Hora Cero
junio 16, 2025
Three recent events prevent the Guatemalan state from continuing to justify its inaction: the hearing on forced exile in Central America held before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s own admission before the IACHR that, for the past eight years, the institution was used to guarantee impunity and criminalize judges, prosecutors, human rights defenders, indigenous authorities, and other dissenting voices against corrupt power; and the presentation, on August 14, of the reportThe truth of exile: ethics, criminalization and the struggle for justice in Guatemala (2014-2025).
The truth has been recounted by those forced to flee the country, documented by national and international organizations, and acknowledged by one of the institutions that played a central role in the criminalization: the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The inevitable question is no longer what happened, but what the State will do after learning the truth.
The report should not become the symbolic closing of a chapter, nor should it be reduced to a public act of listening and solidarity. Its presentation must mark the beginning of a concrete state response. Acknowledging what happened without transforming the conditions that made it possible would mean accepting the truth while allowing its consequences to continue.
The Guatemalan exile is not composed of isolated stories, nor is it the result of voluntary migration decisions. It is the consequence of a pattern of persecution that used the penal system and other institutions to isolate, silence, and punish those who investigated corruption, defended human rights, practiced journalism, administered justice independently, defended their territories, or challenged the abuse of power.
The criminalized individuals did not leave Guatemala seeking better opportunities. They left to protect their freedom, their safety, and, in some cases, their lives. Their exile began before they even crossed the border: with the fear of arbitrary arrest, changes in residence and routine, anonymous threats against their families, job loss, and the inability to mount an adequate defense. Leaving the country was merely the most visible expression of a process of expulsion that was already underway.
Therefore, knowing the truth is an important step, but insufficient. As long as arrest warrants and unfounded investigations remain in effect, stigmatization and legal insecurity persist, and conditions for a dignified and safe return do not exist, exile will continue to cause harm and constitute an ongoing violation of human rights.
The first response must be a public acknowledgment of state responsibility. The government must officially recognize that a phenomenon of forced exile exists in Guatemala, caused by criminalization, the manipulation of the justice system, and the weakening of democracy. Naming what happened is not a political concession: it is a guarantee of the right to the truth and the first step toward restoring trust in institutions.
This recognition should lead to a comprehensive public policy for exiled persons. Guatemala needs an agency with clear responsibilities, sufficient budget, and effective participation of victims, to document cases, address their economic, familial, and psychosocial consequences, facilitate access to documents and consular services, and promote reparations measures.
This policy must address the needs of both those who wish to return and those who choose to remain outside the country for security reasons or because they have rebuilt their lives elsewhere. Return cannot be presented as the only form of redress: it must be voluntary, informed, dignified, and safe. No one should return while the conditions that caused their departure persist.
The second response falls to the justice system. The acknowledgment made by the Public Prosecutor’s Office must translate into institutional decisions. It is not enough to admit that the institution was used to criminalize if the investigations, arrest warrants, and asset seizures resulting from those actions continue to have an impact.
Respecting due process and institutional independence, the Public Prosecutor’s Office must establish an objective, transparent, and independent mechanism to review cases that present patterns or indications of criminalization. This does not mean guaranteeing impunity or dismissing cases based on political decisions. It means determining whether criminal law was used without sufficient grounds, whether cases were fabricated for retaliatory purposes, whether certain proceedings sought to shield those involved in serious acts of corruption from justice, or whether they were initiated to neutralize individuals because of their work. The Public Prosecutor’s Office must also investigate and bring to justice those who participated in these illicit acts.
The judiciary, for its part, must guarantee effective access to legal representation and investigate why numerous cases of criminalization have been repeatedly handled by the same judges, despite the existence of a random case assignment system. It must also review disproportionate coercive measures and prevent the criminal process from continuing to function as a form of preemptive punishment. No one should remain indefinitely under threat of arrest or subjected to stagnant proceedings that restrict their freedom, jeopardize their assets, and destroy their life plans.
The third response must be comprehensive reparations. Exile separates families, interrupts careers, destroys community networks, causes economic and property losses, and forces people to start over in conditions of extreme vulnerability. Added to these harms are displacement, grief, fear for those who remain in Guatemala, and the inability to plan for the future.
Reparation requires restoring rights, addressing psychosocial harm, publicly dignifying those who were stigmatized, preserving their testimonies, and establishing guarantees of non-repetition. It also implies incorporating this history into educational processes and into the construction of the country’s democratic memory.
Guatemala has amassed ample international testimonies, reports, and pronouncements. What is lacking is not information, but the will to transform the structures that enabled the persecution. Declarations of solidarity and public acknowledgments have value, but they become empty gestures when arrest warrants remain in effect, the cases built to criminalize remain open, and those responsible are not held accountable.
August 14th should not become just another day to listen to the victims, lament what happened, and then move on to the next issue. The true impact of the report will be measured by the decisions it prompts: the cases that are reviewed, the responsibilities that are investigated, the reparations measures that are adopted, and the guarantees that are established to ensure that return is a real possibility and not an invitation to return to the same danger.
Those of us living in exile have not renounced Guatemala. From abroad, we continue to defend human rights and contribute to building democracy. Our absence was not voluntary: it is evidence of a democracy that expelled many of those who worked to defend it. The challenge is not simply inviting us to return, but transforming the conditions that forced us to leave. Only when defending justice no longer means persecution, and returning no longer entails risking freedom, safety, or life, will Guatemala be able to say that it has begun to repay its debt to those in exile.
