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Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ photo ops with Bernardo Arévalo this week at the White House show the U.S. government’s latest attempt to find an associate in northern Central America: “Your election has brought a sense of optimism to the people of America and around the world,” Harris asserted.
After the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala helped thwart the monthslong illegal effort to overturn the election results last year, the interest is mutual. On Monday Washington announced $170 million USD to fund economic development projects, security, and health in Guatemala. Arévalo admits that he needs international support:
“Just as we appreciate the political support we were given to recover our institutions and make it to inauguration, we are interested in their support for development, which is how the Guatemalan people will feel the benefits of supporting democracy,” Arévalo told El Faro English in a Tuesday interview.
Hours before, at the OAS Permanent Council, he made an unprecedented request for international observation of the selection of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) and appellate courts, a process key to his pledge to uproot corruption. Guatemalan courts, rife with influence-trafficking in recent years, have attracted multiple major corruption megacases and had a heavy hand in last year’s electoral process.
“Maintaining alliances like the ‘special relationship,’ as he called it, with the United States, depends on whether he can maintain his high level of public support at the local level,” says political scientist Marielos Chang, who has reservations about the real impact of the cooperation projects: “We’ll see if this turns out like the Chinese infrastructure projects in El Salvador, or if the U.S. channels aid differently.”
While receiving flak at home from impatient allies eager for him to take bold action, in late February he visited the European Council, Spain, and France. Spanish King Felipe was in Guatemala on inauguration day to witness last-second obstruction, while France was among the few in Europe to condemn coup efforts on its own, apart from the E.U.
“Dear Bernardo, count on the unconditional support of France in your struggle for democracy in Guatemala,” wrote Emmanuel Macron on X. It was the first time a French president appeared with his Guatemalan counterpart since Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
A French diplomat told El Faro English that Macron is unlikely to take Arévalo up on his invitation for a reciprocal visit —he was in Brazil on Sunday— but may send Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné to Guatemala as part of a regional tour including Mexico, amid French efforts to increase engagement in the Americas over issues like trade and Ukraine.
“If Bernardo Arévalo is to be an antidote to the democratic backsliding in Central America,” says Chang, “he must be as comfortable as president as he is as a diplomat. He seems uncomfortable making the difficult decisions of a president.”
The administration can take one victory lap, if symbolic: The International Olympic Committee has provisionally lifted its 2022 corruption-related suspension of Guatemala, which had forced athletes to compete on their own. Pending legal reforms, the country could now potentially be admitted to the July-August 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Problems beyond Porras
Back in Guatemala, AG Consuelo Porras is outmaneuvering the new administration. She has outright refused to speak bilaterally with Arévalo, but did meet with members of Congress, before and after the president formally requested they revoke her immunity on February 29 for “dereliction of duty.” The legal action from the government is now in the hands of the high courts. Porras has repeated: “I will not resign.”
She, too, has garnered international interest. After she illegally seized election ballots and baselessly accused Arévalo of fraud, she was named 2023 Person of the Year by the anti-corruption network OCCRP (previously given to Vladimir Putin and Nicolás Maduro). She still seeks the cancellation of his party Semilla, has charged the electoral magistrates, and insists on revoking the immunity of the sitting president and VP Karin Herrera.
“[Porras’ resignation] is necessary and we will continue working toward it,” said Arévalo, but admitted that he needs more national allies: “There must be an exit ramp in Guatemalan legislation, and it requires general [political] support.”
Amid the early deadlock, the administration has underscored other decisions in his first 100 days in office, like public school repairs or the dismantling of extortion call-centers, using Bukele-style social media-first communications while marking distance from the security methods of El Salvador. They report having purged hundreds of officials from the government for suspected corruption.
This week, Arévalo removed 17 of 22 departmental governors despite the fact that the process to select their successors is still ongoing. He told El Faro English that he did so because they “answered to corrupt interests that were already in place.”
He admits that he is facing resistance from those interests within the Executive Branch, too: “In the ministries we have certainly detected a presence of corrupt networks who we are working to identify and act against. But some public officials have expressed satisfaction that they no longer have to endure the coercion.”
The new administration also disbanded DIPAFRONT, a U.S.-trained border patrol unit of the National Civil Police known for its extortion of migrants, transferring officers to other units. (Asked by El Faro English in a February 28 press call to appraise the dissolution, Eric Jacobstein, a top U.S. diplomat for Central America, said it was a show of Arévalo’s commitment to fighting corruption and stemming migration.)
Regarding the CSJ selection process, in full swing at the latest by mid-June, Chang believes “international support can only have a very limited impact on the election of courts, which depends greatly on the Bar Association and on Congress.”
That calendar has put Arévalo and traditional political groups on a collision course. “[Is Arévalo’s aspiration] to advance as far as Consuelo Porras and the Constitutional Court, [his] severe and effective opponents, will allow?” wrote journalist Juan Luis Font in a column in ConCriterio. “Or is it to offer the country a fundamental change, not only in form, in the construction of a true democracy?”
Will he keep his word?
One of the major tests for Arévalo will be his promised temporary mining moratorium, made last year to Indigenous leaders who were the backbone of mobilizations to defend the elections, also demanding rural change and Indigenous inclusion in national decision-making.
Successive administrations have largely ignored those affected by environmental contamination, implementing states of siege, wielding security forces to shield allotted contracts to extractive industries, and flouting international statutes requiring prior consultation of Indigenous communities.
“Giammattei handed out licenses to miners like they were going out of style,” says Q’eqchi’ Mayan journalist Carlos Choc, the face of the international investigation Mining Secrets, in a new interview with El Faro English. “Ministers [of the current government] told me that they cannot say no to [mining] rights already granted by the Constitutional Court.”
In his first weeks, Arévalo has shown openness to the Guatemalan and U.S. private sectors. Three days after inauguration, he and the U.S. Embassy announced a “high-level dialogue” on foreign investment at the American Chamber of Commerce. Indigenous leaders and progressives also recoiled at the inclusion of the conservative private sector in his cabinet.
Arévalo told El Faro English on Tuesday that the promise of a moratorium “still stands, totally.” “There may be those in the mining sector [who say it affects U.S. investments],” he said, “but it is a sector that attracts less investment. Meanwhile, there are broad possibilities in textile production, agriculture, energy, electrification, and hydrocarbons.”
It is unclear where the Biden administration really stands on mining in Guatemala. In December 2022, the Treasury placed Magnitsky human rights sanctions on the Swiss-Russian mine in Choc’s hometown of El Estor. Five months later, it dropped the designations. Last April, Newsweek reported that the U.S. was pushing behind the scenes for the Canadian corporation Central America Nickel to acquire the properties.
“The mine is working to scrub its image,” says Choc, but in reality “people’s homes, their territories, are being invaded. (...) The Q’eqchi’ people are being dispossessed and expelled from their lands, and what is left is to migrate [to the United States].”
This article first appeared in the March 27 edition of the El Faro English newsletter. Subscribe here to tune into Central America.
