Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The economic picture was severely disrupted when thousands of rural peasant farmers
hadtheircropsannihilated andtheirvillagesdestroyedbyHurricaneStaninOctober2005.
Government reconstruction efforts in the storm's aftermath were slow in making it to af-
fected communities.
Despite some public opposition, Berger was able to implement many of his neoliberal
economic policies, including laws governing the concession of government services and
construction projects to private entities, securing mining rights for multinational mining
conglomerates, and the ratification of DR-CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade
Agreement.
The judicial and legislative branches continued to come under fire for gross inefficiency
and corruption charges. The existence of clandestine groups, a legacy of the corporate
mafia state with links to state agents and organized crime, continued to plague the govern-
ment. Meanwhile, the creation of a U.N.-sponsored Commission for the Investigation of
Illegal Groups and Clandestine Security Organizations (CICIACS) was blocked by Organ-
izations (CICIACS) was blocked by Constitutional Court rulings. A second, reworked ver-
sionoftheproposal,knownastheInternational Commission AgainstImpunityinGuatem-
ala (CICIG), was the product of an agreement signed between the United Nations and
Guatemalan government in December 2006, though it would need congressional approval.
TheUnitedStatesandotherforeigngovernmentsofferedfinancialsupportfortheprogram,
which was to be composed of expert international detectives providing material support to
the Public Ministry in its investigations of parallel power structures.
In February 2007, the urgent need to get CICIG up and running was demonstrated by
a heinous crime perpetrated against three visiting Salvadoran diplomats and their chauf-
feur, who were found dead, shot execution-style and burned in their car on the outskirts
of Guatemala City. Following an unprecedented investigation fueled by outrage from Sal-
vadoran authorities, the perpetrators turned out to be high-ranking police officers from the
Department of Criminal Investigations operating as contract killers. Things really came to
a head when the captured policemen were executed by a death squad while awaiting ques-
tioning in a high-security prison just days later. Initial government statements and dou-
blespeak had pinned the blame forthe executions onfellow prison inmates, including gang
members. The incident opened a can of worms in which high-ranking government offi-
cials have been implicated in the continued operation of death squads and ties to organized
crime. The reconstruction of the Policía Nacional Civil, already a matter of national con-
cern, came to the forefront following these incidents.
As Berger's presidency drew to a close, the general consensus was that his time as pres-
ident was marked by mostly good intentions but also some modest gains, particularly in
terms of a redress of Guatemala's historical ills. Among the glaring omissions was a long-
term, inclusive strategy to develop rural areas, where the majority of Guatemala's indigen-
ous peoples live. Delays in the reconstruction process after Hurricane Stan were continu-
