Honduras and El Salvador's half measures to satisfy US Congress?
I started this a few weeks ago but then moved on to other things. So what do you think? Will the anti-corruption efforts in El Salvador and Honduras do enough to reduce impunity in both countries? Will the efforts by those two countries and Guatemala be enough to convince the US Congress to pony up the $1 billion that President Obama wants delivered to the region?
Disgraced former Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina is once again laying blame for his predicament on the United States and the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). He maintains his innocence and instead accuses the US of making a power play in the region to fend off Russian and Chinese aspirations in the hemisphere and to punish him for pushing a new agenda in the war on drugs.
In return for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in US security and economic assistance, the US wanted Perez Molina to remove from office individuals it believed was tied to corruption and to extend the mandate of CICIG which just about everyone had been finally coming around to realize had been doing an excellent job. At the time of the pressure, did the US know that all incriminating evidence allegedly led back to Perez Molina? I would imagine they did, or at least suspected that to be the case. When the vice president's secretary refers to Number 1 and Number 2, there's only so many people to whom he could have been referring.
Unlike the Cold War, Guatemala caved to US pressure. The last time that the US put such pressure on the Guatemalan government was in the late 1970s. At that time, Jimmy Carter told the Guatemalan government and military that they would need to start respecting human rights in their battle against Marxist-Leninist guerrillas if they desired continued US military and economic assistance. The Guatemalans told the US to take a hike - they didn't need our help. While US support to Guatemala continued, it was much less than what the Guatemalans or Ronald Reagan wanted.
Was Vice President Biden threatening Perez Molina or simply stating the truth? President Obama has had difficulties convincing the US Congress to support his $1 billion aid plan to the region. Congress has little faith that US assistance will be effective given the climate of corruption in Guatemala and the region and are reluctant to give the green light at this time. Removing allegedly corrupt officials and extending CICIG might have been what Biden and Obama thought was needed to convince Congress to support their plan.
Another unanswered question pertains to CICIG as a model for the rest of the region. If the US was willing to go to such lengths to fight for CICIG's continuation in Guatemala, what are the implications for Honduras and El Salvador now that they have both rejected that model for their own situations? Honduras has opted for a watered-down OAS version and El Salvador is banking on some additional USAID-funding for anti-corruption programming. However, the two efforts pale in scope and method to what was attempted and has been accomplished in Guatemala.
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Disgraced former Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina is once again laying blame for his predicament on the United States and the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). He maintains his innocence and instead accuses the US of making a power play in the region to fend off Russian and Chinese aspirations in the hemisphere and to punish him for pushing a new agenda in the war on drugs.
In return for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in US security and economic assistance, the US wanted Perez Molina to remove from office individuals it believed was tied to corruption and to extend the mandate of CICIG which just about everyone had been finally coming around to realize had been doing an excellent job. At the time of the pressure, did the US know that all incriminating evidence allegedly led back to Perez Molina? I would imagine they did, or at least suspected that to be the case. When the vice president's secretary refers to Number 1 and Number 2, there's only so many people to whom he could have been referring.
Unlike the Cold War, Guatemala caved to US pressure. The last time that the US put such pressure on the Guatemalan government was in the late 1970s. At that time, Jimmy Carter told the Guatemalan government and military that they would need to start respecting human rights in their battle against Marxist-Leninist guerrillas if they desired continued US military and economic assistance. The Guatemalans told the US to take a hike - they didn't need our help. While US support to Guatemala continued, it was much less than what the Guatemalans or Ronald Reagan wanted.
Was Vice President Biden threatening Perez Molina or simply stating the truth? President Obama has had difficulties convincing the US Congress to support his $1 billion aid plan to the region. Congress has little faith that US assistance will be effective given the climate of corruption in Guatemala and the region and are reluctant to give the green light at this time. Removing allegedly corrupt officials and extending CICIG might have been what Biden and Obama thought was needed to convince Congress to support their plan.
Another unanswered question pertains to CICIG as a model for the rest of the region. If the US was willing to go to such lengths to fight for CICIG's continuation in Guatemala, what are the implications for Honduras and El Salvador now that they have both rejected that model for their own situations? Honduras has opted for a watered-down OAS version and El Salvador is banking on some additional USAID-funding for anti-corruption programming. However, the two efforts pale in scope and method to what was attempted and has been accomplished in Guatemala.
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