Attempting to conduct a policy independent from Washington is dangerous and can trigger corruption and the so-called Engels lists where people close to the presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras stand out.
The presence of the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in El Salvador presents a danger to the country and to the entire Latin American region, according to an analysis today.
Signed by Jorge Elbaum, Argentine sociologist and university professor, the analysis “Criminalisation: the origins of lawfare, its disciplinary motivation and its application in Latin America and the Caribbean” describes the interventionist aims of this “academy”, which is dependent on the US Department of State. The ILEA, based in the capital city since 2008, the same year in which the criminalisation of politics deepened in the region, boasts of having trained thousands of justice officials, security and intelligence service agents (public and private) in programmes compatible with the instrumental demands of the criminalisation of politics.
Argentine professionals participated in several of the seminars and courses, without even their functional managers being aware of the activities to be carried out, reports Elbaum.
Among those planned for this year are: Financial Investigations for Public Corruption and a workshop on International Corruption, offered by the FBI, where policies are “taught” in order to discredit, persecute and harass officials elected by the will of the people and who do not fit in with the aims of the USA.
The global centre of the “Academy” operates out of Roswell, New Mexico, and from there all the activities that apply to all of Latin America and the Caribbean are “instructed”, and it is possible that El Salvador, perhaps, is not free from falling victim to criminalisation processes such as those being initiated now against the vice president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Other leftist or populist leaders in Latin America have already been victims of accusations and, according to Elbaum, the criminalisation of politics deployed in Latin America and the Caribbean for two decades is a geopolitical resolution determined by Washington, to give continuity to the control of the so-called “Western Hemisphere”. This presence – which, in any case, has not completely ruled out police-military coups, as was demonstrated in Bolivia in 2019 – has the acolyte media and fractions of the judiciary (co-opted by and for the neoliberal network) as its primary supports, the academic explained.
The legal causes, Elbaum explains, that they promote usually originate from domestic complaints or can be leveraged using corporate information media, which guide public opinion with false or distorted data, capable of starting scandals that are essential to translate into subsequent criminal prosecutions.
Starting in 2007, 15 years of criminalisation of politics have followed one another, aimed at conditioning sovereign governments and harassing popular leaders who are resistant to neoliberal rationale, the expert pointed out.
In that year, for example, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was subjected in record time to a political trial propelled by local elites, in collusion with the CEOs of transnational companies and the United States diplomatic delegation in Tegucigalpa. Since then, the activities promoted by the ILEA have not abated in the region and since the stigmatisation of Cristina Fernández, Lula, Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales, it can continue against other rulers and officials such as the Colombian Gustavo Petro, the Salvadoran Nayib Bukele and the Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
(Translated by Hannah Phelvin) – Photos: Pixabay
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