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NY Times, Sept. 4 2015
Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala Is Jailed Hours After Resigning Presidency
By AZAM AHMED and ELISABETH MALKIN
GUATEMALA CITY — Just hours after tendering his resignation as president
of Guatemala, Otto Pérez Molina was sent to jail to await the conclusion
of a hearing examining his role in a multimillion-dollar customs fraud
case that has shaken the nation and sent reverberations throughout the
region.
The decision to jail Mr. Pérez Molina highlighted the seismic change
sweeping through Guatemala after the corruption accusations in April,
and offered a dramatic validation of a growing street demonstration
movement demanding his ouster and prosecution.
For much of Guatemala’s violent history, marked by dictatorship and
military repression, such a scene would have been unimaginable: a
president forced to resign, then sit in open court to hear charges
leveled against him and ultimately spend the night in a prison he once
might have overseen as a top general.
All that in the course of a single day.
Until now, Mr. Pérez Molina had given no indication that he would go
gently. Over months, street protests grew to include tens of thousands
of citizens demanding that he step down over accusations that he played
a major role in a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme. But still, the
president — who was the military’s negotiator during talks to end the
nation’s bloody 36-year civil war — denied wrongdoing and refused to
leave office. But just before midnight on Wednesday, Mr. Pérez Molina
filed his resignation, saying he would “face justice and resolve my
personal situation.”
In the courtroom on Thursday, he listened calmly while prosecutors
played wiretap recordings that they said implicated him as the leader of
a vast fraud ring. His face arranged in a look of alert composure, the
now former president took notes as more than six hours of recordings
played before judges, lawyers and the news media.
Afterward, he paused to speak with reporters, proclaiming his innocence
and pledging to face the allegations.
“It’s one thing to listen but another thing to investigate,” he said,
referring to the long day of taped conversations. “All Guatemalans have
to respect the law, and I assure you I will respect the law and this
process.”
When Mr. Pérez Molina left the courtroom, he passed a series of cells
filled with those accused of being gang members and others facing their
own hearings. Some of them began catcalling, whistling, throwing up gang
signs and shouting threats. He maintained the composure he had held
during the hearing.
Outside, a modest but jubilant crowd filled the city’s central plaza,
the nerve center of the protest movement that began five months ago. A
throng of vendors sold protest paraphernalia, hawking whistles, masks
and Guatemalan flags for about $5. As a sporadic rain fell, the crowd
passed the time the same way it had for months, with drums, chants and
blaring whistles.
The difference on Thursday was that the noise was characterized by
celebration, not the outrage that had fueled it for months. The
protesters’ goal of bringing down the president accomplished, the tenor
was easygoing, even among the police. Where before hundreds of officers
lined the perimeter of the plaza, on high alert, the contingent there on
Thursday appeared relaxed, even relieved, at the events transpiring
before them.
“The powerful of this country never bothered to lift people from the
street,” said Cifuentes Arreaga Sergio, a 20-year veteran of the
national civil police, who was stationed along the steps of the hulking
Palacio Nacional.
Ignoring the occasional explosion of confetti and the cacophony nearby,
he betrayed a smile. “This was the only thing that the power of the
state was going to respond to,” he said.
Mr. Pérez Molina was sent to Matamoros prison, which is on a military
base in central Guatemala City.
His vice president, Alejandro Maldonado, was sworn in as president on
Thursday afternoon, after Congress voted to accept the resignation. Mr.
Maldonado demanded the resignations of top government officials, though
many had already stepped down. His term will end in January, with the
inauguration of the winner of elections that were scheduled to begin on
Sunday.
Mr. Pérez Molina, 64, is the first president in Guatemalan history to
resign over a corruption scandal, experts said, a striking rarity in a
country long known for the impunity of its political establishment. And
though the economy in Guatemala has lagged compared with those of other
countries in Latin America, Mr. Pérez Molina’s sudden reversal of
fortune put it firmly within a wave of efforts elsewhere in the region
to make political systems more accountable.
