Article: Drug invasion

Drug traffickers invade Mayan city in Guatemala

By Frank Jack Daniel

GUATEMALA CITY, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Heavily armed drug traffickers have invaded an ancient Mayan city in Guatemala, setting up camp amid pyramids and threatening academic research, archeologists said on Friday.

The Piedras Negras site, in a pristine jungle reserve in the northern department of El Peten, is considered one of the most important cities in the ancient Maya world.

But archeologist Stephen Houston, from Brown University in Rhode Island, said dangerous drug traffickers had now made Piedras Negras their own.

"Narcos are operating along the Usumacinta River valley. Some of them have basically encamped at Piedras Negras itself, which is kind of horrifying," said Houston, who has worked at the site since the 1990s and is in contact with park rangers.

The city, dotted with pyramids, ball courts and a palace, was populated for around 900 years, starting in the 7th century B.C. Located in the Sierra del Lacandon national park, the city is famous for its numerous carved stones, or stelae, key to deciphering Mayan hieroglyphics.

Guatemalan archeologists confirmed the presence of drug smugglers at the site.

Security sources said the traffickers, believed to be linked to Mexico's Sinaloa cartel and heavily armed, want to cut landing strips in Sierra del Lacandon to open a new trafficking route from South America.

The remote city is rarely visited by tourists.

ARCHEOLOGICAL 'SUPERSTAR'

Houston, who described Piedras Negras as one of the "superstars of Mayan archeology," said the invasion threatened archeological and nature management work.

"These people, these drug dealers, they want any kind of responsible management of that area out of the way," he said.

No archeology projects are planned in the city this year, but Houston said future research could be jeopardized.

"By becoming a very dangerous zone in which to work clearly people are not going to want to go back there," he said.

Traffickers pay off security forces and move hundreds of tons of cocaine and heroin through Guatemala every year.

Like the neighboring Laguna del Tigre national park, also largely under trafficker control, Sierra del Lacandon lies close to Mexico, giving the traffickers an easy escape route from police.

Guillermo Gonzalez, head of Guatemala's drugs police, said, "It is very hard to enter the area by land, and every time we chase the narcos they flee across the border."

As well as drugs, criminal bands in the unruly El Peten region smuggle people, tropical hardwoods, wildlife and Mayan artifacts.

Gonzalez said the police and army were working with the U.S. Drugs Enforcement Administration to break up the gangs.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala said it was aware of drug traffickers operating at the archeological site and was monitoring the situation.

Posted by elcanche at February 25, 2005 04:34 PM