Guatemala

Abstract

Between 1839, when the Republic of Guatemala gained its independence from Spain, and 1996—when a peace agreement put an end to a bloody internal conflict that had plagued the country since 1962—this Central American country was marked by political instability, social conflicts, and repression,1 manifested in a revolving door between democratic governance and military authoritarianism.2 The late 1990s found the country engaged in a peace process and transitioning to democracy. Since then, Guatemala has striven to achieve democratic consolidation. This chapter reviews the efforts and new legislation adopted to accomplish intelligence governance and accountability as part of the democratic security paradigm that replaced the counterinsurgent state model. These legal reforms occurred in the context of weak democratic institutions, corruption, bad actors disregarding laws with impunity, and the presence of clandestine and illegal security apparatuses as revealed by the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), convened between 2007 and 2019. Guatemala’s post-conflict transition to democracy has made minimal impact on the military’s control of the intelligence community. It was not until the 2000s that the civil intelligence agency, outlined within the 1996 peace agreements, was created by law; a corresponding legal framework for the intelligence system was adopted by the 2008 law on the national security system. Changes adopted during this century have not yet led to effective and enduring civilian control of the intelligence sector, and more broadly in the demilitarization of security in the country. These are but a few challenges Guatemala’s intelligence democratization faces.