Adan Castillo (see right) and Jorge Aguilar Garcia, the former chief and second in command, respectively, of Guatemala’s leading anti-narcotics police agency, the SAIA (Servicio de Analisis e Informacion Anti-narcoticos), have pled guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to a “charge of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, knowing and intending that the cocaine would be imported into the United States”.
According to a U.S. Department of Justice press release, whose headline (“Former Guatemalan Senior Anti-Narcotics Officers Plead Guilty to Conspiracy to Manufacture and Distribute Cocaine”, 7 September 2006) somewhat understates their seniority, the two men were caught back in late 2005 accepting $25,000 from an undercover DEA informant, as a first payment to protect a drug shipment on its way to the United States. And then, unbeknownst to them, they were indicted by a federal grand jury, lured to the U.S. by a fake invitation to attend an anti-drugs training and then promptly arrested. They now face sentencing on the 17th of November 2006. As part of their plea bargain they will each face 10 years in jail before being sent back to Guatemala.
This news comes at a very interesting time, for both the U.S. and Guatemalan governments, with what I think will be different outcomes.
On top of the bad news of spiralling opium production coming out of Afghanistan, the U.S. government also has had to deal with the results of a joint research study commissioned by the Drug Czar’s office and the National Institute on Drug Abuse to study the effectiveness of an anti-marijuana ad campaign that had been directed against teenagers since 1998.
Not only was it revealed that the study came to the conclusion that the campaign – $1.4 billion later – was in fact counter-productive, the two government agencies – according to a recent article in Slate – sat on the report for a year and a half while still continuing to spend another $220 million on the campaign. I’m willing to bet that in comparison, few will care about the Guatemalans being sent to jail.
Things will obviously be different in smaller Guatemala, particularly as this news comes at the tail-end of the Guatemalan government’s recent high-profile blitz of late against organised crime and drug trafficking, as detailed here at Rehabology.com.
You may recall that the Guatemalan government suspended the constitutional rights “to carry firearms and hold demonstrations and meetings, while expanding authorities’ rights to conduct searches”, on the basis of a two-week order (“a state of prevention”) effective from the 29th of August, with the media also being warned “to not incite rebellion because on previous occasions radio stations have urged people to resist the destruction of drug crops.” A few days later the government trumpeted the anti-narcotics operation as quite the success, with 15 million poppy plants having been destroyed as a result.
With this in mind, the Guatemalan government doesn’t need bad news to spoil its propagandistic triumphs. Castillo was said to be the great hope against official corruption, and his guilty plea will hurt the government’s image. But as his arrest occurred back in November 2005, and the fact that he was eventually caught can be spun by the authorities as proof that not even the top drug cop is above the law and that this time things will be different, this can only be, on balance, good news for authorities. Having a temporarily more pliant media and citizenry sure helps as well. For now.
