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((Jody Williams in Guatemala - AP photo))

Official figures show 705 women killed in 2011

[Translation of an article by Inter Press Service as published in La Jornada of Mexico City on January 30. See original here.]

Guatemala, January 29 – A wave of femicides in Guatemala, one of the countries with the greatest incidence of these crimes, has resulted in governmental and social actions and the involvement of two Nobel prize laureates in an attempt to halt this savagery against women.

According to reports by the Comisión Presidencial contra el Racismo (Presidential Commission against Racism), in 2011 a total of 705 women in the country lost their lives in acts of violence, most of them by fire arms and because of their gender, compared to 675 the previous year. (more…)

Repressive strategies led by former soldiers are the new norm in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador

[Translation of an article from ContraPunto of San Salvador for December 14. See original here and related articles here, here and here.]

By Gerardo Arbaiza

The Central American Northern Triangle, consisting of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, has been found in several studies to be the most violent region of the world not involved in an armed conflict.

According to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Honduras is in first place in the world in homicides, with a rate of 78 for every 100,000 inhabitants, followed by El Salvador with 66 and, three levels below, Guatemala, with a total of 41 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.

The World Health Organization considers a country to be in an epidemic when the rate of deaths from any cause reaches ten for every 100,000 inhabitants.

The strategy these countries have adopted recently to reduce these figures is directed at taking members of the armed forces and using them together with police forces for tasks of citizen security. (more…)

((Daniel Ortega))

[Translation of an article from El Clarín of Chile for November 22. See original here and related articles here, here and here.]

Last November 6 Nicaragua and Guatemala both held presidential elections, but while the Nicaraguan elections have been subjected to a series of challenges, those in Guatemala seem to satisfy those who claim to be troubled about the reelection of President Daniel Ortega.

It is striking that nobody is troubled about the triumph of General Otto Pérez Molina, who had been a candidate several times without winning. He was probably helped this time by the judicial denial of permission for Sandra Torres, former wife of current president Álvaro Colom, to run. (more…)

((Brasil de Fato photo))

A country that for 36 years saw a revolutionary movement, with a political-military strategy, elects as president a former general of the counter insurgency

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo for November 9. See original here.]

By Silvia Álvarez

In contrast with the neighboring countries of El Salvador and Nicaragua, which saw insurgent civil wars that solidified into electoral triumphs, the left in Guatemala seems not to have made the transition into a political party. On Sunday, the 6th, thousands of Guatemalan citizens went to the polls to elect as president the candidate of the extreme right, Otto Pérez Molina of the Partido Patriota (PP). In an electoral dispute whose ideological coloration was dominated by the right, the principal theme of the campaigns was security despite the fact that the country is suffering from other serious problems like poverty and unemployment, aggravated by the tropical storms that devastated the country in the past month. (more…)

A demonstration against violence in Monterrey

[Translation of an editorial from El Faro of San Salvador for August 29. See original here. Atlántida is a state on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, best known as a luxury tourist attraction but recently also a center of drug trafficking and other organized crime, and of the violence that results.]

The recent attack on a casino in Monterrey, which left more than 50 dead, raised even higher the level of horror that drug trafficking gangs have unleashed in Mexico in their delivery of drugs to the United States.

President Felipe Calderón, besieged by a population fed up with so much bloodshed, pointed rightly toward the United States, asking that country to begin the task it has never been willing to take on: that of decreasing the drug use and toughening its control over the sale of fire arms. (more…)