Guatemala Expels U.N.-Backed Anti-Corruption Panel, Claiming Overreach
MEXICO CITY — The Guatemalan government said Monday that it would expel a United Nations-backed anticorruption panel, giving its prosecutors a day to leave the country in the most decisive effort yet by President Jimmy Morales to remove the body that has been investigating him and other top politicians.
At a news conference in Guatemala City, Mr. Morales, accompanied by members of his cabinet and several people accused in panel investigations or their relatives, defended his expulsion order.
"Cicig has put public security and governability at risk," he said, using the acronym for the panel. "Cicig has repeatedly violated the human rights of Guatemalans and foreigners in Guatemala through selective and partial justice."
Earlier on Monday, Foreign Minister Sandra Jovel accused the panel of interfering in Guatemala's internal affairs, and said the government was withdrawing from an agreement with the United Nations that established the panel more than a decade ago.
The panel's international prosecutors had 24 hours to leave the country, Ms. Jovel said at a news conference at the United Nations, after meeting with António Guterres, its secretary general. Mr. Guterres has publicly expressed support for the panel, called the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala.
The expulsion of the commission, which works alongside Guatemalan prosecutors to bring corruption cases, was immediately challenged in the country's Constitutional Court.
In the 16 months since Mr. Morales first began trying to block the commission's work, the court has consistently ruled in its favor. His decision to summarily end the panel's work sets the stage for a possible constitutional crisis if the court again rules against the government.
In a statement, Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for Mr. Guterres, said that "the secretary general strongly rejects" the decision to end the agreement, and that he "recalls the important contribution of Cicig to the fight against impunity in Guatemala."
Mr. Guterres expects the government of Guatemala to protect the commission's personnel and fulfill its obligations under the agreement, Mr. Dujarric said.
Mr. Morales was not always so hostile to the corruption panel, which played a large role in his election in 2015.
He swept into the presidency as an outsider candidate after the panel's investigations had discredited many of his potential rivals and forced the president, Otto Pérez Molina — accused of leading a customs fraud scheme — to resign.
And after he took office, Mr. Morales promised to work closely with the commission, which under the leadership of Ivan Velásquez, a Colombian prosecutor, had become increasingly effective at peeling back layers of corruption across much of Guatemala's political and business elite.
But the panel's success turned it into the focus of attack. After the panel and the attorney general's office accused Mr. Morales's brother and son in a fraud scheme, the government's relationship with the panel became tense.
When it accused Mr. Morales himself — of campaign finance irregularities — the government began an overt effort to block the panel. The government succeeded in keeping Mr. Velásquez out of the country, but he continued to work remotely.
Last year Mr. Morales announced that he would not renew Cicig's two-year mandate when it expires in September, a decision permitted under the agreement with the United Nations.
But now, rather than let the mandate simply run out, the government has moved to eject the panel ahead of the presidential election in June. Under Guatemalan law, Mr. Morales is not eligible to run for re-election.
There was no immediate comment from the Trump administration, which has cooled the United States' longstanding support for the commission under intense lobbying from the Morales government.
But Representative Norma Torres, a Democrat from California who was born in Guatemala, was quick to condemn the Guatemalan government's decision.
The commission's "abrupt departure would be a major setback for Guatemala's fight against corruption," she said. "Complex cases involving organized crime, drug trafficking, and human smuggling would fall apart. Powerful criminals and corrupt politicians would get away with serious crimes."
American support for Cicig, which includes paying for part of its budget, has been based on the premise that reducing corruption and improving the rule of law would help the broader effort to tackle the poverty and violence that are driving Guatemalans to leave their country in the hope of reaching the United States.
Thousands of destitute families from Guatemala and Honduras have gathered at the United States' southern border in the past few months, many in large caravans that Mr. Trump has called "an invasion," and used to argue for construction of a border wall.
Source: Elisabeth Malkin