Political Violence in Guatemala

Despite the Guatemalan civil war (which resulted in hundreds of thousands of dead indigenous peoples in a state-led campaign of genocide, among other things) having ended more than 10 years ago, there are signs that things may actually be getting worse in many ways. While the murder campaigns against indigenous peoples have subsided (though the poverty and racism has not), political violence is at an all-time high since 1996. Clara Luz López, a candidate for city council in Casillas, was shot and killed on her way home, bringing the total of political deaths to 40 up to now, with another 11 days before the election (September 9). Things are so bad that Álvaro Colom, one of the top presidential candidates, has a doctor who specializes in bullet wounds with him at all times, and travels only by helicopter.

Much of the violence comes from the rising involvement of drug lords in politics. Eager to see their influence spread to the political realm, many involved in the higher levels of the drug trade have resorted to violence to intimidate or remove opposition. The fact that the drug lords have managed to gain so much power in the post-civil war period is just one more way in which the U.S. drug policies have failed. Drug producers and transporters have continued to remain steps ahead of the law, and combatting the production instead of the consumption has neither slowed down consumption nor production, instead creating even greater violence in Latin America and elsewhere, including Afghanistan, where heroin production is growing astronomically again. Yet we continue to ignore the problem, while Guatemala once again is descending into a climate of terror and fear. There's no telling how the election will go, or if this violence will abate, but things are definitely bad in Guatemala, and there's no proof they are going to get better anytime soon.