Aug 03 2007
Guatemala approves UN anti-mafia plan
guatemala city - Guatemala’s Congress overruled one of its committees on Wednesday and voted to create a UN-backed body aimed at rooting out the influence of organised crime in the government and justice system.
The UN commission known as CICIG will allow international investigators to work alongside Guatemala’s public prosecutors.
Last month a congressional panel rejected the plan on the grounds that it would violate the nation’s sovereignty. The party of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt from the Guatemalan Republican Front, or the FRG, led the campaign against it.
After the committee’s ruling, the United States and Spain pressured Guatemala to approve the commission, which they said could help stamp out criminals’ influence in the government.
“This is a historic decision for the country, something we have been working on for four years,” said left-wing Congresswoman Nineth Montenegro.
The Central American country emerged from a 36-year civil war in 1996 and is now blighted by violent crime, powerful mafias and corruption, much of it perpetrated by illegal armed groups.
Some of those gangs are made up of former members of the security forces, rights groups say.
A few months ago, the interior minister resigned when drug gang gunmen walked into a prison and killed several jailed police chiefs, themselves accused of murdering a group of Salvadoran politicians.
“Congress concluded that without the international support that the CICIG would provide to the police and public prosecutors, we were on our way to becoming a failed state,” Montenegro said.
Guatemala is a major trafficking corridor for the bulk of cocaine moving from Colombia to the US.
Guatemala approves UN anti-mafia plan - Web posted at: 8/3/2007 - 7:38:46 - Source REUTERS - http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Americas&month=August2007&file=World_News2007080373846.xml
