Oxec hydroelectric project and the Israeli presence in Guatemala:
http://www.albedrio.org/htm/otrosdocs/comunicados/ElObservador-InformeespecialNo.14-2018.pdf
The Oxec hydroelectric project and the Israeli presence in Guatemala:
a political history
By Luis Solano
Economist from the University of San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC),
researcher and journalist. Founding member of El Observador
What do the Oxec hydroelectric project have in common with the Israeli presence in Guatemala? In
whose hands are the private security of that project? Does that security go beyond lending a
service of that nature or is it more complex until reaching intelligence and counterinsurgency tasks?
These are some questions that are sought to answer in this Special Report. They arise from
public information of the participation of at least two (2) companies with Israelite origins in the
Oxec project: SBI INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS AG (Guatemala Branch), with commercial name Solel Boneh; and GU-IS Corporation, S.A. From their Legal Representatives, their connections and political history derive extensive power relations that are part of the brands left by Israel's participation in Guatemala, particularly during the bloodiest years of the civil war.
The axis of all that gear is the Argentine-Israeli Hugo Rodolfo Roitman Braier, also known with
the name Ury or Uri Roitman. Businesses linked to military intelligence services, security
and its links with the Embassy of Israel in Guatemala, have been pillars to consolidate in the
business world and private security, and contracts with the State.
The Oxec hydroelectric project and the Israeli presence in Guatemala: a political story Special Report No. 14
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The corruption case known as "Lago de Amatitlán" was the one that catapulted Hugo's name
Roitman, since he brought to light his close ties with the Patriot Party (PP) that led him to great
business during the administration of General Otto Pérez Molina.
But its history goes back to 1980 after the kidnapping of Jorge Raúl García-Granados de Garay.1 From there
a network of military, business and political ties will be born. And that's where the genesis of his
participation in the Oxec hydroelectric project, part of what will be presented in this essay.
The Oxec hydroelectric project
The Oxec hydroelectric project is a complex of two plants under construction and another in studies,
located on the river Cahabón, in the municipality of the same name, department of Alta Verapaz: Oxec
I, Oxec II and Oxec III.
It is owned by the companies Oxec, S.A., Oxeca II, S.A. and Oxec III, S.A., registered in Guatemala between 2011 and 2016. All three belong to the Energy Resources Capital Corp (ERCC) group, which is registered In Panama.
Three are the managers whose names stand out in the Oxec societies registered in Guatemala: Luis
Arnoldo Calderón Chavarría and José Ernesto Batres González; and in Panama, Carlos José Alfredo González
Asturias.
1 He is currently the President of Grupo Buena (Grupo García-Granados), one of the strongest groups in the country. Have investments in
real estate, shopping centers and large-scale food distribution.
http://www.guatecompras.gt/proveedores/consultaDetProvee.aspx?rqp=9&lprv=60365 In past years, media have linked
some of its companies with contraband activities, in particular chicken pieces. Roberto Arzú García-Granados, eldest son of the
Current Mayor of the capital city, Álvaro Arzú Irigoyen, is part of this group. See Central American Inforpress recovered in:
http://www.albedrio.org/htm/articulos/l/lr-039.htm
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The president of ERCC is Carlos José Alfredo González Asturias. In the Oxec hydroelectric project
The Spanish group Cobra participates, fully involved in the construction of the Renace projects
the Multi Investment Corporation. Another company involved in the construction is the Israelite Solel Boneh.
The Oxec projects add almost 100 MW of generation.
ERCC controls several hydroelectric projects in Alta Verapaz, including the Hidroeléctrica Visión de
Águila, on the Sonte farm, municipality of Cobán on the Sachichaj River; the Oxec, Oxec II and Oxec projects
III, in Cahabón as already said; Raaxhá, also in Cobán on the Icbolay River; and El Tamarindo, in Baja
Verapaz, a hydroelectric project better known as Sisimite on the Motagua River, owned by
National Generator (GENASA).
The company Raaxhá Hydroelectric, S.A., has as Legal Representatives Javier de la Riva
Rohrmoser and Carlos José Alfredo González Asturias. The first is representative of several hydroelectric
as Huijo in Zacapa, and Sacja in Baja Verapaz, whose headquarters are the same as the offices of the
hydroelectric Oxec in Cahabón, Alta Verapaz, as well as the company Servicios Administrativos Técnico
Professionals, S.A. (SETEPSA), represented by González Asturias.
The latter is an agro-export entrepreneur who is linked to the agribusiness of ornamental plants and
one of the founders of the former Export Bank (BANEX), merged with the G & T Bank
Continental in 2007. It is one of the main partners of the Samboro ceramic company, founded by the
neoliberal ideologue Manuel Ayau Cordón - now deceased - and currently directed by his son Manuel Ayau Garcia Samboro is one of the main consumers of electricity in Guatemala and one of the oil destinations that is exploited in the vicinity of the Laguna Lachuá National Park inthe Atzam wells, in the Franja Transversal del Norte (FTN), by the Australian company Latin American Resources (LAR). The Ayau group is one of the main owners and builders of hydroelectric power plants, which began during the 1990s in the context of the privatization of the electricity sector.
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One of the private security companies known to provide services to the Oxec project is Grupo de
Private Security Assistance, S.A. (GASP), whose Legal Representative is the captain of the Army, Leif
Kinley García González, based in Cobán, Alta Verapaz.2 It was constituted in 2016 and by the date it seems
which was exclusively to provide security service to the project.
García González belongs to the Promotion 119 of the Polytechnic School and was promoted to Captain
First Infantry in 2004.3 year in which several promoted to Captain went to retirement during the
government of Óscar Berger Perdomo and the Great National Alliance (GANA), and when there was a marked
reduction of the Army under the then Presidential Commissioner of Defense and Security, the general
retired Otto Pérez Molina.
This reduction, beyond the provisions of the 1996 Peace Accords, weakened the military presence in
large areas of the country, as warned by the retired colonel and now retired, Edgar Rolando Rubio
Castañeda in his book "Desde el cuartel, otra visión de Guatemala", which opened spaces for drug trafficking
and organized crime that positioned itself in those places. According to what he says in the book quoted, that
This process would help catapult Pérez Molina's political project as a presidential candidate and his
"Hard-line slogan", which is described by the military writer as a "political-business coup".
As it reads on pages 293 and 294, that reduction was planned by the then Vice President of the
Republic, Eduardo Stein Barillas; the Government Plan Coordinator, Richard Aitkenhead Castillo; and the
own Pérez Molina.
Photo: GASP security agent at the Oxec project facilities. Observe the sweatshirt that he has worn
where the name of the private security company stands out.
Source: Public Square. The Oxec village model: "success" based on "productive capacity and the possibility of canceling
debts". Recovered from https://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/el-modelo-de-aldea-de-oxec-exito-basado-en-capacidadproductiva-y-posibilidad-de-cancelar
2 http://www.google.com/support
3 http://dcp-web.minfin.gob.gt/Documentos/Titulos-Valores/Marco%20Juridico/Acuerdos/AGu_199_2004.pdf
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Among the retired officers was Mynor Padilla González, who will become head of security for the
mining Company Guatemalteca de Níquel (CGN), in the project "Fénix", municipality of El Estor, Izabal.4
Several other officers were hired in various institutions of the Ministry of the Interior
(MINGOB), especially in the National Civil Police (PNC). Others were identified as belonging to
paramilitary apparatuses dedicated to "social cleansing", a characteristic that marked the government of Berger
Perdomo They also went to work for private companies or opened private security companies.
Of all of them, Captain Otto Vinicio Ríos Ralda, also of Promotion 119 of 1992, retired
in 2004, who after the PNC became the Deputy Head of Security and Internal Affairs of the
Secretariat of Strategic Analysis of the Presidency (SAE), today Secretary of Strategic Intelligence (SIE)
in mid-2007, and that same year he will be appointed Security Coordinator of the CGN mining company,
which is up to date and is one of those who are most indicated as responsible for the violence against
community members opposed to the nickel mining project5
Hugo Roitman at Oxec
When the Oxec corporations were being formed, another company also emerged that has
all indications of having been created to operate directly for those societies.
It is GU-IS Corporation, S.A.6
, constituted on February 12, 2014 according to the Mercantile Register, by
the lawyer Emilio Augusto Cruz Lorenzana. Its main economic activity is described in the field of
construction, according to the Guatecompras portal. Your Legal Representative and Sole Administrator is Hugo
Rodolfo Roitman Braier, Argentine-Israeli whose trajectory in Guatemala has been fundamentally in the
world of military intelligence and private security. Your appointment to this position has a term of
March 4, 2017, and the information has not yet been updated in the Mercantile Registry or in Guatecompras.
Next to Roitman Braier also appears the Israelite Roi Yaacov, with the position of General Manager. Yaacov
He was Consul at the Embassy of Israel in Guatemala between 2009 and 2012, and when GU-IS Corporation
created in 2014, he already resided in Israel and worked for Jethro LTD, an Israeli company supplying
technology. Currently, Yaacov works as Senior Manager of business development of the
Municipality of Jerusalem, Israel.
4 Solano, Luis. "MP and CICIG act against freedom of military linked to mining in El Estor". Independent Media Center
(CMI-Guate), June 6, 2017. Retrieved at: https://cmiguate.org/mp-y-cicig-accionan-contra-libertad-de-militar-vinculado-aminera-en-el-estor/
5 In its edition of November 13, 2006, the newspaper elPeriódico released a journalistic investigation in this regard. Within the
military with leadership functions in the PNC when it was headed by Erwin Sperisen, today sentenced to life imprisonment in Switzerland and in
process of reopening to trial, were: Captain Guillermo Antillo Pineda Peñate and Francisco Lara Mendoza; Colonels Hugo
Rosales Martínez; Arturo Mazariegos and Mayor Manuel de Jesús Ixmay García; the captains Elías Molina Alvarenga, Carlos Girón
García, Walter Hernández González, Marco Antonio Canté, Walter Morales, David Virula Ramírez, Oswaldo Ramos Castillo, Otto
Vinicio Ríos Ralda, Manuel Molina Gutiérrez, Juan Carlos Iriarte Estrada, Francisco Sales Ortiz, Ludwin Mérida González, Manuel
Barrios Menéndez, Abel Estrada, Flavio Divas Villagrán and Hermosillo Gutiérrez Chaclán; all of them with functions in the Secretariat
Executive and in the General Inspector of the PNC.
6 http://www.guatecompras.gt/proveedores/consultaDetProvee.aspx?rqp=9&lprv=6223378 According to the digital media Plaza Pública,
GU means Guatemala, and IS, Israel. Pradilla, Alberto. "The Oxec village model: 'success' based on' productive capacity and
possibility of canceling your debts' ". Plaza Pública, September 24, 2017. Retrieved from:
https://www.plazapublica.com.gt/content/el-modelo-de-aldea-de-oxec-exito-basado-en-capacidad-productiva-y-posibilidad-de-cancelar
The Oxec hydroelectric project and the Israeli presence in Guatemala: a political story Special Report No. 14
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According to its trade patent, the object of GU-IS Corporation goes beyond construction.
Everything indicates that their activities have to do with earning "minds and hearts" from a block of the
population with activities in agricultural matter.
One may wonder then what exactly is the function of GU-IS Corporation in Oxec, knowingly
that the expertise of Hugo Roitman Braier is in the field of private security. And, above all, that
is facing a judicial process in the case of high impact corruption "Lago de Amatitlán",
where the biggest implicated is the former Vice President of the Republic, Roxana Baldetti Elías. Roitman
Braier is bound by fraud, illicit association and active bribery.
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The "Lago de Amatitlán case" deals with the anomalous adjudication that was made with the Israeli company M.
Tarcic Engineering Limited to perform the sanitation of Lake Amatitlán with "magic water" for a
cost of Q. 137.8 million. There are several captured and processed.
And it is precisely this connection with M. Tarcic Engineering Limited that draws attention. Property of the
also Argentine-Israeli and engineer Mario Salomon Tarcic or Mario Sholmo Tarcic7
, The company has
headquarters in Israel where it was incorporated, but operates in Guatemala under the same name.8
Mario Tarcic
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e08vWGZ3ciM
The address provided by GU-IS Corporation is the same as Mario Tarcic gives as residence in
Guatemala, while the physical address provided by M. Tarcic Engineering Limited in Guatemala
is the same as it appears to private security companies linked to Roitman Braier, as will be seen more
ahead.
Source: https://www.locatefamily.com/T/TAR/TARCIC-1.html
According to the digital medium Soy502, Roitman Braier, upon expli
According to the digital medium Soy502, Roitman Braier, explaining his link with the company M Tarcic Engineering
Ltd ...
... described that the first contact to present the plan was with former president Otto
Pérez Molina, but said he "remitted" him with Roxana Baldetti. Where, according to the prosecution,
materialized the fraud9
.
While the former Vice President of the Republic, Roxana Baldetti, assured that the Ambassador of Israel
in Guatemala, Moshe Bachar, was the one who recommended the company M. Tarcic Engineering Ltd., to provide
the formula to clean the Lake of Amatitlán in nine months.10
7 https://archive.org/stream/Boletin_Oficial_Republica_Argentina_2da_seccion_1996-08-29/1996-08-29_djvu.txt
8 http://www.guatecompras.gt/proveedores/consultaDetProvee.aspx?rqp=9&lprv=4797119
9 I'm 502 "Uri Roitman says that Otto Pérez was the one who 'remitted' him with Baldetti." March 3, 2016. Retrieved at:
http://www.soy502.com/articulo/uri-roitman-ojala-quien-me-acusa-pueda-dormir-bien
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Roitman Braier's link with the Israeli Embassy is not new, since she has acted several times
As Representative of that Embassy in several events. In addition, that nexus has been dragging on for decades
back, when Roitman arrived in Guatemala.11
The connection with Oxec does not seem like a coincidence, since Roitman Braier was an advisor to the Solel company
Boneh12 who is in charge of construction at Oxec, and is one of the big contractors of the
State in construction projects, contracts that between 2005 and 2017 add Q. 2.2 billion.13
Solel Boneh International (SBI) was authorized to operate in Guatemala in 198014. At the end of that year,
the then military government of the now deceased general, Fernando Romeo Lucas García, through the Bank
Nacional de la Vivienda (BANVI), awarded him the construction contract for the building complex
multifamily Nimajuyú (Great Hill, in kaqchikel) of 3,456 apartments, which was financed by the
Central American Bank for Economic Integration (BCIE) through a loan of US $ 35 million15
.
SBI arrived in the country in the framework of the counterinsurgency war, in which Israel played a fundamental role
in military training, Army equipment, arms supply and transportation, development of
military technology, agricultural advice and in the development of a colonization model in the FTN16
.
As a preliminary conclusion, Roitman Braier is an expression of an Israelite historical operating pattern
in the use of front companies for covert operations. As one military adviser explained
American analyst Jon Lee Anderson: "The Israelites always operate through companies of
facade ", in reference to the activities of military security and intelligence concealed in companies that
legally perform totally different activities.17
I. The Embassy of Israel and the Guatemalan deputies
In September 2017, deputies from different groups of the Congress of the Republic, members of the
League of Parliamentary Friendship Guatemala-Israel, signed the Declaration of Solidarity and Friendship
with the State of the Middle East.
"The signing of this Declaration opens the doors for parliamentarians to have more
approach with the Government of Israel and promote productivity, education and
security for our country, "said congressman Juan Manuel Díaz-Durán, who chairs
10 Daily newspaper. "I'm going to invite you to go and eat a mojarra at the Lago de Amatitlán". March 19, 2015. Recovered in:
https://gt.transdoc.com/articulos/noticias-nacionales/Los-voy-a-invitar-a-irnos-a-comer-una-mojarra-al-lago-de-Amatitlan/39333
11 For example, in 2013 Roitman represented the Ambassador of Israel at an event in Petén. PRESS RELEASE. July 2,
2013. "EMBASSY OF ISRAEL DONATES DOORS, WINDOWS AND BATTERY OF COMPLETE BATHROOMS TO COMMITTEE AND SCHOOL
OF SARSTUN FISHERMEN, PETEN. " Recovered in:
http://embassies.gov.il/guatemala/NewsAndEvents/Pages/Donaci%C3%B3n--Uri-.aspx
12 Daily newspaper. "I'm going to invite you to go and eat a mojarra at the Lago de Amatitlán". March 19, 2015, op. cit.
13 http://www.google.com/support
14 Inforpress Centroamericana Nos. 375 and 396.
15 Inforpress Centroamericana Nos.348 and 456.
16 Rubenberg, Cheryl A. "Israel and Guatemala: Arms, Advice and Counterinsurgency". MERIP Middle East Report, No. 140, Terrorism
and Intervention. (May - Jun., 1986). P. 16-22 and 43-44.
17 Jon Lee Anderson. "Loose Cannons: On the Trail of Israel's Gunners in Central America," New Outlook, Feb. 1989.
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the aforementioned instance, as reported by the press room of the Congress of the
Republic.18
The Declaration was signed by the deputies and the Ambassador of Israel in Guatemala, Moshe Bachar,
evidencing the strategic importance it has for some sectors, particularly for the most
conservatives of the country, relations with the government of Israel and, particularly, with the Embassy
Israelite.
That statement was the prelude to what would come next. On December 22, deputies of the
called the League of Parliamentary Friendship of Guatemala-Israel, together with other deputies,
announced that they had asked the President of the Republic, Jimmy Morales Cabrera, for the transfer of the Guatemalan Embassy in Jerusalem, a controversial decision due to its origins and repercussions. The
The request was made through a letter signed by 50 congressmen.
This parliamentary group is chaired by congressman Juan Manuel Díaz-Durán and they integrate it,
among others and others: Ana Victoria Hernández (All), Julio Lainfiesta (Union of National Change),
Mirma Figueroa (Citizen Alliance), María Cristina Quinto (National Convergence Front), María
Eugenia Tabush (Vision with Values), Fidel Reyes Lee (National Unity of Hope) and Marcos Yax
Guinea (National Convergence Front). Fernando other deputies who supported the decision were Fernando Linares Beltranena of PAN and Juan José Porras of VIVA.
The latter said that:
It is a decision that I am supporting, mainly because of the historical relationship that has been
had with the people of Israel.19
Porras added:
... is a subject in which there will always be conflicting positions but later we will see
the fruits of this decision.
That group of deputies, representatives of conservative interests and religious radicals
Neo-Pentecostals, consider that President Morales Cabrera responded to his request and that would have been the cause of why the government decided the return of the Embassy to Jerusalem.
Undoubtedly, the decision of Guatemalan diplomacy was not a single decisive factor but a broad one
range of circumstantial and historical aspects.
The gratitude of Israel abounded. Even, in the last trip of Jimmy Morales Cabrera to
United States, in February of this year, the Israel Allies Foundation, a foundation based in the United States
United, he granted recognition for that decision. The representative in Guatemala of that
foundation is precisely Juan Manuel Díaz-Durán Méndez, deputy for the party with roots
neopentacostales VIVA and founding partner of Diaz-Durán & Asociados, a law firm mentioned in Panama Papers.
In this way, the close connection between the government of Jimmy Morales and a bloc
of deputies and neo-Pentecostal sectors with Israeli Zionist groups.
18
"SIGNED DECLARATION OF SOLIDARITY AND FRIENDSHIP WITH ISRAEL". September 6, 2017. Recovered in:
https://www.congreso.gob.gt/noticia/?FIRMAN-DECLARACI%C3%93N-DE-SOLIDARIDAD-Y-AMISTAD-CON-ISRAEL-8890
19 United Stations, December 26, 2017.
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From Pérez Molina, Roitman Braier and Israel in the Lucas dictatorship
A common thread is the dual nationality of Roitman Braier and Tarcic. Born of Jewish families in
Argentina, will later be formed militarily in Israel where they will swell the ranks of
military intelligence structures.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the presence of Argentine military advisers and
Israelites were common. The civil war involved them in counterinsurgency and repression.20
No wonder then, that Roitman arrived in Guatemala at the end of 1979, and that one of his
First contacts outside Otto Pérez Molina.
Pérez Molina had a military background as well as his close associates linked to the horizontal structure and generation known as "El Sindicato" - made up of officers who belonged to or came from a same military promotion-, in the so-called School of Israel; contrary to what happened with their opposites, "La Cofradía ", another vertical structure with guild and intergenerational character made up of officers of intelligence of the D2, G2 and S2 that were formed in the School of Taiwan.
Some officers of "La Cofradía" integrated "El Sindicato".
The historical links of Pérez Molina with Israeli military intelligence is what allows us to observe the
presence of Roitman Braier in the contracts obtained during the PP government. In 2012, the company Techniques and Security Systems (TSS) of Roitman, and its subsidiary in Miami, Techniques and Security Sistems (TSS USA), won a contract by being responsible for printing the passports for the Guatemalan migrants. TSS USA was created in May 2012 as stated in the Division of Corporations of the State of Florida,
The historical links of Pérez Molina with Israeli military intelligence is what allows us to observe the
presence of Roitman Braier in the contracts obtained during the PP government. In 2012, the company
Techniques and Security Systems (TSS) of Roitman, and its subsidiary in Miami, Techniques and Security
Sistems (TSS USA), won a contract by being responsible for printing the passports for the
Guatemalan migrants. TSS USA was created in May 2012 as stated in the Division of
Corporations of the State of Florida, and has as President Ignacio Dinermann, an Argentinean and partner
by Roitman Braier. In 2012 and 2014, the contracts totaled Q. 10.5 million.21
But it is important to return to 1980. During the government of General Fernando Romeo Lucas García
(1978-1982), then-mayor Otto Pérez Molina was part of the Presidential General Staff (EMP) of
Lucas García, that is, member of the presidential intelligence and security unit.
With this government, the García-Granados sugar family, co-owned by
General Miguel García Granados, President of Guatemala between 1871 and 1873, and who was also
related to the president Lucas García and his brother Benedict, then Chief of Staff
Army general.
"We are related to them," said Benedicto Lucas García in an interview with the magazine
Contrapoder22
.
But Israel passes a pension to the Garcia Granados, to the descendants, for that vote
of Guatemala for the creation of the State of Israel, from there came their money. Raul was
an astute, astute businessman, but in matters of money I do not know.
Benedict Lucas, currently prosecuted for cases of known human rights violations
as Theissen and Creompaz, referred to Raúl García-Granados Quiñónez, who during the government of
20 Solano, Luis. "The Guatemalan State, the counterinsurgency and organized crime." Special Report No.8, March 16, 2017. The
Observer. Alternative Analysis on Politics and Economics.
21 http://www.guatecompras.gt/proveedores/consultaDetProvee.aspx?rqp=9&lprv=1498 One of the Legal Representatives of Techniques and
Security Systems (TSS) is Sergio Alejandro Marroquín Vivar, who is also from Global Security Services S.A. (GSS), other
Hugo Roitman company. In the case of Marroquín Vivar, he is one of several involved and prosecuted by the "Caso Lago de
Amatitlán. "
22
"Exclusive interview. Benedict Lucas García and his pages from the past ". Contrapoder Magazine No. 1, May 3, 2013, pages
12-18.
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Lucas García was the Secretary of the Presidency, and at the same time Secretary General of the ruling Party
Revolutionary (PR). At the same time he was the President of the now defunct sugar mill Tierra
Good, property of the AGROINSA family group. His father, Jorge García-Granados, was Ambassador to the
United Nations (UN), which in 1948 voted in favor of the formation of the State of Israel, and
In 1956 Guatemala was the first country to establish an Embassy in Jerusalem with García-Granados
as Ambassador.
During the government of Lucas García, a son of García-Granados Quiñónez was kidnapped by the
guerrillas of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP). It was Jorge Raúl García-Granados de
Garay. In that same government, the Director of the Guatemalan Tourism Institute (INGUAT) was Álvaro
Arzú Irigoyen, current Capital Mayor and then married to Silvia García Granados de Garay,
sister of the kidnapped. After the coup d'état against Lucas García in March 1982, that family
withdrew its investments to Venezuela where it consolidated a powerful sugar mill by means of
AGROINSA. In the 1990s, Jorge Raúl would become the key figure of Grupo Buena, the group
García-Granados family in Guatemala, one of the main economic groups of the
country, today Tyson chicken importers and rice producers, among other businesses.
In 1975, Lucas García had founded the company Agropecuaria Yalpemech, S.A. in the FTN,
together with businessmen Raúl García-Granados Quiñónez and his son Jorge Raúl, which denoted
his kinship relations and his economic interests. It was the time when the military and politicians
began to acquire land during the process of colonization of the FTN.
The newspaper ElPeriódico23 says that Ury or Hugo Roitman Braier arrived in Guatemala during the government of Lucas García ...... as a soldier of fortune of the García Granados family, and who later emigrated to Mexico due to the enormous suspicions that he generated from keeping the ransom kidnappings of wealthy people whose families he advised, he has offered a good amount of
money to be given some compromising photos of the Luquista era, which
They show that they are involved in serious human rights violations. Roitman returned to
Guatemala c
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Israelite Shaul Eisenberg, friend of the García-Granados family and who was interested in business
family hydroelectric plants.25 By then, Gleser was a security officer for the Israeli airline El
Al in Spain, work that he decided to leave to move to Guatemala and negotiate the release of
García-Granados de Garay.
After the kidnapping was over, Gleser became a security adviser for the García-Granados family and
He was also an advisor in the National Electrification Institute (INDE), activities that he carried out between 1980
and 1982. In 1982, he decided to establish in Israel his company of security services, arms trade and
military training called International Security and Defense Systems (ISDS), and enrolls it in
Guatemala under the same name.26
With Gleser and ISDS also remained Hugo Roitman Braier providing security services to the family
García-Granados, which included the current Mayor of the capital Álvaro Arzú Irigoyen, and who in 1982 had been
elected for that position with the then civic committee National Advanced Plan (PAN), which was frustrated
with the coup d'état that overthrew Lucas García that same year.
In 1984, when ISDS is registered in the Mercantile Registry of Guatemala, in the executive list
The names will stand out: Hugo Roitman Braier as Sole Administrator and that of Israelite Daniel Salomon
Azar Mesri, as President of the Board of Directors. But in the constitutive act, in charge of the lawyer Emilio
Augusto Cruz Lorenzana, appears as Legal Representative, Óscar Augusto Díaz Urquizú, who during
the government of Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo (1986-1990) and the Guatemalan Christian Democracy (DCG), was
Director of the Treasury Guard27 and who was directly involved in the Panel Case
Blanca, case related to human rights violations that included the disappearance of 11
people between 1987 and 1988.28
Graph 1
25 Central American Inforpress No. 320, November 30, 1978, page 15.
26 http://www.google.com/support
27 Police force that was in charge of the Ministry of the Interior (MINGOB) to control contraband, but in practice it was a
repressive structure controlled by military intelligence. It was dissolved after the Peace Accords signed in 1996.
28 See Report of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR). Rived in:
http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_37_esp.pdf
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According to Guatecompras, ISDS is located at 12 Calle 2-04 Zona 9, Plaza del Sol Building. Level 1,
Office 18, which is still active and has as legal representative Daniel Azar, who was nationalized
Guatemalan government in 1999. Today, several companies offer services in that direction.
security.29 Azar is also President of the SIS Group, 30 security services company of his
property and one of the largest in Guatemala.
Azar also appears in the company of commercial name Amorsis, of the company Galron, S.A., 31 and that it is part of the SIS Group. The Legal Representative of all these companies is Francisco Eduardo Pérez Ramírez, according to the Guatecompras site. However, the President of Galron is the Israelite Omri Amiran Vardi, who in 2015 was burned a vehicle in Casillas, Santa Rosa, allegedly by
communities opposed to the Escobal mining project, of the transnational Tahoe Resources, when
photographs of the area where the community members were and was heavily armed.32
II. Counterinsurgency, repression and Israel
Fundamental is the role played by Israel during the military governments of Generals Kjell Eugenio
Laugerud García (1974-1978); Fernando Romeo Lucas García (1978-1982); Efraín Ríos Montt (1982- 1983) and Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores (1983-1985). A period of ten years where Israel, an ally of the Guatemalan power blocs, it was positioned through cooperation
economic, technical and scientific thanks to the close relations sustained since the foundation of the
State of Israel in 1948, when the government of Juan José Arévalo supported Israel in those
aspirations with high costs for the people of Palestine.
But it was during this period that the intense Central American civil wars, the
counterinsurgency and the low intensity wars in which Israel played a fundamental role. For
side, with the permission of the government of Republican Ronald Reagan, Israel was positioned as the main State that provided armaments, military equipment, training, consultancies, ammunition,
technology computerization and military transport to the Guatemalan military governments during the bloody civil war of that period.
During the government of Democrat Jam
During the government of Democrat James Carter (Jimmy) -1977-1981-, the United States had
suspended military assistance to the government of Lucas García due to violations of rights
humans that were happening. Notwithstanding this suspension, the Reagan administration supported
in Israel to support the counterinsurgency war in Guatemala and the war waged by the so-called
Against Nicaraguan
It was with the government of Laugerud García, first with the agricultural project based on extensive system
of cooperatives, mainly in the Franja Transversal del Norte (FTN) in what is known today
as a municipality of Ixcán, which was driven by the governor; and then with the air transport of the
ARAVÁ planes that Israel began to enter Guatemala and build a technical-military scaffolding
that will later be key in the most intense years of the counterinsurgency and low
intensity.
It was during that government, between 1975 and 1977, that the renowned Israeli general Ariel Sharon, then
arms dealer and assistant to Israel's premier Yitzhak Rabin built a network of
29 Diario de Centro América, March 2, 1999. Retrieved from: https://www.congreso.gob.gt/wpcontent/plugins/acuerdos/includes/uploads/docs/1999/gtaix24021999.pdf See also Governmental Agreement 859- 99, November 11,
1999.
30 http://www.guatecompras.gt/proveedores/consultaDetProvee.aspx?rqp=9&lprv=1592
31 http://www.guatecompras.gt/proveedores/consultaDetProvee.aspx?rqp=9&lprv=2333
32 Daily The Hour. "Tension in Santa Rosa due to the presence of a foreigner". January 5, 2015
The Oxec hydroelectric project and the Israeli presence in Guatemala: a political story Special Report No. 14
14
arms trade in Guatemala. In 1981, Sharon would be appointed Minister of Defense and then, in
2001, Prime Minister. Through this network, Israeli military equipment was supplied to Central America and
Mexico, according to the book "Profits of War", by the Israeli intelligence officer, Ari Ben-Menashe,
that describes the activities of Israel in Guatemala.
The representative in Guatemala of Sharon's business was Pesach Ben-Or (Pessach, Pesakh or
Passant), 33 owner of the company Eagle Military Gear Overseas34
-known also as Eagle
Military Gear Overseas or Desert Eagle-, key in the supply of military equipment in Guatemala from
end of the 1970s. The company is still active in Guatemala according to Guatecompras, in the
Hotel Cortijo Reforma where it was installed since its inception.
In the years of the 1980s, Ben-Or was identified as the chief of the station in Guatemala of
the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency with close connection in the supply of arms to the
Against Nicaraguan in its war against the Sandinista government whose administration had generated
Close relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), enemy of Israel.35
It was Eagle that in 1983 built a military complex in Alta Verapaz, which would later be known as
the munitions factory of the Army of Guatemala, with the capacity to produce parts or rifles
complete Galil and sub-machine guns UZI, two of the main Israeli weapons during the civil war
in Guatemala.
Previously, during the government of Lucas García, Israel began to give advice on methods of
interrogation jointly with Argentine and Chilean advisers, and a computer system
specialized in military data processing and population control, installed by the company
Israelite Tadiran Israel Electronics Industries Limited, one of the important military technology in
Israel, authorized to operate in Guatemala with a capital of US $ 12 million and still active according to the
Guatecompras36 portal. According to the French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique, Israel also gave advice
for the installation of the military school in electronics and transmission, the first of its kind in America
Latina
During the de facto government of Ríos Montt, came to power after a coup by the military
trained and advised by Israel, fully supported by the Ronald Reagan government and by the
American neo-Pentecostal churches, the "strategic villages" or "model" were organized into
the framework of the Conflict Areas Assistance Plan (PAAC), inspired by the Israeli model of
Kibbutz and the Moshav. The Israeli advice and the Guatemalan military trained in Israel for the
effect, it was not overlooked. Even, the similarity between the Civil Self-Defense Patrols (PAC) of
Guatemala and the Israeli Settlement Committees.
The training to Guatemalan business and farm security apparatuses, plus the business of the
Private security and electronic services was the destination of many Israeli advisers, business
profitable that today endure.
During the government of Democrat James Carter (Jimmy) -1977-1981-, the United States had
suspended military assistance to the government of Lucas García due to violations of rights
humans that were happening. Notwithstanding this suspension, the Reagan administration supported
in Israel to support the counterinsurgency war in Guatemala and the war waged by the so-called
Against Nicaraguan
It was with the government of Laugerud García, first with the agricultural project based on extensive system
of cooperatives, mainly in the Franja Transversal del Norte (FTN) in what is known today
as a municipality of Ixcán, which was driven by the governor; and then with the air transport of the
ARAVÁ planes that Israel began to enter Guatemala and build a technical-military scaffolding
that will later be key in the most intense years of the counterinsurgency and low
intensity.
It was during that government, between 1975 and 1977, that the renowned Israeli general Ariel Sharon, then
arms dealer and assistant to Israel's premier Yitzhak Rabin built a network of
29 Diario de Centro América, March 2, 1999. Retrieved from: https://www.congreso.gob.gt/wpcontent/plugins/acuerdos/includes/uploads/docs/1999/gtaix24021999.pdf See also Governmental Agreement 859- 99, November 11,
1999.
30 http://www.guatecompras.gt/proveedores/consultaDetProvee.aspx?rqp=9&lprv=1592
31 http://www.guatecompras.gt/proveedores/consultaDetProvee.aspx?rqp=9&lprv=2333
32 Daily The Hour. "Tension in Santa Rosa due to the presence of a foreigner". January 5, 2015
The Oxec hydroelectric project and the Israeli presence in Guatemala: a political story Special Report No. 14
14
arms trade in Guatemala. In 1981, Sharon would be appointed Minister of Defense and then, in
2001, Prime Minister. Through this network, Israeli military equipment was supplied to Central America and
Mexico, according to the book "Profits of War", by the Israeli intelligence officer, Ari Ben-Menashe,
that describes the activities of Israel in Guatemala.
The representative in Guatemala of Sharon's business was Pesach Ben-Or (Pessach, Pesakh or
Passant), 33 owner of the company Eagle Military Gear Overseas34
-known also as Eagle
Military Gear Overseas or Desert Eagle-, key in the supply of military equipment in Guatemala from
end of the 1970s. The company is still active in Guatemala according to Guatecompras, in the
Hotel Cortijo Reforma where it was installed since its inception.
In the years of the 1980s, Ben-Or was identified as the chief of the station in Guatemala of
the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency with close connection in the supply of arms to the
Against Nicaraguan in its war against the Sandinista government whose administration had generated
Close relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), enemy of Israel.35
It was Eagle that in 1983 built a military complex in Alta Verapaz, which would later be known as
the munitions factory of the Army of Guatemala, with the capacity to produce parts or rifles
complete Galil and sub-machine guns UZI, two of the main Israeli weapons during the civil war
in Guatemala.
Previously, during the government of Lucas García, Israel began to give advice on methods of
interrogation jointly with Argentine and Chilean advisers, and a computer system
specialized in military data processing and population control, installed by the company
Israelite Tadiran Israel Electronics Industries Limited, one of the important military technology in
Israel, authorized to operate in Guatemala with a capital of US $ 12 million and still active according to the
Guatecompras36 portal. According to the French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique, Israel also gave advice
for the installation of the military school in electronics and transmission, the first of its kind in America
Latina
During the de facto government of Ríos Montt, came to power after a coup by the military
trained and advised by Israel, fully supported by the Ronald Reagan government and by the
American neo-Pentecostal churches, the "strategic villages" or "model" were organized into
the framework of the Conflict Areas Assistance Plan (PAAC), inspired by the Israeli model of
Kibbutz and the Moshav. The Israeli advice and the Guatemalan military trained in Israel for the
effect, it was not overlooked. Even, the similarity between the Civil Self-Defense Patrols (PAC) of
Guatemala and the Israeli Settlement Committees.
The training to Guatemalan business and farm security apparatuses, plus the business of the
Private security and electronic services was the destination of many Israeli advisers, business
profitable that today endure.
In the books "Cocaine Politics. Drugs, Armies, and The CIA in Central America ", whose authorship
corresponds to Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, and in "The Iran Contra Connection", of the same
authors and Jane Hunter, it is explained in depth and with Israeli sources of the role played by Pesach
33 http://www.guatecompras.gt/proveedores/consultaDetProvee.aspx?rqp=9&lprv=272328;
http://www.guatecompras.gt/proveedores/consultaDetProvee.aspx?rqp=9&lprv=1412345
34 http://www.google.com/support
35 See more about this in the book Israeli Foreing Policy, South Africa and Central America, by Jane Hunter. South End Press. Boston.
1987
36 http://www.guatecompras.gt/proveedores/consultaDetProvee.aspx?rqp=9&lprv=367235 See also: Inforpress Centroamericana, 8 de
September of 1983 and Inforpress Centroamericana, December 6, 1984.
The Oxec hydroelectric project and the Israeli presence in Guatemala: a political story Special Report No. 14
fifteen
Ben-Or during the war against, his connections with drug trafficking, the dark business woven with
Cubans exiled in Miami and the US and Israeli secret intelligence services, and the
dark market of weapons. Relationships and phenomena that will consolidate in the isthmus over the years
Central American giving life to the current organized crime networks, integrated in macro
structural criminals that operate beyond the Guatemalan borders.
Along with Ben-Or appears ISDS, by Leo Gleser and linked with Hugo Roitman, when in 1982 the
company is installed in Honduras37 and will be fundamental in shaping the counterinsurgency and
represator Battalion 3-16.38 That operation was carried out by the Israeli military Yehuda Leitner, for
half of the façade company and producer of melons, Shemash Agrotech, of his property.39
About ISDS and the Guatemalan military
According to the Mercantile Registry, the last update of appointments in ISDS was in 2002,
when Daniel Azar is appointed president of the Board of Directors.
Although in Guatecompras this company is still active, no activity is reported. Without
However, in 1996, the company Sistemas Internacionales de Seguridad y Defensa, S.A., was registered.
(SISD), 40 the same name in Spanish that ISDS receives.
Graph 2
37 Regarding the role of ISDS in Honduras and Guatemala, see: "Honduras, the Israeli Connection". September 30, 2009.
Retrieved from: http://dailysketcher.blogspot.com/2009/09/honduras-israeli-connection.html
38 http://www.palestinechronicle.com/israelis-turning-blood-into-money-the-lab-review/
39
"The Iran Contra Connection. Secrets Tems and Covert Operations in the Reagan Era ". Peter Dale Scott, Jane Hunter and Jonathan
Marshall. South End Press. Boston. 1987, page 116.
40 http://www.guatecompras.gt/proveedores/consultaDetProvee.aspx?rqp=9&lprv=1846
The Oxec hydroelectric project and the Israeli presence in Guatemala: a political story Special Report No. 14
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SISD is a security services company. According to the Mercantile Registry, as Manager in years
past appears the former Minister of Defense, retired General José Domingo García Samayoa, during the
government of Jorge Serrano Elías (1990-93) and the Solidarity Action Movement (MAS), founder of the
Association of Military Veterans of Guatemala (AVEMILGUA) in 1994 and its President in 1997.
His son, José Domingo Martín García Archila, is the Legal Representative and Sole Administrator. He
do not know if there is a direct link between ISDS and SISD in Guatemala, and between Roitman Braier and García
Samayoa
One of the companies of Roitman Braier, Global Security Systems, S.A., 41 that has the same number of
GU-IS Corporation phone that operates in the Oxec project, has among its Legal Representatives a
Luis Fernando Iriarte Estrada, recognized military intelligence belonging to the Promotion 103 of the
Polytechnic School, 42 who had a dark participation in the investigation of the murder of the leader
politician Jorge Carpio Nicolle occurred on July 3, 1993, a few weeks after the call
"Autogolpe" by Serrano Elías that took place in May of that year.43
Iriarte Estrada, at that time official of military intelligence in the Military Zone of Quiché, would have been part of a military operation to assassinate Carpio Nicolle; attack which also killed three of his collaborators
Graph 3
Military of the Promotion 103 in the government of Jimmy Morales Cabrera and the FCN-Nación
41 http://www.google.com/support
42 In this promotion, in addition to those cited in the graph, names include: Luis Fernando Iriarte Estrada and General Juan Manuel
Pérez Ramírez, who served as Chief of Staff of National Defense at the beginning of the current government of Jimmy Morales
Cabrera and the FCN-Nation. See: Diario elPeriódico. "The 1981 Promotion, which co-opted Jimmy", February 22, 2016. Retrieved in:
