Central America

Guatemala’s leader to skip Americas Summit after US sanctions

AFP

Guatemala’s President Alejandro Giammattei said Tuesday he will skip next month’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, after Washington sanctioned his top prosecutor over allegations of corruption.

The United States officially designated Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras for “significant corruption” Monday, just hours after she was reappointed for a second four-year term.

Speaking on Tuesday during an event at the Mexican embassy in Guatemala, Giammattei said he did not expect to be invited to the summit.

“In any case, I sent word that I’m not going,” he said.

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“As long as I am president this country will be respected and its sovereignty will be respected.”

Earlier in the day, Porras blasted the US move, saying she will not bow to pressure from Washington.

“The attorney general and head of the public ministry does not accept any kind of interference nor pressure and will continue working in an objective and impartial manner ensuring strict compliance with the law,” her office said on Twitter.

It added that the “public ministry is an autonomous institution that is not subordinate to any international entity.”

Last year, the US said it had “lost confidence” in Porras after she sacked Guatemala’s top anti-corruption prosecutor Francisco Sandoval.

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Sandoval, who fled to the United States after being fired, claimed he had encountered numerous obstacles in his work and had been prevented from investigating Giammattei without Porras’s permission.

Critics say Sandoval’s replacement is a defender of corruption and persecutor of the opposition.

Porras has had at least six anti-corruption prosecutors arrested on charges ranging from obstruction of justice to abuse of authority.

The prosecutors were fired amid ongoing investigations of politicians charged with graft, and claimed their treatment was revenge from those in power.

Giammattei said on Monday that Porras’s reappointment was supported unanimously by the commission tasked with vetting candidates for the position of attorney general.

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The European Union said in a statement that the reappointment of Porras “raises concerns about the commitment of the Guatemalan authorities to tackle corruption and safeguard the independence of the judiciary.”

The EU said the Public Ministry’s legal action against judges, lawyers and prosecutors involved in investigating corruption “forms part of a wider pattern of intimidation and harassment that has led over 20 justice operators to leave the country.”

Participation in the Summit of Americans has already caused some controversy.

Rumors have been swirling that Washington will not invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to the conference, with the presidents of Mexico and Bolivia announcing they would only attend as long as there are no exclusions.

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Central America

Guatemala’s president denounces MP raids during Constitutional Court election

The president of Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo, on Thursday accused the Ministerio Público (MP) of interfering in the process to select magistrates for the country’s highest court, the Corte de Constitucionalidad (CC).

Arévalo has been locked in an ongoing dispute with Attorney General Consuelo Porras, who has been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union and labeled by critics as “corrupt” and “anti-democratic” after efforts to block the president from taking office two years ago.

Earlier on Thursday, the MP said it was investigating alleged irregularities in the voting process and carried out raids at polling sites set up at Club La Aurora and Parque Erick Barrondo, in Guatemala City, where the Colegio de Abogados y Notarios de Guatemala (CANG) was electing its principal and alternate representatives to the CC.

In posts on X, the president described the operation as a “spurious” action aimed at “interfering” in the election and “intimidating” voters in order to “alter” the outcome.

Voting was temporarily disrupted by the searches, the frisking of the CANG president, and a power outage caused by the explosion of a nearby transformer. Once the process resumed and concluded, the association elected Astrid Jeannette Lemus Rodríguez as one of the five members of the Constitutional Court, with Luis Fernando Bermejo Quiñónez chosen as her alternate.

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“They failed in their attempt to hijack the elections (…). Honest lawyers won,” Arévalo wrote in a subsequent message.

Central America

Guatemala to Phase Out Longstanding Medical Cooperation Agreement with Cuba

Guatemala’s government announced on Tuesday that it will end this year a cooperation agreement with Cuba that has brought doctors from the Caribbean nation to work in the Central American country.

Guatemala’s Health Ministry told EFE that the program, which has been in place for nearly three decades, will be phased out progressively throughout 2026.

According to the same source, there are currently 412 Cubans in Guatemala under the agreement, including 333 physicians.

Cuban medical brigades assigned to Guatemala have traditionally been deployed to various regions of the country to provide primary health care to local communities.

“The decision follows a technical assessment aimed at strengthening the sustainability of the national workforce and consolidating the public health system’s own capacities,” the Guatemalan ministry said.

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Earlier this week, lawmaker Sonia Gutiérrez, from the left-wing Winaq party, warned that the move “could be an inhumane act that threatens the health and lives of the country’s most vulnerable populations,” given the historic importance of Cuban doctors in providing medical care.

For that reason, the legislator summoned Health Ministry authorities to Congress, as permitted by law, to provide further details about the decision.

Former human rights ombudsman Jordán Rodas Andrade also weighed in on social media, recalling that “for 27 years Cuban doctors have been the backbone of health care in Guatemala’s most neglected areas,” and stressing that “ending this agreement is an act of ingratitude that leaves the most vulnerable unprotected.”

President Bernardo Arévalo’s government told EFE that, in order to guarantee continued care, it will implement a gradual replacement plan that includes hiring national personnel.

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Central America

Guatemala isolates Barrio 18 leader after attacks that killed 11 police

Guatemalan authorities have placed a leader of the Barrio 18 gang in an isolated cell without الكهرباء or “privileges” after he was accused of triggering a recent wave of violence that left 11 police officers dead, the government said on Sunday.

Members of Barrio 18, which is designated as a “terrorist” organization by both the United States and Guatemala, carried out the killings on January 18 in retaliation for the government’s takeover of three prisons that had been under the control of inmates linked to the group.

In response to the attacks, President Bernardo Arévalo declared a month-long state of siege, arguing that gang members were seeking better conditions in prison or transfers to lower-security facilities.

In a message posted on X alongside photographs, Arévalo announced the isolation of Aldo Dupie, also known as “El Lobo,” one of the gang leaders who allegedly directed the uprisings.

Images released by the government show Dupie inside a small cell with narrow windows, built from metal containers, in a secured area of the Renovación I prison in southern Guatemala — the same facility where the hostage-taking riot took place.

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With a shaved head and a stern expression, the gang leader appears alone and in handcuffs, according to the photographs.

Guatemala’s prison system said the “new area,” protected by metal fencing and barbed wire, will house high-risk inmates who will remain without privileges or electricity.