U.S. Wants To
Be "Effective Partner" of Central America
Panama Will
Sell Local Stanford Affiliate, Regulator
Says
Three
Colombian Guerrillas Detained In Panama
Extradited to the US
More Than 1,000 Slain
in Guatemala in 1st Quarter, Group Says
More Than
1,000 Slain in Guatemala in 1st Quarter,
Group Says
Guatamala City – More than 1,000 people were
murdered in Guatemala during the first three
months of this year, the Mutual Support
Group, or GAM, said Friday.
The GAM, a human rights organization, said
that the overwhelming majority of victims
were adult males, including the 44 bus
drivers and fare collectors slain by gangs
for refusing to pay protection money.
March was the bloodiest month so far for
transit workers, GAM director Mario Polanco
said, pointing to 18 killings.
The violence, according to Polanco, makes it
evident that the Guatemalan state “is
collapsed” and lacks any coherent policy to
ensure public safety.
GAM’s report was issued two days after
Guatemala’s executive, legislative and
judicial branches presented a National
Accord for the Advance of Safety and
Justice.
The more than 5,400 homicides reported last
year in Guatemala – a nation of
approximately 13 million – was nearly equal
to the number of murders in neighboring
Mexico, which has more than 100 million
inhabitants and is the scene of open war
among rival drug cartels.
Much of the mayhem is blamed on youth gangs,
though authorities say those groups are
often doing the bidding of organized crime.
More than a decade after the end of its
brutal 1960-1996 civil war, Guatemala
continues to suffer from a culture of
impunity and the security services remain
vulnerable to penetration by criminal
elements and by those who directed the death
squads blamed for thousands of deaths during
the internal conflict. EFE |
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