The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), the Latin America Working Group Education Fund, the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA (GHRC), and the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLf) have, together, presented three reports into the challenges being faced by human rights defenders, and anti-corruption agencies and individuals through the use of lawfare and other means, including physical threats. This has greatly intensified since the closure of CICIG. The three reports provide an excellent outline of the issues facing human rights defenders in the face of state protection of corruption. The reports also list policy recommendations for the US Government.
Under Assault in Guatemala: Journalists & Indigenous & Human Rights Activists
In Guatemala, human rights defenders, independent judges and prosecutors, journalists, and Indigenous leaders are under assault as part of a broader attack on democracy and path towards a kleptocracy. The criminalization and closing of civic space is one of the strategies being used by corrupt networks, the Attorney General’s Office, private actors, members of the military, and political elites to quell disruptions to their power, avoid historic responsibility for crimes committed during the internal armed conflict, and silence voices exposing corruption. It has resulted in severe democratic backsliding, creating a dangerous terrain in which human rights defenders, journalists, Indigenous community leaders, and justice operators receive no State protection and are instead persecuted and criminalized by their own government in complicity with private actors, often to the point of having to flee the country for their lives. The current situation in Guatemala creates serious challenges for U.S. policy and assistance and means that civil society organizations, human rights defenders, Indigenous communities, and journalists are more in need of international protection than ever.
You can read this report here, Under Assault in Guatemala: Journalists & Indigenous & Human Rights Activists.
Guatemala’s Downward Spiral
With the support of the international community, Guatemala was making progress in strengthening the rule of law. Today, rule of law in Guatemala is on a dramatic downward spiral. A handful of corrupt political, military, and economic elites seeking to maintain their privileges at the expense of Guatemala’s Indigenous majority population have captured the state. They have systematically dismantled anti-corruption mechanisms such as UN-led CICIG and the special anti-corruption prosecutors’ office and infiltrated the justice system, starting at the top. Independent media, human rights defenders, and Indigenous leaders have been targeted and civic space restricted. Corruption is pervasive, depriving the population of access to basic public services, and few independent actors remain able to confront it. U.S. policy is also undermined. The United States needs to consider a range of policy tools to counter such a broad challenge to basic democratic values in Guatemala.
You can read this report here, Guatemala’s Downward Spiral.
When the Dominoes Fall: Co-optation of the Justice System in Guatemala
Guatemala’s justice system has been co-opted by a network of corrupt political, economic, and military elites seeking to advance their own interests and to ensure that their acts of corruption and grave human rights violations from the armed conflict remain in impunity, while silencing voices from civil society organizations and independent media. Honest judges and prosecutors have been criminalized, threatened, removed, or transferred from their posts by the very institutions supposed to be advancing the rule of law and justice. Twenty-five judges and prosecutors, including the nation’s lead anti-corruption prosecutor, have fled the country into exile. The impacts of the co-optation of Guatemala’s justice system will set the country back decades.
You can read this report, here When the Dominoes Fall: Co-optation of the Justice System in Guatemala.
The reports were the work of Daniella Burgi-Palomino and Lisa Haugaard, Latin America Working Group Education Fund; Ana María Méndez Dardón, Washington Office on Latin America; Ursula Indacochea, Due Process of Law Foundation; Corie Welch, Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA
Categories: Accompaniment, Corruption, Criminalisation, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Indigenous peoples, Justice, Legal, Report, Solidarity in Action, Violence
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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