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Description
Guatemala's just-concluding electoral campaign ends on a historical note. Regardless of outcome, it will be remembered as the most violent in the nation's history. With still more than a week to go until Election Day, there have been about 48 murders and more than 50 attacks against candidates, activists, family members of these, and people who happened to be in the wrong place. Political party headquarters have figured among the wrong places.
Front-running presidential candidate Alvaro Colom might have been expected to be upbeat as he looks forward to the Sept. 9 showdown, but rather than revel in the latest poll results, he called the campaign period he's just been through "reckless and disastrous." He made no accusations as he lamented the 15 party members or members of their families who have been killed since May. The most recent outrage suffered by Colom's Unidad Nacional de la Guatemala (UNE) was the discovery of the corpse of the 14-year-old daughter of legislative candidate Hector Montenegro. She was found, together with two others, in the trunk of an abandoned taxi. All three were bound, their throats slit.
"I feel distraught, sad" said the father, "but I'm not going to give up my determination to continue working for the people." Montenegro is associated with a campaign to get pensions for poor elderly people who have no social benefits or income. "I believe that something about this has to do with the political issue, because my daughter didn't even know the other people," he said.
If it is unsafe to be a candidate, or a family member of one, it is also unsafe to investigate assassinations of any kind. The bulleted body of prosecutor Martin Tojin was found along a dirt road on the south coast. Tojin worked with the Fiscalia de Delitos contra la Vida.
Otto Perez Molina of the Partido... |
More articles from NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs
GUATEMALA CONCLUDES MOST VIOLENT ELECTORAL-CAMPAIGN SEASON EVER., August 30, 2007
COSTA RICA LEADS REGION IN COURTING CLOSER TIES WITH MIDDLE EAST., August 30, 2007
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