{"id":1652,"date":"2018-04-22T15:41:21","date_gmt":"2018-04-22T21:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/?p=1652"},"modified":"2020-01-31T22:29:45","modified_gmt":"2020-02-01T04:29:45","slug":"una-crisis-en-guatemala-promovida-por-naciones-unidas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/2018\/04\/22\/una-crisis-en-guatemala-promovida-por-naciones-unidas\/","title":{"rendered":"A Crisis in Guatemala, Abetted by the U.N."},"content":{"rendered":"
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ESPA\u00d1OL DISPONIBLE AQU\u00cd<\/span><\/a>\n

Instability in Central America will spill into Mexico and spur more migrants to the U.S.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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Ivan Velasquez, commissioner of the United Nations International Commission Against Impunity, CICIG, during a news conference with Guatemala’s attorney general, in Guatemala City, April 19. PHOTO: MOISES CASTILLO\/ASSOCIATED PRESS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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By Mary Anastasia O\u2019Grady<\/div>\n

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In the struggle to defeat transnational crime in Central America, the U.S. is financing a United Nations prosecutorial body in Guatemala. Yet these U.N. prosecutors are thumbing their noses at the rule of law and seem to be using their power to politicize the Guatemalan judiciary.<\/p>\n

This is dividing and destabilizing a pivotal democracy in the region. The fragile Guatemalan state is in the crosshairs of Venezuelan dictator Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and Cuba\u2019s Gen. Ra\u00fal Castro. If their allies seize control of Mexico\u2019s southern neighbor via its institutions, as Daniel Ortega has done in Nicaragua, it will have implications for Mexican and American security.<\/p>\n

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The U.N. body, known as the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG by its Spanish initials), has been in the country since 2007. It has busted some criminals. But its unchecked power has led to abuse, and this should concern U.S. backers. Some of CICIG\u2019s most vociferous defenders hail from Guatemala\u2019s extreme left, which eschews equality under the law and representative democracy.<\/p>\n

CICIG\u2019s rogue justice has come to the attention of Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the\u00a0Helsinki Commission<\/a>. He has scheduled a hearing April 27 to review CICIG\u2019s role in the Guatemalan prosecution and extralegal conviction of a Russian family on the run from Vladimir Putin\u2019s mafia.<\/p>\n

As I detailed in\u00a0March 26\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0April 19\u00a0<\/a>Americas columns, Igor and Irina Bitkov, and their daughter Anastasia, fled persecution in Russia and became victims of a crime syndicate in Guatemala that was selling false identity documents. Yet Guatemala and CICIG tried the family alongside members of the crime ring that tricked them. They were convicted and given unusually harsh sentences.<\/p>\n

Guatemalan law and the U.N.\u2019s Palermo Convention say that such migrants are victims, and a Guatemalan constitutional appeals court ruled that the Bitkovs committed no crime. CICIG and Guatemalan prosecutors ignored that ruling, went to a lower court and got a conviction. CICIG will not say why, or why it didn\u2019t prosecute the law firm that solicited the fake documents given to the Bitkovs.<\/p>\n

Mat\u00edas Ponce is \u201chead of communications\u201d for CICIG but there is no contact information for him or his office on the CICIG website. I managed to get his cellphone number from a third party and, after repeated tries, made contact with him. I requested his email and wrote to him so I could share with readers CICIG\u2019s explanation of what appears to be abuse of power. He sent me a boilerplate response about CICIG\u2019s work against criminal networks but no answers to my questions.<\/p>\n

It is unlikely CICIG will answer questions before the Helsinki Commission. Its co-chairman, Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.), invited CICIG to appear at a similar hearing he proposed for April 24 in the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee monitoring human rights and U.N. entities. CICIG declined the invitation. That hearing was not scheduled, though the office of Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R., Calif.) told me it\u2019s not dead. If CICIG refuses to cooperate with the Helsinki Commission, it will fuel the feeling among rule-of-law advocates that it has something to hide.<\/p>\n

CICIG says it is in Guatemala merely to \u201csupport\u201d the attorney general in her work \u201cidentifying and dismantling\u201d criminal networks and is not involved in politics. But an academic\u00a0analysis<\/a>\u00a0of CICIG by Jonat\u00e1n Lemus, a Francisco Marroqu\u00edn University political science professor, suggests otherwise. Mr. Lemus observes that \u201cCICIG has also been criticized for the very same reasons others have praised it: becoming a player in judicial appointments, proposing some controversial reforms to the Guatemalan constitution, and the use of televised conferences to shift the public in its favor. From this perspective, instead of strengthening Guatemalan institutions, the Commission is making national institutions dependent on its assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

This dependence drives CICIG deeper into politics. As Mr. Lemus notes, \u201conce immersed in a polarized political system,\u201d an international body designed like CICIG naturally \u201cwill face incentives to behave as any domestic bureaucracy trying to maximize its power and resources to ensure its survival.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without an explanation for the bizarre Bitkov convictions, Guatemalans are left to speculate about CICIG\u2019s motives. Incompetence is one possibility. But once the injustice was publicized and not corrected, that reasoning collapsed. A foreign businessman also makes an easy target for a politically correct prosecutor seeking approval from anticapitalist nongovernmental organizations.<\/p>\n

Kremlin \u201cinfluence\u201d cannot be ruled out. Nailing the Bitkovs was a priority for Russia because the family had refused to \u201cdonate\u201d large sums to the Putin kitty in Kaliningrad. It would hardly be surprising to learn that Moscow leaned on prosecutors and judges to put the family behind bars.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt that something fishy went on, and CICIG prosecutor Iv\u00e1n Vel\u00e1squez\u2019s unwillingness to address it is troubling. The truth matters for the family, for Guatemala and for the U.S.<\/p>\n

Write to O\u2019Grady@wsj.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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