Guatemala's Parlacen Case: Drugs, Murder, Cover Up, CIA, Oligarchy, "Pyramid", and the WTO
Contents
"There are criminal cases where a witness has named a police officer, and the prosecutor will say to the witness, 'Are you really sure you want to say that?'," said an advisor to Guatemala's public prosecutor's office, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear for his safety. “The prosecutor says this not only because he is afraid that the witness might be killed. The prosecutor is afraid he will be killed too."
March 2007, L.A. Times 1 and Seattle Times 2 in relation to the emerging Parlacen case.
"Guatemalan officials said privately that they have long suspected that some members of the parliament engage in drug dealing. Central America is a key conduit of cocaine between Colombia and Mexico. The legislators have diplomatic immunity and their cars cross Central American borders without being inspected."
March 2007, L.A. Times and Seattle Times, the same sources as above.
Three congressmen die: drugs and money disappear
On February 19, 2007 a car containing three Salvadoran congressmen of the right-wing ARENA party in Guatemala - Eduardo d'Aubuisson, William Pichinte, and José Ramon Gonzalez - is crossing into neighboring Guatemala. It is part of a convoy, on its way to a Central American Parliament meeting. Not far over the border, the convoy is halted by four Guatemalan police officers. The car in question is taken out of the convoy and escorted away. 24 hours later the politicians and their driver are found dead in their burned-out car. The bodies bear signs of torture. The interior of the car has been ripped out, suggesting the purpetrators were looking for something, one would suspect drugs. Much later it comes out the car contained 20 kilograms, or 45 pounds, of cocaine and $5 million in cash. 3
On February 22, the four police officers involved in the crime are apprehended. Another three days later the officers are murdered in their maximum security prison cell by a party that comes marching in from the outside. Many more suspicious deaths would follow. More on this later in this article.
One congressman the son of a former CIA death squad leader
Apart from the case's high-level, brutal and international nature, giving additional notoriety to the case is that one of the kidnapped and murdered politicians is Eduardo d'Aubuisson, son of ARENA party founder Roberto d'Aubuisson 4, the ultraright death squad leader considered the mastermind behind the 1980 murder of the social justice-inclined El Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero, who in the 1980s supported the anti-communist Contra armies in opposing the Marxist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.
As additionally discussed over a decade ago by ISGP, in this period in the 1980s, the senior d'Aubuisson liaised with the CIA- and Pentagon-dominated American Security Council 5, as well as deputy CIA director Vernon Walters. 6 He visited Walters along with his aide, Francisco Guirola, a suspected cocaine trafficker who in 1985 was "arrested on a small Texas airstrip with $5.9 million in small bills." ($17 million in 2024 dollars) 7 D'Aubuisson's chief ally in setting up CIA-backed death squads, "blamed for many of the 50,000 civilian deaths in El Salvador" by 1985, Mario Sandoval Alarcon 8, also was embraced by the American Security Council, as well as other ultraright American think tanks:
"There are conservative ''think tanks'' in the Washington area that make a point of having good relations with such ultras as Salvador's Roberto d'Aubuisson and Guatemala's Mario Sandoval Alarcon, who are officially shunned by the U.S. because of their murderous reputations. Among them are the Council on Inter-American Security, the American Security Council, and the National Strategic Information Center, the last organized in the 1960's by William Casey, now C.I.A. Director." 9
A School of the Americas alumni 10, until his death is 1992, d'Aubuisson served on the board of the similarly ultraright Western Goals Foundation 11, which had already been among a dozen ultraright American groups bestowing awards on him by 1985, during the Contra crisis. 12
That all is quite the mouthful, but it should be clear that the Parlacen Case, as it is known, is an intriguing one in terms of understanding government conspiracy and cover up - and we haven't even gotten to the details yet.
