OAS anti-corruption effort set to expire in Honduras after talks collapse

An eleventh-hour negotiation between the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Honduran government on whether to extend or not the mandate of an international anti-corruption mission reached an impasse that will allow the mandate to expire on Sunday.

The negotiations had been ongoing since late December following the publication of an evaluation that had recommended the renewal of the mission’s original four-year mandate without modifications.

According to Univision sources, a primary point of contention was the investigative role of the mission and its coordination with a special prosecutorial unit, which the Honduran government wanted to strip from any new agreement. In such a case, the mission would have been reduced to an advisory role.

“If [the mission] can’t help Honduras’s highly effective anti-corruption prosecutorial unit, then the mission become just one more in a forty-year chain of meaningless advising projects,” said Chuck Call, a professor at American University who has studied anti-corruption missions in Central America.

“Sadly, it seems that the Trump administration is unwilling to use its leverage to support extending [the mission] so long as the Honduran government is working with it to curb immigration.”

The U.S. State Department, which provided funding to the mission, or MACCIH as it’s known for its Spanish initials, remained silent throughout the crucial final weeks of negotiations between Honduras and the OAS.

In a speech at the OAS on Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referred to the "revival" of multilateralism to protect democracy, citing various concerns in countries around the hemisphere, but made no mention of Honduras.

Meanwhile, acting secretary of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, visited Honduras last week to announce that a safe-third country agreement reached in September would begin implementation in the coming weeks.

“As you continue to do more to secure your borders, dismantle gangs and cartels, and implement our asylum agreement, the United States will continue to invest in and support the economic growth in Honduras,” said Wolf in a joint press conference with President Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Drug ties

But the U.S. drastically cut foreign assistance to Honduras last year and in October a New York federal court convicted a brother of Hernandez for what prosecutors called “state-sponsored drug trafficking.”

The apparent acquiescence of the Trump administration regarding the MACCIH followed a similar strategy employed last year when Guatemala dismantled its pioneering international anti-corruption mission, the United Nations-backed CICIG. Guatemala was the first country to implement a safe-third country agreement.

Origins of MACCIH

The Honduran people had wanted a CICIG of their own after in 2015 details came to light of a massive corruption scandal involving the embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars from the national health system.

Under pressure from ongoing protests sparked by the scandal, Hernandez – who was forced to admit that a portion of the funds ended up in his political coffers – entered into negotiations with the OAS. The result was the MACCIH, a smaller and weaker mission than its progenitor in Guatemala whose four-year mandate began on January 19, 2016.

Nevertheless, the MACCIH gained much of the strength it lacked when a subsequent agreement between the OAS and Honduran government created a new anti-corruption court circuit and a special anti-corruption prosecutorial unit, known as the UFECIC, to partner with the mission.

Special unit - UFECIG

In just a little over two years of operations, the UFECIC has become arguably the most successful prosecutorial unit in Honduran history, bringing 12 emblematic corruption cases to trial and obtaining the conviction of a former first lady on embezzlement charges. The unit dispelled the myth of a lack of capacity and laid bare the historical dearth of political will to bring these kinds of cases forward.

Ultimately, the success of the investigative cooperation between the MACCIH and the UFECIC is likely what led to the contention over the former’s investigative role. It will remain to be seen if the latter will be allowed to continue to operate with the independence that has been pivotal to its success without the political cover provided by its partnership with the MACCIH. It is also possible that the UFECIC will be disbanded.

Several of the cases undertaken involved the embezzlement of development funds through shell nonprofits by legislators. A Univision investigation showed that as many as 360 legislators could be implicated in the scheme and that the amount embezzled could surpass the national health system scandal.

Experts say that the continuance of the MACCIH with a limited, largely figurative role and without the ability to coordinate investigations with the UFECIC would have converted the mission into a façade to be used by President Hernandez to feign a commitment to combat corruption.

“This is a serious blow for critical anti-corruption efforts in Honduras. In a country where drug money has tainted the highest circles of power, the MACCIH was an imperative tool in the fight against corruption," said WOLA director for Citizen Security Adriana Beltrán in a statement.

"The U.S. government must send a strong signal indicating that it prioritizes the fight against corruption," she added.

The death of the MACCIH was evidence that President Hernandez "is not serious about stopping the corruption that permeates his government from top to bottom," added U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, in a statement. "The question now is whether the Trump Administration continues to turn a blind eye, caring only that President Hernandez has agreed for his violent, impoverished country to be a so-called ‘third country safe haven’ for Central Americans seeking asylum in the United States."

The Honduran government sought to reassure critics of its commitment to fighting corruption. “We reaffirm our commitment to continue working to build more integral mechanisms that permit the continued strengthening of Honduran institutions and advance as a society in the fight against corruption and impunity in Honduras,” the government said in a statement.

Alleged political corruption

But its track record remain questionable. Hernandez was named as an unindicted co-conspirator by prosecutors in his brother’s drug trafficking trial and is accused of receiving millions of dollars in bribes from narcos. Members of his family have been implicated in corruption cases, including his sister Hilda, who died in a helicopter crash in 2017 but who had a clear leadership role in two of the corruption cases brought to light. A pair of nonprofits linked to Hernandez’s family that have received over $100 million in public funds are also under investigation.

The fate of these cases, much like that of the anti-corruption fight in Honduras, hangs in the balance.