement.

    In 2011, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia reportedly bought a 14th century castle with the intention of reselling it for a profit, according to catholicphilly.com, which adds that diocesan funds may have been used.

    Paglia, who heads the Pontifical Council for the Family, said in a statement he remains "at the disposition of the investigating authorities and I have full confidence in the justice system."

    Investigators are looking into the sale of the castle and allegations of possible conspiracy and fraud.

There doesn't appear to be any impropriety connected with Romero's cause but Salvadorans can't catch a break. Fortunately (?), the news didn't break prior to last weekend's ceremony in San Salvador.


Tim and John have posted posted some thoughts on Romero's beatification in recent days while Super Martyrio has the Romero Beatification Compendium available on his website. Michael Busch also shares some thoughts with Remembering Romero.

Either way, you're out. Get out! Go on. Let's go.

Listen, if you didn't know you're bein' scammed, you're too fuckin' dumb to keep this job. If you did know, you were in on it. Either way, you're out. Get out! Go on. Let's go.

Ace Rothstein in Casino

Another protest is scheduled for Saturday in Guatemala demanding, among other things, the resignation of President Otto Perez Molina. The President has given no indication that he is ready to step down and clearly hopes that the removal of VP Baldetti and other high-level functionaries will ease tensions.

In the meantime, authorities raided fourteen properties linked to Baldetti. The Vice President has been accused of growing fabulously wealthy during her political career so let's see what authorities come up with. In what can't be welcome news for President Perez, the Attorney General's Office has requested that the Supreme Court strip his political immunity from prosecution.

How many people turn out for Saturday's protests and whether the Supreme Court's lifts Perez Molina's immunity from prosecution will no doubt go a long way towards determining whether he survives in office until January. I'm assuming the "organizers" are hoping for more than the 60,000 or so that turned out a few weeks ago, although they would be happy with similar numbers.

Here are other Guatemala-related reports to browse this weekend:

Guatemala Update: Corruption Scandals Hit Executive Office in an Election Year - nice overview

Protests in Guatemala, food prices and the Eurovision song contest - very good interview with WOLA's Adriana Beltran

Guatemala President Resignation Scandal Sees Thousands Of Protesters Demonstrate Against Corruption

Moody's changes Guatemala's outlook to negative - I understand the downgrade in the short-term but I am hoping the scandals make things better in the medium-to-long term

Guatemala Central Bank Head Indicted as Crisis Deepens - when uncovering corruption is worse than just letting it go unnoticed?

Don’t Throw Guatemala’s Baby Out with the Corruption Bathwater - if the baby is the political system, yes, please throw it out.

El Salvador approaches 600 homicides in May - 328 murders in NYC all of last year.

Kevin Baker recently published a fascinating story on 'Welcome to Fear City' – the inside story of New York's civil war, 40 years on for The Guardian.

Crime, and violent crime, had been increasing rapidly for years. The number of murders in the city had more than doubled over the past decade, from 681 in 1965 to 1,690 in 1975. Car thefts and assaults had also more than doubled in the same period, rapes and burglaries had more than tripled, while robberies had gone up an astonishing tenfold.

It’s difficult to convey just how precarious, and paranoid, life in New York felt around that time. Signs everywhere warned you to mind your valuables, and to keep neck chains or other jewellery tucked away while on the subway. You became alert to where anyone else might be in relation to you, augmented by quick looks over your shoulder that came to seem entirely natural.

I was born in 1974 in Queens so I don't exactly remember the rock bottom that Baker describes (at least I think that it was the rock bottom but not exactly by looking at the murder rate) but it is rather amazing the turnaround that New York has experienced in my lifetime. Depending upon what part of town you were driving through and what time of day you were traveling determined whether red lights and stop signs became optional.

"NYC murders" by Rooster of Doom - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NYC_murders.PNG#/media/File:NYC_murders.PNG

I don't believe that policing reforms adopted in the 1990s were the only cause of New York's rebound but I wouldn't be so quick to throw them out when looking to potential reforms that the countries of Northern Triangle could adopt.

Quartz

We need to somehow separate Giuliani the politician and shady consultant from broken windows policing. Here is what Mike Jenkins and I wrote in March.

Like zero tolerance approaches, broken windows policing is no substitute for equitable economic growth, good governance, criminal justice reform and increased spending on social programs. But it can serve as one avenue for preventing disorderly conditions from giving rise to more crime. Any police department hoping to use broken windows policing to create safer neighborhoods should be mindful of these challenges. However, this apprehension should not preclude the use of such proven policing methods. Latin American cities can benefit from broken windows policing, but only if they also integrate the lessons learned from its application in the U.S.

El Salvador will approach 600 homicides in May 2015. There were 328 murders in New York City all of last year.

The new center in Latin America?

Greg Weeks has a post on The left and political pragmatism in Latin America with the new Latin America Goes Global initiative.

Insisting on continued use of “pink tide” imagery has the effect of skewing expectations. Analysts are surprised or disappointed when candidates campaign on the left and govern from the center, instead of viewing it as the norm which is more accurate. U.S. policy makers unnecessarily come to the conclusion that candidates would be automatic adversaries if elected. It also advances the erroneous argument that U.S.-Latin American relations are in crisis. We’d produce better analyses and better policy if we recognize the growing centrism.

Here is the description for Chris Sabatini and others' new project.

LatinAmericanGoesGlobal provides analysis and opinions from leading scholars written and packaged for policy impact and popular debate. Our goal is to offer readers and media regular, evidence-based and research-driven analysis and opinion in key areas such as democracy and human rights, international economics, social inclusion, crime and violence, and foreign affairs.

Be sure to add them to your news sources for Latin America.

