News and blog coverage of the murders in Guatemala

What Salvadoran bloggers are saying:

Recent events involving the murder of four Salvadorans in Guatemala have dominated the blogosphere in El Salvador. On February 19, three members of the Central American parliament (PARLACEN) from El Salvador's ruling ARENA party were found murdered in Guatemala along with their driver. The group had been traveling to a working group meeting of PARLACEN. The bodies were found in a rural area outside of Guatemala City, in the burned out shell of the vehicle in which they had been driving. Among the dead was Eduardo D'Aubuisson, son of the founder of ARENA.

Initially the reaction in the Salvadoran blogosphere was to call for restraint[ES], avoiding a rush to judgment, and calling for an in depth investigation[ES]. Jjmar wrote that no one should seek to take advantage of the murders[ES] for political gain, whether to further the political polarization in El Salvador or to gain a benefit in the 2009 election campaign.

Fears of a political motive were largely eliminated when four Guatemalan police officers were arrested for the murders three days later. The arrested police officers included the head of the organized crime unit within the Guatemalan national police. Yet there was to be another twist. On February 25th, the four Guatemalan police officers were executed in their cells in a high security Guatemalan prison. Most reports indicated that gunmen "stormed" the prison, passing through eight locked(?) doors to get to the suspects and kill them. The executions coincided with a riot within the prison, and the some Guatemalan authorities are still suggesting that the suspects were killed by rioting gang members. The discussion in the blogosphere now turned to organized crime and narco-trafficking and its hold in Central America.

Ixquic* wrote a post[ES] looking at the impotence of the Salvadoran and Guatemala states. Each has emerged from bloody years of civl war during the 1990s. In each country, the arrangements following the civil war created new civilian police forces, yet each had elements left over from earlier years contaminated with the bad habits of those times. Each country had a history of armed paramilitary groups, death squads and guerrillas, whose members had to find something to do. The post-war years saw a dramatic growth of organized crime in the countries which now controls trafficking in drugs, trafficking in persons, and kidnappings. In both countries, organized crime operates with near impunity against the impotence of the two governments.

The murders brought Soy Salvadoreño out of retirement[ES] on his blog. He had been watching the Academy Awards where the Best Picture award went to the The Departed, a movie about organized crime. In Spanish-speaking countries, however, the film is titled "Los Infiltrados." or "The Infiltrated." The parallels of organized crime infiltrating its way into the police struck him. As he learned about the execution of the suspects within the locked doors of a high security Guatemalan prison, Soy Salvadoreño wondered if truth was stranger than fiction.

The impunity with which organized crime was acting led Soy Salvadoreño to bemoan:

48 horas fueron suficientes para que la mafia (¿guatemalteca-salvadoreña?) planeara y ejecutara a los arrestados con la ayuda de los “infiltrados” de la policía y autoridades de Guatemala y de El Salvador .... No hay quien nos ayude, no hay quien nos proteja. No hay justicia. Vivimos en la selva.

48 hours were sufficient for the mafia (Guatemalan? Salvadoran?) to plan and execute those arrested with the help of "Los Infiltrados" within the police and authorities of Guatemala and El Salvador....There is no one who helps us; there is no one who protects us. There is no justice. We live in the jungle.

The question in El Salvador is what are the links in El Salvador to these murders. The Hunnapuh blog is running a poll[ES] asking its readers whether drug traffickers have infiltrated public officials in El Salvador and whether any particular party is more likely to be connected to drug-trafficking. Hunnapuh also made sure to remind his readers[ES] that, although US president George Bush had offered condolences for the "three gentlemen who were murdered," referring to the ARENA politicians, there were in fact four Salvadorans murdered that night. The driver of the car, Gerardo Ramirez, was also murdered, and he had been often overlooked in the press coverage of the murders.

The events of the past two weeks have also put a strain on relations between Guatemala and El Salvador. Patrick Hall at the Guatemala Solidarity Network points out "Guatemala-El Salvador relations haven't been this frosty for a long while." Government officials in El Salvador have been intimating that high government officials in Guatemala have connections to the crime. Meanwhile Hall also notes that journalists covering the case have been receiving death threats.

News media coverage

The story of the Salvadoran parliamentarians and their driver who were murdered in Guatemala, and the subsequent assassinations of the suspects in a Guatemalan prison has received significant recent coverage in the English language press. Here is a collection of links to those stories:

• A Murder Spree in Central America -- Time Magazine
• Murders Foster El Salvador-Guatemala Tension -- National Public Radio
• In Guatemala, officers' killings echo dirty war -- New York Times/International Herald Tribune.
• FBI to help investigate slayings in Guatemala -- Contra Costa Times / McClatchey
• Central American slayings raising many questions -- Los Angeles Times.
• Traffickers re-route U.S.-bound drugs through Central America -- Los Angeles Times.

In Spanish, a very good summary of all the events since the killings can be found here.

Blogging section originally posted on Global Voices.