Guatemala Death Squads and Mafia
There is a tie between past death squadrons with organized crime, affirmed Sandino Asturias, director of the Center for Guatemalan Studies (CGS).

Asturias told Prensa Latina that many current operations are related to those enforced during the armed conflict, and are not private property of organized crime because State intelligence institutions also uses them, he assured.

A CGS report points out that during the 35 year long internal armed conflict, violence was part of State policy and cost the lives of 250 thousand victims with no answer yet from legal institutions.

During the last three governments 43,500 homicides were committed and only three percent were investigated.

The document concludes that there is an institutional policy of repression with illegal use of violence and total impunity.

According to Asturias, the substitution of the Minister of the Interior, Carlos Vielmann, as a result of the assassination of four Salvadorians was a step forward but a policy change is necessary to solve the insecurity in the nation.