Congressmen were kidnapped by police officers
Already in the earliest period of the investigation, Robert d'Aubuisson, Jr., brother of the murdered Eduardo d'Aubuisson, accused former Salvadoran congressman Roberto Silva Pereira of plotting the murder in revenge for the ARENA party, including sitting (2004-2009) Salvadoran president Tony Saca, of having aided Silva's firing from congress over investigations and accusations of drug trafficking. 13 The DEA and the FBI had assisted El Salvadoran authorities since 2004 with regard to these suspicions, with local officials often covering up how members of parliament are very useful to various cartels for money laundering and cover up purposes. 14 Silva attracted quite a bit of attention though by showing up at his 2006 parliamentary inauguration in a Maserati, followed by a security escort in a Porsche Cayenne truck. During subsequent investigations accusations of high level corruption and manipulation once again were rife, and Silva was able to flee the country before the police could arrest him. 15
In August 2007 Manuel Castillo Medrano, a Salvadoran congressman about to become mayor of drug cartel-dominated town of Jutiapa, was arrested in El Salvador, amidst accusations by the local media of him being tied to drug dealers and "employing former hitmen as bodyguards". 16 In December 2010 Castillo was sentenced to 200 years in prison for orchestrating the murder of the congressional deputies, according to the prosecutor in the case, the order having come from Roberto Silva. The latter could not be sentenced though, as he had fled the country. Based on statements of the court, it appears that Castillo could be linked to the "17 calls on two phones to El Salvador" by the police officers who intercepted Eduardo d'Aubuisson and fellow politicians in Guatemala "just before the kidnapping, and during the two hours the Salvadorans were held." 17
It appears that Castillo and Silva were aware that Eduardo d'Aubuisson and his two fellow-congressmen - who enjoyed diplomatic immunity - were carrying $5 million dollars and 20 kilos of cocaine in a secret compartment of their vehicle. In any case, the politicians were transported to the remote La Parga farm on a truck reportedly belonging to Cartel boss "El Gordo" Paredes 18, where they were tortured and murdered. A day later, their bodies were found in the earlier-mentioned burned-out car, with the money and cocaine missing. 19
Although an estimated 60 to 90% of all of Colombia's cocaine moves through Guatemala 20, similar to all of the country's "transport clans", Parades is an unknown name internationally. He is estimated to have moved 45 tons of cocaine into the United States though during his five year reign over 2004-2008, much of it via Mexico's Gulf Cartel 21 and the Los Zetas cartel. 22
Police officers die
This 2007 kidnapping-murder case immediately causes an international incident. The police officers in question are identified due to the presence of a GPS locator in their car - something which they probably expected to be ignored - and are arrested. The arrestees include Luis Herrera Lopez, the head of Guatemala's National Police Organized Crime Unit, and three of his officers. Soon a video surfaces of the moment the police officers were brought in - on February 22 - and talking to a person named Victor Rivera Azuaje, with Herrera threatening:

"I'm going to get them all! I'm going to go down for this! We asked for help, and this is what you give me? This is the help that you are giving me? I am telling you: you are going to remember me! You and everyone else! You are going to remember me! I promise you! I swear on my mother's grave! ... I am telling you, I am taking you all down with me! ...
"[Faces others:] Who is the one in charge, deputy commissioner? Why are they arresting us? Yes, that's what we want to know. Have we been caught in a crime? Red-handed? No, no, no! They are violating our rights! Is there a proper court order, sir? Are we in flagrante delicto?" 23
Within days, on Sunday, February 25, all four police officers are taken out of their maximum security prison cell and murdered some place else in the prison. Initially it is reported that a riot by inmates is responsible for the deaths. 24
However, already within 24 hours, in no small part due to a growing outrage in neighboring El Salvador, a seemingly more accurate story surfaces. It comes out that all visitors were kicked out of the prison with the excuse that there was going to be "a search", after which an armed band dressed as guards entered the prison, was allowed through "eight locked doors", and killed the police officers by - at the very least - shooting them and slitting their throats. 25 The riot was likely staged and certainly continued for some time, because prisoners - rightly so - were afraid of being blamed for the murders that took place. The rioting inmates refused to release their prisoners, including the warden, until prison officials allowed them to talk to the media. 26 Not that it mattered too much for them, because 7 key gang members in the riot were killed in December 2008. MS-13 leader "El Diabolico", accused of occasionally using his gang for political terror, was among the few to survive the whole incident. 27
Some of the witnesses at the prison claimed to have seen National Civil Police director Erwin Sperisen with the group that entered the prison. 28 Another one mentioned is Kamilo Rivera, a member of Victor Rivera Azuaje's extra-judicial death squad 29 - a subject we still need to get to. In fact, Victor Rivera himself visited the prison at noon, about 6, 7, 8 hours before the murders, alongside Victor Soto Dieguez, the head of the Criminal Investigations Division. 30
Everybody dies
On April 8, 2008, this Victor Rivera Azuaje is assassinated himself, killed in a drive-by shooting. 31 This happened two days after his decades/years-long "consultancy" or "special advisor" job to Guatemala's Interior Ministery is terminated. 32 His assistant, Melgar Martinez, who herself has been part of the "Riveritas" death squad team, is later implicated, with investigators saying she took a $100,000 bribe from the earlier-mentioned cartel boss "El Gordo" Paredes. The investigation once again consititutes a massive cover up, with the prosecutor's office even allowing Martinez to escape to an unknown foreign destination while a Costa Rican prosecutor representing the new United Nations-backed Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CIGIG) is starting to ask her, and the officials steering her, tough questions. 33 This same prosecutor tied elitist interior minister (2004-2008) Carlos Vielman and a successor of his to the murder. 34
In June 2008 two brothers who act as advisors to implicated police chief Erwin Sperisen are murdered. They had already survived an earlier attack, and actually had been identified as being part of the group that killed the four police officers in prison. 35 On July 14, 2008, state prosecutor Juan Carlos Martinez is gunned down. This is days after the prosecution of 13 suspects in the case had collapsed due to a "lack of evidence", with Martinez having announced that his office would appeal that decision. It also was investigating the death of Rivera. 36 In October 2008 police advisor Saul Hernandez, also tied to the case, is murdered. A witness who asked for protection from the Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and did not receive it, is murdered in this period as well. 37
Chief suspect Rivera a veteran of the CIA's "goon squad"
Ignoring all the other deaths, Victor Rivera Azuaje's death is not reported in the international media at the time. When it does eventually get mentioned in relation to the death of a prosecutor, media outlets as the BBC omit the CIA and death squad details 38, leading people to believe that Rivera was just an innocent police investigator or a consultant to the interior minister. Seeing how Reuters released a very similar news report as the BBC on the very same day that includes the line, "rights groups say he was also operating police death squads from his government post," 39 one has to be suspicious that the omission was not by chance. As a result, even anno 2022 Wikipedia's article on the case indicates that Victor Rivera was little more than a random "consultant" of Guatemala's Interior Ministry. 40
Fact is, even Celerino "Cele" Castillo, a DEA agent in South America in the 1984-1990 Contra period, and one of "three main sources of allegations of drug trafficking at Ilopango" airport, in relation to Colonel Oliver North's Contra operations 41, talks about working with this very same Victor Rivera Azuaje in his 1994 book 'Powderburns':
"I called Victor Rivera, an advisor to the president of El Salvador. The CIA had hired Rivera as a contract agent and advisor to Duarte, and he and I quickly become good friends. His street skills could help any operation. He was one of a half-dozen Venezuelans training the Salvadoran security police in counterinsurgency techniques. Changing political tides had forced them out of Venezuela, and the Salvadorans generously donated an office in national police headquarters in exchange for their expertise. Sharing grisly techniques [i.e. torture] had become a thriving cottage industry in El Salvador, and Rivera and his cohorts found cozy positions with both the Salvadoran government and the CIA, who paid Victor a reported $5,000 a month for his work." 42
Castillo expanded on this specific event, which involved a drug bust of a left-wing Colombian M-19 terrorist, in a written statement tied to a February 2000 House Select Committee on Intelligence on the matter 43:

"January 14, 1986, Met with V.P. George Bush re: Contras at Ilopango. NOTE: Was forewarned of the Contras-Drug connection. ...
"Feb. 05, 1986, I seized $800,000 in cash, 35 kilos of cocaine, and an airplane at Ilopango airport in El Salvador. Colombian M-19 terrorist.
"Note: The case was initiated by Jack McCavitt's asset. The operation was conducted by the CIA "goon squad". The squad members were made up of several former Venezuelans [-] Police Officers working as advisors for McCavitt. Leader of this group was Victor Rivera who was involved in several murders for the CIA in El Salvador and Guatemala. This is a FACT that is well documented in DEA files: ... DEA-6 Case file TG-86-0001, Giatan-Giatan, Leonel.
"Example: A Salvadoran Military Major was kidnapped in Guatemala by Rivera and his crew. The Major was then tortured and assassinated by Rivera. This was done with the approval of Jack McCavitt [CIA station chief in El Salvador, and also for Guatemala, anno 1986; previously worked in Libya] and CIA agent Manny Brand. I assisted the squad in the capture of the Major in Guatemala City under the pretext that the Major was a fugitive." 45
Not much is known about McCavitt, possibly because his career did not survive the Contra controversy. His name does come up, and not in the most flattering ways, in a 1995 article of The Nation on Guatemala's leading death squad of the 1970s and 1980s: G-2:
"Officials [who actually do talk] say that at least during the mid 1980s G-2 officers were paid by Jack McCavitt, then C.I.A. station chief. [G-2 was] the brain of the terror state. ... At least three of the recent G-2 chiefs have been paid by the C.I.A., according to U.S. and Guatemalan intelligence sources. ..