"We shouldn't teach this, because no one knows it"

@RaulAReyes argues that Oscar Romero's beatification is Pope Francis' powerful signal to the poor. It's good. I got a kick out of this quote:

It is unfortunate that many Americans have probably never heard of Romero. Like Mahatma Gandhi and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he was a believer in nonviolence and the innate dignity of all people. Sadly, just like Gandhi and King, Romero died a violent death. A champion of the poor, Romero was shot and killed while celebrating Mass in a hospital chapel 35 years ago. He was 62.

Well, we all know who is responsible for the failure of US citizens to know Oscar Romero's story.

The Daily Show

Daily Show Full Episodes,  More Daily Show Videos,  Comedy Central Full Episodes

The Texas Board of Curriculum.

"He did a lot, he stole a lot."

Today was the first day of summer vacation. Grades had to be submitted by 3pm yesterday afternoon. That's right, Memorial Day. Fortunately, I entered my final grades Sunday night so I got to enjoy the parade and pool on Monday. On day one of summer vacation, I spent an hour and a half in a College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Meeting, three hours completing half of my CITI training so that I am qualified to carry out interviews in San Salvador this summer (just nine more modules to go!), and then some time wishing farewell to some colleagues who will be missed. We have 42 staff members retiring at the end of the week, which is pretty large for an institution our size, and are not sure how many will be replaced.

So here are a few articles from Panama and Nicaragua to get you going today. The Los Angeles Times has In Panama, corruption inquiries grow after president's tenure ends and NPR has Accusations Pile Up Against Panama's Former President. The LA Times article is more extensive and worth a quick look.

Like many, Barria initially supported Martinelli, who won election with 60% of the vote, and thought that because he was already so rich that he would not be tempted to stick his hand into the till. Wrong, Barria and others have now concluded; politics was big business for Martinelli, these critics say.

Martinelli also stacked the courts and other key government institutions in a bid to shield himself from scrutiny and change the constitution to allow him to run for reelection. Although his attempt to make it possible to run for reelection failed, he did handpick his party's candidate, who lost to Juan Carlos Varela, the president now pushing for many of the corruption inquiries.

I guess one of the differences between Martinelli and Guatemala's Perez Molina is that in Martinelli's case, "He did a lot, he stole a lot." There's not much to look at with regards to Perez Molina. The economy continues to grow at ~3.5% per year and the murder rate continues to decline, but he has squandered what I thought was a good opportunity when elected.

And then there is Nicaragua's first lady is a powerful partner of president from the LA Times.

Once a revolutionary poet of modest success, Murillo today is Nicaragua's most powerful woman and, in the opinion of many, essentially a co-president with her husband. The arrangement, opponents say, allows the first couple to consolidate power and wealth and rule the country like a personal fiefdom.

Like Martinelli, the Ortega's get some pass because of economic growth and low rates of violence. However, like Martinelli, that might not last forever.

The killing of Archbishop Oscar Romero...Was the CIA to blame?

Tom Gibb has a report on the killing of Monsenor Romero in The Guardian with The killing of Archbishop Oscar Romero was one of the most notorious crimes of the cold war. Was the CIA to blame?

However, new evidence suggests that Washington not only knew far more about the killing than it admitted - but also did nothing to investigate for fear of jeopardising its war effort. Vital evidence was ignored. Key witnesses, including the most likely gunman, were killed by those supposed to be investigating.

Seven years and 50,000 deaths after Romero's murder, I was feeling out of my depth as a novice reporter sitting on a park bench talking to a young deserter from Major D'Aubuisson's death squads who called himself Jorge. In 1984, he told me, he had guarded a safe house for three former guerrillas nicknamed the Little Angels. They spent their days with prostitutes, smoking marijuana and playing rock music at full volume. At night, they sallied out to capture and kill their former rebel comrades.

The men received orders from a National Police detective, Oscar Perez Linares, who came to the house. A man of few words, he was treated by the others with the respect reserved for those not afraid to kill. Several times, Jorge heard the others laughing at how Linares had shot Romero. Linares sat with a half-smile. "You should have seen the blood that came from that priest!" was his only comment.

Some of it is new, some not so new. At this point, I honestly sometimes forget what is the most recent knowledge. Close collaboration between death squads "led" by Roberto D'Aubuisson and the Salvadoran military. The US CIA doing a lot of dirty work, often in an "advisory" role. Our CIA helped to establish (not sure the right word - structure? improve?) Salvadoran death squads. The US unable to gain leverage over Salvadoran military units to fight the right way but unable to gather human intelligence the way the Salvadorans did. The right and the left both infiltrated each other's organizations and used information from spies to kill each other.

Here's more from a 2010 interview with one of the accomplices in Romero's death.

Twentieth Century Peacemaker: Archbishop Oscar Romero

Thirty-five years ago, Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated by a right-wing death squad in El Salvador. In February, Pope Francis recognized Romero as a martyr who had been killed “in hatred of the faith.” On Saturday, the Church will beatify the late Archbishop Romero at a ceremony in San Salvador, bringing him one step closer to sainthood. While Catholics and non-Catholics inside and outside of El Salvador have, unofficially, considered Romero a saint for nearly three decades, his beatification gives us another opportunity to reflect on one of the twentieth century’s greatest peacemakers.

Oscar Romero had initially been chosen Archbishop because the Church hierarchy believed that he would not make too many waves in turbulent 1970s El Salvador. While he was a man of deep faith and concern for the poor, he was not one who connected people’s poverty to unjust social, political, and economic structures. Instead, Romero fed the hungry, visited the imprisoned, and called on friends in authority to help struggling Salvadorans. However, the fraudulent 1977 elections, the murders of thousands of poor Salvadorans, and the repression of the Church, including the murder of his friend Fr. Rutilio Grande, S.J., further opened his eyes to the causes of the suffering around him. Romero listened to the cries of the poor. His Tutela Legal office collected testimonies documenting human rights abuses, mostly by the State’s security forces, which he would then share with the entire country during his Sunday homilies. It was one way that he would give voice to the voiceless.

