Guatemala President: No
Army Boost
Guatemalan President
Alvaro Colom denied that
his government had the
intention of increasing
the number of troops, an
important issue today,
due to army
participation in human
rights violations in the
recent past.
According to the head of
State, if the Peace
Agreements are observed
to the letter, the Armed
Force should have 21,000
soldiers instead of the
15,000 currently
enlisted, but such an
increase, he stressed,
is not currently
necessary.
According to Colom, what
is being analyzed is the
possibility to
redistribute forces in
order to have a better
control of the
territory.
"There will not be an
increase," Colom
reiterated, after the
media published Vice
President Rafael
Espada's statements,
speaking about possible
doubling the number of
soldiers up to 30,000,
to fight drug
trafficking.
Lawmaker and former
guerrilla leader Hector
Nuila said increasing
the number of army
members would violate
the Peace Agreement that
ended 36 years of
internal armed conflict.
The agreements stated
that the National Civil
Police is in charge of
fighting organized
crime, said Nuila.
The Group for Mutual
Support and the Mirna
Mack Foundation also
ruled out an increase of
the army, which has been
blamed for over 90
percent of the rimes
against humanity during
the war.
According to the
Commision for Historic
Clarification, there
were 630 killings during
the armed conflict,
mainly of indigenous
people, 200,000 deaths,
45,000 missing people,
over 50,000 widows and
orphans, and around 400
villages destroyed. |
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