Central America cleans house

Standing in the patchy shade of a tree in Guatemala's Central Park, Sandra Valdez adds her name to a long list of people asking Guatemala's president and vice president to resign in the face of a relentless barrage of corruption allegations.

Glancing over her shoulder to the majestic presidential palace looming on the other side of the park, Ms. Valdez shakes her head slightly and frowns.

"It's just too much, all the corruption, and the way they take advantage of the country's resources.... It is time to express ourselves," says Valdez, a college student.

She is part of the rising tide of anticorruption sentiment swelling across Central America. Citizens of fledgling democracies, many of which have recently emerged from armed conflicts, are turning their attention to the long-present ill of corruption, and are demanding that their governments address it.

The number of signatures from the month-long petition drive, estimated to be 300,000, will be announced at today's anticorruption conference. The event is a formal call to authorities to address the issue. In the past few months, growing pressure from local press, citizens, the international community, and in some cases, government officials, has forced high-ranking authorities across the region into the cross hairs of corruption probes.

"The problem is no longer eliminating dictators or making peace, there is no war, nor dictators," says Roberto Courtney, director of a Nicaraguan corruption watchdog group. "Now with free elections and democratic freedoms in place, people have shifted their attention to economic issues where corruption plays an important role."

Several high-profile corruption cases across the region have spurred the recent backlash:

• In Guatemala, allegations of corruption in government ministries and entities have dominated the press coverage for more than a year. Most recently, a local paper accused President Alfonso Portillo, his vice president, and two other high-ranking government officials of opening 13 bank accounts in Panama. Many here suspect they were set up to launder money or to receive stolen state funds. The president and his vice president deny any wrongdoing.

• In Nicaragua, the attorney general's office recently accused former President Arnoldo Alemán and other high-ranking officials of corruption for their involvement in a $1.3 million fraud at the state-owned television station. Government officials allegedly ordered their subordinates to transfer funds from various state agencies to the station, but the money never reached the station's accounts. Mr. Alemán, currently the president of Nicaragua's Congress, denies any wrongdoing.

In a more recent development, Byron Jerez, Alemán's right-hand man and chief tax collector, was indicted for allegedly using state funds to buy a fleet of luxury cars.

Page: 1 | 2