His faith not only led him to speak out against the violence, but to become more involved in actively working to resolve the country’s problems. On October 15, 1979, junior military officers carried out a bloodless coup in hopes of preventing further bloodshed between the armed left and right. The coup plotters had the support of the Jesuit-run University of Central America, technocrats, the Christian Democratic Party, and the Communists. They also had the support of the Archbishop who was not afraid to get his hands dirty in politics.

Romero’s desire to “keep to the center, watchfully, in the traditional way, but seeking justice,” won him few friends among the revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries. There was no consensus among the armed left on how to respond to the coup as its success would derail their revolutionary dreams. These political-military organizations would go on to establish the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) one year later. The far-right, on the other hand, interpreted the coup as playing into the hands of the “communists,” thereby undermining their privileged position in society. They thwarted many of the junta’s reforms and increased repression against the popular sectors. Some of these individuals would go on to establish the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) in 1981.

When the Carter administration sought to provide additional military assistance to El Salvador in hopes that the US and the new government would gain leverage over extreme elements of the military and right-wing, Archbishop Romero wrote President Carter expressing his opinion that such a policy would only worsen the situation. US military support, “rather than favoring greater justice and peace in El Salvador will make injustice and repression against the organization of the people, who have been struggling for the respect of their most fundamental rights, even more acute.” The groups over which the US sought to gain leverage “only know how to oppress the people and favor the interests of the Salvadoran oligarchy.”

On March 23, 1980, Archbishop Romero pleaded with members of the Salvadoran military to stop killing their brothers and sisters. He told them that one must obey the law of God even if it was contradictory to the orders of one’s military superiors. He had sealed his own fate. He was shot and killed while saying Mass the next day. The coup’s failure and Romero’s murder ushered in over a decade of war, costing the lives of over 75,000 Salvadorans.

While there have been calls for canonization since his death, his beatification has only become reality after changes in El Salvador and the Catholic Church. Three Salvadoran ambassadors to the Vatican lobbied against Romero, “arguing that Romero was still a politically divisive figure in El Salvador and that his elevation to the altars could be manipulated by the leftist groups.” Romero’s image often appeared on t-shirts alongside those of Ché Guevara and Salvador Allende, as well as Salvadoran Communist leader Schafik Handal. Through no fault of his own, Romero’s association with these leftist icons did not help his cause. While time has not healed all wounds, the end of the Cold War reduced the political stakes over whether Romero was killed for his politics or his faith. A truth commission identified Roberto D’Aubuisson, one of ARENA’s founders, as the man responsible for ordering Romero’s murder. ARENA occupied the presidency of El Salvador between 1989 and 2009. While El Salvador is still divided politically, ARENA formally supported Romero’s canonization in 2007. The risk that the right would object to a celebration of Romero by turning to violence is lower than at any other time in history.

Two years ago I argued that "the selection of a Latin American Pope might give added hope for the canonisation of the murdered Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador." That certainly seems to have been the case as several stories have since emerged indicating that Pope Francis had unblocked Romero’s canonization in April 2013. However, it appears that Pope Benedict XVI had also decided to unblock the process in 2012. Romero’s beatification was instead held up by conservative Latin American bishops who feared it would embolden the more liberation-oriented wing of the Church in Latin America. Francis’ support for Romero certainly helped, but obstruction in El Salvador and the Americas seems to have been just as important.

For me, Romero’s Catholic faith led him to struggle in favor of the poor and the oppressed. This humble Servant of God’s faith threatened those on the armed left and right who chose violence to further their agenda. And the right killed him for it. Romero’s beatification should provide Catholics and non-Catholics alike with an opportunity to learn more about one of the twentieth century’s greatest peacemakers.

Oscar Romero's beatification: Thirty-five years in the making

On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people will descend upon El Salvador to celebrate the beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero. There's been a lot written about Oscar Romero these last few days but here are a few highlights.

Tommie Sue Montgomery has a post on Oscar Arnulfo Romero Remembered /Recordando el Arzobispo Oscar Arnulfo Romero.

I had the privilege and honour of meeting, interviewing, and getting to know “Monseñor”—as he was affectionately called.  He was one of the moral giants of the late 20th century—up there with Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and other Latin American Catholic bishops who spoke truth to power during the dark years of military dictatorships.  I have never known anyone as humble, as clear in his faith, as courageous and unflinching. 

Carlos Dada of El Faro has The Beatification of Óscar Romero in The New Yorker.

The Church has now declared that Romero was killed because of his faith. Yet the death squads, the military, and the wealthy financiers of his killing all professed to be followers of Christ. Some of them, still alive, are active members of church communities, give lots of money to Catholic conservative organizations, send their kids to Catholic schools, and never miss a Sunday Mass. They say that they have God to thank for all their possessions (never mind their corruption, exploitation of the poor, repression, impunity, and historical position as the effective owners of the state). On religious grounds, they firmly oppose abortion, gay marriage, and birth control. They were not opposed to killing thousands of people who challenged their point of view. And, during the reigns of John Paul and Benedict, they also had leverage in Rome.

Rep. Jim McGovern published Time to Answer Romero's Call to Action in The Huffington Post.

I am hopeful that the power of Romero's message can inspire new activism on behalf of the poor and a better understanding of their plight and struggles -- in El Salvador, the United States and around the world. Romero reminded us, "There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried." With the beatification of Romero, we have an opportunity to renew our commitment and honor his legacy by giving a voice to the poor and neglected in every nation. Now is the time to stand on the right side of history and help those who need it most.

I submitted a post as well and will post it here tomorrow if I don't here back from anyone. In case you can't wait, here are my thoughts from 2010.

