Guatemala national strike demands president linked to corruption and mass murder step down

Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina talks to reporters after an event in Zacapa, in this handout photograph released to Reuters by the Guatemala Presidency on August 21, 2015.


Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina talks to reporters after an event in Zacapa, in this handout photograph released to Reuters by the Guatemala Presidency on August 21, 2015.

Democracy Now did a great interview today with journalist Allan Nairn, on the unprecedented protests taking place today in Guatemala.

To follow today's historic national strike as it unfolds, follow the hashtags ‪#‎JusticiaYa‬ ‪#‎RenunciaYa‬ on Twitter and Facebook.

So, first: what's happening right now in Guatemala, the tl;dr version.

[A] team of dogged investigators and prosecutors is on the cusp of an astonishing feat: bringing down President Otto Pérez Molina, who stands accused of having played a leading role in a huge kickback scheme. Authorities in Guatemala City arrested Mr. Pérez Molina’s former vice president, Roxana Baldetti, last Friday, and began to unveil an extensive dossier that has prompted public outrage and led to the resignation of at least 14 members of Mr. Pérez Molina’s cabinet.

Allan Nairn reported from Guatemala in the '80s, the peak of that nation's era of mass murder by government against its own citizens. That war was backed by the USA under Ronald Reagan. Some of its bloodiest years were under military dictator Jose Efrain Rios Montt, who was brought to trial for genocide, which I reported on for Boing Boing. He was found guilty, then the case was basically up-ended, and it is still dragging through the courts.

One of the Army commanders who carried the mass murders out under Rios Montt was Otto Perez Molina, who was literally on the CIA payroll while the Army slaughtered indigenous people, unionists, college students, and anyone they declared a Communist-leaning "guerrilla sympathizer."

Allan Nairn interviewing "Major Tito," now better known as Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina.


Allan Nairn interviewing "Major Tito," now better known as Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina.

Allan famously interviewed Otto Perez Molina in the Ixil region in the '80s, when he used the alias Mayor Tito. "Major Tito" was the elite Army commander of a base in the Ixil Maya community of Nebaj. There, he implemented the government's program of torture, rape, and mass murder that killed thousands.

Otto Perez Molina is now the president of Guatemala.

Today, Guatemalans around the country will participate in a general strike calling for an end to corruption. As Allan says in this interview, the general strike today takes aim at the corruption that groups like CICIG have helped to expose. But if that surge of public outrage spreads to a larger call for justice, a greater revolution may unfold.

For a primer on the corruption scandal that sparked the current protests, this New York Times article is a good read. Basically, Otto Perez Molina and former vice-president Roxana Baldetti are looking at jail time for self-dealing.

Allan Nairn interviewing "Major Tito," now better known as Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina.


Allan Nairn interviewing "Major Tito," now better known as Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina.

This part of the Democracy Now interview is really important:

AMY GOODMAN: Allan, The New York Times editorial today says, "The president [Otto Pérez Molina], whose term expires in January, [and] who enjoys immunity while in office, has refused to heed the calls for his resignation, even as the business establishment and many politicians have turned on him. Of course he deserves his day in court, but right now he is only delaying the inevitable—meaning, quite likely, a prison sentence, along with one for [former Vice President Roxana] Baldetti. That outcome would send a powerful message to Guatemalans who aspire to be governed by honest leaders. It should also be studied, and possibly emulated, in neighboring countries where justice is still too often administered arbitrarily or not at all." That from The New York Times today. Your response?

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, one neighboring country that needs justice is the United States. The United States has not yet reached the level of civilization of Guatemala. Guatemala put their own former head of state, their own former dictator, Ríos Montt, on trial and convicted him of genocide. When I was in the courtroom as that verdict was being read out, I was trying to imagine if you could be standing in a court in Texas and hearing a guilty verdict being read out against George W. Bush for the civilians he killed during the invasion of Iraq, or in a court in Illinois hearing a guilty verdict being read out against President Barack Obama for the civilians he killed with his drone strikes. And it’s just—I didn’t have enough imagination to reach that point. It’s inconceivable in the U.S. now. But Guatemala has done that.

Now, they’re going after the sitting president for corruption. This is being down with the initiative, the main initiative, of the special prosecutor’s office, that was created as a result of agitation by human rights activists in Guatemala who succeeded in getting a special statute implemented. That special prosecutor is backed by the United Nations, and the Attorney General’s Office of Guatemala has gone along with them. And now they have arrested the sitting vice president. They’re seeking to arrest the sitting president for corruption. But again, the question is if the movement spreads broadly enough, if it reaches the Mayan heartland, if people come into the streets and are not intimidated by CACIF, not intimidated by the army, and they start demanding justice for the years of mass murder, the ongoing economic exploitation at the hands of local oligarchs, but also at the hands of foreign corporations who they brought in—now there’s mass looting of the mineral wealth of Guatemala by American and especially Canadian mining companies, and activists who protested against that have been murdered. This could all face change now if the movement goes far enough. And Washington and the rich are desperately trying to stop it.

Can you imagine America going after a sitting president for corruption?

Don't think of Guatemala as backwards. Think of the sophisticated, extremely well-organized Guatemalans who've fought for this day of transparency and justice as your role models.

A photograph of "Major Tito," now better known as Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina.


A photograph of "Major Tito," now better known as Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina.