WaPo : Killings on the Campaign Trail

Killings on the Campaign Trail

50 Guatemalan Candidates, Activists Have Died in Run-Up to Vote

By Manuel Roig-Franzia | Washington Post Foreign Service | September 9, 2007

SAN RAYMUNDO, Guatemala -- At the slippery base of a steep, muddy path, Armando Sanchez, a thickset man with dark bags beneath heavily lidded eyes, slumped in a plastic chair and sobbed.

Before him in the candlelit gloom of a cinder-block hut lay a coffin holding the bullet-riddled body of Esmeralda Uyun Sican. Until a few hours earlier, the 23-year-old Mayan Indian, whose mother quietly cried outside, had been running for a counselor's seat in this highland village north of Guatemala City.

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"So young, so young," S?nchez muttered to himself.

Sanchez, a candidate for Guatemala's Congress, was attending his seventh funeral in six months, each grim gathering a farewell to a candidate or political worker struck down by bullets in the astoundingly violent run-up to Sunday's national elections. At least 50 candidates and political activists representing parties across the political spectrum have been slain in the past 15 months, and dozens of others have been attacked, according to watchdog groups.

Political workers have been hacked with machetes; candidates have been bombed, shot and beaten. Even though Guatemala is one of the world's most violent countries, the brazen nature of the killings has surpassed anything seen here since three decades of civil war ended in 1996.

"This is not a campaign, this is a war," said Erasmo Ordonez, whose uncle was killed in May while running for mayor in the town of Zacapa and whose political activist father was murdered two years earlier.

The roots of the preelection violence are the subject of much debate among the 29,300 candidates and 21 political parties vying for offices in nearly every Guatemalan village, city and state, known here as departments. Some blame the drug cartels that are believed to have penetrated almost all levels of Guatemalan government; some say the killings are ordered by political rivals. Others argue that the pace of murders is far from abnormal in a country of 12 million people that registered at least 6,000 murders last year. And yet others believe some of the violence may be the fault of the informal syndicates that govern many walks of life, threatening violence if they do not receive payoffs for everything from bus routes to milk deliveries.

Whatever the case, the violence has boosted the presidential campaign of Otto Perez Molina, a retired Guatemalan army general and military intelligence chief whose campaign posters, featuring a clenched fist, leave little doubt about his stance on crime. Once trailing badly, he has surged ahead and is now tied with the longtime front-runner, Alvaro Colom, according to a poll released Wednesday by the newspaper Prensa Libre.

Perez Molina, of the Patriot Party, insists he will respect human rights if he is elected. But he also has told reporters that he will not hesitate to impose martial law, suspending rights to free assembly and movement, for limited periods in parts of the country plagued by violent drug cartels. His campaign's slogan, "mano dura," which translates as strong hand or iron fist, has often been associated here with repressive military governments.

"We're saying the truth about what is happening in this country," Perez Molina said in an interview in Guatemala City. "If we don't have a strong state, if we don't have a government that is willing to confront these problems, Guatemala is at risk of becoming a failed state or converting into a narco-state." Preelection violence, Perez Molina said, "has been one of the factors that has helped us rise in the polls."

Perez Molina's opponents -- all 13 of them -- have been slow to respond to his improved standing. During a campaign nearly free of personal attacks, several candidates have complained that Guatemala is in danger of returning to its militarized past and have mocked the "mano dura" slogan, but they have seldom mentioned Perez Molina by name.

Colom, an awkward public figure who has a slight speech impediment, has been hobbled by public perceptions that he is weak, Guastavo Berganza, one of Guatemala's leading independent political analysts, said in an interview. Many voters also say they believe Colom, of the National Unity for Hope party, is dominated by his wife, Sandra Torres de Colom -- a damaging perception in a male-dominated society. Torres de Colom caused an uproar this week by harshly insulting supporters whom she accused of failing to campaign aggressively.

Colom has a historical claim to the effects of political violence -- his uncle, a former Guatemala City mayor and presidential candidate, was assassinated in 1979. Colom's campaign has focused on social projects, including improving health care and schools. Perez Molina, meanwhile, has seized ownership of the violence issue, gaining enough support to likely ensure a runoff election against Colom on Nov. 4, Berganza said. Colom is making his third run for the presidency after losing the runoff in 2003 and failing to reach the second round in 1999.

Guatemala's government and some international observers have said it's impossible to know whether the killings now dominating the campaign are linked to politics.

Diego Garcia-Sayan, chief of the Organization of American States mission that is monitoring the elections, said in an interview that preliminary Guatemalan law enforcement reports show no "pattern" to the killings of political workers and candidates. He also said the increase in violence began before campaigning started in earnest in May.

"We're seeing the same kind of violence now that we were seeing before May and that we'll see after November 4," said Garcia, who also serves as a judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Such arguments make no sense to the friends of Uyun Sican, a member of Encuentro por Guatemala, a new political party that translates loosely as Together for Guatemala and is headed by Rigoberta Menchu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner. They say their party's workers have been found slain with campaign posters on their bodies, a clear signal that the killings are meant to send a political message to the party, which is focused on indigenous rights. Yet in other instances, authorities appear to be trying to cover up political motivations behind killings, said Angel Canil, Menchu's husband.

Uyun Sican's body was found Wednesday in a white pickup truck on the road that winds for 25 miles from her village down to Guatemala City. A bullet left an ugly hole in her chest. Alongside her was Wenceslao Ayap?n Zet, a 35-year-old Mayan who was running for local office. Assassins' bullets had blown off much of Ayap?n Zet's head, leaving him so mutilated that a white shroud covered most of his face at his wake Thursday night.

Local police spread the rumor that Uyun and Ayapan Zet, a married father of eight, were having an affair, friends say. People who knew both say the rumors are ridiculous. Rumors of blood feuds or business rivalries had been spread in previous killings of candidates and political workers in hopes of distancing slayings from politics, said S?nchez, the congressional candidate.

"They say there is no pattern to these killings," he said. "But the pattern is clear: They look for motives, and if there aren't motives, they invent them. These killings are minutely planned and calculated."

Sanchez shifted uneasily in his seat and peered into the darkness, where dozens of villagers -- men in cowboy hats and women in bright, quilt-patterned skirts -- whispered in the Kaqchiquel dialect.

"I've got to get out of here," he said. "It's not safe."