Guatemala Shooting Raises Concerns About Military’s Expanded Role

[Judi Lynn]

Guatemala Shooting Raises Concerns About Military’s Expanded Role
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: October 20, 2012

POPTÚN, Guatemala — The Guatemala military, once one of the most brutal and feared in Central America, is resurging to take on violent crime, forging closer ties with American troops and law enforcement even as worry over human rights abuses and corruption intensifies.

Those concerns deepened in recent weeks with the revelation of ties between former soldiers and drug gangs, and the fatal shooting of several indigenous demonstrators by soldiers on patrol with the police, an event critics of the militarized approach to policing seized on as an example of what can go wrong.

Allegations of corruption and killings by the military have also raised questions about the partnership with the American antidrug program here, just as the United States is reassessing its collaboration with security forces in neighboring Honduras after their role in several deadly episodes there.

“The army should take care of security of the country against attacks from a foreign power and never for citizen security,” said Francisco Dall’Anese, the former Costa Rica attorney general who now heads a United Nations commission investigating crime and corruption in Guatemala. He added, “When the military intervenes in conflicts of a civil nature, danger is increased without reaching solutions.”

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/world/americas/guatemala-shooting-raises-concerns-about-militarys-expanded-role.html?ref=americas&_r=0

[Judi Lynn]

1. Guatemala's past casts an ominous shadow

Guatemala's past casts an ominous shadow

Guatemala is still plagued by widespread violence, grinding poverty, and the marginalisation of indigenous population.

Last Modified: 19 Oct 2012 10:48

On October 4, 2012, eight indigenous Guatemalan protesters from the rural Totonicapán region were slain and many others injured at the hands of the Guatemalan military. Their offence was peacefully obstructing the Pan American highway, objecting to Constitutional changes proposed without adequate consultation, escalating energy prices under the newly privatised electric company and a new government requirement increasing the professional training requirements for teachers.

Sixteen years after the Peace Accords ended its bloody internal conflict Guatemala is still plagued by widespread violence, impunity, grinding poverty, structural inequality and the marginalisation of its majority indigenous population. Many human rights advocates decried the 2011 election of former general Otto Perez Molina on his "iron fist" anti-crime platform, underscoring his role as head of military intelligence during the periods of particular brutality in the Ixil Triangle. Observers long concerned about the potentially repressive tactics of a government under President Perez Molina were horrified about the death of peaceful protesters, reminiscent of the atrocities committed during Guatemala's internal conflict from 1960-1996.

After initially issuing a denial that the military forces were armed with anything but teargas, Otto Perez Molina was forced to change his position and concede that the military did indeed fire on protesters, stating that it was only after the protesters attacked. Guatemalan Foreign Minister Harold Caballeros evinced his indifference to the deaths by observing that given the violence in the country generally, "it's not something that we should make a big deal about". It is hard to imagine he would express such a sentiment if the victims were well-heeled urban Ladinos.

This tragedy did not occur in a vacuum. In the wake of Perez Molina's inauguration, human rights advocates have sounded alarm bells about the increased militarisation of Guatemala under his watch. As Leon Panetta recently noted, Latin American governments rely on the military for civil police functions at their peril.

More:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/2012101173514632802.html