Perez promises to improve security during first six months

President-elect Otto Perez Molina insists that security will improve during his first six months in office. I sure hope so. However, El Nuevo Herald then goes on to report that 

Official data indicate that 18 people die violently each day in Guatemala and that the homicide rate per 100,000 population reaches 48, six times the world average.

Look, if you are telling the world that, on average, 18 people per day or 6,570 per year die violent deaths in Guatemala, Otto Perez is going to look like a god-send even if things get much worse six months into office.

Here are the murders that have been committed over the last decade as reported by the PNC in (La Prensa Grafica).

2011 estimate is based upon 4733 during first ten months and 946 for Nov-Dec.

If you are going to measure whether Perez lowers crime and or the country's murder rate, you need to try to find recent data.

I'm fine with statistics from 2010 since we have the full year available. However, that number is about 600 fewer murders than what you are using - 10%!

With six-plus weeks remaining this year, we have a pretty good idea where murders will end up, but 2010 is acceptable. However, why pick 6,500 murders from 2009?

Happy National Pupusa Day!

November 13th is National Pupusa Day. So enjoy some pupusas, preferably of the frijoles y queso variety, and some Pilseners. 

Lynchings up 500 pct in Guatemala since 2004!

According to reports in the Latin American Herald Tribune and Fox News Latino, lynchings in Guatemala have increased 500% since 2004. However, the reporting is not entirely accurate.  

The headlines should read attempted lynchings. According to the human rights office in Guatemala, there were a reported 25 attempted lynchings in 2004 and 147 attempted lynchings during the first ten months of 2011. That's the increase of 500% to which they are referring (~488% actually). {Update - And each attempted lynching might have involved several targets.)

If we are talking about the increase in successful lynchings, the numbers are actually worse. According to the numbers presented in Prensa Libre, deaths as a result of lynchings have increased from 4 in 2004 to 47 so far this year. 

Deaths as a result of lynchings, therefore, have increased nearly 1100% since 2004. And that's with two months remaining in the year. That's obviously a much worse percentage change. (There were another 911 seriously injured victims during the time period under study, but none of the articles break these down by year.)  

But then again, the increase from 2004 to 2011 is only one part of the story. If you look at the deaths as a result of lynchings by year, you find a jump from 2004 to 2005 and then again from 2008 to 2009. I would want to better understand why lynchings jumped during those years.

And here is what I think is an equally important story that should have been highlighted. Death by lynching is on pace to increase by at least 7% from 2010 to 2011. It's not as sexy as the 500% or 1100% changes, but it's what Guatemalans are living today compared to last year.

Local concerns in Guatemala

There's at least one more thing from last night's post on President-elect Otto Perez's inheritance that I forgot to mention. While there does appear to have been a reduction in the level of corruption and death squad activity coming out of the national government, at least the executive, local government is in many ways where there has been little progress if any.

In the last few years, organized crime and cartels have been influencing local campaigns and the activities of mayoral offices. Most of us following events in Guatemala from abroad do so by following the major Guatemalan and international news publications which are naturally based in the capital and focused on the activities of the congress and the presidency.

However, there is less reason to be optimistic about what is happening around the country's 333 municipalities.

President-elect Perez's Inheritance

Earlier in the week I gave my thoughts on some of the potential accomplishments that President Alvaro Colom will leave when he hands the reins of powers to President-elect Otto Perez Molina. See my posts here and here from earlier in the week. You also might want to check out Rachel Glickhouse and Carin Zissis’s Guatemala Election Update: The Roadahead for Pérez Molina from today where they say much the same, only more eloquently. 

I argued that there has been some progress in terms of reducing the murder rate. There are what appear to be two very competent people in Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz and Police Reform Commissioner Helen Mack. There has been some success in overcoming impunity with the successful prosecutions of individuals who perpetrated wartime atrocities and a recognition for past crimes committed in the name of the government.

The government has been less successful in prosecuting former officials for corruption and extrajudicial killings. On the positive side, those people seem no longer to be in government. Finally, CICIG has not been perfect but it does seem to have done a good job of removing some corrupt officials, helping to crack high profile cases, and begun training Guatemala's next generation of prosecutors and justice system employees. 

However, I said nothing about what President-elect Perez plans to do with his "inheritance." And that's where we should be worried.

