U.S. backing for Guatemala drug cartel fight key to ending graft
Guatemala has asked the United States for support in fighting drug cartel money-laundering that the Central American country sees as a key source of corruption, Foreign Minister Pedro Brolo said, as Washington ramps up a focus on graft in the region.
The government of President Joe Biden has put the battle
against corruption at the heart of efforts to slow migration to the United
States from Central America.
Last month, Washington was outspoken in criticism of
Guatemalan authorities for perceived backsliding on judicial independence;
sanctioned a former and a current lawmaker for alleged corruption, and
announced a plan to create an anti-corruption task force for Central America.
Brolo said a department in President Alejandro Giammattei’s
office that had U.S. support was fighting corruption in the executive branch,
and that the government had identified that funds from drug traffickers were a
key driver of graft.
“There is a historic cause of corruption in Guatemala and it
is drug trafficking,” Brolo said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday during
a visit to Mexico.
“The president has asked for support, a collaboration to
follow the traceability of laundered money,” he said, calling money laundering
a major cause of corruption and highlighting a new anti-laundering law proposed
by Giammattei.
Guatemala is a major transit country for drugs, especially
cocaine, and for trafficking proceeds.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for
comment for more details of the request. Brolo did not give more details.
The State Department’s 2021 global narcotics control report
said cartel activity fueled corruption in Guatemala. The report said more progress
was needed on fighting money laundering.
It says the Guatemalan Navy has been an effective deterrent
to trafficking by sea, but that trafficking using executive jets increased last
year.
The government’s focus on cartels had helped reduce sea shipments
of drugs by 90% and in the past month and a half Guatemala had not detected
drugs flights in its territory, Brolo said.
The State Department report also stated that drug
traffickers have influence over some elected officials within Guatemalan institutions.
Brolo said it was not his place to comment on possible links
between Mexican drug cartels and elected officials, including lawmakers in
Guatemala’s Congress, seen by anti-corruption campaigners as a major issue
undermining the rule of law.
“That definitely corresponds to criminal justice entities,
the Attorney General’s office, to define who has such links of not,” Brolo
said, adding that the government was focused on seeking international help
strengthening institutions.
Guatemala was aware of the U.S. plan to create an
anti-corruption task force of U.S. investigators but did not have further
information about its scope, Brolo said.
Brolo also said it was not the government’s place to comment
on a recent power struggle that ended with Congress preventing judge Gloria
Porras from being sworn in to another term on the country’s highest court, in
what critics including the White House said was a step back for judicial
independence.
“We can’t interfere in that process,” Brolo said, referring
to a series of appeals over the election of three of the 10 judges and
alternates who sit on the court.
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