f e at u r e The Untouchable Narco-State Guatemala’s military defies the DEA

BY FRANK SMYTH

Jungle exercises for the Guatemalan Kaibiles. photo by Jeremy Bigwood he alert went out across the state this past July. Zetas would turn to their Guatemalan counterparts. In addi- A McAllen-based FBI analyst wrote a classified tion to being a neighbor, “Guatemala is the preferred transit report that the Department of Homeland Security point in Central America for onward shipment of cocaine sent to U.S. Border Patrol agents throughout to the United States,” the State Department has consistently Texas. About 30 suspects who were once part of reported to Congress since 1999. In early November, anti- an elite unit of the Guatemalan special forces drug authorities at the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala told the Twere training drug traffickers in paramilitary tactics just Associated Press that 75 percent of the cocaine that reaches over the border from McAllen. The unit, called the Kaibiles American soil passes through the Central American nation. after the Mayan prince Kaibil Balam, is one of the most fear- More importantly, perhaps, the dominant institution in some military forces in Latin America, blamed for many of the country—the military—is linked to this illicit trade. the massacres that occurred in Guatemala during its 36-year Over the past two decades, the U.S. Drug Enforcement civil war. By September, Mexican authorities announced that Administration (DEA) has quietly accused Guatemalan mili- they had arrested seven Guatemalan Kaibiles, including four tary officers of all ranks in every branch of service of traffick- “deserters” who were still listed by the Guatemalan Army as ing drugs to the United States, according to government doc- being on active duty. uments obtained by The Texas Observer. More recently, the Mexican authorities say the Kaibiles were meant to aug- Bush administration has alleged that two retired Guatemalan ment Las Zetas, a drug gang of soldiers-turned-hitmen Army generals, at the top of the country’s military hierarchy, drawn from Mexico’s own special forces. It’s logical that the are involved in drug trafficking and has revoked their U.S.

 THE TEXAS OBSERVER november 18, 2005 visas based on these allegations. to be orchestrated by ex-military and current military offi- The retired generals, Manuel Antonio Callejas y Callejas cials; and allegations of corruption and narcotics trafficking and Francisco Ortega Menaldo, are Guatemala’s former top by ex-military officers,” according to the State Department’s two intelligence chiefs. They are also among the founders 2004 report on Foreign Military Training. of an elite, shadowy club within Guatemala’s intelligence While some in the Bush administration and Congress command that calls itself “la cofradía” or “the brotherhood,” want to restart foreign military training, others are con- according to U.S. intelligence reports. The U.S. reports, cerned about the inability of the Guatemalan government recently de-classified, credit la cofradía with “engineering” to rein in its military. “The reason that elements of the army tactics that roundly defeated Guatemala’s Marxist guerril- are involved so deeply in this illicit operation is that the las. A U.N. Truth Commission later found the same tactics government simply does not have the power to stop them,” included “acts of genocide” for driving out or massacring the said Texas Republican Congressman Michael McCaul, who populations of no less than 440 Mayan villages. sits on the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the Guatemala’s military intelligence commands developed Committee on International Relations and is the Chairman a code of silence during these bloody operations, which is of the Department of Homeland Security Subcommittee one reason why no officer was ever prosecuted for any Cold on Investigations. War-era human rights abuses. Since then, the same intel- Guatemala’s is hardly the first military tainted by drugs; ligence commands have turned their clandestine structures senior intelligence and law enforcement officers in many to organized crimes, according to DEA and other U.S. intel- Latin American nations have been found colluding with ligence reports, from importing stolen U.S. cars to running organized crime. But what distinguishes Guatemala from drugs to the United States. Yet not one officer has ever been most other nations is that some of its military suspects are prosecuted for any international crime in either Guatemala accused not only of protecting large criminal syndicates but or the United States. of being the ringleaders behind them. The Bush administra- There is enough evidence implicating the Guatemalan tion has recently credited both Colombia and Mexico with military in illegal activities that the Bush administration no making unprecedented strides in both prosecuting their own longer gives U.S. military aid, including officer training. The drug suspects and extraditing others to the United States. cited offenses include “a recent resurgence of abuses believed But Guatemala, alone in this hemisphere, has failed to either

