The Assembly is also evaluating sending a report to the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the OAS and the United Nations on the interpellation of the Minister of Defense.
The interpellation of the Minister of DefenseRené Francis Merino Monroy, made it clear to the deputies several aspects: that the official did participate in the military incursion of February 9 in the Legislative Organ; that a “personal responsibility” falls on him as head of Defense when accepting that he “supervised” a “planned and illegitimate military mission”; and that said situations give indications that there was “negligence” on the part of Merino Monroy and the possible committing of the crime of “disobedience and“ sedition ”.
Representatives of ARENA, FMLN and PDC reported that all these elements lead them to evaluate the writing of a report to certify to the Prosecutor’s Office that the Minister of Defense could commit the crime of “disobedience” by refusing to respond to the mandate of the Assembly in the interpellation of August 21; with which he would be subjected to a prison sentence of between six months to a year and disqualification from the position for the same period.
They will also notify the Procurator for the Defense of Human Rights (PDDH) of the possible violation of fundamental rights that would give rise to a binding ruling of dismissal of the official, emanating directly from the Assembly, and not as a recommendation.
> Defense Minister did not explain who ordered him to take over the Assembly
And they plan to file a complaint with the Government Ethics Tribunal (TEG) for “negligence”; forward the report to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), the United Nations (UN), the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch.
With all these actions, the government of President Nayib Bukele is exposed to a sanction and to be marginalized from international forums as happened with dictatorial presidents such as Nicolás Maduro, Evo Morales and Hugo Chávez.
“I think there may be a need to certify to the Prosecutor’s Office the results of the interpellation so that the possible commission of a crime by Minister Monroy can be assessed. In plenary I said it, it is for the crime of disobedience and I continue to value it. It could also be involved in the crime of sedition, you have to make those assessments, “explained PDC deputy, Rodolfo Parker.
In the opinion of the deputies, the action and evasion of responses by Merino Monroy left them more than convinced that there was an incursion by the Army in an act that did not correspond to him, since in his intervention, by refusing to say who gave the order to break into the Blue Room with the Armed Forces, he established that he only began to “supervise” that everything was developing in a “normal” way.
“He cleaned himself up in the Chief of the Presidential General Staff, who in the end seems to have more command than him, who has more capacity to concentrate. Rodolfo Parkers said that he was only going to supervise, what is he going to supervise if he doesn’t know what there was? It is a total contradiction, ”said the FMLN deputy head of the faction, Jorge Schafik Hándal.
5 key moments in the interpellation of the Minister of Defense, Merino Monroy
Hándal says that sending the report to the PDDH is precisely so that the Assembly has all the elements of sufficient value that allow the deputies to carry out “immediate dismissal because there is a cause of violation of human rights,” he justified.
The left-wing deputy recalls that in the interpellation on Friday the Defense Minister did not deny the version of the PCN deputy, Reynaldo Cardoza, that “the soldiers skipped the wall”, “that there was a planning of that mission”, contrasting with Merino Monroy’s position that it was not a “military operation”, but rather a “normal operating procedure.”
The faults that Merino Monroy incurred on February 9 may be stronger, according to what was expressed by Representative René Portillo Cuadra, from ARENA.
“It is very clear after the interpellation that the official was negligent, practically in his performance he was an accomplice of an insurrection; he gave accompaniment, he gave security, he himself says that he came to supervise, that he gave security to an insurrection movement outside the Constitution, he was negligent ”, he affirmed.
Not having refused to support an “illegitimate” act, even though the directive came from the President of the Republic, makes him fall into “negligence,” said Portillo Cuadra.
On this several constitutional lawyers also have their own reading (See separate note).
The possibility of a dismissal of the head of the Armed Forces also derives from “excess and abuse of the position he has,” Portillo Cuadra explained. “In the sense of assigning soldiers from the Armed Forces to provide security to the president when there was already a resolution of the Chamber that units of the Armed Forces cannot be assigned to the security of the president,” he said.
According to the legislators, there is enough evidence that the Prosecutor’s Office could take up ex officio. Portillo Cuadra adds that the incursion of the Armed Forces on February 9 into the legislative area “was a public and notorious fact, it is not necessary that it only be accredited with evidence, but that the investigation be initiated ex officio, he should not wait for someone considers himself offended, because the events that occurred are of such magnitude and notorious, “he said.
Moreover, according to the legislator, the attorney general Raúl Melara has not said that there is no crime, but that those he had interviewed did not give enough arguments to determine it, but that with the certification that the Political Commission could send next week, which will summarize the results of the interpellation to the Minister of Defense, the case will have testimonial and evidentiary force.
According to the deputies, although Merino Monroy tried to evade the answers about who ordered the militarization of the Assembly, he ended up revealing that they came from Bukele by reporting that it was the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Battalion and an advance officer who arrived on the 9F to give security to the president, whose names he did not reveal.
They add that, according to the minister’s words, his presence was only obeyed to “supervise” the development of that military protocol, which is why he also admits his “participation” in a procedure in which soldiers from elite groups of the Armed Forces intervened, from according to the photographs that the parliamentarians showed in the interpellation.
“He has gone so far as to hand over the key to the Armed Forces to the President of the Republic, one thing is the Armed Forces as an institution and another thing is for him to be Minister of Defense; it has served as a portal to penetrate the instrumentalization of the Armed Forces when it has the responsibility of not allowing it ”, argued Parker.
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