Eduardo Galeano once wrote that Guatemala was the clumsily masked face of U.S. policy in Latin America. This continues to be true today, as Guatemala reflects the harmful and regressive policies of the U.S. Republican Party.
On March 9, Guatemalan president Alejandro Giammattei declared his country the “pro-life capital of Ibero-America” at a ceremony attended by religious leaders in Guatemala City. The congress had previously dubbed it “the day to celebrate family and life.” Perhaps not coincidentally, the date is also Giammattei’s birthday. The declaration of Guatemala as a pro-life country was supported by U.S. Senator Kevin Daines, Republican of Montana, and Congressmember Chris Smith, Republican of New Jersey.
Guatemala approved one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in Latin America. But that law is part of a larger problem in the country.
The day prior, the Guatemalan congress approved one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in Latin America. But that law is part of a larger problem in the country.
“It is all part of an agenda, an agenda of restricting rights.” Renzo Rosal, an independent political analyst, tells The Progressive.
“This same ultra-conservative narrative supposedly serves to strengthen the central government,” Rosal says. “[And it] serves to strengthen the alliance between businessmen, politicians, and churches. [It] also serves as a way to limit and question everything that points in an apparently different direction, the rights of women and the LGBTQ+, which is seen as an attack on the ultra-conservative narrative.”
The law, titled the Protection of Life and Family Law, not only increases sentences for abortions, but it also permits criminal charges against doctors and those who help people obtain abortions, further outlaws marriage equality, refers to the LGBTQ+ community as “abnormal,” and completely bans all sexual diversity and gender equity education from being taught in schools.
But the broad law did not stop there. It also legally established a family as being the marriage between a man and a woman with children, essentially declaring that any single parent household or household with grandparents raising their grandchildren is not a family.
The law created widespread outrage, leading to days of protests.
A week later, the congress revisited the law after Giammattei threatened a veto. The controversial law was shelved, but similar legislation still exists within other proposals, including a restrictive anti-trans law that is disguised as being for the protection of children.
All of this is part of a larger drive by the Guatemalan government to enact hyper-conservative policies, a process that began when Jimmy Morales assumed power in 2016. This has also included moving the Guatemalan embassy in Israel to Jerusalem just two days after the Trump Administration did so, attacking anti-corruption efforts, and building closer alliances with U.S. Republicans.
“The most conservative and fundamentalist [Christians] assumed power, and now they are moving their pieces,” Sandra Moran, a former congressional representative who was the first openly lesbian member of the Guatemalan congress, tells The Progressive.
Other countries in Latin America have been embracing equality, with Mexico and Colombia taking steps to legalize abortion, and Chile recognizing marriage equality.
“It generates a counterweight of allies in these more conservative settings,” Moran says. “The power dispute in the United States is transmitted here to Guatemala, too.”
The political arena in Guatemala has long been influenced by conspiracy theories and the scare tactics of the neo-fascist movement. The legacy of the Cold War continues to live on in Guatemala; the “communist threat” continues to be the specter that is conjured to justify any political crisis.
“There are also some who talk about the plan of the ‘globalist agenda,’ ” Rosal says. “And the ‘globalist agenda’ is the communist threat, where the spearhead is gender ideology, or the LGTBQ+ community, and one of the main movers of this is [U.S. Vice President] Kamala Harris.”
Politics in Guatemala continue to be deeply influenced by the U.S. Republican Party and the religious far right.
This conspiracy-mongering is found mostly in the evangelical and Pentecostal communities, which have historically supported the Guatemalan military and the dictatorships. These types of hateful conspiratorial theories have found an ear in the Guatemalan congress.
In March 2021, the Guatemalan congress brought far-right author Agustín Laje Arrigoni to speak to congress as part of the “Impact of the Globalist Agenda on Culture and Politics in Guatemala” conference. The speech, which was also broadcast on a government television channel, had anti-Semitic overtones and presented a policy of hate toward women and the LGBTQ+ community, as the far-right author spoke about the effect of the “globalist agenda” on the culture and politics of Guatemala, including how feminism and the LGBTQ+ community present a threat to society.
Politics in Guatemala continue to be deeply influenced by the U.S. Republican Party and the religious far right. This relation goes back prior to the 1954 coup d’etat against Jacobo Arbenz, which was promoted and organized by the Dulles brothers during the Eisenhower Administration. The U.S. business community, especially the United Fruit Company, held great influence during the dictatorships of Manuel Cabrera Estrada and Jorge Ubico.
During the internal armed conflict of the 1960s through 1996, U.S. Republicans were among the Guatemalan military’s greatest supporters. Ronald Reagan once praised dictator Efrain Riós Montt as “a man of great personal integrity and commitment” at the same time the dictatorship was massacring Indigenous communities in the highlands.
“[They have] maintained this relationship throughout several generations of politicians,” Rosal explains. “It is a business relationship, it is a strategic political relationship. It is also a relationship of religious ties, but religion is not everything, it’s just a part of all this.”
In 2017, the far right mobilized to bring down the U.N.-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, commonly known as CICIG. President Jimmy Morales officially ended the agreement with the anti-corruption body on September 3, 2019. Since then, corruption has exploded as the state and the elite have attempted to erase the history of anti-corruption efforts.
The U.S. progressive political commentary web series The Young Turks exposed the relationship between the Morales administration and the backers of the U.S.-based evangelical group behind the National Prayer Breakfast, commonly known as The Family. It showed that the relationship between Morales’s ally Manuel Espina opened the door to getting the support of the Trump Administration to remove the anti-corruption body.
These powers have formed a lobby in the United States to seek additional influence within Republican circles. They have sought, since the closing of CICIG, to eliminate all history of anti-corruption efforts. In July 2021, Juan Francisco Sandoval, the former head of the Public Prosecutor’s office Special Fiscal Against Impunity, was forced into exile, and Judge Erika Aifán resigned in March 2022 and fled the country.
This lobby has sought to paint justice as having been co-opted by radicals and communists who attack the right on an ideological basis. Rosal disputes this: “The issue of impunity is not an ideological issue; the issue of human rights is not an ideological issue; the issue of independent justice [is not an ideological issue.]”
But as these attacks have continued, the Biden Administration has done little to address the co-optation of the state by far-right groups.
“The government of President Joe Biden only mentions his questions to Guatemala through Twitter and messages that are purely diplomatic,” Rosal says. “These are symbolic messages that threaten [politicians] with removing visas, things that are seen here as measures absolutely inconsequential. This is a powerful indicator that this lobby in Washington is working.”
The Guatemalan conservative movement longs to see Republicans retake control in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate, and eventually the presidency.
“The central point [for conservatives in Guatemala] is to get along well with the most conservative wing of the Republican Party, under the assumption that the Republican Party is going to return to the presidency,” Rosal says. “Though they are not in power, they continue to be a determining force.”