The Guatemalan military is the dominant institution in the country. photo by Jeremy Bigwood

november 18, 2005 THE TEXAS OBSERVER  prosecute or extradite any of its own alleged drug kingpins Until that happens, drugs from Guatemala and the atten- for at least 10 years. dant violence will continue to spill over the Texas border. For decades, successive U.S. administrations have tried and failed to train effective Guatemalan police, while saying uatemala has long been sluggish in efforts to take little or nothing about the known criminal activities of the legal action against its military officers for human Guatemalan military. That finally came to an end in the past rights violations. That impunity has since spread three years under Republican Rep. Cass Ballenger, a staunch Gto organized criminal acts as well. The turning conservative from North Carolina, who served as chairman point came in 1994, when Guatemala’s extraditions of its of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. drug suspects came to a dead stop over a case involving an “Clearly, the Guatemalan government has not taken every active duty army officer. The case highlights both the terrible step needed to investigate, arrest, and bring drug kingpins price for those who seek justice in Guatemala and the timid- to justice,” said then-Chairman Ballenger in 2003 before he ity of the United States in demanding accountability. retired. Echoing his predecessor, the new Chairman, Indiana A military intelligence officer back in the early 1980s, Republican Rep. Dan Burton, commented through a spokes- Lt. Col. Carlos Ochoa briefly trained at the U.S. Army man that he wants to see the same alleged ringleaders finally Command and General Staff College in 1988. Two years brought “to full accountability.” later, the DEA accused him of smuggling drugs to locations including Florida, where DEA spe- cial agents seized a small plane with half a metric ton of cocaine, alleg- edly sent by the colonel. State Department attorneys worked for more than three years to keep Guatemala’s military tribunals from dismissing the charges, and finally brought Ochoa’s extradition case all the way to Guatemala’s high- est civilian court. The nation’s chief justice, Epaminondas González Dubón, was already well respected for his integrity. On March 23, 1994, Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, led by González Dubón, quietly ruled in a closed session (which is com- mon in Guatemala) four-to-three in favor of extraditing Ochoa. Nine days later, on April 1, gun- men shot and killed González Dubón behind the wheel of his own car in the capital, near his middle- class home, in front of his wife and youngest son. On April 12, the same Constitutional Court, with a new chief justice, quietly ruled seven-to- one not to extradite Ochoa. The surviving judges used the same line in the official Constitutional Court register—changing the verdict and date, but not the original case num- ber—to literally copy over the orig- inal ruling, as was only reported years later by the Costa Rican daily, La Nación. The Clinton administration never said one word in protest. The U.S. ambassador in Guatemala City at The remains of a 66-year-old woman killed by the army. photo by Jonathan Moller the time, Marilyn McAfee, by her

 THE TEXAS OBSERVER november 18, 2005 own admission had other concerns, including ongoing peace talks with the Guatemalan military. “I am concerned over the potential decline in our relationship with the military,” she wrote to her superiors only months before the assassina- tion. “The bottom line is we must carefully consider each of our actions toward the Guatemalan military, not only for how it plays in Washington, but for how it impacts here.” Four years after the murder, the Clinton administration finally admitted in a few lines buried in a thick report to Congress: “The Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court had approved [the] extradition for the 1991 charges just before he was assassinated. The reconstituted court soon thereafter voted to deny the extradition.” Ochoa may not have been working alone. “In addition to his narcotics trafficking activities, Ochoa was involved in bringing stolen cars from the U.S. to Guatemala,” reads a “SECRET” U.S. intelligence report obtained by U.S. lawyer Jennifer Harbury. “Another military officer involved with Ochoa in narcotics trafficking is Colonel Julio Roberto Alpírez de Leon.” Alpírez, who briefly trained at the U.S. School of the Americas in 1970, served “in special intelligence operations,” according to a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report. A White House Oversight Board investigation later implicated him in the torture and murder of a Marxist guer- rilla leader who was married to the Harvard-trained lawyer Harbury, and in the torture and mysterious decapitation of an American hotelier named Michael Devine. Col. Alpírez, since retired, has denied any wrongdoing and he was never charged with any crime. But Ochoa, his former subordinate, is in jail today. Ochoa was arrested—again—for local cocaine dealing in Guatemala City, where crack smoking and violent crimes, especially rape, have become alarmingly common. Ochoa was later sentenced to 14 years in prison, and he remains the most important drug criminal ever convicted in Guatemala to date. Until now, the DEA had never publicly recognized the bravery of Judge González Dubón, who died defending DEA evidence. “The judge deserves to be remembered and hon- ored for trying to help establish democracy in Guatemala,” said DEA senior special agent William Glaspy in an exclusive interview. Since the murder, the DEA has been all but impo- tent in Guatemala.