Corruption scandal may lead to Otto Perez Molina's ouster

I spoke with David Gagne of Insight Crime on Wednesday afternoon as the most recent corruption scandal was emerging in Guatemala. You can read his take on the developments, as well as a quote from me, in Latest Guatemala Corruption Scandal May End in President's Ouster.

There are likely many factors contributing to the strong public reaction to recent government scandals. But the investigative work of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and the Attorney General's Office was surely the spark that lit the fire. "Obviously, everything began with the CICIG investigation. That was the catalyst," Haering said.

Protesters were also able to organize through social networking sites like Twitter, using the hashtag #RenunciaYa (Resign Now) to build support for their cause, according to Marroquin.

With presidential elections in September, the timing of the scandals also likely played an important role. The prospect of more corrupt politicians being swept into office probably fed popular unrest. "The people view the upcoming elections as more of the same... [They see the elections] as another four year sentence of continued corruption," Marroquin noted.

Indeed, Haering believes the current protests have as much to do with systemic corruption and impunity as with the politicians themselves. "I think all of this discontent is not only directed at Perez Molina... It's more the understanding that this is just one more case of how the system works and that the politicians basically prey on the [state] budget," Haering said.

It looks like everyone that David spoke to was on the same page. You can read more of my thoughts in yesterday's Hey! Where did everybody go?

So what's the over/under on how many people will turn out this weekend to demand President Perez Molina's resignation? Turnout will be a key factor in determining whether Perez Molina will survive in office. That is, until the next corruption scandal emerges.

Hey! Where did everybody go?

El Periodico

President Otto Perez Molina's right-hand men has resigned in Guatemala. Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla submitted his resignation earlier today. Secretary of Strategic Intelligence Ulises Anzueto and Minister of the Environment Michelle Martínez also resigned. There might be more before the end of the day.

I was surprised that Baldetti resigned without formal charges against her. Her resignation might have been a little damage control and a little she couldn't take the pressure. However, thousands of protesters demanded President Otto Perez Molina's resignation as well. He said no; he had no intention of submitting his resignation.

The number of protesters then increased from 20-30,000 to upwards of 60,000. I still thought that Perez might have been able to weather the storm. However, CICIG and Guatemalan prosecutions made several arrests yesterday involving another $100 million+plus fraud ring more closely connected to the president. This time, it was his former private secretary. That did not look good for him. But there's more.

Guatemalans have been frustrated with poor health care services for some time. Yesterday's fraud actually led directly to the deaths of several patients. While one could be outraged at the theft of millions in customs' duties, that involved corrupt businessmen bribing corrupt government officials, stealing from the Social Security Institute and hospitals is much more tangible, in my opinion, and therefore much more likely to lead to the president's ultimate removal.

The noose around Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina tightens

Earlier today, the presidents of the Central Bank (Julio Suarez) and Social Security Institute (Juan de Dios Rodríguez) were arrested by Guatemalan authorities. Over a dozen other officials were arrested including the vice president of the Social Security Institute. The charges range from fraud, conspiracy, insider trading, illegal collection of fees, and active and passive bribery. From Mike McDonald at Bloomberg,

Former Vice President Roxana Baldetti stepped down on May 8 after authorities arrested the country’s tax chief for customs tax fraud and issued a warrant for the arrest of Baldetti’s top aide, accused of leading the scam. Energy and Mining Minister Erick Archila, who had been questioned by Congress over contracts he issued, also resigned last week, alleging blackmail by opposition lawmakers. Both former officials have declared their innocence.

Some 60,000 protesters marched in cities across Guatemala on May 16 to demand the resignation of Perez Molina, who hasn’t been accused of wrong doing. On Monday he vowed to finish out his term, saying “I am going to fulfill the constitutional mandate that the country’s laws establish.”

Otto Perez and his administration have been an unmitigated disaster for the people of Guatemala. It's growing increasingly difficult to see him finishing his four-year term. Your guess is as good as mine as to what happens next.

Former Central American president runs from corruption allegations

Corruption allegations mount against former Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli.

But now Martinelli is being investigated on suspicion of stealing money from a $45-million contract to buy food for schoolchildren as part of a National Action Plan (PAN) against poverty.

- Luxury cars, apartments, yacht -

Investigators also allege corruption on an airport parking lot program and a contract with a tax collection firm.

[President Juan Carlos] Varela says the total stolen during his predecessor's administration is nearly $100 million.

Prosecution documents seen by AFP say that money was used to buy luxury cars, apartments and a yacht.

Several Martinelli allies have already been arrested and it seems only a matter of time before authorities move against Martinelli. In many ways, prosecutors in Panama appear to be pursuing a similar model to that used in Guatemala - go after the small fish before moving on to those at the top of the food chain. While not technically on the run, his whereabouts remain unknown.

His whereabouts are unknown, but he keeps up an active presence on Twitter, where he recently posted a picture of himself with a palm-tree-lined beach in the background, with the caption: "Watching a beautiful sunset with two of my sisters."

He also uses the platform to taunt his successor and former ally, President Juan Carlos Varela, whom he accuses of "politically persecuting" him.

He doesn't seem to be taking the allegations very seriously, arguing instead that it is all a part of a big smear campaign.

Homicides continue to increase in El Salvador

Fred Ramos / For the Washington Post

Joahua Partlow has a depressing story on the increasing violence in El Salvador for the Washington Post with El Salvador is on pace to become the hemisphere’s most deadly nation.

Amid a public outcry and mounting government pressure, El Salvador’s anti-gang police have ratcheted up their operations, killing suspected gang members and arresting more than 4,400 others this year. New laws have made it harder to investigate police violence. The country’s vice president, Oscar Ortiz, has said that police “must use weapons and should do so without fearing consequences for their actions.”

Within police ranks, there is both fear and law-and-order bravado, an edgy, confrontational climate that human rights groups say evokes memories of the brutal 1980s civil war.

