Guatemala | Guatemala: The reform process is stalling

The fight against corruption in Guatemala is making the new Attorney General Gabriel García Luna sweat. Photo: AFP/Johan Ordónez Delia Catú is an indigenous social expert. She works with those who have been and continue to be deported from the United States to Guatemala in recent months. The forced returnees are called “retornados”. Often it is entire families who usually have to start from scratch. Delia Catú and her team from Pop N’oj help with this. Reintegration is the name of the program, which is aimed primarily at indigenous families whose children often grew up in the USA and now have to get used to almost everything again. “The children have grown up between two cultures, have not properly learned their native language, often the indigenous Mam, and have massive difficulties finding their way at school,” says Catú, explaining the situation in the very north of the country, just over an hour’s drive from the border with Mexico.

The Huehuetenango region is considered dangerous, jobs are rare and people keep disappearing, often young women such as the employee of a local administration. “She disappeared in January last year,” says Delia Catú, describing the difficult circumstances. She values ​​people who want to change things, who stand up for human rights and against the cronyism that she knows all too well. Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa was one of those people. He was also a well-known figure six hours' drive from Guatemala City. The 43-year-old former prosecutor was an accomplished anti-corruption investigator. Between 2015 and 2018 he worked on one of the largest corruption trials, La Linea. Foppa helped land former President Otto Pérez Molina and his Vice President Roxana Baldetti behind bars for several years. But that's not why many people remember the man with the stylish goatee and the close-shaven head of hair, but rather because of his videos on Tiktok. Once, sometimes up to three times a week, Foppa posted a video denouncing the machinations and crimes of the elite.

Foppa's appearances on social media were liked by many people, including ordinary people. For them, Foppa was someone who called a spade a spade clearly and precisely, according to Guatemalan journalist Marvin Del Cid. Consequently, thousands came to the funeral of the inconvenient. Following the funeral, there were demonstrations in defense of democracy. Appeals for unity are circulating in Guatemala, appeals to form political alliances and finally take action together for the country. This is positive, says human rights lawyer Héctor Reyes, who like many others was present at the funeral.

The political divisions within the country's left are deep. This is also a reason why there is much to suggest that the right, and behind it the "Pact of the Corrupts", the elite network, could exploit the Bernardo Arévalo government's lack of enforcement, warns Marvin del Cid.

Marvin del Cid believes that in the upcoming election campaign for the presidential elections in the middle of next year, the fight against crime and the strengthening of the security organs could, as so often, become the central issue. He calls on the new Attorney General Gabriel García Luna to give priority to the investigation.

Many people are hoping for Attorney General García Luna, according to lawyer Héctor Reyes, who has repeatedly defended criminalized human rights activists, but also journalists like José Rubén Zamora. »The entire society is longing for a justice system that is more predictable and transparent. This is now in demand, the new Attorney General has to prove himself," he says.

However, it would be even more important if new political alliances were formed that ensure that new candidates run for the presidency in Guatemala on June 27, 2027. “That cannot be ruled out, even if the political left has repeatedly found it difficult to work with each other instead of against each other in recent years,” says Michael Mörth. The German lawyer and analyst can draw on more than 30 years of experience in Guatemala. “The fear here is that repression and the era of political murders will return and, in the best case scenario, that could ensure that new alliances are formed.” The clearly political murder of Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa could be the initial spark for this.  

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