he impunity that shields Guatemalan military offi- cers from justice for criminal offenses started during the Cold War. “There is a long history of impunity in TGuatemala,” noted Congressman William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, who is also a member of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. “The United States has contributed to it in a very unsavory way dating back to 1954, and also in the 1980s,” he added, referring to a CIA-backed coup d’état in 1954, which overturned a dem- ocratically elected president and brought the Guatemalan —continued on page 18

november 18, 2005 THE TEXAS OBSERVER  —Guatemala, continued from page 9 cent pay for the sins of the guilty.” other ties with retired officers. They military to power, and to the Reagan CIA reports are even more candid. have a mentor relationship.” administration’s covert backing of the “The commanding officers of the units U.S. intelligence reports reveal the Guatemalan military at a time when involved have been instructed to destroy strong ties that cofradía high-level offi- bloodshed against Guatemalan civil- all towns and villages which are coop- cers cultivated with many subordinates, ians was peaking. erating with the guerrilla[s] and elimi- who are dubbed “the operators.” “This It was also during this Cold War- nate all sources of resistance,” reads vertical column of intelligence officers, era carnage that the army’s la cofradía one 1992 Guatemala City CIA Station from captains to generals, represents came into its own. report formerly classified “SECRET.” the strongest internal network of loyal- “The mere mention of the word The CIA report goes on, “When an ties within the institution,” reads the ‘cofradía’ inside the institution conjures Army patrol meets resistance and takes 1991 U.S. DIA cable. “Other capable up the idea of the ‘intelligence club,’ the fire from a town or village it is assumed officers were being handpicked at all term ‘cofradía’ being the name given to that the entire town is hostile and it levels to serve in key operations and the powerful organizations of village- is subsequently destroyed.” Forensic troop command,” this U.S. report goes church elders that exist today in the teams have since exhumed many mass on. “Although not as tight knit as the Indian highlands of Guatemala,” reads graves. Some unearthed women and cofradía, the ‘operators’ all the same a once-classified 1991 U.S. Defense infants. More than 200,000 people were developed their own vertical leader- Intelligence Agency cable. “Many of the killed in Guatemala in what stands subordinate network of recognition, ‘best and the brightest’ of the officers as Central America’s bloodiest conflict relationships and loyalties, and are of the Guatemalan Army were brought during the Cold War. today considered a separate and distinct into intelligence work and into tactical The violence left the military firmly vertical column of officer loyalties.” operations planning,” it continues. Like in control of Guatemala, and it did Cofradía officers extended their reach all documents not otherwise attributed not take long for this stability to catch even further, according to another U.S. in this report, the cable was obtained the attention of Colombian drug syn- intelligence cable, as the mid-level by the non-profit National Security dicates. First the Medellín and then officer “operators” whom they chose Archives in Washington, D.C. the Cali cartels, according to Andean in turn handpicked local civilians to According to the 1991 cable, “well- drug experts, began searching for new serve as “military commissioners [to known members of this unofficial smuggling routes to the United States be] the ‘eyes and ears’ of the military” cofradía include” then army colonels after their more traditional routes at the grassroots. “Manuel Antonio Callejas y Callejas” closed down by the mid-1980s due to and “Ortega Menaldo.” (Each officer greater U.S. radar surveillance over the ew criminal cases better had briefly trained at the U.S. School Caribbean, especially the Bahamas. demonstrate the integration of the Americas, in 1970 and 1976, “They chose Guatemala because it between the Guatemalan respectively.) is near Mexico, which is an obvious Fintelligence commands and The intelligence report goes on: entrance point to the U.S., and because drug trafficking than one pursued in “Under directors of intelligence such the Mexicans have a long-established 1990 by DEA special agents in the as then-Col. Manuel Antonio Callejas mafia,” explained one Andean law hot, sticky plains of eastern Guatemala, y Callejas back in the early 1980s, the enforcement expert. “It is also a bet- near the nation’s Caribbean coast. This intelligence directorate made dramatic ter transit and storage country than El 15-year-old case is also the last time gains in its capabilities, so much so that Salvador because it offers more stability that any Guatemalans wanted on drug today it must be given the credit for and was easier to control.” charges were extradited to the United engineering the military decline of the DEA special agents began detect- States. Arnoldo Vargas Estrada, a.k.a. guerrillas from 1982 to the present. But ing Guatemalan military officers run- “Archie,” was a long-time local “military while doing so, the intelligence direc- ning drugs as early as 1986, according commissioner,” and the elected torate became an elite ‘club’ within the to DEA documents obtained through mayor of the large town of Zacapa. officer corps.” the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. U.S. embassy officials informed (as is Other Guatemalan officers called That’s when Ortega Menaldo took over still required according to diplomatic their approach at the time the prac- from Callejas y Callejas as Guatemala’s protocol between the two nations) tice of “draining the sea to kill the military intelligence chief. Over the Guatemalan military intelligence, fish,” or of attacking civilians suspected next nine years, according to the same then led by Ortega Menaldo, that DEA of supporting leftist guerrillas instead U.S. documents, DEA special agents special agents had the town mayor of the armed combatants themselves. detected no less than 31 active duty under surveillance. One former Guatemalan Army sergeant, officers running drugs. Vargas and two other civilian sus- who served in the bloodied province of “All roads lead to Ortega,” a U.S. drug pects were then arrested in Guatemala Quiché, later told this author he learned enforcement expert said recently. “Even with the help of the DEA. Not long another expression: “Making the inno- current active-duty officers may have after, all three men were extradited to

