The wrong answer to a tough question, part 2

In yesterday's journal entry I painted a rather bleak picture of the spiraling crime situation in Guatemala. A deadly mix of gangs, drug smugglers, and organized crime has taken this country hostage.

One of the underlying problems is that Guatemala's National Police Force isn't a force to be reckoned with. The police force is short-staffed, ill-trained, poorly-equipped and under-paid. (That is to say, those who aren't on the payroll of organized crime. Corruption has spread like the plague through the ranks of police officers and officials.)

The Berger administration has been staggering ineffective at stopping, or even slowing, the violence. Meanwhile, the desperation of population has become so great that vigilante groups are taking "justice" into their own hands.

Guatemala swept by vigilante killings in crime backlash

By Bernd Debusmann, Special Correspondent
Herald News Daily

Guatemala City - Bodies dumped in vacant lots, shot through the head, hands and feet tied. Victims beheaded, strangled, clubbed, hacked with machetes. Torture marks. Hand-written notes pinned to corpses.

Such images, familiar during a long civil war, are part of the daily routine again in Guatemala, nine years after a peace accord ended the fighting.

The victims are often in their teens and early 20s, suspected of being gang members and targeted by vigilantes sick of Guatemala‘s relentlessly rising crime. They included a young woman who was beheaded and three young men shot through the head and stuffed into the trunk of a car, hands and feet tied. Hand-written notes said, "That's for robbery" and, "This is for breaking into my house."

Many of the killings in the past few years have been attributed to vigilantes, acting with impunity in pursuit of what is known here as "social cleansing."

"What is happening is that there is a lot of crime and nobody has confidence in the government‘s ability to provide security," said the Casa Alianza's Claudia Rivera. "Crime is out of control and the state cannot stop it. So people in neighborhoods get together to do it themselves."

Sergio Morales, Guatemala‘s human rights prosecutor, echoed that assessment. "The state is weak. The people have no confidence. Neither in the security forces nor in the justice system."

Please read the entire article

Putting an end to this cycle of violence is an urgent task for the Guatemalan government.

Unfortunately, President Berger has chosen to embrace the axiom: "Desperate times demand desperate measures."

Earlier this month he announced that 3,000 former soldiers would be hired to form a "special assistance force" to carry out police duties throughout Guatemala.

Tomorrow I'll explain why many of us feel that this decision is more aptly described by another axiom: "Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease."

Guatemala to beef up police force with ex-soldiers

Guatemala City (EFE) – Guatemala is in the process of hiring 3,000 army veterans – including both officers and enlisted men – to boost police ranks in order to better confront burgeoning violence, Defense Minister Francisco Bermúdez said Thursday.

In comments to reporters, he rejected complaints from human rights groups that the move would “militarize” the national civil police force, known as the PNC.

Those who will be joining the police, Bermúdez said, “are ordinary citizens” who no longer belong to the armed forces.

The minister said that the new police officers will make up six special contingents of 500 men each that are to be deployed in the most crime-ridden parts of Guatemala City and other urban areas.

President Oscar Berger’s administration is planning to spend nearly $12 million to augment the PNC, Bermúdez said, adding that the army will oversee the hiring process.

According to the defense chief, the new cops, who will include a number of former mid-ranking military officers, are to undergo an intensive course in police work at the PNC’s academy.

Separately, Interior Minister Carlos Vielman told journalists that the 3,000 new police will be replacing some 2,500 officers booted from the force for misconduct and involvement in criminal activity.

Berger has acknowledged the failure of Guatemala’s security forces to control the surge in violence, which he blames largely on gangs and organized crime bands that are often better-armed than police.

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Tags: Guatemala, Police, Vigilantes, Berger, Violence