Key Insights
- Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo has kept Henry Sáenz as defense minister despite a term limit. Arévalo defended the move as essential to ongoing military modernization. However, this decision suggests a deeper strategy: the reconfiguration of the armed forces to serve a long-term political project. Similar patterns have emerged in other Latin American countries under socialist-authoritarian regimes, including Ecuador, Mexico, and Venezuela.
- The last-minute inclusion of Article 129 in the 2025 budget—diverting Q400 million (US$52 million) to the Ministry of Defense—illustrates how executive-legislative coordination can bypass institutional oversight. By assigning the Army’s Corps of Engineers control over civilian infrastructure projects, the Arévalo administration is expanding the military’s power and operational scope.
- Massive cocaine seizures traced to Guatemalan ports suggest drug trafficking networks are infiltrating state institutions, undermining military integrity, and weakening legal accountability. These developments threaten to transform Guatemala from a conservative democratic outlier into a new node within Latin America’s network of narcostates.
This investigation explores how the executive’s efforts to broaden the scope of the military amid left-populist narratives are turning the military into a political instrument at the service of the ruling administration. This investigation also explores whether these practices mark the rise of a new authoritarian model, veiled as institutional modernization.
The Impunity Observer has drawn expert insights from law professor Omar Barrios and security analyst Oscar Platero of the Institute for Strategic Studies. We also refer to a confidential testimony from an active-duty military officer, submitted to the Impunity Observer, that warns of similarities with Venezuela under Hugo Chávez.
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