President Perez has promised to bring mano dura with him into the presidency. Given the high level of support for mano dura in Guatemala today, Perez is probably going to have his way here. If he just intends to add more police and to deploy some kaibiles and other military to remote areas of the country, the effects probably won't be bad and might even do some good. However, if his idea of mano dura is to send troops into the cities, criminalize tattoos and looking like a gang member, lengthening prison terms for nonviolent and youthful offenders, etc. then I do worry what the future holds. These policies have not worked out so well in neighboring countries.

The question as to how he is going to pay for the new police and other policies is another matter. He wants to cut down on contraband. That's fine and might even help shrink the deficit. However, it's not going to replace fiscal reform. If he shows some progress in curtailing contraband, perhaps the elites will voluntarily agree to raise the amount that they pay in taxes? Yeah, I don't think so either.

As president, Perez does not have to keep Paz y Paz or Mack. Given that he doesn't believe that the military committed genocide in the early 1980s or military officers should be tried for civil war era crimes, it's easy to understand why he might want to get right of Paz y Paz and/or Mack. It's not even clear that either of them would want to be associated with the administration of the former general anyway. The question then becomes whether Perez replaces Paz y Paz with a serious, well-respected AG who only goes after today's crimes (not civil war era crimes) or does he appoint someone who isn't concerned with actually developing the rule of law in Guatemala. 

Perez, like some other Guatemalans, have been critical of CICIG and might want it to leave when its terms ends in 2013 or perhaps just have its mandate more focused. Either change probably would not help the people of Guatemala. I still don't know what to expect from a CICIG-Perez partnership. Wasn't CICIG sent to Guatemala to investigate someone like Perez? And Baldizon who is trying to position himself as the 2015 favorite? Would it help if CICIG came out and said that we have looked into allegations of serious wrongdoing by the President-elect and have found no evidence to substantiate the bringing of any charges against him? Then they could move on in peace.

Anyway, the point is that Perez has probably been dealt a better hand than Colom. It still might not be a winning hand and it’ll take some time to better understand how he intends to play his cards. I’m not optimistic. Like many, I wasn’t impressed by the two finalists and I wasn’t going to be optimistic about a presidency led by either man. I pray that I will be proven wrong, however. 

In other news, 

Mica Rosenberg and Mike McDonald also have a very good article on Special Report: New Guatemala leader faces questions about past and Ezra Fieser tries to figure out what the Roman Catholic Church expects from the new president in Church officials not sure what to expect from new Guatemalan president.

Murders continue downward trend in Guatemala

According to the Human Rights Ombudsman (PDH) in Guatemala, homicides decreased by 2.50% in the first nine months of 2011 compared to the same period in 2010. 

According to Carlos Mendoza's analysis of the first ten months of 2011, Guatemalan is on pace to experience its lowest murder rate since 2004.

Between January and the end of October, the PNC determined that 4,733 people were murdered. If November and December are just as murderous as the first ten months (an average of 473 each month), the country’s annual rate will settle in somewhere under 40 per 100,000. That rate would be the country's lowest since 2004's rate of 36 per 100,000. 

Guatemala's 4,733 January through October murders occurred in a population of over fourteen million. By comparison, El Salvador's population of approximately six million suffered through 3,627 murders during the same time period. If El Salvador experiences 764 murders in November and December (362 in Nov. and Dece), its rate would end up around 72.5 per 100,000.   

At some point, people are going to have to stop lying about the escalating murder rate in Guatemala update their data from 2009. The question is why is the murder rate going down, not why is it going up.

Spain will ask for extradition

Spanish Judge Eloy Velasco will ask the Spanish Government to formally request the extradition of 13 military officers alleged to have been involved in the murder of the UCA Jesuits in El Salvador.

In August, the Salvadoran Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) issued an opinion that the red alerts that had been issued for the former military officials required only that they be located. The alerts did not require El Salvador to arrest or to extradite them. 

As I wrote in September, 

While I can't say that I entirely bought the Supreme Court’s arguments, I figured that its ruling was only a beginning. People shouldn’t have gotten too worked up about the ruling and should instead let the legal process play out (that is, those who weren't actually pushing the case forward). Spanish authorities would in all likelihood alter their request in order to satisfy Salvadoran concerns. Once they had done that, the ball would be back in El Salvador's court. That sure seems to be where we are right now.

"Too worked up" probably wasn't the best choice of words. However, I just though that it was part of the process rather than the conclusion. It's now November and the Spanish judge and government seem to have addressed the concerns of the Salvadoran courts and its government. The ball is now back in El Salvador's possession.

