Otto Pérez Molina, Former Guatemala President, Gives Interview From Jail; Claims U.S. ‘Soft Coup’ In Country

Ex-Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina interviewed with CNN Mexico on Wednesday from the prison yard of a military jail where stand trial on corruption charges. Appearing in a button-down shirt, a casual vest, and blue jeans, the former military general stated that he was innocent of charges leveled against him, the culmination of an ongoing import-tax graft scandal that has eviscerated his administration and the right-wing Patriot Party that he founded. Pérez claimed that his charged formed part of a “soft coup” engineered by the U.S.

“It’s not just what you see in the courtroom. There are a series of interests, of strategic interests. They are in Guatemala and they extend to Honduras, to El Salvador. You have to look at the big picture,” Pérez told CNN’s Fernando del Rincón.

Pérez was ordered into preventive detention on fraud and illegal association charges related to a scheme known in the Guatemalan press as “La Linea.” His ex-vice-president Roxana Baldatti is also on trial over charges related to the scheme, in which top Guatemalan officials allegedly waived import tariffs in exchange for bribes.

Evidence against Pérez and Baldetti was gathered by the United Nations International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, known by it’s Spanish acronym CICIG. Pérez claims that the CICIG investigation was politically motivated.

"The CICIG has been an instrument to serve others, but not to strengthen justice," he told CNN . "Today, the CICIG, we know that it is really interference of the U.S., who were the ones who most pressured for it. So I responded to the interference of the U.S., who are the ones who are practically ordering the commissioner here."

U.S.-Backed Coup?

Pérez further claims that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice-President Joe Biden personally pressured him to prolong CICIG’s mandate in Guatemala. Does that mean the U.S. plotted his removal from power?

“Yes, definitely,” Pérez said.

The U.S. Department of State has not commented on Pérez’s claims. Reuters confirms that the U.S. pressured Pérez on the CICIG issue. Secretary Kerry is scheduled to meet with American Ambassador to Guatemala Todd Robinson on Thursday.

The U.S. has a long history of supporting coups of leftist governments in Central America, including Guatemala. But Molina, a former military general who fought in a bloody civil against communist and indigenous guerrillas doesn't fit that mold. Is CICIG a reversal of U.S. interventionist policies or a new incarnation of them?

Citing the political theories of an unnamed American author, Pérez suggested that the U.S. had fomented the unrest that led to massive peaceful demonstrations against him and, ultimately, a vote by congress to strip him of executive immunity. Pérez knows about coups; he supported the overthrow of dictator Efraín Ríos Montt in the 1980s.

Is Pérez a victim of the type of U.S.-backed coups described by leftists authors like Naomi Klein or Noam Chomsky? Or is he just taking a page from his leftist opponents’ playbook?

Popular opinion in Guatemala overwhelmingly supports CICIG, who is widely viewed as the protagonist in bringing charges against the ex-President.

“[That is] just a sector of the population, a sector that I’m not going to dismiss -- they’re important,” Pérez said.

Pérez called CICIG supporters “just a sector of the population,” but added that he wouldn’t “dismiss them” and that “they are important.” He added that he wasn’t trying to flee the country, and pledged to cooperate in the trail.

“I didn’t try to leave the country and I’m not going to. I just ask that the process is just,” he said, “We’re not hiding anything.”