CICIG: an innovative program in the UN's toolbox
Stephen Schlesinger argues in The Nation that This Is One of the Most Innovative Programs in the UN’s Toolbox.
CICIG again is not perfect. It hasn't won convictions in all its cases - Alfonso Portillo. It has sometimes gotten the triggerman but not the intellectual author - the de Leon murder. It also hasn't persuaded Congress to pass many of its recommendations. That is the price it pays for working within a very difficult environment. Incremental progress, not perfection, is what we need to support.
CICIG is not the only tool. The MP's office will carry out investigations and prosecutions on its own. The US will continue to ask for the extradition of Guatemalans accused of money laundering and drug trafficking crimes. Sometimes the US will extradite Guatemalans from the US to face charges in their native country. The US will freeze assets on individuals. El Salvador has now opened investigations into Roxana Baldetti's assets in that country, a new front in the war against impunity. Citizen pressure will continue to be highly important. While CICIG has been very important, it has never been the only actor involved in helping to turn around Guatemala.
If you read to the bottom of the article, you'll find that Vice President Joe Biden and I agree that CICIG is a model worthy of repeating in other countries.
Today the CICIG, headed by Ivan Velasquez Gomez of Colombia, operates under Guatemalan law and works on a $12 million budget. Originally, it had only a two-year mandate, but Guatemala has renewed its term four times. Its most important power is to present criminal complaints at any time.
In addition, the CICIG has assisted Guatemalan judicial officials in setting up various internal units to track down and uncover nefarious rackets of various sorts. It has helped, for example, to restructure the Analysis Unit of the public prosecutor’s office to adopt new investigatory methodologies, including training a novel police corps, to probe entire criminal networks rather than pursue case-by-case prosecutions.
It coordinates with Guatemalan courts on search warrants, summons, subpoenas, witnesses, experts to gather evidence for various cases. It has championed the use of legal wiretaps to intercept the plans of murderous outlaws. It has founded witness-protection programs. Finally, it has recommended legislative reforms—for example, most recently, in refashioning the banking secrets law.It's important to remember that these improvements in the Public Prosecutor's Office and some specialized police units are what made the recent fraud investigations possible. For years, we read how these tools were used to help solve violent criminal acts, such as the Rosenberg murder-suicide and the Lea de Leon murder. The corruption scandals have gotten the world's attention over the last few months but those scandals have been years in the making.
CICIG again is not perfect. It hasn't won convictions in all its cases - Alfonso Portillo. It has sometimes gotten the triggerman but not the intellectual author - the de Leon murder. It also hasn't persuaded Congress to pass many of its recommendations. That is the price it pays for working within a very difficult environment. Incremental progress, not perfection, is what we need to support.
CICIG is not the only tool. The MP's office will carry out investigations and prosecutions on its own. The US will continue to ask for the extradition of Guatemalans accused of money laundering and drug trafficking crimes. Sometimes the US will extradite Guatemalans from the US to face charges in their native country. The US will freeze assets on individuals. El Salvador has now opened investigations into Roxana Baldetti's assets in that country, a new front in the war against impunity. Citizen pressure will continue to be highly important. While CICIG has been very important, it has never been the only actor involved in helping to turn around Guatemala.
If you read to the bottom of the article, you'll find that Vice President Joe Biden and I agree that CICIG is a model worthy of repeating in other countries.
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