1. The Case of El Gallito and Implications for the National Police
On September 22 the National Civilian Police (PNC) received a denunciation about the kidnapping of five young people in the Barrio (neighborhood) El Gallito in the central zone of Guatemala City. A few days later they were found dead. Thanks to information given by a witness about the presence of a police car, the investigators discovered that the patrol car DG 002, assigned to members of the private security force of the Director of the PNC, was in the area the day of the crime.
The information displayed by the GPS led to the detention of Inspector Wilson Tovar and Agent Sabino Ramos, both accused of extrajudicial murder and abuse of authority, along with links to drug trafficking. This led to the Minister of the Interior (Gobernación), Adela Camacho Torrebiarte, announcing the decision to relieve Julio Hernandez of his responsibilities as Director of the PNC. In a short press conference, the Minister assured the public that Hernandez was not linked to the crime but that she had requested his resignation in order to remove doubts about the transparency of the investigation.
Nevertheless, victims’ families, the press, analysts, politicians and others continue to accuse the police of murder and massacres. The case of El Gallito serves as their illustration. It caused such a commotion in Guatemala that the Assistant Director of the PNC, Henry Lopez, announced that between 8 and 10 members of the police had resigned their posts after the Prosecutor of Crimes Against Life began the investigations into this case.
Crimes such as El Gallito and the murder of the Salvadorean Parlimentarians reported on in April, which expose the involvement of members of the PNC, may help untangle the complex network of violent criminal activity in which Guatemala is submerged.
2. The Contest for Votes in the Second Round
Early on September 10, Oscar Bolanos, president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal announced that the second electoral round will be between Alvaro Colom of the Union National Hope (UNE), and Otto Perez Molina of the Patriotic Party (PP). The official results gave the UNE 26.87% of the votes, followed by 25.04% for the PP. This launched the countdown to the second round, scheduled for November 4.
Meanwhile, the press released stories about the low voter turnout for the majority of the mayoral races. According to the reports, some candidates won the local race with only 10% or less of the votes. Roberto Landaberry, representing the Mirador Electoral (an election monitoring organization), commented that in this election there was a 40% abstention rate. Most of this sector of the population was not voting because they never registered and many of those did not register because they never obtained ID cards.
In response, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal pointed out that the abstention rate in Guatemala has always been high; in fact, the data show that in 1995 it was 53.2%, in 1999 46.2%, and in the 2003 elections 45%. Based on this information it appears that the elections of 2007 had the lowest abstention rate in recent Guatemalan electoral history.
Generally the PP, led by a former army intelligence officer during the genocide, is known for its promise to take a tough, “iron fist”, stand toward crime, favoring the use of the military to round up suspected criminals. The UNE, led by a businessman, is known for his focus on social and economic development. The PP has gained rapidly in the polls and even surpassed the UNE in popularity. While, human rights workers are not optimistic about significant change with the UNE, they are quite apprehensive about the increase in human rights abuses under the PP.
The popularity of an authoritarian leader was the subject of a report called “Political Culture of the Guatemalan Democracy – 1006” by Dinorah Azpuru, a Guatemalan scholar and assistant professor at Witchita State University and Vanderbilt in the U.S. According to the report a full 50% of Guatemalans don’t know what the country’s political system is, and 47.7% prefer a government of law and order over a participatory system. She points out that the Guatemalan electorate demonstrates marked tendencies toward authoritarianism and considerable sympathy for the military. The NGO Corporation Latinobarometer based in Chile seemed to confirm these findings. According to their study “Latinobarometer 2006”, one in every three Guatemalans does not understand the meaning of the word democracy.
In this setting the presidential candidates vie for votes in a classic campaign of promises and commitments. Even before all the votes were counted, they were seeking alliances with the smaller parties and lining up allies among the victors of the mayoral races. The Patriotic Party has won the endorsement of the National Coordination of Basic Grains which represents 230,000 peasants in 16 departments. Various indigenous groups have also expressed their support for the PP. The UNE has reached out to the teachers unions by promising to increase the education budget and is pushing a strategy to attract the youth vote.
Meanwhile, to advance the transition the current administration met with representatives of the UNE and PP. Among the unresolved issues that will be passed on to the new government are the penetration of organized crime in the state institutions, the purging of the police force, and assaults on buses and other violent crimes.
The work of the team
The team traveled extensively with La Unidad in September accompanying them on several new cases in distant areas of the county, often for days at a time. NP also did its second out of town accompaniment of the women’s Consortium of Change in Action, which provides psycho-social and legal support to women who have suffered sexual abuse both during the war and recently.
Report written by Betsy Crites (Project Director) and Christine Schweitzer (Programme Director)