To understand Guatemala’s challenges going forward, we must ask questions about the role of the international community.

Grahame Russell writes in Truthout about the challenges facing Guatemala after the victory of Bernardo Arévalo and Karin Herrera in the presidential election. Challenges that include the influence of foreign powers, foe example the US, Canada, the EU, and the World Bank who have continued to stand aside where state corruption and violence is concerned.

On August 20, 2023, the Semilla Party’s Bernardo Arévalo and Karin Herrera were elected president and vice president of Guatemala.

This election will bring a formal end to 69 years of anti-democratic, military-backed, corrupt, “open-for-global-business” governments when the transition of power takes place on January 14, 2024. “The Supreme Electoral Tribunal has recognized the results and what the people have shouted is, ‘No more corruption,’” President-elect Arévalo said in an August 20 press conference.

But Arévalo’s election won’t bring an end to the interests of an alliance of corrupt judges, prosecutors, politicians, and economic and military elites known as the “Covenant of the Corrupt,” who have run the country for decades.

These elites, who now have to vacate the executive branch of government for at least four years, retain considerable control over most branches of the state and most institutions of the government. They dominate all sectors of Guatemala’s exploitative economy.

[…]

Guatemala faces just as many challenges from outside its borders, namely the policies and actions of the United States-led “international community,” including Canada, the European Union, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and countless transnational companies operating in partnership with Covenant of Corrupt elites in the sectors of for-export food production, mining, tourism, hydroelectric dams and maquiladora sweatshop garment production.

To understand these challenges, we must ask important questions about the role and responsibility of the U.S. and international community over the past 69 years of maintaining beneficial political and economic relations with successive military-backed, Covenant of Corrupt governments.

You can read the full article, including links, here, Guatemalans Voted to End 69 Years of Corrupt Rule. Will US, Canada Accept It?

Categories: Accompaniment, Corruption, Criminalisation, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Justice, Presidential Elections, Solidarity in Action

Tags: Bernardo Arévalo, Grahame Russell, Karin Herrera, Movimiento Semilla, Truthout