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In March 2018, when no one could yet foresee the outbreak of the nationwide protest against the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship that would erupt in Nicaragua just weeks later, we commemorated National Journalists’ Day with a forum to discuss the role of journalism in the fight against corruption and impunity in Central America.
The main speakers were José Rubén “Chepe” Zamora, director of elPeriódico in Guatemala, and Carlos Dada, director of El Faro in El Salvador—both World Press Freedom Heroes of the International Press Institute. Their investigative reporting in their respective countries was generating winds of change, thanks to the indispensable work of public institutions responsible for prosecuting corruption.
In Guatemala, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, first under Claudia Paz y Paz, brought former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt to trial. Later, under Telma Aldana—supported by the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG, 2006–2019)—it uncovered the La Línea case, which put President Otto Pérez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti on trial. In El Salvador, former presidents Francisco Flores, Tony Saca (both imprisoned), and Mauricio Funes (then a fugitive in Nicaragua), along with other high-ranking officials, had been charged and prosecuted for corruption by the Attorney General’s Office.
The lessons from the fight against corruption and impunity in Guatemala and El Salvador shed light on the darkness in Nicaragua, where the collapse of the rule of law prevented the Comptroller’s Office, the Prosecutor’s Office, and the courts from investigating and prosecuting corruption—despite the evidence presented by Confidencial about the diversion of five billion dollars in Venezuelan state aid into the private coffers of the ruling family. Since Daniel Ortega’s return to power in 2007—after dismantling democratic institutions through what he called “a coup from above”—the Ortega-Murillo family dictatorship had governed in a corporatist alliance with major business elites in the region, offering economic stability and investment opportunities at the cost of democracy and transparency.
CONFIDENCIAL and El Periódico, founded in 1996, and El Faro, created two years later in 1998 under the slogan “the first digital newspaper in Latin America,” were children of the transitions in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador in the 1990s. These were three distinct postwar processes—with very different characteristics—based on negotiations and/or political agreements and electoral democracy, which resulted in what political scientist Terry Karl called “Central America’s hybrid regimes,” where “pockets of authoritarianism and pluralism” coexisted. Among these was an independent press conceived as an agent of democratic change, tasked with holding power accountable and promoting public debate.
At the forum titled Corruption, Impunity, and Historical Memory, Zamora spoke with cautious optimism about the first decade of CICIG: “In Guatemala, for the first time in the 60 years I’ve been alive, there is fear before the majesty of the law. Some cases have been brought to justice, and everyone is being measured by the same standard. These are small steps,we can’t say institutional change has been achieved, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.” Dada explained that in El Salvador, “corruption cases did not begin in the Prosecutor’s Office, but in newsrooms,” and highlighted that, under a still fragile separation of powers, “some magistrates who arrived almost by accident to the Constitutional Chamber—the so-called ‘Fantastic Four’—imposed their criteria against violations of the law.” Meanwhile, the audience of Nicaraguan journalists and civil society members listened eagerly to these modest advances, contrasting them with Nicaragua’s authoritarian regression, where the press persisted in documenting historical memory, waiting for better times when justice might finally be achieved.
Eight years later, after the massacre of Nicaragua’s April 2018 civic uprising, democratic transitions have derailed, and independent journalists have ended up either in exile or in prison.
José Rubén Zamora has just temporarily regained conditional freedom after spending 1,295 days in prison for doing journalism against corruption, the result of an onslaught by the “pact of the corrupt” that continues to hold President Bernardo Arévalo’s democratic governance in check. Zamora describes Arévalo as “a decent man,” whose legacy of respecting the law and the Constitution “will be better appreciated over time.” Still, he insists that “to achieve a lasting shift in the balance of power,” it is necessary to “refound Guatemala—a viable Guatemala that is no longer captured by organized crime and other de facto powers, by the military high command, and by (economic) groups that finance electoral campaigns.”
In El Salvador, “the two-party system between Arena and the FMLN showed an enormous capacity for corruption, regardless of ideology, and failed to solve the population’s major problems, including security and the economy,” recalls Carlos Dada. “Nayib Bukele broke away from the FMLN and capitalized on national outrage against political parties. He presented himself as the great avenger against corruption,” and after winning the 2019 election, he dismantled the gangs, imposing a state of emergency for four consecutive years and clearing the path for his indefinite reelection. “While the ‘pact of the corrupt’ in Guatemala is a project of impunity for political and economic elites,” Dada argues, “Bukele’s project is one of elite replacement: he controls the entire system of government—the three branches of the state, the Attorney General’s Office, and the security forces—and enjoys the highest approval ratings of any Latin American leader.”
In Nicaragua, after the 2018 massacre and the imposition of a police state that eliminated all democratic freedoms, Ortega jailed all opposition candidates in 2021, nullifying any possibility of a democratic election and securing his reelection without political competition. The regime’s radicalization sealed a totalitarian path, shutting down more than 5,500 civil society organizations and unleashing a fierce persecution of the Catholic Church. Meanwhile, the family dictatorship has evolved into a dynastic succession, with “co-president” Rosario Murillo now governing in the shadow of her husband, “co-president” Daniel Ortega, in what Transparency International ranks as the second most corrupt country in Latin America.
In 2026, the judicial machinery of the “pact of the corrupt” keeps elPeriódicoshut down, but José Rubén Zamora remains a symbol of resistance for the Guatemalan and Latin American press. Confidencial has been illegally confiscated in Nicaragua, but we will celebrate its 30th anniversary by continuing to do the best journalism possible—documenting from exile the corruption of the co-dictatorship, its internal purges, and the hopes for change. Meanwhile, the journalists of El Faro who investigated the pacts between President Bukele (and previous Salvadoran governments) and the gangs, also now in exile, will continue to report on the concentration of power, corruption, and human rights violations.
At a time when the collateral effects of the “Donroe Doctrine” are being debated, and whether Venezuela is undergoing a negotiated settlement or a transition that could be replicated in Cuba and eventually in Nicaragua, it is worth asking, as Vargas Llosa’s Zavalita would put it, “when did things go wrong?” when it comes to Central America’s transitions. Just as transitions are never linear processes, their failure is not inevitable under authoritarian pressure when democratic institutions take root, endure, and become a counterweight to power. None of that happened in Central America, and the independent press has already told part of that story. Sooner rather than later, we will have to tell how the new dictatorships of the 21st century fall and, above all, accompany societies as they dismantle the pillars of authoritarianism and begin national reconstruction grounded in democracy.
*This article was originally published in El País.
