In Guatemala, justice and truth have not been served

Two weeks ago, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court took a landmark decision.

José Efraín Ríos Montt, the former de facto President-come-dictator of Guatemala who ruled the country for over a year from 1982 to 1983, was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and was sentenced to 80 years in prison. The Court determined that Ríos Montt was "responsible for the massacre of 1,771 people, the forced displacement of 29,000, and the subjecting of the Ixil to conditions designed to destroy it". It deliberated that during his time in office, Ríos Montt had orchestrated a genocide against the Guatemalan people and specially the Ixil, the indigenous group which mainly resides in the mountains of western Guatemala.

Ríos Montt had masterminded the genocide, unleashed upon the Ixil a massacre at the hands of the army, and justified it all claiming that he was fighting an insurgency and the threat of communism. In the mind of this sadistic, racist ruler the so-called "enemies of the state" had to be obliterated, and therefore he not only allowed, but promoted the carnage which was unleashed against the Ixil by the military and most horrendously its "elite" troops, the kaibiles.

For the full length of Ríos Montt's 'administration', the Ixil were prosecuted and their communities were shattered to pieces. Women were systematically raped and killed, children were shot, had their hearts taken out alive or were burned to death. Pregnant women were killed by extracting the fetus out of their bodies and leaving them to bleed to death. The desecrated villages were burnt to the ground to make sure that no one survived. Under the orders of Ríos Montt, the Ixil endured this campaign of terror which wiped out hundreds, not to say thousands of Ixil and other Guatemalans.

Despite the blatant and widely-known murderous acts that Rios Montt committed against the Guatemalan people, he walked free for a long while. In the 1980s, and amidst the environment of the so-called Cold War, Ríos Montt was free-handed. Fearful about the "spread" of communism, the American countries sat idle while the people of Guatemala was prosecuted and killed. Then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan --whose administration financially and logistically supported the brutal regime of Rios Montt-- declared that he was being given a 'bum rap' by its critics. Meanwhile, Mexico, which had already helped around 180,000 Guatemalans escape to safety, kept quiet about Ríos Montt's atrocities under the ignominious Doctrina Estrada -a policy of no invervention in the domestic affairs of foreign countries.

Ríos Montt eventually stepped down, but he gained prosecutorial immunity. The president who made an inferno out of Guatemala even secured a safe haven for himself at the Guatemalan Congress and no court was able to put him on trial --until 14 January, 2012 when his immunity expired.

Twenty years passed since he committed these crimes. Two weeks ago, the Constitutional Court could have delivered justice. The ruling would not have brought back to life all the people who died at the hands of Ríos Montt, his army and the kaibiles, but the decision could have been a first bold step towards the closure of a very dark chapter of Guatemalan history. It would have demonstrated that in the face of despicable evil, justice can still prevail. And more importantly, it could have reminded us that justice and truth are best served and defended not through the rule of force, but through the rule of law.

Yet, the ruling was contested by some sectors of the Guatemalan society which would like to focus on the future of Guatemala at the expense of its past and, most importantly, its people. And today, despite all the evidence, the Constitutional Court overturned its historic decision. The pressure from these powerful sectors was intense. And instead of siding for truth and justice, the Constitutional Court ceded to these pressures. 

In the end, in Guatemala, injustice and lies have prevailed.

For the U.S. and Mexico, business as usual is bad business

Last Friday, President Barack Obama visited Mexico for the fourth time during his administration and the first during the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, who took office  in December 2012.

The visit was intended to set the basis of "a strong personal and professional work relationship" between the two Presidents and their countries. Their speeches thus touched upon common bilateral issues such as the historical and social links between the two countries and the ever-increasing economic exchanges that constitute the basis of our "shared" prosperity. Following the tradition of all U.S. and Mexican presidents since the 1990s, Barack Obama and Enrique Peña Nieto emphasised the historical shift in U.S.-Mexico relations from a highly-antagonistic bilateral relation to the joint participation of our countries in  one of the (still) most important trade agreements in the world: the NAFTA. In short, business as usual.

However, beyond the declarations of goodwill and good vicinity, the visit was of little significance to the advancement of U.S.-Mexico relations. Contrary to what was expected, the Presidents only made ambiguous declarations over might-be future cooperation initiatives, which replaced the announcement of new political or economic bilateral commitments. Grandiose speeches in impressive open settings replaced the negotiations behind closed doors that commonly generate subtantive agreements. Promises of cooperation were all worded in an poetic and uncompromising language which is definitely pleasing to the ear but difficult to ground.

In fact, most of the initiatives announced through speeches and joint press conferences are of little or no help for the development of bilateral cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico. What is more, most of them are initiatives of a domestic or multilateral nature which were already in process regardless of the visit.

For instance, Obama announced that the U.S. will promote the expansion of educational and exchanges between the two countries. But he did not mention that such iniative, named 100,000 strong in the Americas, is part of a broader U.S.-Latin America exchange programme, which was launched in 2011, which mirrors an initiative launched between the U.S. and China in 2009, and in which Mexico only happens to take part.

Obama also claimed that the U.S. and Mexico will see regional trade expanded. However, he almost forgot to mention that this will actually result from the implementation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in which Mexico also happens to take part, rather than through a much-needed review and update of the NAFTA, which will "celebrate" its entering into force on January 1, 2014 without one single amendment, despite the challenges that have come along with its success.

Finally, Obama mentioned the always touchy issue of illegal immigration, only to assert that it will be addressed as a U.S. domestic political issue rather than a socioeconomic phenomenon involving the two countries. While it is irrefutable that immigration reform in the U.S. is only a domestic issue, the phenomenon of migration is not. And as such it should be adressed bilaterally through the promotion of bilateral investment, the creation of jobs in both sides of the border, and the provision of U.S. support for the raising of living standards in Mexico.

Meanwhile, Peña Nieto touched upon the very sensitive issue of arms-trafficking that occurs along the U.S.-Mexico border. Obama responded acknowleging that the U.S. is in large part responsible for the deaths of thousands of Mexicans in the so-called war against drug cartels. Yet, none of the Presidents proposed increasing or enhancing bilateral and regional cooperation to address the problem. Instead, Peña Nieto recognized that at the moment unilateral (even if probably ineffective) Mexican action will have to do, in the absence of U.S. legislation which can control the flow of guns south of the Río Bravo.

In a few words, despite the great need for cooperation to address these common challenges and take advantage of great opportunities created by the so-called rise of Mexico, in this hours-long visit, the only agreement that the Presidents seemed to make was to not cooperate, at least not bilaterally. Instead, they seemed to concur that domestic or multilateral responses will have to do for the moment.

U.S.-Mexico business then will remain as usual. There will be no U.S.-Mexico equivalent to the U.S.-Canada Smart Borders agreement which can ease up and streamline the flows of trade and people along our shared border. There will be no speeding-up of the U.S.-Mexico Cross Border Trucking Pilot Program, which almost twenty years after its implementation still only allows less than 30 Mexican companies to make long-haul trips into the United States. There was no announcement of the date for the next North American Leaders' Summit which was abruptly cancelled last year and not yet re-scheduled. In sum, Mexico and the United States seem to have given up on increasing bilateral and regional cooperation.

And in times of great challenges and equally great opportunities, that only means bad business for all of us.

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