18 THE TEXAS OBSERVER november 18, 2005 Two sisters watch the exhumation of their mother and four small siblings who were killed by soldiers. photo by Jonathan Moller

New York, where they were tried and One of the civilian military com- petition has ever been charged. As convicted on DEA evidence. But the missioners the peasants named was the DEA’s Senior Special Agent Glaspy DEA did nothing back in Guatemala Rancho Maya owner Byron Berganza. explained, “There is a difference when, shortly after the arrests, the mili- More than a decade later, in 2004, DEA between receiving information and tary merely moved the same smuggling special agents finally arrested Berganza, being able to prosecute somebody.” operation to a rural area outside town, along with another Guatemalan civil- according to family farmers in a peti- ian, on federal “narcotics importation n 2002, then-Chairman Ballenger tion delivered to the U.S. Embassy in conspiracy” charges in New York City. forced the Bush administration Guatemala City in 1992 and addressed Last year, the DEA in Mexico City also to take limited action to penalize simply “Señores D.E.A.” helped arrest another Guatemalan, Otto Itop Guatemalan military officials “[B]efore sunrise, one of the planes Herrera, who ran a vast trucking fleet thought to be involved in drug traffick- that transports cocaine crashed when from the Zacapa area. Then-Attorney ing. “The visa of former Guatemalan it couldn’t reach the runway on the General John Ashcroft described intelligence chief Francisco Ortega Rancho Maya,” reads the document Herrera as one of “the most signifi- Menaldo was revoked,” confirmed which the peasants either signed or cant international drug traffickers and State Department spokesman Richard inked with their thumbprints. The money launderers in the world.” A. Boucher in March 2002, “under document names the military com- Yet, not long after his arrest, Herrera a section of the Immigration and missioners along with seven local somehow managed to escape from Nationality Act related to narco-traf- officers, including four local army jail in Mexico City. Not one of the ficking, and that’s about as far as I can colonels whom the farmers said super- Guatemalan military officers the go into the details of the decision.” vised them. farmers mentioned in their 1992 By then, Ret. Gen. Ortega Menaldo