His update on events in El Salvador made me think of an op-ed I wrote for Al Jazeera three years ago (A second chance for President Funes in El Salvador) in which I argued that the Salvadoran government deserved credit for supporting the gang truce, but that it must reform its own approach to the 'problem'.

Funes and his government deserve credit for supporting the truce and for reaching out to national and international businesses and organisations for support. Unfortunately, it does not appear that the Funes administration has used the truce to restart its basic approach to poor and marginalised youth. It's not clear that they have made a commitment to scale back the Mano Dura policies of recent years that contributed to this violence.

The government and its security forces need to stop seeing every young person as a gang member or a potential gang member. According to some gang members, the truce has been difficult to sustain because some police officers have been arresting and beating gang members just "for fun". In the months following the truce, the police have continued to round up suspected gang members - even though it is unclear what crimes they had committed other than being a gang member. Imprisoning Salvadoran youth because of their tattoos and general appearance rather than their behaviour contributed to an escalation of violence and needs to stop.

It was not too long ago that General David Munguia Payes said that the Salvadoran government has a "Plan B" which is more direct against the problem, although he would not go into details. If Plan B is some super super Mano Dura, the Funes administration will have learned nothing.

For the truce to hold, it'll take more than a change of heart by gang members. The Funes administration needs to recommit itself to a comprehensive anti-gang strategy that emphasises prevention, reintegration and rehabilitation. It also needs to reform the country's public security institutions away from a Mano Dura approach to societal ills.

Guatemalans continue to demand reform

Nic Wirtz has a good update on developments in Guatemala at Americas Quarterly.

Baldetti was stripped of immunity from prosecution and now faces an investigation into her possible role in Caso SAT. Although wiretaps presented by the Comisión Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala—CICIG) reportedly contained references to “The Lady”, “2” (meaning the second in charge) and “R” (possibly referring to the "R" in Baldetti’s first name), she faces more difficult questions about her possible complicity in helping Monzón escape Guatemala just before investigators swooped in to arrest him. He has still not been found. However, opposition political party Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (National Unity of Hope—UNE) claims to have evidence that Monzón has twice returned to his home country to discuss the case with political allies, despite the fact he remains on Interpol’s wanted list.

I didn't realize that Baldetti had been sidelined during Vice President Joe Biden's recent visit to Guatemala and that she headed various corruption investigative bodies.

If Baldetti is charged with fraud or found to be complicit in Monzón’s flight from authorities, it would be a classic case of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, given that she headed offices that investigated governmental corruption. These included La Comisión Nacional para la Prevención y Combate de la Defraudación Aduanera y el Contrabando (The Commission for the Prevention and Combat of Customs Defrauding and Contraband—CONACON) and La Comisión Presidencial de Coordinación de los Esfuerzos contra el Lavado de Dinero y Otros Activos y del Financiamiento del Terrorismo en Guatemala (The Presidential Commission to Coordinate Forces against Money Laundering and Other Activities and the Financing of Terrorism in Guatemala).

What's next? Hard to say. Thousands of Guatemalans took to the streets to protest government corruption once again on Saturday. They are not satisfied with Roxana Baldetti's resignation.

I'd say that Baldetti's political career is over, but if Alfonso Portillo can come back from pleading guilty to corruption charges in the US, that might not be the case. The PP? It's again hard to how the party survives past this election. They lost their presidential candidate and the party's support has plummeted. Unfortunately, one of the things that they have going for themselves is their competition - Baldizon and Torres? I asked Nic who the cleanish candidates Guatemalans might be able to get behind in September's elections and he came up with Nineth Montenegro and Juan Gutierrez.

I had hopes that the PP (and UNE) might break the pattern of weak parties in Guatemala (a center-right and center-left option), but it's not clear that it was ever that strong - they simply bought party lists throughout the country like every other party and given the corruption and involvement of former military officials within the party from the start, it's also a good thing if they are done.

From anti-communist youth leader to the vice presidency in Guatemala

From the list of three names that President Otto Perez Molina selected to replaced former Vice President Roxana Baldetti, the Guatemalan Congress selected Alejandro Maldonado Aguirre, a constitutional judge who previously served as cabinet minister (1970s), ambassador (1990s) and congressman (1960s and 2000s). Maldonado had also run twice for the position of vice president in the past. Apparently, his first visit to the Presidential Palace occurred in 1954 as a youth anti-communist leader.

Maldonado said he was accepting the position "with the conviction that I must serve, do everything I can so that the government works within Guatemalan institutions."

Some compared the selection of Maldonado to plucking a sitting Supreme Court justice to serve as vice president in the United States. It's somewhat comparable, however, Constitutional and Supreme Court justices do not serve life sentences as they do on the US Supreme Court. While some might like the Courts to be apolitical institutions, that's not the way that they work.

However, given that Maldonado is coming from the Constitutional Court, that means he has been involved in several controversial decisions of the last several years, including the 2013 verdict that overturned the Efrain Rios Montt genocide conviction, validating corrupt appellate and Supreme Court selections, reducing the minimum salary, shortening Claudia Paz y Paz's term as attorney general, and preventing the implementation of a telephone tax.

According to some Nomada reporting, PP-Líder and their CACIF allies convinced CREO and Todos to support the longtime but surprisingly "not dirty" candidate. One of the vice president's first acts was to say that he would not make his finances public. He would only provide them to the Public Ministry and CICIG.

I'm not sure that's going to satisfy the protesters in Guatemala, nor should it.

DW interview with Plaza Publica editor in chief

Deutsche Welle has an interview with Plaza Publica's Editor in Chief, Alejandra Gutiérrez, which touches on a variety of issues, ranging from corruption to civil war era crimes to operating in such a dangerous environment.

Is corruption something covered by other media?