The last ten years in Guatemala

On Monday, I wrote that President-elect Otto Perez Molina inherits a situation more favorable than his predecessor. The situation in Guatemala is by no means pretty. However, when I say that it is more favorable, I think back to the administrations of Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004)and Oscar Berger (2004-2008).

Portillo was accused of having stolen approximately $15-16 million dollars from the Defense Ministry in 2001. Former Defense Minister Eduardo Arevalo and former Finance Minister Manuel Maza were also accused of corruption. Portillo was found not guilty earlier this year. The US also accused Portillo of embezzling $3.9 million from the Defense Ministry and stealing at least another $1.5 million in donations from Taiwan that were intended to buy books for school libraries.

While Otto Perez and others have accused Colom of using state resources to benefit UNE and then LIDER, which might be illegal, one doesn't get the impression that Colom was stealing millions from the military and school kids. If the Perez administration finds that Colom and the rest of his administration were corrupt, I'll take it back.

During the Berger administration, there seems to be a good deal of evidence that death squads were operating out of various government agencies. Alejandro Giammattei, the country's former prison director, was accused of participating in the murders of seven inmates during a 2007 uprising at Pavon prison and the alleged execution of three inmates who escaped from the “El Infiernito” prison in 2005. 

Giammattei, former Interior Minister Carlos Vielmann, ex-police chief Erwin Sperisen, and sixteen other people are alleged to have belonged to a criminal organization that carried out executions (social cleansing) both inside and outside the country's prisons. While Portillo, Giammattei, Vielmann and Sperisen have so far avoided jail, it is just as important for Guatemala that they are not in positions of power today. Failing to bring these four to justice is a failure on the part of Colom, CICIG, and the Guatemalan justice system. However, having them out of government is a victory for Guatemala.  

In December 2010, a Guatemala court sentenced eight Guatemalans for their roles in killing three Salvadoran members of PARLACEN in February 2007. In May 2008, CICIG's Carlos Castresana estimated that approximately 25 percent of the country's murders were of the extrajudicial killing kind. While I doubt that extrajudicial executions by members of the National Civilian Police have ended, they do seem to occur much less frequently under Colom than under Portillo and Berger. If the Perez administration finds that Colom and the rest of his administration were carrying out extrajudicial executions from the presidential palace, I'll take it back as well. Send him and the rest to jail.

Finally, Guatemala was rocked by Rodrigo Rosenberg's May 2009 murder and his beyond the grave accusation against President Colom. Thousands of people took to the streets demanding that he resign and that Congress lift his immunity from prosecution. Those were pretty stressful times for the government and the country. Carlos Castresana and CICIG eventually found that Rosenberg orchestrated his own suicide. Rosenberg's suicide accomplices were found guilty earlier this year as were those who killed the Musas, those who sent Rosenberg down his doomed path.

In some ways, Colom never recovered from the Rosenberg murder. He had already been dealing with a congress and oligarchy with little interest in supporting his proposals. Appointing Conrado Reyes as Attorney General in 2010 and then the circus surrounding UNE's presidential candidate didn't help. Nor did the decapitations in 2010, the Los Cocos massacre, or Cabral's murder. 

I didn't see much hope on the horizon for Guatemala in 2009 and 2010. I thought that it would just muddle through for a awhile. While I remain somewhat pessimistic about the country's near-term prospects, I'm just not as pessimistic as I was a year ago. And these reasons don't even include the declining murder rate from 2009 to 2010 and probably from 2010 to 2011.

However, my opinion might change in the next two months when the former general takes the reins especially if he goes ahead with some of his campaign proposals. I hope that some of his proposals were just the stuff of campaigns, but we shall see.

What President-elect Otto Perez Molina Inherits in Guatemala

On Sunday, just over 50 percent of registered voters turned out to help former general Otto Perez Molina of the Patriotic Party (PP) defeat Manuel Baldizón of the Renewed, Democratic, Liberty (LIDER), 54 percent to 46 percent with 98 percent of the vote counted. 

This year's election campaign was marred by violence (over 30 candidates and campaign-workers killed), the utter disregard of electoral laws (campaign spending and donor transparency, a failure to abide by the official start date) except when it suited them (Sandra Torres' disqualification), outlandish proposals (Baldizón's promise to lead Guatemala to the World Cup), and a one size fits all mano dura solution to crime and insecurity in Guatemala.

