Heading Back to Guatemala

I am heading back to Guatemala next week, so expect less sporadic posts in the weeks to come. But in the mean time, here is a link to an article on the recent violence in Guatemala from the The Guardian. Also, an interesting commentary (in Spanish) from a friend of mine who also works on the issue of violence in Central America. I'm including a quick translation of his comments into English below:

Why Petén and Not the Department of Guatemala?
by Carlos A. Mendoza
(my translation)

 The lamentable and horrible murder of migrant workers in Peten at the hands of suspected narco-terrorists raised national and international alarm over the power of organized crime in Guatemala and the violent strategies these groups use to fight their rivals. The reaction of the state, as usual, was timid, late, and inappropriate. Among other deficiencies, the security forces tried to respond with outdated legal instruments, like the Public Order Law (Decree No. 7 of the Constituent Assembly of 1965, later changed in 1970).

The Executive decreed a state of siege in the entire department of Petén, based on the above law and "[because] during the last few days there have been a series of grave acts that put the constitutional order, governability and the security of the State at risk, affecting people and families, putting life, liberty, justice, security, peace and human development at risk" (Government Decree 4-2011, May 16). 

Obviously, the massacre in Petén merits due attention from the State, but this is more a reaction to the media coverage of the macabre event rather than part of a strategic and well-planned response against organized crime, especially in zones where the presence of the State, both as law and as bureaucracy, is precarious. The criticism is founded in the fact that the authorities give the impression of not using the basic data on violent homicides to focus their efforts and effectively use their limited human resources, for as we know in Guatemala there are less than 2 policemen for every 1,000 people, or, in a territorial perspective, we have less than 19 police for every 100 square kilometers. 

The homicide rates for every 100,000 people reveals that in Petén, the violence is going down in respect to 2008, when it registered at 77 per 100,000. This fell to 71 in 2009 and made it to 60 in 2010. This explains why, with a total of 366 homicides last year, Petén rose in the departmental rankings of violent homicides, taking the 7th spot in a total of 22 departments. That is to say that in 2010 there were six departments more violent than Petén. The most violent of all was the department of Guatemala.   

According to the figures that the National Civil Police (PNC) reported, there were 2,423 homicides in the entire department of Guatemala. That is to say that 41 percent of the total homicides in the country occurred here, in the geographic, political and economic center. For a population estimated at 3.1 million (22 percent of the total population), the departmental rate was 78 homicides for every 100,000 people. That is 18 points higher than the homicide rate in Petén, and in absolute terms that is 2,057 extra deaths ( 90 percent of which were due to guns). Only 4 percent of the population lives in Petén, with a registered 6 percent of the homicides in the entire national territory. In the Department of Guatemala, the violence is totally disproportionate, practically double the expected for its population. 

The Department of Guatemala is the most densely populated in the country, almost 1,400 people per square kilometer (Petén is the least populated, with 17 people per square kilometer). At the Central American level, only El Salvador rises above this level in terms of population density, with 2,000 people per square kilometer (it also registered a homicide rate of 78 per 100,000 people in 2010). Guatemala is the department with the highest percentage of people living in urban areas (85 percent) and it has the highest score on the human development index in the country (practically at the highest level by international standards). All of these facts that let us locate the department in relation to Petén and other regions of the country and Central America make us question the validity of many hypotheses that propose to explain violence in the region. They suggest that we need a series of investigations into the causes of the problem so we can propose effective solutions.

However, the intention of my reflection is to ask why it did not occur to anyone to declare a state of siege in the Department of Guatemala? In Petén, they are trying to control more than 35,000 square kilometers of territory, [in the capital] it would be a little more than 2,000 square kilometers, but more than 3 million people (without counting those that come to Guatemala City from other parts of the country for business or to work). The state of siege seems to be an antiquated and not very applicable instrument, and the criteria the government uses to decide when to activate it or not is illogical. We are talking about human lives, but permit me to use an analogy to explain the possible cognitive bias that may be blinding the authorities in charge of citizen security. In our homes we can find two types of water leaks in the pipes and drains. On one hand, there are the scandalous leaks, when the water springs out on all sides and we shut off the water and call the plumber. On the other hand, there are the leaks that happen drop by drop, almost imperceptible until we get the water bill from the municipality and it is then that we react, if only to investigate where we can find evidence of moisture and locate the problem. This last type of leak is the most dangerous because we don't see it, because it erodes the floor slowly until it causes irreparable damage. Something like this happens to the State, it sees and reacts to a collective tragedy (highlighted by the morbid and sensational the media), but it ignores the every day victims, those that are only one number more in the official statistics. These deaths happen in the Department of Guatemala, but no one has raised the alarm. They are no longer news.   

I think my friend has some good points here. For one, I agree that the murders that happen every day in Guatemala City have become common place. They often make the news, but not in the way that the massacre in Petén made the news. The newspapers are full of reports of dead bodies found at the side of the road, men and women murdered by unidentified strangers as they go about their every day lives, stories often stripped of descriptions of context or motive. Stories reminiscent of reports of death squad assassinations during the war. This violence is no longer shocking, no longer out-of-place, no longer notable.

I understand the rhetorical question my friend poses: if they're going to call a state of siege in Petén, why haven't they called one in Guatemala City? But we must also remember that he is not suggesting that the authorities should actually declare a state of siege there. I think the take away from this commentary is that we should worry about all of the murders in Guatemala, not just the flashy massacre linked to Mexican drug cartels in the north. What do you all think? Do you agree with his assessment?