Guatemalan President Bernardo Arvalo says he found a 'semi-destroyed country' on taking office
BY SONIA PÉREZ D.
Updated 9:30 PM CDT, June 20, 2024
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemala President Bernardo Arévalo says opposition in the Congress and the Attorney General’s Office have made it difficult to implement the change he seeks for the Central American nation which he found “semi-destroyed” when he took office almost six months ago.
The politician from the progressive Seed Movement party was elected in August after voters angry at widespread corruption and leaders’ failure to tackle it made a decisive choice for change, elevating his long shot candidacy.
Central America’s most populous country and the region’s largest economy continues to struggle with poverty and violence that have driven hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans to migrate to the U.S.
“What has impacted me the most is seeing how corruption has impacted the executive capacity of all the country’s institutions; the levels of abandonment and dysfunctionality of the institutions are terrible,” Arévalo said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press.
More:
https://apnews.com/article/guatemala-president-arevalo-corruption-porras-ba3fcdf20a03a37454c89f1e43ce6d09
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Attorney General Consuelo Porras
"the she-beast"
Guatemala: Attorney General Arbitrarily Fires Prosecutors
Pattern of Harassment, Prosecutions against Independent Officials
(New York) – Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras’ abrupt removal of eight prosecutors since June 30, 2022 runs counter to international human rights standards and further undermines the independence of prosecutors in the country, Human Rights Watch said today.
The eight prosecutors ousted include Hilda Pineda, who in 2013 took former president Efraín Ríos Montt to trial for “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” for his alleged role in several massacres during the country’s brutal civil war. Eleven administrative officials were also fired. These removals follow the arbitrary ousting and harassment of several independent judges and prosecutors since Porras first took office in 2018.
“The latest removals appear to be part of a broader pattern of abusive transfers, firings, and prosecutions against independent prosecutors and judges in Guatemala,” said Juan Pappier, senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Attorney General Porras is undermining the rule of law and leaving all Guatemalans more exposed to unpunished human rights violations and abuses of power.”
Juan Luis Pantaleón, a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office, justified the removals saying that, under Guatemalan law, prosecutors are “appoint[ed] based on trust” and therefore can be “freely” named and removed by the attorney general.
The “free” removal of prosecutors by an attorney general has a dubious basis under Guatemalan law, runs counter to international human rights standards, and undermines prosecutors’ ability to conduct their work independently, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch reviewed copies of the notifications received by four of the eight fired prosecutors, which are identical and do not include a specific justification for each of their removals.
More:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/07/14/guatemala-attorney-general-arbitrarily-fires-prosecutors