Corruption In Latin America Essay

897 Words4 Pages

Dear ladies and gentlemen of the OAS, welcome.

Latin America, a region rich in natural resources, and cradle of great civilisations, like the Incas, the Mayans and the Olmecs. Civilisations so great that even now we study them with both amazement and veneration. One would think that successors of such cultures would be as powerful, in all senses, as their ancestors were. And they are, but their full potential is dormant. There is still one thing that prevents such a region from fully developing, from waking up. An issue as old as these civilisations themselves: corruption.

Corruption is a disease, an evil that is so familiar to Latin America, that one can only wonder how do we survive it or stand it on a daily basis. An evil that has to be ripped off from our societies if we want …show more content…

Guatemala set the example in this matter by creating the CICIG, which stands for International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala. Said Commission was created in 2006 with the help of the UN, and ratified in 2007, to support the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP), the National Civil Police (PNC) and other State institutions in the investigation of crimes committed by members of illegal security forces and clandestine security structures, and help dismantle them (CICIG, 2015). The most recent case that this Commission looked into was a tariff fraud involving both the president and the vice-president of the country. The CICIG collected evidence that implied them, leading to the imprisonment of the now former vice-president and the demission, and later incarceration, of the president, and the call for new elections. The outcome of this case shows us that there is a way to escape of the claws of corruption, and that a decentralized organ can help a country achieve the transparency it needs when it comes to public