"If the G-2 wants to kill you, they kill you," former army Chief of staff Gen. Benedicto Lucas Garcia once said. "They send one of their trucks with a hit squad and that's it." Current and former G-2 agents describe a program of surveillance backed by a web of torture centers and clandestine body dumps. In 1986, then-army Chief of Staff Gen. Hector Gramajo Morales, a U.S. protege, said that the G-2 maintains files on and watches "anyone who is an opponent of the Guatemalan state in any realm." A former G-2 agent says that the base he worked at in Huehuetenango maintained its own crematorium and "processed" abductees by chopping off limbs, singeing flesh and administering electric shocks." 46
Rivera a "fixer" for Guatemala's oligarchy
As Guatemala, in the 1990s and 2000s, was moving more and more into a more modern (semi-)democratic system, this death squad network survived in the background, it being given the name Cuerpos Ilegales y Aparatos Clandestinos de Seguridad (CIACS: Illegal Clandestine Security Apparatuses). By that time it consisted of various competing and cooperating "extra-legal", criminal gangs, the most powerful of which was "the Cofradia". Members of the Cofradia included Colonel Byron Lima Estrada, a former (non-alumni) pupil at the notorious School of the Americas 47; and his son, Captain Byron Lima Oliva 48, who stand accused of murdering Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi in 1998, two days after his commission released a human rights report about military and big business-backed death squads. 49 When these military officers were locked up in prison, they became powerful leaders here due to their training and all the outside backing they received. Forming their own gangs, their main rivals were the "cholo" gangs, the biggest of which became Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).
Victor Rivera Azuaje used to play a key role in the death squad death network, operating directly underneath the CIA station chief. 50 By the 2000s his role had become rather ambiguous. His most "official" role was running a private detective squad and serving as "hostage negotiator" who didn't need to go through any bureaucratic "red tape", making him popular with the country's business elites. As one official explained it:
"The Riveritas ... were effective because they went unpunished, even when performing operations well outside the legal boundaries. [Created was] a parallel state structure that worked because of its impunity. ... These were times when the Attorney General's Office did not carry out autopsies and simply trusted what police reports said." 51
Certainly by 2004 though, "the Riveritas" and allies as interior minister Carlos Vielman and police chief Erwin Sperisen would actually set up their own kidnappings by using gangs, ordinary criminals, and low level police officers. Next they would set out to rescue the victims, often killing them and all of the flunkies they had used in the process. Another task was "killing cholos".
The Eduardo d'Aubuisson / Parlacen case of February 2007 apparently fell under the former activity, at least according to the CIGIG investigation. Not explained really is why "The Riveritas" would kidnap, torture, rob and kill three foreign diplomats and not expect any international ramifications, especially not with an effort underway to set up the United Nations-backed Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CIGIG). The Parlacen case actually solidified support for this research committee. Speculation that Guatemala's big business committee wanted to use the committee to reign in the power of the military and put it back under the control of civilian bureaucrats. Vielman and Sperisen simply were never supposed to get caught.
What we can be certain of is that "The Riveritas", Sperisen and Vielman played the key role in covering up the the Eduardo d'Aubuisson / Parlacen case. As far as the evidence goes, Rivera and Sperisen killed the police officers who intercepted the diplomats and brought them to the La Parga farm - where "the Riveritas" were waiting, or at least overseeing the operation. Certainly it is odd to subsequently see Rivera with the soon-to-be-dead police officers, their officer-in-charge threatening to take Rivera down with him. Hence, maybe it is not surprising that, according to "a high-ranking official within the government of former [Salvadoran] President Antonio Saca", "numerous Salvadoran officials at the time suspected the Riveritas and their bosses were behind the murders and the coverup." 52 Subsequently the operation was blamed on these police officers, with "the Riveritas" being accused of planting evidence to "confirm" this theory. The reason they could get away with this for so long is because so many other corrupt individuals were involved: from prosecutors to attorney generals and ministers.
The fact that Rivera was fired from his government post just two days before his murder, would be enough to make some suspicious about his death as well. The Costa Rican prosecutor involved in the CIGIG investigation actually explained that Victor Rivera's murder in April 2008 was carried out by "the Riveritas" themselves, while demonstrating the involvement of Rivera's superiors interior minister Vielman. In contrast to suspicions of a CICIG investigator, who speculated there could be personal motives 53, according to the prosecutor, the "El Gordo" Paredes tie was just the usual distraction, similar to the cartel boss being tied to the death of the diplomats; with the investigation into the death of Rivera being marred with the usual manipulations. 54
"Oligarchy", "Pyramid", military death squad-ties
It very much looks as if Rivera had become too much of a liability to some of the higher ups in Guatemalan society. Equally predictable maybe is that Vielman and Sperisen, situated higher on the totem pole, survived. So, let's ask, who are these indivuals? Because, who would be able to control a person as Rivera? Who would hire him? Who would fire him?
In case of Carlos Vielman, Guatemala's interior minister and a person closely linked to Rivera, he was deeply tied into Guatemala's big business elite. As one friend of him, Luis Reyes Mayen, testified several years before the Parlacen incident:
"Carlos Vielman is my friend even though I'm not from the elite… Furthermore, Carlos Vielman fought to incorporate me into the elite – 'let's have dinner together, and bring along your wife and kids…' ... Eh, he fought to bring me in socially, and I never did it. ...
"Guatemala has an elite who socialise with each other, who have beach houses, who live in gated communities. But it's quite restricted, quite small. The rest is a group of businessmen that is fairly disperse, in the sense of poorly structured and poorly organised. Really, CACIF doesn't represent many businesses at all ... It's a pretty closed group, a group to which I have access because I'm friends with a few of them and we get on well. But it's a group that I've never really liked as I've never wanted my children to grow up in that environment. ... I don't want my kids to grow up in a superficial culture" 55
Carlos Vielman had at least one uncle, Gustavo Anzueto Vielman 56, involved in the steering committee of the right-wing political party FCN, serving there alongside generals tied to Guatamalan death squad activity. 57 The head of Gustavo's FCN party, Jimmy Morales, eventually was able to kick the United Nations-backed Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CIGIG) investigation out of country with the help of "conservative CIA" asset Donald Trump, then-president of the United States. 58
There's more though. Much more. The uncle, Gustavo Anzueto Vielman, has been considered a co-founder of death squads as La Mano Blanca under the notorious Guatemalan military dictator Colonel Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio in the early 1970s. 59 Next, in 1978, he set up a private air force to bomb leftist guerilla camps, this after the Carter administration cut foreign aid to Guatemala over human rights concerns. 60
This same Gustavo Anzueto Vielman, was a director of the Comite Coordinador de Asociaciones Agricolas, Comerciales, Industriales y Financieras (CACIF: the Coordinating Commission of Agricultural, Commercial, Industrial and Financial Associations). It's the biggest, or one of the biggest, big business lobby groups in Guatemala, with many nationally elite families serving on its various subcommittees. These ruling CACIF families have been tied to CIA-backed militarist governments and death squad activity for decades on end. Apparently, according to Gustavo Anzueto Vielman himself in 2000, the most powerful families within CACIF set up a structure in this organization known as "Pyramid", of which his relative, Carlos Vielman, also was part:
"Look, Peter belongs, along with Victor Suárez, Carlos Vielman, who is my cousin – no, he was my cousin, but I no longer recognise him as a cousin *laughs* - Juan Luis Bosch, Edgar Heinemann: there's a group that formed an entity within CACIF called Pyramid. This is the financial force of CACIF and it's the group that defends CACIF's privileges. As an example of this, within Pyramid are the sugar growers." 61
Interior minister Carlos Vielman clearly was as connected as could be, and it makes sense that someone as Victor Rivera would be running off-the-book operations for him as a government minister as well as for CACIF and "Pyramid". Before being appointed interior minister, Carlos served as president of Guatemala's Chamber of Industry, an aspect of CACIF. 62
WTO ties
As for the death squad-engaging police chief Erwin Sperisen, his father is Eduardo Ernesto Sperisen-Yurt 63, Guatemala's permanent ambassador to the World Trade Organization (WTO) from 2005 64 until at least 2021 65, and seemingly still anno 2024. 66 From 2007 to 2013, Sperisen-Yurt chaired the WTO's Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation. 67 The Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation became the more permanent Committee on Trade Facilitation, and is one of about three dozen subcommittes of the WTO. 68 Director-general of the WTO from 2005 to 2013 was Pascal Lamy, an occasional Davos and Bilderberg visitor since well before his WTO appointment. Anno 2024, Yurt is vice chair of the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (ACWL) under chairman John Weekes 69, whose biography reads:
"Canada's Ambassador to the WTO from 1995 to 1999, [who] in 1998 served as Chair of the WTO General Council [and who] from 1993 to 1995 ... was Canada's Chief Negotiator for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). ... He served as Canada's Ambassador to GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) during the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations and chaired the GATT Council in 1989 and then the GATT Contracting Parties in 1990." 70
Erwin Sperison, who tried to hide out in Switzerland, where his father resides, was arrested in 2012 and repeatedly tried, convicted, acquitted, retried, and re-convicted here. All of it is related to past murders in Guatemala, including prison murders. 71
^Conclusion: only more questions
The Parlacen affair, as so often is the case, only raises more questions than it answers, in particular how Guatemala's big business elites surrounding CACIF and "Pyramid" have been running the country, and what their ties to international liberal-globalist and more conservative-nationalist elites are.
There's really nothing more to conclude. The Parlacen affair is an intriguing case study.
^Notes
- March 11, 2007, Los Angeles Times, 'In Central America, crime is king'.
- March 12, 2007, Seattle Times, 'Drug traffickers, rogue cops take over'.
- May 2019, Le Monde diplomatique, 'Government turns into a 'criminal organisation'; The captured state of Guatemala': "On 19 February 2007 three Salvadoran members of the Central American Parliament (Parlacen) were heading for Guatemala in a 44 with 20kg of cocaine and $5m in cash hidden in a secret compartment. Just 20km across the border, Eduardo d'Aubuisson, William Pichinte, José Ramón González and their driver were stopped by police..."
- March 12, 2007, Seattle Times, 'Drug traffickers, rogue cops take over'.
- July 2, 1980, Washington Post, 'Salvadoran Rightist Eludes Ban Against Entering U.S.'.
- 1999, Gary Webb, 'Dark Alliance', p. 258.
- Feb. 25, 1985, AP, 'Mystery Millions: Repercussions from Washington to San Salvador'.
- March 22, 1985, Los Angeles Times, 'Ex-Contra Linked to Slaying of Salvador Bishop': "Mario Sandoval Alarcon, who was helping D’Aubuisson... “They trained people for the death squads at Sandoval’s farm,” he said.""
- Dec. 16, 1983, New York Times, 'Foreign Affairs'.
- Dec. 17, 2000, Washington Post, 'Critics Called Facility a Training Ground for Latin Despots'.
- April 24, 1993, The Guardian, 'Guns, Goons and Western Goals'.
- Dec. 5, 1984, Washington Post, 'D'Aubuisson Honored by Conservatives at Capitol Hill Dinner'.
- March 11, 2007, Los Angeles Times, 'In Central America, crime is king'.
- April 12, 2013, InsightCrime.org (seed-funded by Soros' Open Society Foundations), 'Once Again, El Salvador Ignores Narco-Congress Links'.
- Jan. 8, 2020, El Faro, 'Adolfo Tórrez pidió medio millón a Roberto Silva para liberarlo de cargos en El Salvador'.
- Jan. 2, 2008, Reuters, 'REFILE-Guatemala moves against politician in murder case'.
- March 11, 2007, Los Angeles Times, 'In Central America, crime is king'.
- August 2010, Annie Bird for her rightsaction.org (Guatemala), 'Cracks in the wall of impunity and corruption: Arrests of Guatemalan police death squad connect today's organized crime to 1980s death squads and the CIA'.
- May 2019, Le Monde Diplomatique, 'Government turns into a 'criminal organisation': The captured state of Guatemala'.
- September 13, 2007, The Nation, 'Getting Away With Murder'.
- March 13, 2011, NBC News, 'Mexican drug cartels move into Central America'.
- January 9, 2014, es.insightcrime.org (seed-funded by Soros' Open Society Foundations), 'Belize Arrest Shows Guatemala's Once-Powerful Drug Clan Is Still Alive' (translated from Spanish).
- Sep. 17, 2008 YouTube upload by 'elperiodicoguatemala', 'Caso Parlacen, policias capturados'.
youtube.com/watch?v=qrUfUc-BdII (accessed: Oct. 9, 2024). - Feb. 26, 2007, CBC.ca, 'Rioting inmates kill 4 jailed officers in Guatemala'.
- Sep. 13, 2007, The Nation, 'Getting Away With Murder'.
- February 26, 2007, CBC.ca, 'Rioting inmates kill 4 jailed officers in Guatemala'.
- January 9, 2011, Elfaro.net (online El Salvador newspaper), '"No entiendo por qué El Salvador se queda callado y acepta esta investigación amañada"' ("I don't understand why El Salvador remains silent and accepts this rigged investigation"'.) (The Costa Rican prosecutor involved in the CIGIG investigation and interviewed here is not menioned by name in the article).
- August 2010, Annie Bird for her rightsaction.org (Guatemala), 'Cracks in the wall of impunity and corruption'.
- May 16, 2019, InsightCrime.org (seed-funded by Soros' Open Society Foundations), 'Kamilo Rivera and the Ghosts of Guatemala's Death Squads'. Kamilo Rivera worked under Victor Rivera.
- January 9, 2011, Elfaro.net (online El Salvador newspaper), '"No entiendo por qué El Salvador se queda callado y acepta esta investigación amañada"' ("I don't understand why El Salvador remains silent and accepts this rigged investigation"'.) (The Costa Rican prosecutor involved in the CIGIG investigation and interviewed here is not menioned by name in the article).