november 18, 2005 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 19 had already denied the U.S. drug service. If this law is passed, however, it investigators are digging into the mur- charges, while reminding reporters in would ensure that Guatemalan officers der of a former prime minister. Guatemala City that he had previously accused of any crime, from murder to The proposed U.N. plan for collaborated with both the CIA and the drug trafficking, could once again only Guatemala also enjoys the support of its DEA dating back to the 1980s. Indeed, be tried by their military peers. new president, Oscar Berger, a wealthy a White House Intelligence Oversight “This would be a new mechanism landowner and lawyer who is well Board has already confirmed that both of impunity,” noted José Zeitune of respected by the U.S. administration. the CIA and the DEA maintained at least the Geneva-based International But the proposed U.N. Commission a liaison relationship with Guatemalan Commission of Jurists and author is encountering resistance from FRG military intelligence in the late 1980s of a 2005 report on the Guatemalan politicians like Weller’s wife, Ríos Sosa, and early 1990s when it was run by Col. judiciary. who is also an FRG congresswoman. Ortega Menaldo. As Chairman, Ballenger accused the The CIA, through spokesman Mark FRG party, which enjoys a plurality in o what are U.S. officials and Mansfield, declined all comment for the Guatemalan Congress, of drug cor- Guatemalan authorities doing this article. ruption. The FRG was founded by Ret. to stop the military officers Eight months after revoking Ortega Gen. Efrain Ríos Montt. A controver- Sinvolved in drug trafficking? Menaldo’s visa, the Bush administra- sial figure, he launched a coup d’etat in “In terms of public corruption against tion again cited suspected drug traf- 1982 to become president of Guatemala both the army and others, [Guatemalan ficking to revoke the U.S. entry visa of just as the intelligence officers of la authorities] have a number of another Guatemalan intelligence chief, cofradía were rising. investigations underway, right now,” Ret. Gen. Callejas y Callejas. But after The new vice-chairman of the then-Assistant Secretary Robert B. the news broke in the Guatemalan press, Western Hemisphere subcommittee is Charles said earlier this year at a State this cofradía officer never responded Jerry Weller III, a Republican from Department press conference. But, in publicly, as Ortega Menaldo did, to the Illinois. He recently married Zury keeping with past practices, not one U.S. drug allegation. Ríos Sosa, who is Ret. Gen. Montt’s of these suspected officers has been Rather than confront the impunity daughter. Unlike other members of charged in either Guatemala or the that allows Guatemalan military offi- the Subcommittee, Weller, through his United States. cers to traffic drugs, many of the coun- spokesman, Telly Lovelace, declined all More troubling still is a recent case try’s elected officials seem to be going comment for this article. involving those Mexican soldiers- in the opposite direction. Not long after Congressman Weller’s father-in- turned-hitmen, the Zetas. This past the Bush administration named the law groomed Guatemala’s last presi- October 22, seven members of the two retired cofradía intelligence chiefs dent, an FRG member named Alfonso Zetas were arrested in a Guatemalan as suspected drug traffickers, members Portillo, who fled the country in 2004 border town with weapons and cocaine. of the Guatemalan Republican Front, to escape his own arrest for alleged The Associated Press reported that, or FRG party, which was founded by money laundering, according to a State according to Guatemalan authorities, another retired army general, intro- Department report. During President the Zetas came to avenge one of their duced legislation in the Guatemalan Portillo’s tenure, one of his closest members who had been killed in Congress that would remove civilian companions inside the National Palace Guatemala. Despite the evidence against oversight over the military in criminal was the cofradía co-founder Ortega the men, a little more than a week after justice matters. Menaldo, according to Guatemalan their arrests, Guatemalan authorities Throughout the Cold War period, press accounts. inexplicably set them free. ■ Guatemala’s civil justice system seldom Today the shadowy structures of had the opportunity to try officers for Guatemala’s intelligence commands Frank Smyth is a freelance journalist who any crime. Instead officials submitted are so embedded with organized crime has been writing about Guatemalan drug themselves to military tribunals. In that the Bush administration, for one, trafficking since 1991 in publications the 1990s, civilian courts began for is already calling in the United Nations. including The Progressive, The the first time tentatively to exert their Putting aside its usual criticisms of Sacramento Bee, , authority to process military officers the international body, the adminis- The Village Voice, , for crimes like drug trafficking. But the tration supports a proposal to form a Salon.com and . proposed legislation stipulates that any U.N.-led task force explicitly called the He has been a special correspondent officer, whether active duty or retired, “Commission for the Investigation of for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram and may only be tried in a military tribunal, Illegal Armed Groups and Clandestine The Economist. He is a contributor no matter what the alleged crime. A Security Apparatus” in Guatemala. So to Crimes of War: What the Public court martial is normally reserved for far the only nation to yield its sover- Should Know, edited by crimes allegedly committed by mili- eignty to allow the United Nations and David Rieff. His clips are posted at tary personnel in the course of their a similar role is Lebanon, where U.N. www.franksmyth.com.

20 THE TEXAS OBSERVER november 18, 2005