Biden’s arrival in the White House is a welcome break for those who fight for justice in Central America.
After Trump’s infinite will to break things, having a grown-up leading the self-appointed global cop is no bad thing. Of course, the thug remains unpunished. Worse still, his Republican enablers show no intention of letting up in the undemocratic folly. They have learnt nothing from the attack on the Capitol.
As with anything that happens in the North, the last four years’ catastrophe will surely affect us. But for now it is Washington’s task to deal with it, and here we have plenty of our own problems. Despite this, just eight days into its mandate the Biden administration decided to flex its muscle and call out the Pact of the Corrupt in the Guatemalan legislature as it insisted in appointing the most inadequate person it could find as a magistrate of the Constitutional Court. And it seems to be working.
The new Administration must grapple with such complex issues as rejoining the Paris Agreement, normalizing its arms control deal with Iran and regaining the Europeans’ lost respect. Why the early attention to our shithole country? (If only all that was left of Trump was his intemperate bluntness.)
The history of our relations with the US provides some clues: Guatemala is the ideal subject to set an example. It has problems that are so heinous that no one across the political spectrum in the United States is willing to justify them. It is obsequious enough (as in the case of the “safe third country” agreement) to do what it is told without protest. And too small for a mistake to translate into an uncontrollable problem.
In 1954, at the founding event of our contemporary maelstrom, the Dulles brothers, experts like Trump in breaking things, sowed salt in what little democratic soil we had and showed how those who disobey would be dealt with from then on. Shortly before, they had tried it in Iran. Three generations of Guatemalans have lived with the consequences as have done three generations of Iranians. Of course, because of it, in Washington each new administration also inherits problems —big ones in Asia and small ones here— that are apparently intractable.
The United States still insist on prioritizing work with the bad partner that is Cacif.
However, today history presents an opportunity both for the Biden administration and for the long-suffering Guatemalan citizens themselves. In 1954, Eisenhower’s anti-communism and business priorities found an echo in the unproductivity, prudishness and violence of our elites. But since then things have become more complex. The Catholic Church gave way to countless Protestant churches. Today these are a cacophonous amplifier of antidemocratic messages and local mafias that barely make up for the support they give the US in their interest in Israel. The military mutated with gusto into drug traffickers. And the economic elite continues to do what it does best: say no to everything so as not to change anything. Of course, all this while it gets in bed with drug traffickers (think of Acisclo Valladares Jr., scion of one of the oldest Guatemalan families and now indicted in a federal court in Miami) and while it practices a particularly hypocritical evangelism.
And it is this that presents an opportunity but also a challenge. Because the United States still insist on prioritizing work with the bad partner that is Cacif (the elite’s cartel-cum-business association). Just look at what it took for them to publish a gibberish-laden communiqué about the outrageous election of Mynor Moto as a magistrate. And this is the same Cacif that enabled the expulsion of Cicig, the effective UN-backed anti-corruption agency in Guatemala: they preferred to free their corrupt relatives from judicial persecution even if that meant giving a pass to all corruption and organized crime. And it is Cacif that politically supports the board of directors of the Congress and that wants judges and magistrates to suit themselves even if that means favoring judges and magistrates who also suit the drug lords’ needs.
Of course, with the trade balance literally in the balance, giving up relations with those who control the energy, telecommunications or agro-export sectors in Guatemala does not come lightly to US foreign policy managers. Not so much for the size of that trade, for traffic with Guatemala is small, but rather for fear of giving a bad example. However, now Guatemala may have enough entrepreneurs who are large enough and who do not depend on the social control of their class to demand that they break ranks with Cacif. Neither private sector nor entrepreneurship should be made equivalent to Cacif. Biden is showing signs of wanting to make discreet but effective changes on core policy issues in the US. Might this perhaps be a good time to suggest he close the unhappy chapter the United States opened in Guatemala in 1954?
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Read it also in Spanish.
