Un Golpe Bajo (A hit below the belt)

Last Friday there was a big traffic jam across the road from my son’s school. I drove by on the other side, seeing police and ambulance, assuming it was a car accident. I was glad I hadn’t taken that route to collect him from school, as I would have been late. It was just before three o’clock in the afternoon.

I soon learned from a school staff member that it was no car accident. A woman had been shot dead a short time before. Two men were handcuffed and taken away by the police. My first reaction was, “Oh boy, that was a bit too close for comfort.” I commented that I hate the way these things happen all the time in Guatemala, as if car accidents aren’t bad enough, without people being shot as well. The staff member agreed. It felt like we were talking about the weather. Then I stood there, well inside the school’s tall brick security fence with guards at the gate, and waited for my son to emerge from his classes. I also waited for some other emotional reaction on my part, but I didn’t feel anything, not even fear. As we drove out the school gate, I mentioned the “accident” and the traffic jam to my son, but not the shooting, although of course I was thinking about it all the way home. And I still am, four days later, although I don’t know what to do with the thoughts, apart from write them down.

My lack of emotion is a bit puzzling for me. I can’t seem to find anything other than a cool, intellectual compassion for the woman who was shot, nor anything other than an analytical sense of danger. Perhaps I’m beginning to understand how people in war zones become immune to the threat of imminent death and injury. Danger and risk become part of the background of their lives. This country is not at war, but there are huge numbers of guns and powerful criminal gangs. We hear and read about armed violence every day. Now and then it comes closer to home, as when friends were robbed at gunpoint last year on a bright Saturday morning just a few streets away, or when a group of men were robbed and then shot in the knees at midday in the street where my husband (used to) walked to work…. or, as in this case, when a woman was shot dead at two thirty in the afternoon right across the road from my son’s school. Then we wonder why we are living here and whether it is worth the risk to invest any energy in this country. But, short of shriveling with fear and staying behind locked doors, there’s really very little we can do about it while we are here. So we take reasonable security measures, and keep living as normal a life as possible. I joke that its just a matter of getting the right balance between fear and paranoia.

I often hear people say in Guatemala that foreigners and middle class people don’t need to worry too much because most of the murders are connected with gang warfare and drug trafficking. That may be true. I don’t know. But Sunday’s newspaper told of another aspect of Friday’s shooting (the story made page three). In this case the police do not believe there was any connection between the woman and the gunmen, except that she didn’t move fast enough when they wanted to steal her BMW, when she returned to it in the open-air car park after buying fruit. However, one of the arrested gunmen, named in the newspaper, is an ex-member of the national civil police – and this is where the plot coagulates. He was sacked from the police force in 2004 after he was accused of being part of a group of police who allegedly hi-jacked minivans and then extorted money from their victims, in the towns of Villa Nueva and Amatitlan near Guatemala City. As it happened his criminal prosecution was soon closed by the Ministerio Publico for lack of evidence, at the request of the then public prosecutor.

The spokesman for the police national criminal investigation unit said both gunmen involved in Friday’s shooting were believed to be members of a criminal gang, of some 30 men, which has been operating in the wealthier suburbs for some time. More than 400 luxury cars have been stolen in this area since January. The gang apparently exports the stolen cars to other countries in the region. Police believe that the leader of the gang was a man who was killed on 5 August. He was, as it happens, also the son of the assistant public prosecutor. His death by shooting occurred ten days after police had apprehended him and then released him on bail (even though they found in his house copies of the official seals of a number of key government ministries, including immigration and tax). Now the police believe the gang is being lead by the brother of the dead man – another son of the assistant public prosecutor – although their activities have slowed since their chief was killed, and perhaps they have split into two gangs.

Notice anything strange?

Clue 1. If the police know so much about these guys, why are they still on the loose? Is it a simple lack of resources to find the leaders? A lack of evidence? Or do these ex-policemen and sons of assistant public prosecutors happen to know some of the right people?

Clue 2. How was it that a national police radio patrol car was on the scene within seconds of the shooting, able to get between the gunmen and their getaway car, where the driver was waiting with the engine running? Coincidence? Unlikely. Guatemala has the smallest per capita police force in Latin America – they are not just everywhere - and more often than not they don’t arrive at crime scenes at all, or do so hours later, if anyone bothers to call them. This looks very much like they were tipped off, were perhaps even following the men to catch them in the act, and that the unfortunate woman was an accidental victim in the process. Perhaps there is a struggle for control within the police force in this area?

Clue 3. The supposed gang leader / son of assistant public prosecutor was released on bail. On the face of it one would think this was irregular, given the evidence of high-level fraudulent activity. But ten days after he was released, he was shot dead - killed “extra judicially”? Could this be a form of semi-official “justice” in the absence of access to proper legal process?

This story is a small insight into the shadows around what passes for policing and justice in this country. It is no surprise, then, that a public poll conducted by El Periodico this week, has only 9.5% of the population answering yes to each of the questions: “Do you have confidence in our system of justice?” and “Do you have confidence in the national civil police?” We certainly don’t. Our security instructions are to avoid calling the police, and to ring instead the rapid response private security company that our employer provides. They may be “mercenaries”, but at least they’re ours, we think…..

Mariposa Pesada
21 August 2006