Former Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina and his ex-Vice President Roxana Baldetti have been found guilty for their part in a tax fraud scheme. The court’s decision comes seven years after the former leaders were forced to resign after the now defunct United Nations-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, commonly known as CICIG, uncovered the scheme in conjunction with the Guatemalan Public Prosecutor’s office in 2015, igniting widespread public anger against the administration.
While the two were convicted of tax fraud and conspiracy, they were absolved of the charges of illicit enrichment due to lack of evidence. Both were sentenced to sixteen years in prison and fined 8 million Quetzales, or just over $1 million.
Jeff Abbott
Former Guatemala Vice President Roxana Baldetti storms out of a press conference in April 2015, days after she was named as being involved in the La Linea case.
But according to Carmen Rosa de Leon, a sociologist who specializes in corruption issues, the resolution contradicts the fact that they were absolved of the illicit enrichment charges.
“It is totally inconsistent that they were found guilty of customs fraud and that they are found innocent of illicit enrichment,” de Leon tells The Progressive. “The judge is sure there was [illegal enrichment], but there was not sufficient evidence [to show it].”
Between April and September 2015, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Guatemala to show their indignation that the president and his vice president were accused of being involved in a scheme that stole more than $150 million through a graft that became known as La Linea (or The Line). Residents rallied weekly to show their dissatisfaction, demanding that the president resign.
Following the emergence of the case against Pérez Molina and Baldetti, the CICIG was widely seen by Guatemalan citizens as the most popular and trustworthy institution in Guatemala. But President Jimmy Morales, who had campaigned on the scandal and easily won the September 2015 presidential election, quickly embraced an anti-CICIG narrative after the anti-corruption body began to investigate his son and brother for fraud.
A narrative of the failures and human rights abuses allegedly committed by CICIG began to emerge among the far right and in the business community in Guatemala. These rights violations were then echoed by Republicans in the United States, including U.S. Senators Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, and Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and the opinion pages of conservative newspapers like The Wall Street Journal.
Jeff Abbott
A small group gathered outside of the Presidential palace in Guatemala City to demand the resignation of Pérez Molina and Baldetti, April 2015.
As the attacks strengthened, CICIG commissioner Iván Velásquez, a Colombian prosecutor and its current Minister of Defense, was declared persona non grata and barred from the country. A number of other CICIG workers were also targeted and harassed.
On September 3, 2019, CICIG officially closed its doors after nearly twelve years of operating in Guatemala. The closure came after the Morales administration refused to renew the body’s mandate.
Since that time, corruption and impunity has regrown from its deep roots in Guatemala’s political system. Those who fought corruption have now become government targets, as there are attempts to erase the legacy of the anti-corruption experiment in Guatemala.
Attacks on anti-corruption efforts continued during Pérez Molina’s sentencing in December, when Judge Jeannette Valdés suggested that CICIG’s investigation was flawed, that “they were not better than us,” and that Guatemala “did not need foreigners to come in” and do this type of work.
“There was a very ideological tint on the part of the judge when she began to criticize CICIG,” de Leon tells The Progressive.
At least thirty judges, prosecutors, attorneys, and investigators general have been forced into exile since 2019. Others have faced criminal charges for their part in anti-corruption efforts.
But while Guatemala continues to see a rollback of anti-corruption oversight, the court’s ruling in the most symbolic case of these efforts offers a rare embrace of the work that CICIG did in Guatemala, and a clear vindication of their work.