Drug Gangs Use Violence to Sway Guatemala Vote

[Judi Lynn]

Source: New York Times

August 4, 2007
Drug Gangs Use Violence to Sway Guatemala Vote
By MARC LACEY

GUATEMALA CITY — It is election time in Guatemala and that means rallies and banners — and body bags.

In the campaigning leading up to elections on Sept. 9, the authorities have reported 61 violent attacks on candidates and political activists. The death toll is 26, including seven national congressmen and numerous other office seekers.
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Cartels active in Colombia, where much of the region’s cocaine is produced, have connections with politicians, military officers and others throughout the area to assist them in getting drugs and drug profits out, whether on small planes or boats.

Guatemala provides an increasingly important transit point, American officials say, as traffickers take advantage of the country’s dire poverty and lawlessness. They have already made considerable progress over the years, political analysts and law enforcement officials say, by installing sympathetic politicians in Congress and in local city halls.
(snip)

Even the candidacy of Efraín Ríos Montt, a former dictator who is running for a congressional seat, has not prompted much of an uproar here. Mr. Ríos Montt is expected to win a seat, which will make it harder to prosecute him on charges of violating human rights during the country’s long civil war.

In April, 31 members of the United States Congress sent a letter to Guatemala’s attorney general calling for the immediate arrest of Mr. Ríos Montt, who ruled the country from 1982 to 1983, which was considered the bloodiest period of the civil war.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/04/world/americas/04guatemala.html?ei=5088&en=37ad9c3494631495&ex=1343880000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

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Guatemala timeline:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1215811.stm