Ten dead in suspected Guatemala vigilante killings
GUATEMALA CITY, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Police found the bodies of 10 suspected gang members dumped in the Guatemalan capital on Thursday, the latest victims in a vigilante killing spree that recalls the death squad violence of the country's civil war.
The bodies of five men and two women, all in their teens and 20s, were dumped in a gutter in the capital's crime-wracked Mixco neighborhood. Police found three more corpses in other districts. All had been tortured and strangled.
According to police statistics, 5,330 people died violent deaths in Guatemala last year, the highest number since the end of the Central American nation's 36-year-civil war a decade ago.
Most of the slayings were attributed to street gangs that are notorious for drug dealing, extortion and murder, although a growing number are being committed by brutal vigilante groups seeking to stamp out the gangs.
The bodies of the latest victims were dumped with handwritten notes that have become a hallmark of the vigilantes. They identified the dead as members of Mara 18, a violent Central American street gang.
One claimed that the dead extorted amounts over 50,000 quetzales ($6,500) from local store owners and residents. It went on to identify the gang's alleged leader, and gave his cell phone number and jail address.
"Some people fell into their clutches and paid the money they demanded, others weren't so stupid and opted to eradicate them. God forever," the note said.
There are no official figures for those killed by vigilante groups. The crimes are characterized by extreme violence, and have included beheadings, single-shot executions, and routine acts of mutilation and torture that recall the work of marauding death squads in Guatemala's civil war.
DEATHS RIVAL CIVIL WAR
More than 200,000 people died during the left-versus-right armed conflict, which ended in 1996 with U.N.-backed peace accords. The country's current crime wave is related to drug trafficking, gang violence and poverty, but few crimes are ever investigated.
Authorities often blame the killings on the "maras," or street gangs, which trace their origins to Los Angeles, where immigrants adopted U.S.-style gangland culture and exported it back to their home countries.
Some fear community members and security forces fed up with gang violence are behind the vigilante killings. They are facilitated by Internet blogs with names like "We kill the gang members" and "United against the gang members," which publish names and addresses of suspected criminals and call for community action.
"Without a doubt it's part of a organized social cleansing campaign," said Elubia Velazquez a community organizer in crime-ridden El Mezquital neighborhood.
"Boys turn up dead and people say, 'Oh well, this one was a gang member.' What they don't realize, that they are human beings who made mistakes, but Guatemala doesn't have the capacity to prosecute them," she said.
Guatemala's human rights ombudsman slammed the violence as unacceptable on Thursday, and warned that it rivaled the worst years of the civil conflict.
The bodies of five men and two women, all in their teens and 20s, were dumped in a gutter in the capital's crime-wracked Mixco neighborhood. Police found three more corpses in other districts. All had been tortured and strangled.
According to police statistics, 5,330 people died violent deaths in Guatemala last year, the highest number since the end of the Central American nation's 36-year-civil war a decade ago.
Most of the slayings were attributed to street gangs that are notorious for drug dealing, extortion and murder, although a growing number are being committed by brutal vigilante groups seeking to stamp out the gangs.
The bodies of the latest victims were dumped with handwritten notes that have become a hallmark of the vigilantes. They identified the dead as members of Mara 18, a violent Central American street gang.
One claimed that the dead extorted amounts over 50,000 quetzales ($6,500) from local store owners and residents. It went on to identify the gang's alleged leader, and gave his cell phone number and jail address.
"Some people fell into their clutches and paid the money they demanded, others weren't so stupid and opted to eradicate them. God forever," the note said.
There are no official figures for those killed by vigilante groups. The crimes are characterized by extreme violence, and have included beheadings, single-shot executions, and routine acts of mutilation and torture that recall the work of marauding death squads in Guatemala's civil war.
DEATHS RIVAL CIVIL WAR
More than 200,000 people died during the left-versus-right armed conflict, which ended in 1996 with U.N.-backed peace accords. The country's current crime wave is related to drug trafficking, gang violence and poverty, but few crimes are ever investigated.
Authorities often blame the killings on the "maras," or street gangs, which trace their origins to Los Angeles, where immigrants adopted U.S.-style gangland culture and exported it back to their home countries.
Some fear community members and security forces fed up with gang violence are behind the vigilante killings. They are facilitated by Internet blogs with names like "We kill the gang members" and "United against the gang members," which publish names and addresses of suspected criminals and call for community action.
"Without a doubt it's part of a organized social cleansing campaign," said Elubia Velazquez a community organizer in crime-ridden El Mezquital neighborhood.
"Boys turn up dead and people say, 'Oh well, this one was a gang member.' What they don't realize, that they are human beings who made mistakes, but Guatemala doesn't have the capacity to prosecute them," she said.
Guatemala's human rights ombudsman slammed the violence as unacceptable on Thursday, and warned that it rivaled the worst years of the civil conflict.
posted by Marko at 2/09/2006 07:33:00 PM
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