Items About
Areas That Could Break Out Into War
November 18, 2007: It was close, but center-left
candidate Alvaro Colom was elected president of Guatemala, beating Otto Perez
Molina, a former general, in the November 4 run-off election. Colom received 53
percent of the vote. Pre-election violence began getting pretty nasty in
September, and for awhile it looked like supporters of the "leftist" Colom
(National Unity of Hope Party) and the "rightist" Perez Molina (Patriot Party)
were fighting a small-scale version of the 106--96 Guatemalan civil war that raged
for thirty years. Nineteen members of Colom's party were killed during the
campaign. Around 250,000 people were
killed during the civil war, and all the wounds have not healed. Perez Molina
served as an intelligence officer and also commanded an army unit that fought
in the El Quiche region. The general was involved in negotiating peace but many
left-wingers accuse him of being responsible for the murder of a lot of
Indians. Violence is on the increase in Guatemala.. Officials say nearly 6,000
people have been murdered. What's caused the sustained violence? Narcotics
traffickers, particularly cocaine cartels. Perez Molina got a lot of during the
campaign when he promised to declare a "state of emergency" and send the
Guatemalan Army into neighborhoods with high murder rates. However, to many
Guatemalans (or Guatemaltecans), that promise sounded like the army's way of
handling troubles during the civil war.
