Guatemala CICIG Successes and Where Similar Investigations Will Occur Next

We discussed Guatemala’s CICIG’s report in May 2011 here. Sixty percent of cases had irregularities and “Among the many findings stated in the CICIG report, it is established that only 10% of Guatemalan children who were placed for adoption between 2007 and 2010 were in an orphaned or abandoned situation.” Ten….percent…

A new article explains the successes it has had as well as which other countries want a similar set of investigators: Honduras, El Salvador, and Belize. It is important to note that US adoption agencies are ramping up their programs in Honduras, a country that places very few children per year.

The ties of international adoption to organized crime need to be highlighted as well. The corruption is not just in small things like drivers asking for more gas money than is customary. This has been documented in Guatemala where people associated with the adoption industry have had pesky car explosion “accidents”. Read Finding Fernanda by Erin Siegal for that horrific sideplot.

We have excerpted the parts related to adoption below. We want to emphasize that Guatemala ASKED the UN to intervene. The UN didn’t TELL Guatemala that they were demanding a shutdown as is FREQUENTLY and WRONGLY bemoaned by the adoption industry and FREQUENTLY and WRONGLY repeated by adoptive parents who choose not to look at the facts.

“Mr Dall’Anese leads the Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala [CICIG], an elite unit of foreign investigators, employed by the United Nations, who arrived in the country in 2007. In a bold experiment in turning round failed states, their remit is to disrupt the crime networks which have their tentacles wrapped around almost every tier of government, from the police and judiciary to its industry and politicians.

The history behind their appointment is long and complex. But it boils down to this: financed by the $10bn-a-year cocaine trade which courses through its borders, criminal gangs have for years been able to operate in the Central American country with impunity. Judges throw out prosecutions, on spurious “technicalities”. Police refuse to investigate thefts, extortion rackets, official fraud, and even deaths. Roughly 96 percent of all murders currently go unsolved.

Four years ago, Guatemala’s government reached out to the UN for help, having decided, in the words of former vice president Eduardo Stein, that “asking the justice system to reform itself was like tying up a dog with a string of sausages”.[Best quote!]

                                              
CICIG was duly established, and its work is perceived to be so successful that Honduras, El Salvador, and Belize are currently considering plans to introduce similar UN-backed teams of prosecutors.

Mr Dall’Anese has 207 members of staff, hailing from 23 countries. They dig through official paperwork and listen dutifully to anonymous telephone tips from members of the public. They propose new laws, and massive reforms. At their behest, former President Alvaro Colom fired 1,700 corrupt police officers, and six judges from the Supreme Court. At any one time, they have dozens of investigations running, several of which have recently resulted in high-profile success.

Last year, CICIG uncovered a crime ring of public officials, judges, and orphanages, who were kidnapping small children from poor families, falsifying their birth records, and fast-tracking paperwork which allowed them to be illegally sold for adoption in the United States. “We
managed to get two very prominent public officials imprisoned,” he says.

“It was a huge achievement. We are talking about a business worth hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.”

The lawyer taking on Guatemala’s criminal gangs [The Independent 1/4/12 by Guy Adams]

REFORM Puzzle Pieces

Corruption shut down Guatemala, not the big, bad UNICEF.

Rampant in international adoptions from Guatemala. See our posts about Anyeli and our Finding Fernanda book review.