Actually, many of the media in Guatemala have been covering such cases in recent years, and corruption in general is a topic that's widely reported on. But a lot of media are overly quick to draw conclusions or they spread misinformation. And the coverage rarely addresses structural weaknesses in the system or ties between economic and political powers - issues that are creating conflict in our society -for example, when big companies pay for political campaigns, or political favors are exchanged in the context of big projects in the mining industry. These are the issues we try to focus on. We want to inform, grow debate and shed light on topics that are in the shadows. You need a lot of passion for this kind of work, and patience too.

I made this argument a year or two ago, at least part of it. It's not that Prensa Libre, El Periodico, Siglo XXI, and La Hora don't cover corruption cases. However, there is a reluctance on the part of some sources to go too far in their research because of the demands of writing for a daily, the threat of violence, lack of financial support for in-depth reporting, and financial dependence on political and economic elites who might be connected to the target of the investigation.

You can read the entire English-language interview here.

Baldizon leads in run up to September elections

Writing for Bloomberg, Michael McDonald takes a look at recent developments in Guatemala with an eye on the country's presidential elections scheduled for September.

Four months before the vote, a poll released last week by Guatemalan firm ProDatos showed Baldizon leading the field with 30 percent. Former first lady Sandra Torres and Sinibaldi were tied for second with 14.7 percent each. The survey of 1,200 people had a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.

Guatemala’s next president will oversee a government that has struggled to boost tax revenue that is already one of the lowest in Latin America as a share of gross domestic product and projected to fall further. Fraud and the smuggling of goods costs the government the equivalent of 3.6 percent of GDP, according to Raquel Zelaya, director of Guatemalan think tank ASIES.

“Tax collection morale is as low as the ground,” she said.

Baldizon’s move to name former central bank President Edgar Barquin as his running mate is a positive sign to investors, said Grais-Targow.

“Guatemala has very well-run macroeconomic policy and a very strong central bank,” she said. “Those are things that aren’t going to change.”

 Guatemala's criminal justice system and CICIG continue to face an uphill battle.

Spain continues to investigate UCA Jesuit murders

The Spanish Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of a High Court judge's continued investigation into the murders of the Salvadoran Jesuits and their companions. The Supreme Court ruled that reforms made to the country's universal justice doctrine (done so under pressure from China) does not prevent an investigation into the case of the UCA martyrs.

The Supreme Court ruled that because five of the eight victims were Spanish, the investigation can continue. The Court also ruled that the investigation can continue because the Salvadoran government's decision to prosecute low level soldiers in 1991 was done so not in the pursuit of justice, but as part of an effort to deflect attention away from superiors who ordered the killings (somewhat liberal interpretation on my part).

Passed by Congress with the sole support of the Popular Party (PP), part of the text of the new law states that Spain cannot investigate some crimes committed in other countries where judicial proceedings have already been opened unless there are indications that a foreign government cannot or is unwilling to prosecute.

Two retired military officers, Colonel Alfredo Benavides Moreno and Lieutenant Yusshy René Mendoza Vallecillos, were convicted by a Salvadoran jury in 1991 and sentenced to 30 years in prison for the massacre. However, they were both freed under a government amnesty two years later.

In its opinion, Spain’s Supreme Court said that there were “serious and reasonable” indications that the 1991 jury trial was not held to find those responsible for the murder but instead to obstruct justice, “all of it accompanied by the absence of the necessary guarantees of independence and impartiality.”

In other news, Tim has Destructive waves returning to El Salvador and Big business failing to pay taxes in El Salvador and IPS has Talk of Death Squads to Combat New Wave of Gang Violence in El Salvador.

Vice President resigns under dark clouds in Guatemala

Guatemala's Supreme Court ruled that Congress could strip Roxanna Baldetti of her immunity as they investigate her ties to the recent discovery of a $100 million-plus customs fraud case involving her private secretary. Congress then formed a five-person committee to issue a recommendation. The Constitutional Court then upheld the Supreme Court's decision Friday morning.

At the same time, Guatemalan authorities arrested five lawyers who had won bail for their clients after allegedly bribing Judge Marta Sierra Stalling. They are now in the process of having the judge's immunity lifted as well.

The big event of the day, however, was the resignation of Vice President Baldetti. She has yet to be formally accused of any involvement in the corruption scandal but I assume that's only a matter of time. At best, her private secretary oversaw the looting of $100 million from the people of Guatemala right under her nose. I'm not sure anyone can seriously believe that to be the case. She has been connected to unexplained wealth for the entire term.

With a sober expression on his face, Perez Molina said Roxana Baldetti had abandoned her offices in the presidential palace and he was informing congress. He called the decision "brave" and thanked her for her service.

"Her resignation is due to a personal decision with the only interest being to leave her office voluntarily, to submit herself to and cooperate with whatever investigations may be necessary and above all within the due process," Perez Molina said.

Baldetti is the first Guatemalan vice president to step down due to a corruption case, although prosecutors have not implicated her in the scandal and she denies involvement.

Otto Perez Molina has also been connected to unexplained wealth during his years as a congressman and, more recently, as president. Therefore, the scandal is unlikely to end with the vice president's resignation. As I speculated three weeks ago when the scandal broke, "there have to be questions concerning the ability of the president and vice president to serve out the remaining months of their terms."

One question has been answered.

Baldizon's LIDER to determine Roxanna Baldetii's fate

The Guatemalan Congress formed a five-member commission to consider whether Vice President Roxana Baldetti's immunity from prosecution should be revoked in connection with the multi-million dollar customs corruption scandal.

Prosecutors have not implicated her in the case, and President Otto Perez Molina has declined to ask for her resignation.

The congressional commission was formed a day after Guatemala's Supreme Court gave the green light for lawmakers to begin the process of possibly lifting Baldetti's immunity.

Baldetti filed an appeal of the ruling with the Constitutional Court on Thursday.

