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As the CICIG’s mandate ends, WOLA and partners continue to stand against corruption and impunity
In a move that Guatemala’s highest court declared unconstitutional, President Jimmy Morales decided unilaterally to allow the mandate of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) to expire on September 3. Morales had been implicated in a CICIG-backed investigation, and he had the backing of sectors of the economic elite who had also been targeted for involvement in corruption. The CICIG—a unique, UN-sponsored anti-corruption commission—carried out critical work alongside Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office to fight corruption in Guatemala over a 12-year period, building strong popular support, but generating intense opposition from powerful economic and political elites. As its mandate ends, WOLA analyzed the CICIG’s legacy, laying out the challenging path ahead for anti-corruption efforts in Guatemala, while also examining the implications of the victory of Guatemala’s right-wing president-elect Alejandro Giammattei. Because the fight against corruption is essential to upholding human rights, reducing the violence and poverty driving migration, and promoting development in Guatemala, WOLA and its partners will continue to push for policies that advance the rule of law and address the root causes of migration from the region.
WOLA supports the first-ever regional conference of formerly incarcerated women across the Americas
 In July, WOLA and other partners from across the region hosted the first-ever conference bringing formerly incarcerated women from eight countries across the Americas to connect, share experiences, and advocate for the rights of women in and out of prison. The groundbreaking event brought together over 70 formerly incarcerated women from Colombia, Mexico, the United States, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, El Salvador, and Argentina. This was an important step towards building a regional movement of women who’ve been in prison, and who are empowered to build solidarity with one another, challenge the policies that have dramatically increased incarceration rates for women, identify systemic human rights abuses in prison, and advocate for a more just, human rights-centered approach to incarceration in the Americas.
Updates from the ground: WOLA travels to Venezuela and Venezuelan border regions
As Venezuela’s political, economic, and humanitarian crisis continues to escalate, WOLA carried out research on the situation in Venezuela, as well as the status of Venezuelan refugees. In July, Assistant Director for Venezuela Geoff Ramsey and Program Assistant Kristen Martinez-Gugerli traveled to Caracas, Venezuela and Boa Vista, Brazil to monitor the situation on the ground in Venezuela, assess the situation for Venezuelan migrants and refugees in Brazil, and build deeper connections with Venezuelan partners and officials. WOLA also met with top representatives from both the Maduro regime and the opposition who are participating in negotiations led by the Norwegian government. Also in August, Director for the Andes Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli and Kristen Martinez-Gugerli traveled to the Colombia-Ecuador border, and to Bogotá, Colombia, to explore the precarious situation of Venezuelan refugees in Ecuador and Colombia.
Negotiations between the Venezuelan opposition and the Maduro regime are currently on hold (though they may resume shortly). The suspension came after the announcement of broad and punitive U.S. sanctions gave Nicolás Maduro a justification to pull out of the latest round of talks. WOLA is now making an intense push to persuade U.S. officials of the critical importance of supporting a peaceful, negotiated solution to Venezuela’s crisis. In recent weeks, we have met with top administration officials from the White House and the State Department, working in overdrive to encourage more flexibility in the U.S. position on sanctions and seek support for a verifiable electoral transition in Venezuela. We will be continuing these efforts throughout September.
Purchase tickets for the 2019 WOLA Human Rights Awards Ceremony and Benefit Gala today
On September 12, the WOLA community will come together to celebrate the accomplishments of  courageous human rights defenders, express our solidarity, and build support for the work to come at the 2019 WOLA Human Rights Awards Ceremony and Benefit Gala. We are honoring Venezuelan news site Efecto Cocuyo for their vital journalism of Venezuela in crisis and courageous defense of democracy, and Representative Norma Torres (D-CA) for her visionary leadership in Congress on behalf of human rights and justice in Central America. We hope that you’ll join us in Washington, D.C. for this important night. You can purchase tickets here.
Check out more WOLA content:
- In order to make good on promises to fight corruption, Mexico’s government must move swiftly in implementing sweeping reforms passed in 2015 and 2016, WOLA argues in a new report.
- The tragic shooting in El Paso made clear the full impact of hateful, anti-migrant policies and rhetoric in the United States, asserts WOLA President Matt Clausen.
- Mexican security forces have intensified their harassment and intimidation of those providing shelter and other forms of support to migrants in Mexico. WOLA joined 33 international partners in reporting on and condemning these illegal actions.
- The new, broad U.S. sanctions on Venezuela risk worsening human suffering in the country, WOLA asserted alongside partners in Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, and Peru.
- The Carter Center Forum on Women, Religion, Violence, and Power highlighted WOLA Director for the Andes Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli’s advocacy on behalf of Colombian human rights defenders.
- Violence and repression by a new generation of armed groups presents a deadly threat to human rights defenders and other civil society groups along Colombia’s Pacific coast, Program Assistant Jerónimo Sudarsky Restrepo wrote after an extensive research trip to the area.
- The decision by several dissidents of the FARC, the former guerrilla group in Colombia, to return to armed struggle should be a wake up call that peace depends on full implementation of the accords that ended the civil war, said WOLA in a late August statement.
- A pair of new, progressive House and Senate bills on travel to Cuba are a critical step towards re-engagement with the island (WOLA press release).
WOLA accepts no money from the U.S. government. We depend on the generosity of people like you to make our independent, fact-based, and life-saving advocacy possible.
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