In Guatemala thousands demonstration, need president’s resignation

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In Guatemala thousands protest, demand president’s resignation

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GUATEMALA CITY — Thousands of Guatemalans required to the streets in demonstration on Thursday, lighting fires and obstructing roadways throughout the Central American nation, to require the resignation of President Alejandro Giammattei after the shooting of a widely known anti-corruption district attorney.

The demonstrations have actually gotten momentum because Guatemala’s Attorney General Maria Porras recently eliminated anti-graft fighter Juan Francisco Sandoval as head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI), a relocation that drew condemnation from Washington. 

Sandoval, who left Guatemala last weekend, stated he was fired after the attorney general of the United States avoided him from attempting to examine corruption cases with links to Giammattei. The president has actually rejected being associated with corruption.

In an interview with a regional tv channel last weekend, Porras stated she constantly showed openness. “(Sandoval) exercised selective justice since he tried to prosecute people of opposite ideology,” she stated.

In Guatemala City, a crowd of countless individuals marched from the governmental palace to the attorney general of the United States’s workplace holding indications that stated “Giammattei, Resign.”

Indigenous individuals obstruct a roadway in Cuatro Caminos, Guatemala, on July 29, 2021. Johan Ordonez / AFP – Getty Images

Demonstrators set fire to tires and tossed paint over authorities released to secure federal government structures.

“Today we are in front of the presidential palace but a president does not live here: a traitor does,” stated Samuel Pérez, an opposition legislator who signed up with protesters.

By 5 pm regional time the protester numbers started to diminish, while the staying demonstrators were in harmony in front of the National Palace of Culture, an enforcing museum structure that likewise houses a few of the workplaces of the president.

The presentations in Guatemala City became part of a nationwide strike called by native leaders, social groups and trainee companies to require the resignations of Giammattei and Porras.

The newest demonstrations highlight growing internal disappointments in Guatemala over corruption and the taking apart of judicial self-reliance. In 2015, waves of such anti-corruption presentations caused the failure of then-president Otto Perez Molina.

On Thursday, throughout the impoverished country of 17 million individuals, protesters obstructed traffic at significant crossways and marched with banners requiring the departure of the president, chosen 2 years back.

“We are here to tell the president that we do not recognize him as president because he no longer represents the interests of our country,” stated Martín Toc, a native leader from Totonicapán, in western Guatemala.

Since he left, Sandoval has actually informed different media outlets that the president was connected to an occurrence in 2015, where 122 million quetzals, comparable to over $15 million, were discovered packed in luggage in your house of a previous facilities minister.

Sandoval likewise stated he was examining how unknown business owners from Russia had actually supposedly provided bags of money to the president in a conference at his home, an occasion, he stated, which remained in some method connected to the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine.

Giammattei today highly rejected all the claims, and included that the accusations including the business owners were “false comments bordering on slander and defamation.”

U.S. suspends cooperation

The United States, which highly condemned Sandoval’s termination, stated on Tuesday it was stopping briefly some cooperation with Guatemala’s attorney general of the United States, as it attempts to use pressure on Central American federal governments to end impunity. learn more

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has actually made the battle versus corruption a main slab of its technique towards the area as it intends to attend to the origin of prohibited migration to the United States, which has actually increased this year.

In a declaration shared on Twitter, Giammettei stated on Thursday that the U.S. choice to suspend assistance to the attorney general of the United States was “counterproductive” in the battle versus arranged criminal offense and corruption.

U.S. Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle Ricardo Zuniga, when inquired about Giammattei’s remarks, informed press reporters in Washington that Sandoval’s termination had actually raised major concerns Guatemala’s dedication to combating graft.

“We made very clear in our response that we had lost confidence in the attorney general,” he stated.

While authorities safeguarding federal government structures took on with protesters in the capital, no events of violence were reported.

Thursday’s presentations followed numerous Guatemalans objected outside the governmental palace on Saturday after Sandoval’s shooting.

Giammattei’s federal government likewise dealt with demonstrations last November when a group of demonstrators set fire to the Congress structure over cuts to education and health in the 2021 spending plan. Days later on, Congress pulled back the spending plan.