Several dozen officials and private citizens are suspected of involvement in the alleged bribery scheme, including Baldetti's former personal secretary, Juan Carlos Monzon Rojas, the scheme's purported ringleader who is being sought by police.

While Baldetti has not been charged with any crime, it's clear that she has lost the support of the entire country. Protests calling for her removal continue in the streets of Guatemala and CACIF is now even calling for her removal.

"It would have a positive impact on society (and) it would strengthen democracy in the country," Briz told reporters.

Baldetti should resign

“for the sake of transparency, governability and in defense of democracy and the preservation of institutionally."

The five-member commission is comprised of three members of Manuel Baldizon's LIDER party and one each from CREO and UNE. Congress hopes to have a decision in a week's time, but they have 60 days to make a decision. LIDER also controls 62 of the 105 congressional votes needed to remove Baldetti's immunity. Baldizon, the front-runner to be the country's next president, holds the sitting vice-president's future in his hands.

A CICIG for the Northern Triangle

Fulton Armstrong and Héctor Silva on CICIG: Model for Northern Triangle:

Nonetheless, CICIG is nearly universally seen as providing assistance that all three countries of the “Northern Triangle” of Central America need – to foment rule of law, build confidence in justice, and clean up state institutions – and it has achieved reforms when the political will was sustained.  CICIG’s status as an advisory body in support of the government has enabled it to finesse the legal and political need to fully respect sovereignty.  

Honduran and Salvadoran leaders have made statements suggesting openness to the idea but, apparently for different reasons, don’t want independent investigators upsetting the applecart.  Salvadoran President Sánchez Cerén has less to fear from examination of his administration and his predecessor’s record on impunity and organized crime, but he may be concerned that a CICIG-style unit would dangerously aggravate his opponents, who retain intimidating power through many sectors.  The failure to push for CICIG to realize its full potential in Guatemala and for similar mechanisms in El Salvador and Honduras will only slow the sort of reforms the Northern Triangle needs to overcome its political, social, and economic challenges crises.

CICIG was forced upon Guatemalan politics nearly a decade ago after years and years of criticism from the international community and domestic civil society. There's been no equivalent pressure for Honduras and El Salvador to adopt a similar program. In my opinion, CICIG has done a very good job tackling impunity but much work remains to be done. Reducing impunity from 98% to 85% or so means that conditions are still terrible. What's really impressive about CICIG's work is that they have done it on the cheap. $12 million per year is nothing. That's a terrific return on investment.

Extending CICIG to El Salvador in 2009-2010 would have been ideal. A "international" commission could have provided greater legitimacy for investigations launched into organized crime that were linked to previous administrations. Six years into FMLN rule, I'm not sure that the FMLN would come across that clean and, therefore, would be reluctant to call for the creation of a similar commission in El Salvador.

In Honduras, I called for creating a CICIG-type institution there two years ago. My opinion hasn't changed.

Since it is becoming increasingly unlikely that President Obama will get his $1 billion for the Northern Triangle, let's try to $200 million to have CICIG's in all three countries. That'll cover 5 1/2 years of international commissions operating in each country (or maybe one cross-national body).

Need another reason to visit Antigua?

Just in case you need another reason to visit Antigua, Guatemala, here you go:

Not as charming as it was 20 years ago, but still a great place in the Americas to visit.

Sunday links around Guatemala

Some links from Guatemala this morning.

First, Giovanna Dell'Orto takes on Starving in McMansions: Big homes in poor Guatemala.

There are homes like this throughout Mexico and Central America, experts say. But they are most visible in smaller towns like aldea San Antonio, where so many young men have left for work in the U.S.

Many of these homes essentially are deserted for a variety of reasons ... the construction was never finished, the owners never returned or because they're so different from the homes people here are used to that they're uncomfortable living in them.

The paradoxical strength of Guatemalan migrants' transnational dreams is nowhere more evident than in the clash between these McMansions — often decorated in red, white and blue — and below-subsistence everyday life in largely indigenous areas like Cabricán.

"Especially in the United States, the indigenous (migrants) go to the bottom of the ladder, but then coming back it's the opposite, they're at the top of the village," said Ruth Piedrasanta Herrera, an anthropologist at Guatemala's Universidad Rafael Landívar who has studied the growing "architecture of remittances" phenomenon.

"Here, they are the successful ones, and the social marker is the home. They told me they suffer less because they have a home."

This is a special story but it is nice to see Guatemalan academics from the Rafael Landivar cited in the story.

Second, Hayley Woodin is on Goldcorp’s Marlin mine: a decade of operations and controversy in Guatemala for Business Vancouver.

Despite the widely opposing views, confusion and disagreement, one thing is certain: mining in Guatemala has divided communities along hard lines, with both sides unable to see eye to eye.

Sandra Cuffe investigates Dam protests met with repression in Ixil region of Guatemala.

On April 28, the Guatemalan police force was sent in to evict local community residents blockading a road by Sotzil, approximately 20 kilometers north of Chajul. Directly affected by a tunnel for the Hidro Xacbal Delta dam, Sotzil residents had demanded fair compensation. Several communities in the area have been denouncing the impacts of the four-kilometer diversion tunnel since at least last year. The company failed to make the payments to Sotzil residents and didn’t show up to a scheduled dialogue session with locals, prompting the blockade, according to de León.

Finally, Jared Goyette takes a look at A Guatemalan spring? Youth-driven protests demand resignation of leaders.

News that a massive government corruption scheme involving more than a dozen high-ranking officials had been uncovered in Guatemala last month seemed at the time like just another piece of bad news in a country that has seen more than its fair share of political dysfunction and crisis.

But this case has proved different — the scandal sparked a movement. Last Saturday, a social media-savvy cohort of young Guatemalans was the driving force behind a protest that was larger than any the country had seen in recent memory. Thousands of people, not just students, poured into into the streets of the capital, Guatemala City. Today, crowds are once again expected to march to demand an end to corruption and the resignation of President Otto Pérez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti. The protests have largely been organized on Facebook and on Twitter, where a hashtag for the movement has developed: #RenunciaYaFase2, or “Resign already, phase 2.”

