The Failed Neoliberal Experiment in Guatemala

There was once a feeling throughout the world that post-Cold War there was supposed to be extensive cooperation, proving the theory of neoliberal institutionalism to be a normative theory issuing in a new era. However, this time never came, and so this piece aims to shed light on a primary example of the height and downfall of an institution that came to fruition under the belief of neoliberalism, The International Committee Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). In brief, this was a post-Guatemalan Civil War UN backed operation that within their mandate specified they were there “to support and assist institutions of the State of Guatemala responsible for investigating and prosecuting crimes allegedly committed in connection with the activities of illegal security forces and clandestine security organizations… ” (CICIG, 2006) essentially acting as a vehicle to aid with work that Guatemala’s Public Prosecutor would otherwise be overwhelmed with handling alone. Ultimately, I aim to inform of their success; but, more importantly, how the end of their mandate demonstrated the weakness of the web of neoliberalism. In its first years from 2006-2009 CICIG did not have any large success and so after a series of reforms in 2009 and 2012, CICIG was given the ability to ensure a speedy trial so that people would have little time to flee the country before said trial. These reforms made it so that in 2015 when CICIG was once again under pressure, they were able to produce a report on the network known as La Linea exposing an operation that sought to defraud the Guatemalan State of $120 million by pocketing the taxes on imported goods to those involved. This exposed then President, Otto Perez Molina, and Vice President, Roxana Baldetti, as heads of the operation and would ultimately lead to their resignation after mass public demonstrations. For the four years to come, those in positions of power understood that they were not free of impunity with CICIG around, and that the people of Guatemala had renewed their trust with public prosecutors ' ability to uphold the justice they oversaw. Now, unfortunately, there is an end to this unique operation, and it comes from both within and outside the state. Essentially, then 2018 President Jimmy Morales, in fear of being exposed for corruption, launched a smear campaign against CICIG, accusing them of promoting homosexuality and feminist ideologies in a country heavy on machismo thinking. More influentially, however, was when Morales moved Guatemala’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018, only two days after the Trump administration’s decision to do the same. This calculated move garnered the appreciation of the US and so when pressured to pull funding from CICIG, the US complied. This made it that when it came time to renew their mandate, with no funding, and with the public distrusting the organization, in 2019, CICIG’s time came to an end.

Ultimately, CICIG’s work led to the dismantling of “70 criminal structures led by death squads and the civil war military establishment”(Nieto-Matiz & Trejo, 2023) and “plausibly prevented the occurrence of between 20,000 and 30,000 homicides, from 2008 until 2019”(Nieto-Matiz & Trejo, 2023). Given this, I would like to highlight how it almost seems unfathomable that within a year, an institution like CICIG could be so easily done away with. It took decades of civil societies pleading for such an accountability mechanism and within months it is as if their pleas were forgotten due to just a few actors pulling a few strings. The idea of neo-liberalism was that there would be institutions in place that could make it so that there would be something that could, at minimum, frame a post-CICIG Guatemala transition period for once the operation left. Never was CICIG supposed to be permanent, but the international web created post-Cold War was theoretically supposed to ensure that even if the US stopped its voluntary funding, then others could fill that void or work in aiding CICIG against Morales’ smear campaign. Essentially, there were countless ways for the international community to have acted, but they turned a blind eye to what was happening the moment they saw the US leave Guatemala. They let a US foreign policy decision, made under President Trump, be the one they followed, demonstrating that the institutions were only truly as strong as the US allowed them to be. Now, with the world shifting away from US dependency, this may be good for future CICIG’s but it does not takeaway from how other states failed it. The already weak neoliberal order failed in Guatemala and consequently the current President, Bernardo Arevalo, ran on an anti-corruption campaign to be elected. If neoliberalism had succeeded, then he could have concentrated on other issues concerning Guatemala, but he was left to tackle the same issue the people of Guatemala have tried combating for decades.

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References

Agreement between the United Nations and the State of Guatemala on the establishment of an International Comission Against Impunity in Guatemala. Dec 12^th, 2006. Article I, p.3.

Cortez, Anayansi. ‘How Donald Trump Took Down the Robert Muller of Latin America’. Reveal, September 4^th, 2020. https://revealnews.org/article/how-donald-trump-took-down-the-robert-mueller-of-latin-america/

No Ficcion Guatemala, ‘El Fin de la CICIG. Sep 12th, 2022 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/no-ficci%C3%B3n-guatemala/id1594375983?i=1000579186480 \ Trejo, Guillermo.  ‘Containing Large-Scale Criminal Violence Through Internationalized Prosecution: How the Collaboration Between the CICIG and Guatemala’s Law Enforcement Contributed to a Sustained Reduction in the Murder Rate’ [Abstract]. Sage Journals, 36 (9). https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140221139386

World Bank Development Report . ‘Guatemala’s International Commission Against Impunity: A case study on institutions and Rule of Law’. 2017 https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/383491485539748511-0050022017/original/WDR17BPGuatemalaInternationalCommissionAgainstImpunity.pdf