Guatemalan officials tried to intimidate a U.S. Embassy in 2018 by circling U.S.-supplied military jeeps around the facility, according to a new Government Accountability Office report released Wednesday.
The jeeps were provided to Guatemala as security assistance to help the country in drug wars but were not required to be closely monitored under the Defense Department’s Golden Sentry program, the watchdog agency noted, citing Pentagon officials.
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“According to [Defense Department (DOD)] and State documentation, on the day the decision was announced, seven DOD-provided weapons mounted Jeeps circled the U.S. Embassy and were later observed parked on a street directly in front of the CICIG headquarters in Guatemala City. The U.S. government viewed this as an act of intimidation, according to DOD officials,” the GAO report reads.
Two incidents were scrutinized in the report, including an incident in August 2018, when former President Jimmy Morales claimed he was not renewing the mandate of the United Nations’s International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala. The international commission had been investigating whether Morales violated campaign finance laws at the time. The second occurred under current President Alejandro Giammattei when the jeeps were allegedly used to suppress protests against a mining company.
U.S. officials previously flagged the alleged misuse to Guatemala, but the country said the jeeps were used for protection and not for intimidation purposes.
Pentagon and State Department officials use spreadsheets to monitor the allegations, although the databases are incomplete, according to the report. The GAO additionally reviewed claims from Honduras and El Salvador but only included allegations against Guatemalan officials.
“When we asked the agencies whether they used these reports to identify potential concerns about misuse of DOD-provided equipment, State officials said they had not considered doing so and DOD officials did not respond to our questions,” the report says.
Golden Sentry is a program to “monitor the end-use of defense articles and defense services transferred by DOD pursuant to the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act,” the report adds.
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Officials stated that the Defense Department “does not have the authority to retrieve the misused Jeeps,” GAO said in the report. However, on May 25, “DOD officials requested that the government of Guatemala reassign any Jeeps under the control of the IATFs [interagency task forces] to the Guatemalan military. According to DOD officials, the government of Guatemala has agreed to DOD’s request but had not transferred the Jeeps as of July 18, 2022.” There are also 38 additional jeeps that were set for transfer that remain in storage.
GAO made five recommendations, including “that DOD and State improve their policies for recording allegations and that DOD improves policies to maintain accurate equipment data. State agreed with its recommendation. DOD disagreed with two recommendations, stating that existing guidance is sufficient. GAO maintains that additional guidance is necessary to ensure DOD records allegations and has accurate data.”
