Guatemala: News & Updates

Guatemala’s Supreme Court of Justice said on Tuesday it has suspended Judge Pablo Xitumul, who is known for his fight against corruption and handling high-profile cases against the military and former government officials. The decision comes a day after the prominent Judge Erika Aifan resigned from the post and fled into exile to the United States, alleging persecution over her work as a renowned anti-corruption figure in the institution. Xitumul and Aifan have both worked as judges in the country’s so-called “high risk” courts, which were created after the CICIG, a United Nations-backed anti-corruption commission; and they both pushed for reforms to investigate organized crime and corruption. So far this year, at least 10 justice figures have fled the country to the United States due to the cases opened against those who worked on CICIG cases.

As the head of Guatemala’s High-Risk Tribunal D, a court specialized in handling complex high-stakes criminal cases, Erika Aifán spent six years trying dozens of the most powerful business people, politicians, judges, and capos of Guatemala on charges of corruption, money laundering, and drug trafficking. For that work she has faced constant threats, espionage, and judicial persecution. In February, El Faro revealed that a witness in her court accused President Alejandro Giammattei of financing his electoral campaign with $2.6 million in bribes from construction firms. It was reason enough for Attorney General Consuelo Porras, converted into Giammattei’s enforcer, to file seven motions to repeal Aifán’s judicial immunity from prosecution and look to incarcerate the judge who may otherwise have put the president of Guatemala behind bars. In the evening on Wednesday, March 9, and without warning her team of bodyguards, Erika Aifán crossed the land border into El Salvador to fly via Costa Rica to the United States. This morning her attorneys formally tendered her resignation from the Guatemalan judiciary. Her departure makes fifteen justice system operators to have abandoned Guatemala in the last 11 months.

Letter to the DFC, expressing our alarm and concern about the rapid deterioration of the rule of law in Guatemala and the implications of this deterioration for investments by the Development Finance Corporation. We are aware that in January 2020 Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei signed a memorandum of understanding with the DFC, aiming to catalyze private sector investment of up to $1 billion over three years in support of development in Guatemala. The Guatemala of today, however, is markedly different than the Guatemala of two years ago. Accordingly, we believe the DFC should revisit its investment plans with respect to Guatemala.

On March 8, while hundreds were commemorating International Women’s Day, Guatemala’s conservative-controlled Congress approved the “Protection of Life and Family” law in a 101-8 vote. There are 160 seats in Congress. Hundreds of people during the weekend converged on the Guatemalan Congress to show their indignation at a new law they say threatens the rights of women and members of the LGBTQ community. But backlash against the law, as well as Giammattei’s veto threat, pushed the president of Guatemala’s Congress, Shirley Rivera, to say lawmakers would check whether it is constitutional. The legislation will come up for further debate on Tuesday, while more protests have been called for that same day, as advocates say their fight is far from over – even if this particular version of the law is ultimately halted.

A mass document leak published by 20 international news outlets including El Faro uncovered how the international owners of an open-pit nickel mine paid off Guatemalan security forces, ignored court orders, and consorted with the highest echelons of Guatemalan government to obscure pollution, crush local dissent, and continue operating with the tolerance of three administrations

Guatemala’s congress has increased prison sentences for women who have abortions, bucking a recent trend in Latin America toward expanding access to the procedures. Guatemalan women convicted of terminating their pregnancies can now face sentences up to 10 years that before were a maximum of three. The congress imposed even heavier penalties for doctors and others who assist women in ending pregnancies. Abortions are legal only when the life of the mother is at risk. The Guatemala legislation also explicitly prohibited same-sex marriage – which was already in effect illegal – and banned schools from teaching anything that could “deviate a child’s identity according to their birth gender”.

Ten years ago today, the Peaceful Resistance of La Puya was born in defense of community water, life, and health and against an illegal mine. On March 2, 2012, the communities of San José de Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc united and established a protest camp outside of the entrance of the mine, which had been imposed without their free, prior, and informed consent. For ten long years, the resistance has struggled in the face of threats, intimidation, an attempted assassination, and a violent eviction. Due to the tenacity and determination of the Peace Resistance of La Puya, which included taking the case to the highest court, the mining license of the project was provisionally suspended in 2016, when the Supreme Court ruled that the affected communities were never consulted on the project and directly violated their rights, as established in the International Labor Organization Treaty’s Convention 169.

Please see a summary of the letters we sent to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia, Guatemala, and Honduras, urging their swift action in response to human rights abuses occurring in their countries.  We join with civil society groups in Latin America to: (1) protect people living under threat, (2) demand investigations into human rights crimes, (3) bring human rights criminals to justice. IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) volunteers write six letters in response to urgent human rights cases each month. We send copies of these letters to US ambassadors, embassy human rights officers, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, regional representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and desk officers at the US State Department. To read the letters, see https://www.irtfcleveland.org/content/rrn , or ask us to mail you hard copies.

Mayan indigenous communities in eastern Guatemala are waging an ongoing struggle for the defense of their lands and resources, in the face of encroachment by mining, power and oil corporations. These struggles have resulted in protests on behalf of the affected communities and against the Guatemalan government's repression of activists and indigenous inhabitants, and have now reached the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.