The president-elect does in fact confront a difficult situation (El Nuevo Herald, Telesur, NYT). Over 50 percent of the population lives in poverty. The percentage of the population living in poverty is much greater in the countryside and among the indigenous. Even though Honduras and El Salvador are now much more violent, statistically speaking, Guatemala remains one of the most violent countries in the world, especially for women. The country's economy is expected to grow by less than 3 percent this year which is among the region's lowest and that was before the most recent storm damaged infrastructure and crops. 

On the other hand, President-elect Perez probably has more going for him than President Alvaro Colom did upon taking office. First, while the country's murder rate remains alarmingly high, it is on a downwards trend. Guatemala [correction] recorded 4,000-4,500 murders during the first nine months of the year and is on pace for 5,500-5,750 in 2011, down from 6,451 in 2009 and 5,960 in 2010. 

Colom added about 6,000 police officers during his term. However, after removing over 2,000 or so corrupt police officers, it's only a net of 4,000. To fulfill his promise of putting 10,000 more police on the streets and reaching 35,000, Perez will probably need to add 15,000 while continuing to remove those officers who are corrupt or are abusing their power (~5,000). Increasing the number of police should go a long way towards Perez’s goal of lowering the country’s murder rate by half during his four-year term.    

Second, Perez has Claudia Paz y Paz and Helen Mack. Paz y Paz was appointed by President Colom as the country’s first female attorney general and Helen Mack as police reform commissioner. Even though some Guatemalan elites have tried to sabotage their efforts to reform the judicial system and police force, from all indications they have done an exceptional job. While not completely eradicated, extrajudicial killings carried out by the police and security forces appear to have declined significantly. 

Guatemala has also made important steps to address its past. President Colom apologized on behalf of the Guatemalan state to former President Jacobo Arbenz's family for its complicity in the 1954 CIA-led coup that removed him from office. Among other things, the state has promised to more accurately depict Arbenz’ accomplishments and faults in schools. 

Four former military officials have also been sentenced to over 6,000 years in prison for one of the worst civil war massacres, the killing of over 200 men, women and children at Dos Erres in December 1982. Authorities also arrested several high-ranking officials, including former general Hector Mario Lopez Fuentes, former intelligence chief José Mauricio Rodríguez , and former general and de facto president Oscar Mejia, for their responsibility in the execution of the government’s 1980s scorched earth program.

Finally, the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) has had its mandate extended until 2013. While not perfect, CICIG and its commissioner Francisco Dall'Anese have taken important steps to provide the Guatemalan people and its institutions with the tools necessary to tackle impunity.

While these are some areas where Perez can continue the work of Colom, he also has to do more than Colom did to reform the country’s tax base, to promote transparency and the institutionalization of the government’s social programs, to tackle land inequality and respect for indigenous rights, and to provide long-term human security to the people of the Petén, Alta Verapaz, and the rest of Guatemala.

President Otto Perez Molina

Prensa Libre

General Perez Leads in Preliminary Tally

Preliminary returns have Otto Perez Molina of the Patriotic Party in the lead.

Siglo XXI

TPS Extension for Honduras and Nicaragua

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced that the Obama administration was extending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Honduras and Nicaragua for another 18 months each. 


TPS status will now expire on July 5, 2013. Chances are TPS will just be extended again before they expire in 2013, that is, unless the Republicans win in 2012. Then all bets are off.

Some thoughts while we wait

Guy Adams has Former general set to win Guatemalan presidency for The Independent. Yes, the murder rate doubled from 2006 to 2009, but it's decreased dramatically since that peak year (hopefully).There were 6,451 killed in 2009 and 5,960 2010. Guatemala's on pace for somewhere between 4,000-4,500 in 2011. Time to update the numbers.

Perez's pledges of "expanding the police, moving the army into trouble zones, and building more high-security prisons" is pretty similar to what President Colom has done and probably what any president after him would have done.

Finally, while Perez denies that troops under his command committed any atrocities, I find that hard to believe that neither Perez nor any other military official somehow avoided taking part in human rights violations from 1981-1983. Oh and the fact that he played an important role in helping to end the war in 1996 is not proof that he wasn't involved in any atrocities fifteen years earlier.

Edgar Calderon of AFP has Ex-general favorite as Guatemalans vote in run-off. Calderon mentions that Perez criticized President Colom of using state resources to influence today's vote. 

