The CICIG has shown that in practice the private financing of candidates and political parties is anonymous, unlimited and uncontrolled, and that 25% of it comes from drug trafficking.
Monday, July 20, 2015
From the introduction of a report by the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), "FINANCING OF POLITICS IN GUATEMALA"
The relationship between money and politics is a problematic topic that has been addressed both in the field of philosophy and political science, aS well as in public debate. In the academic world, this issue has been addressed in arguments that show how detrimental it is to the social and political order that the same people and groups that concentrate economic power also concentrate political power, and therefore what is sought and prefered are institutional designs which contribute to keeping the two spheres separate. However, both in societies with consolidated democracies and countries in the process of democratizing, the decisive influence of groups with economic power has been maintained or increased.
This concern is also present in the public debate, where it is found that, in many cases, the ability to influence public decisions -in various spheres of state administration -is directly proportional to the resources that individuals and / or stakeholders can mobilize. These range from economic policies- influencing the definition of import quotas or tariffs, for example - to judicial proceedings. In societies such as Guatemala, with high social inequality and huge differences in income and property among the people, this situation will get worse.
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The housing market, casinos, concert halls, and the livestock sector are all used to launder money in Central American countries.
Excerpted from the report "International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, Volume II, Money Laundering and Financial Crimes" by the US State Department:
The unprecedented increase in violence in Costa Rica, once an oasis of peace in the region, is another sign of the failure of the traditional methods of fighting drugs.
EDITORIAL
More powerful than the Central American states, drug trafficking is on the rise not only in terms of an increased supply of drugs in the countries in the region, but through its permeation of institutions using the power of money and generating a growing culture of violence that is making Central America´s lack of a death penalty seem risible. Yes it does exist, but the worst part about it is that it is not institutionalized justice systems that implement it, but the mob bosses, pointing out -to ever younger executioners- the people who should be executed.
Money laundering has positive economic effect on economies, but also impoverishes the quality of institutions leading to dramatic effects on quality of life in society.
The excellent analysis by Norma Lezcano in his article on Estrategiaynegocios.net, on the US Treasury Department´s inclusion of members of the powerful Rosenthal family in the list of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) can be extrapolated to all Central American countries, and is a warning to the governments of the region, where drug trafficking has ingratiated itself and is creeping through state institutions, weakening them by making them serve criminal aims, and preventing them from carrying out their duties properly.
The two nations have been included in the list of countries with deficiencies in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.
The Financial Action Group, assigned to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development noted that Panama and Nicaragua are in breach of the recommendations that the agency provides to improve controls for preventing money laundering in the financial system.
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