Guatemala’s anti-corruption commission (CICIG), which brought down a president, shuts down today after 12 years. Why was the UN-backed body so controversial? Our explainer from the archive:
THE United Nations has long sent peacekeepers to war zones and food to refugee camps. Around a decade ago it introduced a new kind of outfit. The International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala is an internationally staffed anti-corruption body that helps Guatemalan prosecutors dismantle death squads, drug cartels and money-laundering rings. It has brought hope to a country known for high murder rates and weak institutions. It has also sparked a backlash.
CICIG was originally meant to help a war-torn country make the transition to peace. Guatemala’s 36-year civil war ended in 1996, but the bands of ex-soldiers and police officers who had carried out secret counter-insurgency operations for the right-wing government during the war transmogrified into crime gangs in the years after. They made their money through extortion, smuggling, kidnapping and drug-trafficking, and infiltrated Guatemala’s judicial and political systems.
CICIG has trained a new generation of Guatemalan prosecutors capable of handling complex investigations. It has helped push through legal reforms that facilitate such cases. But reforming the country’s political system has proved more difficult. Congress has rejected most of the constitutional reforms suggested by a civil-society coalition, and the current president, Jimmy Morales, has tried to oust CICIG’s crusading commissioner, Iván Velásquez .
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