Pubdate: Fri, 25 Aug 2006
Source: Chicago Reader (IL)
Copyright: 2006 Chicago Reader
Contact:  http://www.chicagoreader.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3471
Author: Frank Smyth

THE CONGRESSMAN AND THE DICTATOR'S DAUGHTER

Illinois Republican Jerry Weller is one of the most powerful men in
Congress when it comes to Latin America. His wife is the most powerful
woman in Guatemala's controversial FRG party.

JERRY WELLER WAS running for his sixth term as congressman from
Illinois' 11th District in July 2004 when he announced that he was
engaged to Zury Rios Sosa, an outspoken third-term legislator in
Guatemala's congress and the daughter of former dictator General
Efrain Rios Montt. "I am thrilled to have found my best friend and
soulmate," Weller stated in a press release. "Our love knows no
boundaries." In the same release Sosa said, "With Jerry, I am starting
an eternal springtime. I admire his character, his commitment to his
responsibilities, and his honesty."

Their mutual admiration notwithstanding, the announcement raised a red
flag. Weller, who would be the first congressman ever to marry a
member of a foreign national legislature, sat on the International
Relations Committee and its western hemisphere subcommittee--would his
votes be influenced by Sosa?

In a July 12 editorial the Chicago Sun-Times said, "The problem is the
image it conveys to our Latin American neighbors, who are critical
enough of our policies without concerns about how a vote might have
been influenced by a committee member's wife." The following day the
Bloomington Pantagraph, the biggest paper in Weller's district, ran an
editorial that said, "Any time an elected U.S. representative privy to
confidential information is intimately involved with a central figure
in a foreign government--and one whose father has been accused of
genocide within that country--there should be concern. . . . There are
some boundaries that elected representatives have to draw in the name
of U.S. security.

We can't say Weller has crossed that line, but he's sure tiptoeing
down it."

The Sun-Times suggested that Weller, a Republican whose district
includes parts of the south suburbs, resign from the committee.

His opponent in the congressional race, Tari Renner, also called on
him to give up the post. Weller's spokesman, Telly Lovelace, told the
Pantagraph the congressman had no intention of resigning. "If there is
any obvious conflict," Lovelace said, "Congressman Weller will do
what's appropriate."

In late August 2004 Weller met with members of the Pantagraph's
editorial board; without quoting him directly, the paper said he'd
told them he would "recuse himself from legislation . . . specific to
Guatemala." Lisa Haugaard, executive director of the nonpartisan Latin
America Working Group in Washington, D.C., says that's a "fairly
meaningless statement," explaining that any Guatemalan issue would
almost surely be part of broader legislation. Weller also went to the
House ethics committee for advice.

According to the Associated Press, committee members told him he had
"a duty to vote on bills unless he had a direct interest in the
outcome"--not exactly a clear standard.

Two years later Weller, who's 49, and Sosa, who's 38, are married and
just had their first child.

Weller is up for reelection in November. Sosa is still a leading
member of Guatemala's single-house, 158-member congress, and until
earlier this year she sat on its foreign affairs committee, the
counterpart to Weller's committee. She's the second most powerful
person in her party, the Guatemalan Republican Front, or FRG, which
was founded in 1989 by her father and is still led by him. It's been
plagued by accusations of corruption, money laundering, and helping
drug traffickers, though no one's accused her personally of any of
those things.

In many ways she's the clean face of her party, having sponsored
legislation to protect women and people with AIDS from discrimination
and to protect children by regulating the advertising of tobacco and
alcohol.

She's also sponsored legislation to curtail the financing of
terrorists and to curb smuggling, allowing Guatemalan authorities to
seize assets such as trucks, boats, and planes from drug runners.

In January 2005 Weller became vice chairman of the western hemisphere
subcommittee, by far the most important committee in Congress writing
legislation on Latin America and the war on drugs and overseeing U.S.
policy on those issues. "The western hemisphere subcommittee has been
one of the only ones overseeing U.S. drug policy, and it has been the
main one making U.S. drug policy," says Adam Isacson of the watchdog
group Center for International Policy. "It has huge influence." The
16-member committee also focuses on trade and democracy in the region.

Weller often talks about these issues as they relate to Caribbean and
Latin American countries--but not Guatemala, even though it has 12.7
million people, a third of the population of Central America. He voted
for CAFTA, the free-trade agreement that includes Guatemala, but he
doesn't talk about specific trade possibilities with that country. He
also doesn't talk about democracy in Guatemala, which is fragile at
best, and he doesn't talk about money laundering or drug trafficking
there, even though up to 70 percent of the drugs that enter the U.S.
come through Guatemala. All of which raises questions about whether
he's doing everything he can to address the concerns of his
constituents. He's painted himself into a corner, and he seems to be
making no effort to get out.

IN 2003, THE year Weller met Sosa, Guatemala was controlled by the
FRG, and the nation's president was her father's handpicked FRG ally,
Alfonso Portillo. Relations with the U.S. had sunk to their lowest in
years. "By all accounts corruption continues to run rampant in
Guatemala," Otto Reich, an assistant secretary of state, had told the
western hemisphere subcommittee in October 2002. "Organized crime, in
particular narcotics trafficking and alien smuggling, is increasing.
Guatemala is a major and growing transit country for narcotics, yet
seizures have dropped to practically nothing. . . . Few high-level
figures are ever charged or even formally investigated for corruption,
and fewer go to trial." Reich also stated that "large amounts of
cocaine are being transshipped through Guatemala with almost complete
impunity" and noted that narcotics smugglers had "very close ties to
the highest levels of government." The following month the Bush
administration embarrassed Guatemala by denying a former intelligence
chief a visa and accusing him of drug trafficking.

In January 2003 the Bush administration embarrassed Guatemala again by
dropping it from the State Department's list of countries seen as
cooperating in the fight against drug trafficking. It was the first
time Guatemala had failed to make the list since the U.S. began doing
annual evaluations in 1987, and it was one of only three countries
decertified, the others being Haiti and Myanmar.

A few months later the Los Angeles Times reported that State
Department officials estimated 220 tons of cocaine had been shipped
through Guatemala in 2002--triple the amount of a decade earlier and
over two-thirds of the U.S. supply--and that seizures by the
Guatemalan government had dropped from just under 10 tons in 1999 to
less than 3 tons. The flow had "turned parts of Guatemala into lawless
zones ruled by family-controlled transit cartels. . . . Now U.S. and
Guatemalan anti-drug officials believe that Colombian drug traffickers
have mostly consolidated their operations in Guatemala with the
cooperation--or at least tolerance--of current and former Guatemalan
government figures." The Times quoted a former ally of General Rios
Montt who was running against the FRG in the November election: "If we
don't watch out we could become another Colombia. What has happened
here is that narco-traffickers have infiltrated the people in
authority--both the army and the government."

In May the FRG nominated Rios Montt as its candidate for the
presidency in the November elections.

The U.S. view, though couched in understated diplomatese, was clear.
"We would hope to be able to work with and have a normal, friendly
relationship with whoever is the next president of Guatemala," said
the State Department's Richard Boucher. "Realistically, in light of
Mr. Rios Montt's background, it would be difficult to have the kind of
relationship that we would prefer."

Rios Montt had been president before, having come to power in a
military coup in 1982. The Guatemalan military was then at war with
leftist rebels--they'd been fighting since 1960 and wouldn't stop
until 1996--and thousands of civilians were being murdered.

During the war an estimated 200,000 people were killed, up to 70,000
of them during Rios Montt's 17 months in office; he was overthrown in
another coup. According to two truth commissions set up after the war,
the military was responsible for over 90 percent of the violence.

Rios Montt wanted to run again for president in 1990, but the
constitution passed in 1985 barred former coup leaders from running.

Four years later he ran for congress and won and was soon elected its
head. When he tried to run for president that year the courts again
barred him, but in 2003 he was back as a candidate.

Zury Rios Sosa, who'd started her political career in 1989 doing
public relations for the FRG and was first elected to congress on the
party's slate in 1995, was running for reelection in 2003--and
directing her father's presidential campaign.

She regularly stumped for him, saying Guatemala needed a "strong hand"
and calling him her "inspiration." (She hasn't publicly distanced
herself from his record or denounced the murders committed while he
was president in the 80s.) In mid- July the constitutional court ruled
that this time Rios Montt could continue his campaign, saying the law
against former coup leaders running couldn't be applied retroactively.
The country's supreme court said it wanted to revisit the issue, and
on July 24 thousands of his supporters, armed with clubs and machetes,
poured into the streets of the capital, burning cars, smashing
windows, and surrounding court buildings and the U.S. embassy.

A TV reporter chased by Rios Montt supporters threatening to douse him
with gasoline suffered a heart attack and died. The rioters' actions
seemed coordinated, and for hours neither the police nor the military
intervened. The U.S. State Department accused the FRG of providing
tents and other supplies to the demonstrators, many of whom had been
bused in the night before.

FRG party delegates were photographed in the middle of the crowds, and
some people told reporters they'd seen Sosa among the demonstrators
with a walkietalkie. A few days later a Prensa Libre journalist asked
her, "There are those who say you were the brains behind the
disturbances. What do you say to that?"

"Who says that?" she said.

"Some analysts, and yesterday a morning daily published their
views."

"For the moment I have no comment."

"And with respect to the FRG party members involved and whose
photographs have been published?"

"I don't have any comment." When the reporter asked if it was
important that Guatemalans know who was responsible for the violence,
she replied, "Every day thousands of people die of AIDS, and we have
13 million orphans in the world. This is what concerns me."

Two weeks later Jerry Weller, arrived in Guatemala with three other
members of the International Relations Committee to discuss trade and
drug trafficking.

WELLER SAW SOSA for the first time at a reception the day he arrived.
"From the moment I met her I realized I had discovered the most
incredible woman," he later told journalists. He reportedly confided
his interest to the U.S. ambassador, and the following evening he
found himself sitting next to her at a state dinner sponsored by the
Guatemalan congress's foreign relations committee, of which she was a
member. He later told Guatemalan reporters he saw it as luck, but an
embassy official who was seated at the same table says, "She arranged
it."

In November, while she and Weller were courting long-distance, Sosa
was reelected.

Her father, whose right to run had been reaffirmed by the
constitutional court a week after the July riots, got less than 17
percent of the vote, and the word was that the violence had cost him
the election.

A coalition of parties opposed to the FRG had won the presidency and
now controlled the congress; the FRG had become Guatemala's largest
opposition party.

The following summer Weller announced that he and Sosa were engaged.
His spokesman said it would be the second marriage for both of them,
and it's not clear whether Weller knew this would actually be her
fourth. At any rate, the day after they announced their engagement
they sent a petition to the Federal Election Commission asking if
Sosa--who had no intention of resigning her seat, applying for U.S.
citizenship, or becoming a permanent resident--could make decisions in
Weller's reelection campaign as well as solicit funds for him and
speak on his behalf.

The FEC said the law prohibited foreign nationals from donating funds
or participating in decision making related to any U.S. election, but
if she worked as a volunteer she could make speeches and ask for
money, though only from Americans.

Weller won in November 2004, then flew to Guatemala, where he and Sosa
were married in a villa her father owned outside the capital. Her
father was under house arrest in the capital, charged with inciting
the July riots, but a judge gave him permission to attend. (He was
cleared of the charges this past January; in July a Spanish judge
indicted him for alleged crimes, including genocide, dating back to
the early 80s. Meanwhile Portillo, who remains under investigation on
embezzlement charges, fled the country, and top officials from his
administration were jailed on corruption charges.)

Two months after his marriage Weller, ignoring calls for him to
resign, became vice chairman of the western hemisphere subcommittee.
It's not that he doesn't have plenty of other interests.

He's also on the powerful Ways and Means Committee and on the
International Relations Committee's terrorism and nonproliferation
subcommittee. His record, of which he's proud, covers a wide range of
issues, from eliminating the marriage-tax penalty to redeveloping the
Joliet Arsenal, establishing health clinics for veterans, creating tax
incentives for companies to clean up brown-field sites, and lobbying
to expand the use of alternative fuels.

In 2004 Weller released a statement saying he wanted to stay on the
western hemisphere subcommittee "to focus on narcotics trafficking and
international law enforcement," and his Web site states that he "has
taken an active role with U.S. government agencies in combating
narco-trafficking." Yet he seems determined to act as if Guatemala
doesn't exist.

In January 2005 he led a nine-day delegation to Colombia, Panama, and
Honduras to discuss trade and drug trafficking, during which he said,
"Almost 90 percent of the cocaine and one half the heroin that comes
into Illinois comes from Colombia and the Andean region." He didn't
mention Guatemala, though Bush administration officials say most of
those drugs passed through it. He didn't make drugs in Guatemala an
issue that May either, though he spoke about drugs in general 
terms:"We have tremendous concerns about narco-trafficking through the region."

It's not like the problem in Guatemala has gone away. In September
2003 the country was put back on the State Department's list of
countries cooperating with the U.S. on trafficking, but last fall its
interior minister, Carlos Vielmann, told Reuters, "We can see the
effects in Guatemala similar to what happened in Colombia from 1985 to
1990." Also last fall Michael O'Brien of the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration made a similar point. "If they don't change things they
could have a mini-Colombia," he said, adding that what Guatemala
needed was a tough law against organized crime.

And DEA chief Michael Braun told the western hemisphere subcommittee,
"Guatemala is a major transshipment and storage point for South
American drugs en route to the United States." The State Department's
2006 annual report to Congress on the war on drugs says, "Large
shipments of cocaine continue to move though Guatemala by air, road,
and sea."

This March at a subcommittee meeting Weller told Bush administration
officials he hoped they would focus on corruption in Venezuela, but he
hasn't talked about corruption in Guatemala. He denounced Venezuela
for sheltering Colombian "terrorist groups" who'd assassinated judges
and elected officials, but he didn't denounce Guatemala, even though
judges and elected officials there have been assassinated too. This
spring one of the leading delegates backing legislation to fight
organized crime, Mario Pivaral, was assassinated outside the building
where the congress meets. (In July the congress passed the nation's
first law that specifically fights organized crime, allowing the
government to tap suspects' phone calls and put law enforcement agents
undercover.)

A thorough search of online congressional records and news reports
over the past three years turns up almost nothing Weller's said
publicly about Guatemala. He is quoted in a press release his wife
distributed in Spanish in Guatemala City, saying, "I am a Republican
and we believe our countries must work together." He wouldn't comment
for this story, and in a January 2006 article an AP writer complained,
"Weller refused repeated requests to discuss his marriage's impact on
his work in Congress." Other members of the western hemisphere
subcommittee talk about Guatemala, including the Republican chair, Dan
Burton, who last year denounced "mob justice" in the country.

Weller clearly thinks he can't even talk about anything good that's
happened in Guatemala, including the antiterrorism legislation
sponsored by his wife. "There are some positive notes in this
hemisphere," he said during a subcommittee hearing in May. "Some
countries, such as Panama, Trinidad, Tobago, Jamaica, Mexico, and El
Salvador, have all made serious prevention and preparedness efforts"
against terrorism.

He didn't say a word about Guatemala, which sits between Mexico and El
Salvador.

Carlos Gomez, coordinator of the Chicago-based Foundation for Human
Rights in Guatemala, thinks Weller's silence hurts both the U.S. and
Guatemala. "If he did not have a relationship with Zury he would be
working against drug trafficking and organized crime in Guatemala," he
says. "It is the FRG that opened the door to drug trafficking and
organized crime in Guatemala. So he can't attack the same party as his
wife."

Like every politician, Weller must know that, no matter how confident
he is that he's serving his constituents fully, appearances matter.
And silence doesn't help. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake