GUATEMALA: Guatemalan police detained on Wednesday a deputy minister who led protests against a top public prosecutor at the center of a power struggle with President Bernardo Arevalo, who denounced the arrest.
Arevalo has accused attorney general Consuelo Porras — who is sanctioned by the United States and the European Union for corruption — of seeking to overthrow him.
Luis Pacheco, a vice minister of energy and mines, was arrested at the request of the attorney general’s office on charges including terrorism and obstruction of justice, prosecution spokesman Moises Ortiz said. Arevalo called the detention “an act of criminalization” of the peaceful demonstrations.
“It’s an attack on the resistance struggle waged by the Guatemalan people in 2023 to prevent these political-criminal networks hidden in the public prosecutor’s office from stealing the elections and thwarting the popular will,” he added.
Pacheco, an indigenous Mayan leader, chaired one of the organizations that called for the protests, which saw thousands of Guatemalans come out in support of Arevalo and demand the resignation of Porras. He was taken to court on Wednesday for an initial hearing, saying he was “outraged.”
Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States, said Pacheco’s arrest was “political persecution” which “cannot continue to be the instrument that limits the country’s democratic progress,” according to a statement on social media platform X.
The UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Guatemala also issued a statement saying the government must guarantee that “no person is criminally prosecuted for exercising the right to peaceful assembly.”
Arevalo’s anti-corruption crusade helped to seal his August 2023 election but also put him in the crosshairs of prosecutors themselves accused of graft. The former lawmaker, diplomat and sociologist has repeatedly denounced a “slow-motion coup d’etat” and unsuccessfully tried to remove Porras.
