HomeNewsBriefEl Salvador Refuses UN Anti-Corruption Body
BRIEF

El Salvador Refuses UN Anti-Corruption Body

EL SALVADOR / 23 OCT 2015 BY DAVID GAGNE EN

El Salvador has reportedly rejected the establishment of a proposed United Nations-backed anti-corruption body, perhaps indicating the government is fearful of a political crisis like that unleashed in Guatemala after investigations by a similar UN commission, which claimed the political lives of the president and vice-president. 

Despite pressure from US authorities, El Salvador has decided against creating an international commission to investigate graft within the government, a Salvadoran official told Reuters. In its place, the government is expected to renew an anti-corruption initiative with weaker investigative powers run by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The United States has been trying to get El Salvador to agree to an anti-impunity body modeled after the UN-backed commission in Guatemala, known by its Spanish initials as the CICIG, since at least July, according to Reuters. Investigations by the CICIG uncovered a massive fraud ring within Guatemala's customs agency, allegedly run by former President Otto Perez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti. Both Perez Molina and Baldetti are currently in prison awaiting trial. 

The USAID program is reportedly a five-year plan and will cost $25 million, significantly cheaper than the CICIG's price tag. However, unlike the CICIG, which has conducted wire taps and raids to investigate criminal networks, the USAID initiative will only rely on "political will and implementation of transparency regulations," according to official documents accessed by Reuters. 

InSight Crime Analysis

El Salvador's rejection of a CICIG-like model is likely motivated by the government's fear of what a powerful international body equipped with broad, independent investigative powers could potentially uncover. In Guatemala, the CICIG has been instrumental in revealing corruption far beyond just the president's office; the body also took down the head of the social security agency, a prominent congressman and several other important government and criminal operators. The CICIG has been so successful of late, its commissioner, Ivan Velasquez, is now more popular in Guatemala than the two candidates running in Sunday's presidential election. 

SEE ALSO: Coverage of Elites and Organized Crime

While it's obvious why El Salvador's government would be reluctant to have any corruption exposed, it is under pressure from the international community to take steps to combat impunity. The decision to renew the USAID plan is likely an attempt to appease foreign backers (the most notable being the United States) while also limiting the body's ability to actually investigate graft. Similar concerns have been raised about the new anti-corruption body in Honduras being put in place by the Organization of American States.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

BARRIO 18 / 26 DEC 2022

El Salvador's ruthless gang crackdown has led to mass incarceration and human rights abuses. But will it be replicated elsewhere?…

ELITES AND CRIME / 20 OCT 2021

The killing of four young people in Paraguay’s border city of Pedro Juan Caballero has led back to an imprisoned…

DISPLACEMENT / 2 JUN 2023

Clashes between the Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG in Chiapas, close to the Mexico-Guatemala border have displacee of thousands.

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…