Government blames gangs for latest spate of violence.
| Autor | Reynolds, Louisa |
As Guatemala began the year with a spike in homicides, President Otto Perez Molina blamed 40% of the crimes reported on gang turf wars. With the September elections looming, failure to contain violence could seriously hinder the Partido Patriota's (PP) chances of re-election (NotiCen, Feb 2, 2012).
The police reported that, during the first six weeks of 2015, 74 people were killed in 162 attacks on public transport. The attacks, say the authorities, are the result of extortion activities by Guatemala's most violent youth gangs: MS13 and Barrio 18.
During a meeting with private-sector representatives on Feb. 17, Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla admitted that extortion has increased by 21% in the past three years.
Added to this, recent incidents involving the lynching of teenage girls and the murder of pregnant women and women with young children have shocked a country that has become desensitized to violence (NotiCen, Nov. 3, 2011).
On Dec. 2, 14-year-old Bedelyn Orozco Gomez was lynched by a mob in the municipality of Nueva Santa Rosa, 113 km from Guatemala City. The girl was beaten, doused with gasoline, and set alight after being accused of involvement in the extortion-motivated shooting of a motorcycle-taxi driver. During the subsequent investigation, key witnesses revealed that Orozco had not committed the murder.
On Feb. 9, Lisbeth Rivera, 18, was lynched in the municipality of Palin, in the eastern department of Escuintla, by a mob that accused her of murdering her 10-year-old stepdaughter.
Other particularly disturbing cases of violence including the shooting of a 25-year-old woman who was five months pregnant in a market in Villa Canales, 8.5 km from Guatemala City, on Feb. 8. Two other women were injured during the attack.
Two days after Rivera was lynched, the decapitated body of Norma Vasquez, 30, was found in a Guatemala City hotel. The body of her 5-yearold daughter Nairobin Mendez, who had been poisoned, was also found at the scene. A sinister note pinned to the bathroom wall that read "You owe us two deaths, we're 18" raised the possibility that the gruesome murder could have been gang related.
On Feb. 13, Belinda Gonzalez Valdez, 30, and her three daughters aged 12, 9, and 6, were found with gunshot wounds to the head in their Guatemala City home. The heinous acts of violence reported against women and young children in recent weeks have shocked public opinion to the extent that two local child-welfare...
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