Amid a typically tense electoral climate, Perez accused government officials of handing out vouchers for roofing and food supplies to the poor in exchange for their votes for Baldizon.

"I am asking the president... to take his hands off this vote, and stop using Guatemalans' money to try to buy votes in favor of a candidate," said the white-haired ex-general, who long ago traded his military fatigues for civilian garb.

The allegations are probably true. I can understand why he wants to prevent Perez from winning but that doesn't make it right. And there are reports that the PP and LIDER were buying votes throughout the country, particularly in Solola. The PP was allegedly giving out food for votes in Totonicapan.

Elinor Comlay and Mike McDonald have more or less the same stories for Reuters in 

Right-wing retired general favorite in Guatemala vote. 

I'm still having trouble understanding what the human rights procurator recently said in that the 2011 election cycle has been the "most violent" in recent history with 43 dead in campaign-related killings. They are working off a number of 32 for 2007. A CRS Report for (US) Congress had 56 dead in 2007 and an EU report over 50. Have we all been exaggerating the violence in 2007?

Well, the polls are now closed and the counting has begun. Some violence, allegations of vote buying, and a higher level of abstention as expected. 

Weekend Elections

Prensa Libre has its final poll for Sunday's presidential elections in Guatemala. According to the poll carried out October 26 to 28, Otto Perez Molina of the Patriotic Party leads 58.5% to 41.5% over Manuel Baldizon of LIDER. When you factor in blank and null votes (5.7%), Perez leads 54.6% to 38.7%.

It's pretty certain that the former general is going to win this weekend. However, Perez won three out of four November polls back in 2007 before he was ultimately defeated by Alvaro Colom. Obviously, this election is different from that one - Perez is more of a well-known commodity, the choice back then was the right vs. center/center-left, mano dura vs. a more comprehensive approach to violence.

While we can't know for sure how the victor is going to govern, I do worry about their plans to pursue more mano dura policies towards gangs and cartels. It's not really my area of expertise, but those policies didn't really work out to well (yet?) in Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico. Each country's murder rate increased after the implementation of mano dura policies.

In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega is poised to win a first round victory. Boz has some thoughts on the elections as does Tim Rogers. While Ortega and the FSLN get pretty low marks for democracy and the rule of law, the economy is growing, poverty is declining, and the streets of Managua and the rest of the country are much safer than those of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. While I can't say that Ortega has been a force for democracy in the country (and might be bad in the medium- to long-term), I can understand why he is favored to win.

Honestly, I don't "care" who wins this weekend's elections. I don't care if it is Perez or Baldizon, Ortega or Gadea, or the FMLN or ARENA in March. It's more important to me that whoever wins governs in the best interests of the Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, and Salvadoran people.

The International Crisis Group on Guatemala

Kimberly Abbott has a podcast with Mark Schneider about drug-related violence and corruption in Guatemala up at the Huffington Post. Mark is the International Crisis Group's Senior Vice President and Special Advisor to Latin America. It's well worth a listen as I think that he strikes the right tone with Guatemala.

I'm sorry for the light posting. I've been busy finishing up my tenure application and am leaving for Providence on Thursday. 

New Book on Central America

Elana Zilberg, an Associate Professor in the Communication Department at the University of California San Diego has a new book on Space of Detention: The Making of a Transnational Gang Crisis between Los Angeles and El Salvador that looks interesting.

Here's the book's description.

Space of Detention is a powerful ethnographic account and spatial analysis of the “transnational gang crisis” between the United States and El Salvador. Elana Zilberg seeks to understand how this phenomenon became an issue of central concern for national and regional security, and how La Mara Salvatrucha, a gang founded by Salvadoran immigrants in Los Angeles, came to symbolize the “gang crime–terrorism continuum.” She follows Salvadoran immigrants raised in Los Angeles, who identify as—or are alleged to be—gang members and who are deported back to El Salvador after their incarceration in the United States.

Analyzing zero-tolerance gang-abatement strategies in both countries, Zilberg shows that these measures help to produce the very transnational violence and undocumented migration that they are intended to suppress. She argues that the contemporary fixation with Latino immigrant and Salvadoran street gangs, while in part a product of media hype, must also be understood in relation to the longer history of U.S. involvement in Central America, the processes of neoliberalism and globalization, and the intersection of immigration, criminal, and antiterrorist law. These forces combine to produce what Zilberg terms “neoliberal securityscapes.”