Protecting workers' rights in El Salvador

Lydia DePillis has an interesting article on Why it’s so hard to protect workers caught in global supply chains in the Washington Post that uses El Salvador as an example.

What happened at Rivera’s factory illustrates one of the biggest problems in the global supply chain: How to protect workers in a brutally competitive industry where factories constantly close and open, as brands chase new trends and lower costs, and no one is held accountable for laws broken along the way.

Like most developing countries, El Salvador has no real form of workers compensation, but it does require factory owners to pay people lump sums in the event of a closure — usually about a month of salary for every year worked. That can be the largest amount of money a worker ever sees at one time, and it’s essential to tide them over until they find a new job.

But all too often, the factory owners don’t pay up — it’s a large sum, at a time when the factory is often in financial distress. Liquidating their assets takes a painfully long time, and usually doesn’t yield enough. And left to their own devices, apparel brands have little incentive to force factories to set aside money for future severance payments, since that might increase costs.

Hanes is one of the companies that ponied up when a factory it purchased materials from closed down and the owner of that factory failed to pay the legally required severance to workers. I guess that is one of the reasons why HanesBrands was honored by the Great Place to Work Institute for its workplace practices in its Salvadoran manufacturing plants.

However, it's not all good news. A union activist alleges that the owner that closed the factory did so because its workers had attempted to unionize.

What Should Be Done to Reduce El Salvador's Homicides?

Christine Wade, Ricardo Cevallos, Adam Blackwell, and Douglas Farah contributed answers to the following questions from the Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Advisor:

El Salvador suffered its highest monthly homicide rate in a decade in March, with 481 murders. And since the beginning of the year, 23 police officers and six soldiers were killed in confrontations with gang members in the Central American country. In response to the growing homicide rate in El Salvador, where a gang truce broke down last year, President Salvador Sánchez Céren created three new "rapid response" battalions for the army and one for the police. Why is El Salvador's murder rate increasing? Is Sánchez Céren taking the right steps to reverse it? What more should he be doing?

Here was Christine's answer

"What we see today in El Salvador is a result of the failure of previous administrations to address the legacy of societal violence, invest in education and social programs, and implement reforms that would strengthen the rule of law while respecting human rights and address impunity. While some minor advancements were made in these areas during the Funes administration, the reliance on militarized policing by both the Funes and Sánchez Céren administrations is disappointing but unsurprising given the past dependence of such policies. And while militarized policing may be popular, it is also ineffective and counterproductive—not to mention a violation of the peace accords.

The Sánchez Céren administration needs a comprehensive program to address societal violence, impunity and corruption. This is key because anyone who thinks that the violence in El Salvador is just about gangs is kidding themselves. But a comprehensive program in addressing these issues is the long game, and the escalating gang violence in the country demands a short game as well. Stemming the current wave of violence is not only key to saving lives and building public confidence, but is also necessary to create the political space to engage in dialogue to develop a more comprehensive plan. Last week, the administration introduced a draft gang rehabilitation law. At first glance, it appears to be the most comprehensive and promising policy we've seen on gangs to date. If the draft law becomes a reality, it will require sustained domestic and international support to succeed."

You can read the rest of the answers here.

University of Scranton Teach-In on Torture

On Thursday, Education for Justice will host a Teach-In on Torture during which several University of Scranton faculty will address our office's 2014-2015 annual theme through their disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. The presentation schedule is as follows:

Love, Justice, and Torture (8:30 AM - 9:45 AM) 

• Dr. Cyrus Olsen (Theology)
• Dr. Matt Meyer (Philosophy) 

Enhanced Interrogations and Terror: Historical, Legal, and Psychological Perspectives (10:00 AM - 11:15 AM) 

• Dr. Jessica Nolan (Psychology)
• Dr. Michael Jenkins (Sociology/Criminal Justice)

Beneath the Blindfold (11:45 AM - 12:45 PM)

• Film screening led by Justine Johnson (Director of the Jane Kopas Women’s Center)

Guantanamo and the War on Terror (1:00 PM - 2:15 PM)

• Dr. Harry Dammer (Sociology/Criminal Justice)

Hell House: Scaring the Jesus into You (2:30 PM - 3:45 PM)

• Dr. Hank Willenbrink (English & Theater)

What’s in a Name? Semantics and Torture in the War on Terror (4:00 PM - 5:15 PM)

• Dr. Teresa Grettano (English & Theater)

The day-long event will take place in the PNC auditorium (LSC 133) at the University of Scranton and is free and open to the public. 

God Alone Was With Us: 1981 massacre of Santa Cruz, El Salvador

In November, 1981, during the height of the Salvadoran armed conflict, an estimated 1,200 soldiers invaded the rural northern province of Cabañas, El Salvador, to carry out a “cleansing operation.” Survivors of the invasion, however, tell a story of carnage, in which the armed forces directly targeted the unarmed civilian population, including the elderly and women carrying children, using ground forces and aerial bombardment and resulting in the death of untold numbers of campesinos. In particular, hundreds are estimated to have been killed in the massacre of Santa Cruz, which took place at the site of the schoolhouse in Santa Cruz, in the municipality of Ilobasco, department of Cabañas, on November 14, 1981.

Since 2013, Unfinished Sentences has worked with partners in El Salvador, Spain, and the United States in an effort to understand and document what happened at Santa Cruz. Today we present the report God Alone was with Us, the first comprehensive study of this massacre, along with an 18-minute documentary detailing the events of the massacre and survivors’ renewed fight for truth and justice.

Unfinished Sentences presents God Alone Was With Us: Report and video document 1981 massacre of Santa Cruz.