A UN commission tasked with battling corruption and crime in Guatemala has fired almost 2,000 police and sent 130 top government officials and others to jail since being established two-and-a-half years ago — but more work needs to be done, the commission’s chief said on Tuesday.
Carlos Castresana and leading Guatemalan figures including Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Manchu said criminals still have a strong hold on the Central American nation, and they want the commission’s mandate extended and strengthened to continue the crackdown on organized crime and drug trafficking and to build up the country’s legal and judicial systems.
Guatemala’s former vice president Eduardo Stein said the commission and the country are in “a colossal fight to save our institutions from the kidnapping of these dark forces of organized crime.”
Castresana said dismantling the illegal groups that arose during Guatemala’s civil war from 1960 to 1996 will take about 10 years.
But he said Guatemalans must follow through and “the question is how long the United Nations must help Guatemalans ... until they are able to take the responsibility alone.”
The UN created the independent International Commission Against Impunity in 2007 at the request of Guatemalan authorities overwhelmed by the scope of crime and corruption. The current mandate expires in September next year and Castresana said his recommendation is “to make a stronger commission with a broader mandate.”
Manchu said Guatemala is the only country in the world where the UN investigates government officials involved in organized crime, and she said it could serve as a model for other nations.
The Guatemalans held a news conference on Tuesday before meeting with representatives from donor nations funding the commission’s work.
Gonzalo Marroquin, director of the newspaper Prensa Libre and vice president of the Inter-American Press Association, said despite the commission’s successes “today in Guatemala impunity rules.”
Castresana said almost 2,000 police — about 15 percent of the national force — and one attorney general, three chief prosecutors and three Supreme Court justices have been dismissed.
He added that 130 individuals, including a former president, defense minister, finance minister and two acting directors of the national police have been prosecuted and imprisoned. He said this work showed the commission was making a difference.
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant