Today, Guatemalans struggle to take back their democracy after almost 70 years of corrupt, military-backed, ‘open-for-global-business’ governments, labelled ‘democratic allies’ by the U.S., Canada, the World Bank and countless transnational companies and banks. Next door, Hondurans are just beginning to dig themselves out from under 13 years of corrupt, military-backed, ‘open-for-global-business’ governments, labelled ‘democratic allies’ by the U.S., Canada, the World Bank and countless transnational companies and banks.
It is hard to overstate the complicity of this U.S. and Canadian-led “international community”, maintaining mutually beneficial economic, political and military relations with these types of “democratic allie” governments, ignoring or even lying about how repressive, exploitative and corrupt they are.
“Capturing a drug trafficker is not the end of the story. Honduran institutions, whether police, military, municipal or judicial, as well as transnational companies like Gildan and the banking system, participated directly or indirectly in Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez's criminal activities.”
The article provides an in-depth look at Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, a major Honduran drug trafficker who had extensive ties to and protection from the recently ousted military-backed government of President Juan Orlando Hernandez. In March 2020, the DEA arrested Geovanny Fuentes in Miami for cocaine importation. He was sentenced in February 2022 to life imprisonment by the Southern District of New York.
Gildan Activewear Corporation, a Canadian transnational sweatshop corporation, had significant business dealings with Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, and his government-supported drug-trafficking cartel.
There has been no media investigations into or justice, neither in Guatemala and Honduras, nor in the U.S. and Canada for transnational corporations – like Gildan - that have “business dealings” with organized crime cartels.
