Jeff Abbott
A street artist performs in Guatemala City with a Trump effigy in August 2019.
With the progressive left gaining political power in many Latin American countries, the far right has mobilized to bring the Conservative Political Action Conference to the region, gathering far-right voices from across the hemisphere. The first Latin American CPAC was held on November 18 and 19 in Mexico City.
“We have to face an evil that is spreading throughout the world, in our America the entire left is coming to power with policies that are making this planet poorer and more miserable,” René Bolio, the director of the Latin American branch of CPAC, told the Mexican media outlet Sin Embargo in an interview ahead of the conference. “Our freedoms, our families, the issue of life are threatened, and so we have to confront [them].”
Anti-communist, anti-left, anti-abortion, and anti-LGBTQ+ agendas were all major themes of the convention. Yet among the darker aspects of the introduction of CPAC to Latin America is the spread of Christian Nationalism to the hemisphere, according to Gillian Kane of the organization Ipas (Partners for Reproductive Justice).
CPAC Mexico 2022 included speakers from the United States as well, including Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, and Donald Trump’s former Chief Strategist, Steve Bannon, who has since worked to export the far right’s message throughout the hemisphere. Both Cruz and Bannon addressed the meeting via video. Other speakers, including Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei and Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the outgoing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, also chimed in.
Donald Trump spoke in a video message at the conference, celebrating the convergence of far-right conservative groups to “come together to defend God, family, and country.”
The meeting was announced and organized by Mexican actor Eduardo Verastegui, who has echoed anti-vax sentiments and promoted anti-abortion positions. He developed a close relationship with Guatemala’s President Giammattei, with whom he has met on multiple occasions.
The meeting was announced and organized by Mexican actor Eduardo Verastegui, who has echoed anti-vax sentiments and promoted anti-abortion positions.
Giammattei was among the first to address the conference in a video message, where he celebrated his administration’s actions to “defend life,” after he had declared the Central American country the Pro-Life Capital of Iberoamerica. But throughout his address he also touted the far right’s anti-semetic language, suggesting that criticisms of his administration’s political positions were part of a “globalist agenda.”
“Defending life has brought us negative consequences and adversity in multilateral instances that have condemned Guatemala for not adopting legislation that promotes the voluntary termination of life,” Giammattei said in a speech that was also broadcast on the government’s social media channel. “This clearly is the promotion of abortion under the umbrella of a globalist agenda, contrary to our constitution and principles and values.”
He added, “Guatemala is life, my government promotes life, I defend life.”
Giammattei’s message rings hollow, especially as Guatemala has one of the highest rates of childhood malnutrition and one of the highest rates of poverty in the hemisphere.
But most concerning was the propagation of anti-semetic conspiracy theories in his speech. This type of language and similar conspiracies have exploded during the far-right leader’s administration and throughout his government. These terms have regularly appeared whenever the government has come under attack for their regressive policies, and have been used to craft legislation to combat what the far right calls “gender ideology.”
“The globalist agenda has abortion as a ‘banner,’ ” Renzo Rosal, a Guatemalan independent political analyst, tells The Progressive. “I have heard it not only in politics, but I have heard it dangerously among businessmen, I have also heard it [used by] some pseudo religious leaders.”
He adds “The concept of a ‘globalist agenda’ is completely without foundation.”
But the expansion of the CPAC model into Latin America highlights the U.S. far right’s outreach in the region. Many of these efforts have been carried out by former members of the Trump Administration, Bannon among them, who have also consulted for the outgoing administration of Bolsonaro in Brazil.
These efforts have included the propagation of conspiracies of fraud in major elections and giving platforms to governments with populist authoritarian tendencies across the region. Just days after the election of Luiz Inácio da Silva, popularly known as Lula, in Brazil, Tucker Carlson cast doubts over the results of the election on his Fox News program, suggesting fraud. No actual evidence of election fraud has been found, but Bolsonaro is now using this lie in electoral court to challenge the results.
Guatemalan international lobbying efforts have also contributed to the spread of these extremist views. Mario Duarte, who served as an intelligence officer in the administration of former president Jimmy Morales and played an important part in the attacks against CICIG (a United Nations-backed anti-corruption body that independently investigated acts of corruption in Guatemala alongside the Public Prosecutors office and was forced to close in 2019), also participated in a panel at the convention. Since Morales left office in 2020, Duarte has consulted with the administration of the notoriously anti-democratic president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.
Fox News’s Carlson has also given airtime to Bukele on multiple occasions, including in-person interviews and specials.
“[Duarte] is an operator,” Rosal says. “He is the one who is facilitating the conditions for these Guatemalan actors to be present there [in Washington D.C.] and to be able to connect with [political] actors from that level.”
He adds, “There is a small but relatively influential group within the Republican Party, which does have a strong connection with Duarte, with the current [Guatemalan] government, and with business connections who are the ones who are financing a lot of this.”
As conservatives prepared to gather in Mexico City, Guatemala’s independent judiciary suffered yet another blow. On November 15, embattled judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez issued his resignation from the “high-risk court”—a court formed with support from the United States that oversees cases related to corruption, war crimes, and drug trafficking cases—in a video published on his Twitter account.
“I would like to make it known that judicial independence is currently being manipulated,” Judge Gálvez said in his video message. “Processes are not being guaranteed accordingly, especially with what are the constitutional guarantees to due process.”
Judge Gálvez has received support from both local and international groups during these attacks.
Gálvez’s resignation comes after years of attacks by the far right. The further deterioration of the judicial system comes as the conservative government of Guatemala has consolidated their control over the judicial branch. Since Giammattei took office in January 2020, at least twenty-five judges, prosecutors, investigators, and activists who have worked on corruption cases have been forced to flee into exile, or faced criminal prosecution for their work.
Power is being consolidated into the hands of these far-right actors in Guatemala, and others across the region are seeking to consolidate power. The emergence of a Latin American CPAC indicates that, despite a wave of progressive political gains in the region, conservatives extremist views are also gaining traction there.
“[They are] looking to amplify their message,” Rosal says. “It is clear that their message has managed to capture the attention and affiliation of a relatively large group.”