- alamy.com (accessed: Oct. 9, 2024): "Victor Rivera, bottom, slumps over his car seat after being shot dead as investigators work the scene in Guatemala City, early Tuesday, April 8, 2008. Rivera, an advisor to Guatemala's Interior Minister Vinicio Gomez, was shot several times by attackers in another car, according to authorities. (AP Photo/Jesus Alfonso)".
- July 2, 2009, Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA.org), 'Guatemalan Democracy: Hanging on By its Fingernails'.
- January 9, 2011, Elfaro.net (online El Salvador newspaper), '"No entiendo por qué El Salvador se queda callado y acepta esta investigación amañada"' ("I don't understand why El Salvador remains silent and accepts this rigged investigation"'.) (The Costa Rican prosecutor involved in the CIGIG investigation and interviewed here is not menioned by name in the article).
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- July 15, 2008, Reuters, 'Gunmen kill prosecutor probing Salvador murder case'.
- January 9, 2011, Elfaro.net (online El Salvador newspaper), '"No entiendo por qué El Salvador se queda callado y acepta esta investigación amañada"'.
- July 15, 2008, BBC, 'Gunmen kill Guatemala prosecutor'.
- July 15, 2008, Reuters, 'Gunmen kill prosecutor probing Salvador murder case'.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ February_2007_Salvadoran_ congressmen_killings (accessed: March 20, 2022).
- Oct. 8, 1998, CIA Inspector General L. Britt Snider, 'Report of Investigation: Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States. Volume 2: The Contra Story', pp. 319-321.
- 1994, DEA agent Cele Castillo, 'Powderburns', p. 135.
- Feb. 2000, U.S. Congress: House, 'Report on the Central Intelligence Agency's Alleged Involvement in Crack Cocaine Trafficking in the Los Angeles Area', pp. 197-198 discuss Castillo. The exact text quoted here has not been included here though.
- Oct. 8, 1998, CIA Inspector General L. Britt Snider, 'Report of Investigation: Allegations of Connections Between CIA and the Contras in Cocaine Trafficking to the United States. Volume 2: The Contra Story', p. 319.
- While Cele Castillo did get featured in the Feb. 2000 Congressional report in the period specified (see two notes back), this specific statement appears to have been pretty much lost in time for the moment. One of the few places it can still be found anno 2024 is at mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/ msg47812.html, involving an August 1, 2000 post by Kris Millegan. It overlaps with everything else Castillo has said and documented though.
- April 17, 1995, The Nation, 'CIA Death Squad'.
- Aug. 8, 2016, National Catholic Reporter, 'Guatemalan inmate, convicted of bishop's murder, killed in prison'.
- July 25, 2016, InsightCrime.org (seed-funded by Soros' Open Society Foundations), 'The Murder of Guatemala's Prison 'King' Byron Lima: A 'Self-Coup d'etat'? (Part III)'.
- July 18, 2016, New York Times, 'Byron Lima Oliva, Bishop's Killer, Dies in Attack at Guatemala Prison'.
- April 17, 1995, The Nation, 'CIA Death Squad'.
- May 16, 2019, InsightCrime.org (seed-funded by Soros' Open Society Foundations), 'Kamilo Rivera and the Ghosts of Guatemala's Death Squads'. Keep in mind that Kamilo Rivera worked for Victor Rivera.
- May 16, 2019, InsightCrime.org (seed-funded by Soros' Open Society Foundations), 'Kamilo Rivera and the Ghosts of Guatemala's Death Squads'. Keep in mind that Kamilo Rivera worked for Victor Rivera.
- August 2010, Annie Bird for her rightsaction.org (Guatemala), 'Cracks in the wall of impunity and corruption: Arrests of Guatemalan police death squad connect today's organized crime to 1980s death squads and the CIA'.
- January 9, 2011, Elfaro.net (online El Salvador newspaper), '"No entiendo por qué El Salvador se queda callado y acepta esta investigación amañada"' ("I don't understand why El Salvador remains silent and accepts this rigged investigation"'.) (The Costa Rican prosecutor involved in the CIGIG investigation and interviewed here is not menioned by name in the article).
- 2003, Roman Krznaric (Ph.D. thesis at the University of Essex), 'The Worldview of the Oligarchy in Guatemalan Politics', p. 82. The first part was spoken in an interview on "9/6/00". The second part on "4/4/2", which involves a typo and may be "02".
- 2003, Roman Krznaric (Ph.D. thesis at the University of Essex), 'The Worldview of the Oligarchy in Guatemalan Politics', p. 86: "Gustavo Anzueto Vielman, interview 31/5/00: ... Carlos Vielman, who is my cousin [note: might mean "nephew"]..."
