Caribbean & Central America - April 2014 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Last month former president Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004) admitted having received US$2.5m in bribes from Taiwan while in office. Portillo made the admission as part of a guilty plea in the US, where he was extradited in May 2013 to face money laundering charges – becoming the first former Guatemalan president to be tried in another country. Portillo’s guilty plea again raises questions about his acquittal in 2011 by a Guatemalan court for other corruption charges – one of the biggest setbacks to the United Nations-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala [RC-11-06] since it began its mandate in 2007.

According to an 18 March press release by the US Justice Department, Portillo, who “pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering” and awaits sentencing on 23 June, admitted receiving the payments in exchange for using his “influence to have Guatemala continue to recognise Taiwan diplomatically”.

As well as raising questions over his earlier acquittal, Portillo’s plea has prompted the current government, led by President Otto Pérez Molina, to demand clarification from Taiwan which, having already come under the spotlight in relation to similar allegations surrounding El Salvador’s former president Francisco Flores (1999-2004) [RC-14-01], denies having bribed Portillo. Yet Taiwan has an interest in keeping a lid on the diplomatic tensions, given Central America’s growing trade and investment links with mainland China. Costa Rica currently is the only Central American country with which China has official diplomatic relations. While Pérez Molina has since ruled out switching allegiances, Guatemala has, along with its neighbours, mooted strengthening ties with Beijing in recent years. In October 2012, a Guatemala-China chamber of trade opened in Shanghai and the latest figures from the Central American economic integration system (Sieca) put Guatemala-Taiwan trade in the first ten months of 2013 at US$125.6m, while trade with mainland China in the same period was US$1.06bn.