There was a bizarre incident on February 19 in Guatemala – three Salvadoran congressmen and their driver were killed in an ambush.  What makes it strange is the culprits – undercover Guatemalan police officers – and their fate, to be murdered in prison four days later, before the full story could be revealed.  This leaves an escalating diplomatic conflict, and a series of unanswered questions:

• Who ordered the first killings?
• Who ordered, and who carried out, the second set of murders?  The official version is that rioting prisoners were responsible, but witnesses report an incursion by heavily-armed men in ski masks who were allowed to pass through security.
• Were the Salvadorans really drug dealers, as their ill-fated killers claimed?
• How high do the links go between corrupt police officers and drug traffickers in both countries?
• To what extent are the killings related to the death squads which the previous military regime used in Guatemala’s Dirty War?
• How can a state survive when it doesn’t provide even basic securty – out of 5000 murders a year, just 2% are ever officially solved?
• Can a state in such a situation ever be rebuilt?  How?

The last questions are the most difficult, and important.  Ixquic at Xibalba has what looks like a very interesting post on this subject: “Estado Impotente”, the impotence of the state.  Unfortunately, I don’t know Spanish.  According to Global Voices Online, the post discusses the contamination of new civilian forces with old paramilitary and death squad habits, and the resulting corruption and growth in organized crime, following civil war in both El Salvador and Guatemala.  Global Voices also quotes (and translates) Soy Salvadoreño on the lack of security:

There is no one who helps us; there is no one who protects us. There is no justice. We live in the jungle.

Too true.  Who do you turn to when there is no state?  The answer to that question will determine the future of El Salvador and Guatemala alike.

Posted by Phil on Sunday, March 11th, 2007 at 3:11 am.