- Sep. 5, 2015, cmiguate.org, 'El candidato y su relación con militares' ('The candidate and his relationship with the military'): "It was not just Jimmy Morales who received a stroke of luck. The military officers [and] their dark past [are behind] Morales' meteoric rise. [Death squad ties explained] Also notable among the founders as members of the [FCN's] Political Council were Eduardo Suger Cofiño and Gustavo Adolfo Anzueto Vielman."
- Sep. 5, 2020, The Daily Beast, 'How Donald Trump Helped Kneecap the Robert Mueller of Latin America'.
- Ibid. (translated from Spanish): "In the case of [Gustavo] Anzueto Vielman (now deceased), he was a 52-year-old architect who served as Minister of Public Works during the military government of Colonel Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio (1970-1974). He was an ardent anti-communist and conservative who was linked to the founding of death squads such as “La Mano Blanca”. In the 1982 elections he was the presidential candidate of the Central Auténtica Nacionalista (CAN), the party founded by Arana Osorio as the Central Aranista Organizada (CAO), and at that time he advocated for a total war against the guerrillas, as well as for a total liberalization of the Guatemalan economy, the stimulation of production and the creation of sources of work. Precisely, at that time he is credited with the formation of the air reserve made up of civil aviators, who at his own expense and by express will, piloted their planes to bomb unarmed communities that “supported the guerrillas”. He was the uncle of Carlos Vielman Montes, former member of the CACIF Crisis Committee in 1993 and former Minister of the Interior during the government of Óscar Berger (2004-2008), and currently awaiting trial and sentencing in Spain for the case of extrajudicial executions of prisoners in the "Pavón Case."
- Ibid.
- 2003, Roman Krznaric (Ph.D. thesis at the University of Essex), 'The Worldview of the Oligarchy in Guatemalan Politics', p. 86.
- Sep. 1, 2016, InsightCrime.org (seed-funded by Soros' Open Society Foundations), 'Guatemala Elites and Organized Crime: The CICIG .
- April 28, 1018, The Local (English-language Swiss newspaper), 'Swiss-Guatemalan ex-police chief jailed for 15 years'.
- March 18, 2005, pib.gov.in (government of India), 'Ministry of Commerce & Industry: G-20 Ministerial meeting begins – Developing Countries come together to strategise on WTO issues': "The two-day G-20 Ministerial Meeting – the first Ministerial interaction on WTO to be hosted by India - began here this morning... Member Countries present on the occasion were: ... Gautemala [sic] (Mr. Eduardo Sperisen-Yurt, Ambassador, Permanent Mission to the WTO)."
- Feb. 3, 2021-dated statement on unctad.org (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), 'Statement by H.E. Mr. Eduardo Sperisen-Yurt, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Guatemala to WTO on behalf of the Group of Latin America and the Caribbean at the 70th Executive Session of the Trade and Development Board, Geneva, 3-5 February 2021'.
- common-fund.org/about-us/member-states/guatemala (accessed: Oct. 9, 2024; UN-tied fund): "Governor of CFC for Guatemala: H.E. Mr. Eduardo Sperisen Yurt. Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Guatemala to WTO.".
- *) 2016, WTO, 'Women in Trade: Women and the WTO Gender Statistics (1995-2016)', p. 42: "Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation: ... From 2004 to 2013, all three chairs of the Negotiating Group were men. [44] ... [44] Mr Eduardo Ernesto Sperisen-Yurt of Guatemala (2007-2013)..."
*) 2013 annual report, WTO, p. 30: "The trade facilitation negotiations advanced in 2012, under the chairmanship of Eduardo Sperisen-Yurt of Guatemala..." - wto.org/english/thewto_e /secre_e/current_chairs_e.htm (accessed: Oct. 9, 2024).
- acwl.ch/organisational-structure/ (accessed: Oct. 9, 2024): "The current Members of the Management Board are: - Mr. John Weekes (Chairperson). Mr. Weekes is the former Ambassador of Canada to the WTO and a former Chair of the General Council of the WTO.H.E. - Mr. Eduardo Ernesto Sperisen-Yurt (Vice-Chairperson). Mr. Sperisen-Yurt is the Ambassador of Guatemala to the WTO...".
- wto.org/english/forums_e/ debates_e/john_weekes_popup_e.htm (accessed: Oct. 9, 2024).
- *) April 28, 2018, The Local (English-language Swiss newspaper), 'Swiss-Guatemalan ex-police chief jailed for 15 years'. He was arrested in 2012, convicted in 2014, retried in 2017, etc.
*) Sep. 12, 2024, Agence France Presse (through Barron), 'Guatemala Ex-police Chief Jailed For 14 Years In Switzerland'.