Guatemala Announces 'Legal Action' Against Colombia’s Defense Minister, Prompting Diplomatic Firestorm

The governments of Guatemala and Colombia are at an impasse after Guatemala’s Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity announced on Monday that it would take unspecified “legal actions” against Colombian Defense Minister Iván Velásquez.

Velásquez once ran the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), an international group established between Guatemala and the United Nations charged with prosecuting serious crimes from 2007 to 2019. The government of current Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei is accusing Velásquez of “illegal and abusive acts” in this capacity, namely letting corrupt deals slip through his oversight between the government and Odebrecht, a Brazilian private contractor that notoriously bribed politicians in nearly every country in Latin America.

The Odebrecht corruption scandal — in which the Brazilian construction conglomerate paid at least $788 million in bribes to former heads of state, government ministers, and other high-ranking members of Latin American governments between 2001 and 2016 — is one of the largest corruption cases in history.

Guatemalan Prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche, who made the announcement, claimed that the Colombian minister would need to answer to “illegal, arbitrary and abusive acts” for having allegedly irregularly allowed the approval of “effective collaborator” agreements with a group of Brazilian directors of Odebrecht in 2017.

The allegedly irregular agreements Velásquez is being accused of approving took place during the time that Iván Velásquez was the head of the CICIG.

Corruption is one of Guatemala’s long-standing issues, affecting the nation’s former and current governments alike. In 2015, CICIG’s investigations into a criminal ring that implicated then-president Otto Pérez Molina culminated with his resignation and ultimate arrest. Pérez Molina was sentenced to 16 years in prison in December.

CIGIC’s mandate ended in September 2019, but then-President Jimmy Morales attempted to prematurely terminate it after the commission aided Guatemala’s Public Ministry in rescinding his immunity from prosecution for a case related to illegal campaign financing. In 2017, Morales accused Velásquez of interfering in the nation’s domestic affairs and ordered Velásquez be expelled from Guatemala. The nation’s courts overruled Morales’ orders.

Velásquez responded to the accusations on Monday by stating that he has “not been notified of any requirement by the Guatemalan authorities” and saying he has “peace of mind” that his work in the Central American nation was carried out with “total transparency and within the legal framework” that protected CICIG’s operation in Guatemala.

Colombia’s far-left president Gustavo Petro expressed his support for Velásquez via Twitter on Monday night, stating that he would never accept a warrant against his defense minister and adding that he had summoned Colombia’s ambassador to Guatemala.

“I will never accept the arrest warrant for our Minister Velasquez,” Petro wrote. “He proved to fight against corruption and we will not allow corruption to persecute him. Our ambassador is immediately called for consultation.”

Upon his arrival in Zurich, Switzerland, to participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Petro said on Tuesday that Colombia does not have to cooperate with Guatemala if it “insists on arresting just men.” 

Petro’s statements sparked a back-and-forth between him and Guatemala’s conservative President Alejandro Giammattei, who reciprocated Petro’s decision by recalling Guatemala’s ambassador to Colombia.

In an interview given to the Spanish news agency EFE on Tuesday, Giammattei urged “sanity” from Petro and clarified that the investigation carried by Guatemalan prosecutors against the Colombian defense minister is not a “criminal prosecution.”

“I am going to let President Petro continue making the mistake of a guerrilla, but that is not very political,” Giammattei said, referencing Petro’s past as a former member of the M19 Marxist terrorist organization. “I am not going to fall for the game. Differences between nations must be resolved through diplomatic channels to prevent conflicts from escalating later to places where it is already difficult to leave.”

During the interview, Giammattei stressed that the investigation process opened against Colombian Minister Iván Velásquez “is very different from a criminal prosecution process.” 

“It would be good for someone to enlighten Mr. Petro on the difference between one and the other,” he continued. “I would call for sanity. This is a problem that can be handled by the foreign ministries and any explanation they require can be given with pleasure.”

The Guatemalan president also ruled out the idea of speaking directly with Gustavo Petro.

“I think it is unnecessary, first of all because he insulted my country during [Colombia’s 2018 presidential campaign] and never apologized,” Giammattei said. “In fact, at his inauguration, the one who represented us was the ambassador. No one from the Government went.”

In a post on Twitter dated September 1, 2018, three months after Gustavo Petro lost the 2018 presidential election against Iván Duque, Petro wrote, “Guatemala was a country whose government was drug trafficking and genocidal.” Petro praised Velásquez’s anti-corruption work in the Central American nation. 

The post was in response to a tweet by conservative former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe on August 31, 2018, in which Uribe said that Guatemala should suppress Velásquez’s activity, writing, “corruption cannot be defeated with judicial politicking.”

Giammattei has not shied away from issuing explosive comments in the past. Last year, in an exclusive interview, President Giammattei told Breitbart News that President Joe Biden’s decision to “negotiate oil” with the socialist regime of Venezuela may have been linked to poor law enforcement efforts against drug trafficking.

“The effort of the United States to combat drugs has to begin with campaigns here [in America] and with partners there [in South America], us, working so that it doesn’t happen,” Giammattei told Breitbart News. “Why, if we know where the [drug trafficking] planes leave from, why has the United States done nothing to stop planes from leaving from Venezuela? Ah! They are negotiating oil.”

Gustavo Petro responded to Giammattei’s calls to sanity via his Twitter account on Tuesday evening by stating that “sanity in politics means fighting corruption.”

“Those who allow the mafia to take over the state only lead society to genocide,” Petro warned. “The histories of Guatemala and Colombia are full of genocide for handing over the state to the mafias.”

Petro did not clarify which “mafia” Giammattei was allegedly emboldening.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.