The Donald Trump administration’s 2025 designation of drug cartels as terrorist organizations is a sound policy choice for the collective security of the Americas. However, the truth is that the United States is late to the game. Over a decade ago, Guatemalan business leaders sounded the alarm on this issue.
In 2012, the Guatemalan organized private sector (OPS) published a report entitled “Drugs, Guns and Cash.” It warned of the escalating threat of transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and their ties to terrorism. The report highlighted TCOs’ role in the smuggling of drugs and humans, illegal immigration, and narco-terrorism. The report exposed Central America’s vulnerability to TCOs, indicating their massive and growing financial influence.
The report advocated for intelligence sharing, regional cooperation, and a “culture of consequences” to counter TCOs. It proposed stronger institutions, technological intelligence, and asset forfeiture to disrupt cartel finances. These strategies align with Trump’s current anticartel push.
The Guatemalan OPS published its findings 14 years ago. Had regional governments maintained a laser-like focus on the problem identified as a priority back then, the collective security problem in the region would be less daunting today.
Unfortunately, what could have been the start of an emerging consensus in Guatemala, and Central America, was derailed by the US State Department (DOS) and its lawfare puppet, the UN International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). The derailment took place under the media banners pushed by DOS officials regarding the “fight against corruption” and the “pacto de corruptos.”
UN-Backed Commission Shifted the Agenda
The CICIG began operations in Guatemala in 2007, with an original mandate to support and strengthen Guatemalan institutions with investigating and prosecuting crimes committed by illegal bodies and clandestine security apparatuses. The original mandate encompassed TCOs: their efforts to penetrate politics and their heavily armed militias.
The CICIG failed to deliver on its mandate under its first two commissioners, Carlos Castresana and Francisco Dall’Anese. In 2013, Iván Velásquez became the CICIG commissioner and, with direct DOS support, hijacked the institution and shifted its mission ostensibly to fighting corruption. Big CICIG victories on this front occurred in 2015 when then–President Otto Pérez and Vice-President Roxana Baldetti opted to resign on corruption allegations. They saw their middle-class voter base publicly denounce them in large, urban demonstrations alongside their political opponents.
The emergent consensus against corruption, traditionally a priority confined to the middle class, died in the crib as CICIG’s “lawfare” agenda soon became apparent. The CICIG tried to bring down the next duly elected president, Jimmy Morales, on allegations of campaign finance violations. Twice in nine months, the CICIG sought the impeachment of Morales, even going so far as to raid the presidential residence. Against the backdrop of media-orchestrated “CICIG Thursdays”—press conferences used to announce developments in investigations—Velásquez became internationally famous in left-wing political and media circles. He even earned praise as the “Robert Mueller of Latin America.”
The CICIG also earned widespread criticism for acting as prosecutor, judge, and jury in Guatemala, a country known for its abuse of pretrial, preventive detentions. Nonetheless, the CICIG broadened its target scope to prosecute important OPS leaders for questionable accusations of campaign finance infractions. Along the way, with significant help from DOS, it launched the successful disinformation campaign falsely tying the OPS to drug cartels, as part of the famous “pacto de corruptos.”
“Illegal bodies and clandestine security apparatuses have evolved with the Guatemalan political and economic reality, and they are deeply linked to state institutions, the private sector, and different institutions of the civil society.”
– Iván Velásquez, May, 2019
The CICIG fight song against OPS leaders was written by DOS and sung by an NGO and media chorus (WOLA, CSIS, Al Jazeera, Civicus, the Guardian). Having done little to confront the drug cartels, the CICIG did succeed in intimidating the OPS away from financing legitimate political options. This left a void counterproductive to US interests.
The CICIG itself, in 2015, had determined that organized crime rivaled the OPS as a source of campaign finance, although both sectors trailed behind state contractors. Endemic corruption went hand in hand with the rise of the narcos’ political power.
Due to the CICIG’s confrontations with the Morales administration, Velásquez left Guatemala and was denied reentry. This was months before Morales refused to renew the CICIG mandate in September 2019.
The story continues.
Velásquez’s next appointment as Colombia’s minister of defense was promptly celebrated by Todd Robinson, then the DOS assistant secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). Robinson had been the US ambassador to Guatemala during the heyday of Velásquez’s time with the CICIG. Velásquez was appointed to his new role by President Gustavo Petro, an antisemitic former Marxist guerrilla. He faces credible allegations of corruption and ties to the very same narco-fueled parallel power structures that Velásquez was supposed to have fought in Guatemala.
CICIG lawfare against the Guatemalan OPS missed the target and hastened narco-financing in politics, while diminishing legitimate political financing. The CICIG’s misdirection undermined the fight against the TCOs. As a result, the narcos’ power structure grew, resulting in an even greater degradation of democratic processes in Guatemala. Great work, State Department!
Now is the moment for both the United States and Guatemala to adopt the early recommendations made by the local private sector on how the US and Central American governments can work together to combat the cartels and advance collective regional security.
