RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Several current and former politicians from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras were identified by the United States as “corrupt officials” in a report released on Tuesday. Among them are several lawmakers from the Central American countries, as well as the chief of staff and an ex-minister of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, among others.
The list, compiled by the Department of State at the request of Guatemalan-born U.S. lawmaker Norma Torres, includes 17 individuals. Some have already been sanctioned by the U.S. for “engaging in significant acts of corruption” or convicted by its judicial system.
“We already know that Central American governments are riddled with corruption,” said Torres, the only Central American native member of the U.S. Congress.
“Guatemalan elites filled the courts with cronies to serve their interests, and El Salvador’s president campaigned against corruption while surrounding himself with corrupt players,” she said in a statement.
“I will continue to work with the Biden administration to address other blatantly corrupt players, such as the president of Honduras. I expect an expanded list in June,” she added.
Although no indictment has yet been brought against him, Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández was implicated by a New York court of cocaine trafficking to the United States along with his brother Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, who was sentenced in March to life imprisonment by the U.S. justice system.
“In the report I requested, which is now public, the U.S. government recognizes the corruption that the Central American authoritarians and their minions deny and try to conceal,” Torres stated.
The lawmaker also denounced the shutdown of internationally backed anti-corruption bodies, such as CICIG in Guatemala and MACCIH in Honduras, and the “undermining” of CICIES in El Salvador, and accused high-ranking officials of interfering with independent investigations and blocking monitoring bodies.
“Relentless”
Torres, a Democrat from California, stressed the significance of having this listing after what she considered “four years of neglect” under Republican Donald Trump’s administration.
“U.S. assistance should only go to institutions and officials who are truly committed to the rule of law,” she said. “I will be relentless in demanding accountability from our government.”
To that end, she pledged to use “every tool available,” from financial sanctions to visa restrictions and economic aid suspensions.
The report lists the names of officials on whom there is “credible intelligence” regarding the perpetration of acts of corruption, including drug trafficking and the receipt or disbursement of political financing linked to drug trafficking, Torres’ office said.
From El Salvador, the officials close to Bukele comprise his chief of staff, Carolina Recinos, ex-Security Minister Rogelio Rivas, and lawmaker Guillermo Gallegos, leader of the Grand Alliance for National Unity (Gran Alianza por la Unidad Nacional – GANA) party that brought the president to power in 2019.
In addition, there are two prominent members of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), which governed El Salvador until 2019: former guerrilla José Luis Merino, known as “Comandante Ramiro”, ex-lawmaker and former vice-minister of Foreign Investment, and Sigfrido Reyes, ex-president of the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador.
From Honduras there are six members of the single-chamber National Congress: Juan Carlos Valenzuela Molina, Welsy Milena Vásquez López, Milton Jesús Puerto Oseguera, Gustavo Alberto Pérez, Oscar Najera and Gladys Aurora López.
From Guatemala, there are two lawmakers, Boris Roberto España Cáceres, legislator since 2012 and ex-governor of the department of Chinquimula, and Felipe Alejos Lorenzana, former first secretary of Congress.
There is also Carlos Danilo Preciado Navarijo, mayor of Ocós, arrested in January in Panama on drug trafficking charges in the United States.
Other Guatemalans identified are Acisclo Valladares, ex-minister of Economy and a fugitive from U.S. justice for drug money laundering; Gustavo Adolfo Alejos Cambara, ex-chief of staff of former President Álvaro Colom (2008-2012); and Mario Amílcar Estrada Orellana, ex-lawmaker and presidential candidate in 2019, sentenced in 2020 in the United States to 15 years in prison for drug trafficking.
Source: Infobae