Caribbean & Central America - July 2021

With accountability concerns already rife following the new legislature’s dismissal in May of the supreme court’s constitutional chamber (SC) and head of the attorney general’s office Raúl Melara [SSR-21-06], President Nayib Bukele has further set off alarm bells regarding transparency. In early June he ended the September 2019 agreement between the government and Organization of American States (OAS) establishing the International Commission against Impunity in El Salvador (Cicies), the creation of which had been a 2019 campaign pledge.

Cicies already had few of the features enjoyed by its (now defunct) precursor in Guatemala – the United Nations (UN)-backed International Commission against Impunity (Cicig) – lacking for instance its ability to help prosecute cases. Until the dismissal of Melara, who, like the SC had been a prominent critic of Bukele, Cicies had, however, been investigating the health ministry’s alleged misuse of funds and irregularities surrounding public procurement contracts to combat the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, among other cases.

Bukele justified the decision to end the agreement, announced on 4 June, claiming that Ernesto Muyshondt, a former San Salvador mayor (2018-2021) for the right-wing opposition Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Arena), had been hired as an adviser to OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro. Muyshondt is under investigation for alleged links to gangs and misappropriation of tax revenue, which he denies; a government statement accused the OAS of “promoting impunity” as a result. This has however provoked a stinging rebuke from the OAS which, in a 7 June statement not only rejected these claims regarding Muyshondt (see sidebar) but went on to make public its differences with the Salvadorean government regarding Cicies, casting further doubt on the government’s commitment to fighting corruption.

Among other things, these include a law promulgated on 5 May for the use of products for medical treatments in exceptional public health situations caused by the pandemic, which the OAS warns will ultimately benefit people who could have participated in acts of corruption due to the immunity established in Art. 4 of said law. The OAS also cites the government decision not to publish a descriptive report on the use of public funds in response to the pandemic, which it said contained “a series of irregularities with a criminal appearance”. It also accuses the new AG’s office of “smothering” Cicies in recent weeks, completely curtailing its investigative possibilities – government actions aimed at “preventing progress in the investigations into allegations of corruption by the current administration” and the government’s “recurrent attitude of trying to induce the Cicies to investigate actions of opposition politicians exclusively.”

• Harris’s first trip

Bukele’s announcement regarding Cicies came three days after US Vice President Kamala Harris, who US President Joe Biden named to lead efforts with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to tackle illegal migration, paid her first visit to the sub-region, travelling to Guatemala where she met President Alejandro Giammattei. Key to Biden’s US$4bn plan for Central America to address the root causes of illegal migration is the need to tackle corruption in the sub-region. Following her meeting with Giammattei, Harris announced various anti-corruption initiatives. These include the creation of an anti-corruption task force by the US Justice Department, with support from the US State Department, to include US prosecutors and law enforcement experts to investigate and prosecute corruption cases with a nexus in the US, Guatemala, and the region. END BOX

• Muyshondt

In its statement, the OAS was clear that Muyshondt was “not hired as stated in the press release but was only made an offer at the time for an honorary contract, although this contract was never signed”; that prior to making the offer public the foreign ministry was notified and “at no time did it disclose any discrepancy regarding the possibility of making it”; and that “not even the hiring” would have given Muyshondt “immunity” before Salvadorean courts, much less “impunity”. The OAS statement said that “such errors in logic are inadmissible from every point of view” and the General Secretariat “does not want this to be used as an excuse for the Cicies to leave the country”.