His reaction to the protests might itself be a signal of how much
Guatemala has entered a new era. Though Mr. Pérez Molina, who once ran
the military’s feared intelligence operation, steadfastly ruled out
resignation until the very end, his government never resorted to the
sort of harsh measures that characteristically met public dissent.
Yet major questions loom. Before the monumental challenge of
transitioning from a system of impunity to one more responsive to its
people lies a more immediate one: Sunday’s election.
Mr. Pérez Molina’s sudden departure leaves almost no time to enact
serious reforms before the transfer of power. And the candidates for
president were fielded in a world fundamentally different from the one
that Guatemalans awoke to on Thursday.
“At their finest moment, Guatemalans are faced with this really
difficult choice between candidates who may not lead to the kinds of
changes that people have been fighting for,” said Eric L. Olson, a
scholar at the Mexico Institute of the Wilson Center. Not all
Guatemalans worried about the next steps. Indeed, the protesters seemed
to possess a sort of euphoria marked by the belief that though they did
not know their precise location, they were on the road to lasting change.
“We have people with capacity who can lead in these elections,” said
Juan Gabon Villanueva, 56. “And if they’re corrupt, they will have to
change their behavior.”
The political convulsions in Guatemala are part of a broader movement
across Latin America, with discontent expressed through widespread
protests in Brazil, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and elsewhere.
Yet given Guatemala’s tragic history, the shifts here were already being
seen as a dramatic example of a transformation made against long odds.
In neighboring Honduras, for instance, large demonstrations have also
ignited a debate about whether to adopt a model similar to Guatemala’s,
in which an international team of investigators was deployed to bolster
the nation’s law enforcement capacity.
Protesters reacted initially to the fraud scandal, in which millions of
dollars were said to have been siphoned from customs revenue and
contracts, but they also expressed deep frustrations over longstanding
grievances: hospitals that ran out of medicine, rising crime, and police
forces that sometimes did not even have enough fuel to report to crime
scenes.
The series of inquiries that ignited the public’s rage were the work of
an uncommon alliance of local prosecutors and investigators backed by
the United Nations, known as the International Commission Against
Impunity in Guatemala or by its Spanish-language acronym, Cicig.
Established in 2007 to help expose the ties between criminal networks
and politicians, the commission eventually emboldened the nation’s own
prosecutors to hold the elite to account, and become a source of
inspiration for many Guatemalans. For much of its history, Guatemalan
society has been divided, its different constituencies fighting their
battles alone. The nation’s indigenous population, which suffered the
most under the civil war, which killed about 200,000 people, has long
struggled for equal rights with little success.
Yet the movement that began in April forged an unprecedented alliance of
different groups. Guatemala City’s middle class, long reluctant to speak
out, began joining forces with peasant and indigenous groups.
Eventually, the nation’s church and business leaders also took the side
of the protesters to demand change.
None of the candidates in the election had been expected to win 50
percent or more of the vote, making it likely that a runoff, tentatively
scheduled for Oct. 25, would be necessary.
Protesters, however, have not been happy about their choices. The
leading candidate, Manuel Baldizón, a businessman, is widely seen as
part of the discredited political system. His vice-presidential
candidate faces charges in a separate corruption case, and Mr.
Baldizón’s party had maintained a close alliance with Mr. Pérez Molina
and his party.
The other leading candidates are Jimmy Morales, a comedian, and Sandra
Torres, a former first lady.
The disdain for the political options was palpable among protesters who
gathered in the rain on Thursday. Some held signs bearing the name of
the leading party upside down with a slash through it.
“We don’t want to follow the path created by the institutions that are
controlled by the people we are trying to get rid of,” said Javier
Gramajo Lopez, an early organizer of the protests. “If Maldonado doesn’t
hear the things we are saying, we will push him out too.”
Azam Ahmed reported from Guatemala City, and Elisabeth Malkin from
Mexico City. Nic Wirtz contributed reporting from Guatemala City.
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