Word: guatemalans
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...President Bush plans to visit Central America, the demons of corruption, drug dealing and murder there that have long been kept under wraps, either by official complicity or negligence, are beginning to attract public scrutiny. Eight brazen and grisly murders -three Salvadoran congressmen and their driver, and four Guatemalan policemen -have shaken the two countries' governments and shed light on the criminal underworld operating with impunity from inside police forces...
...scandal began two weeks ago when the bodies of the congressmen, who were representatives to the Central American parliament, and their driver were found bullet-ridden and charred on an abandoned dirt road in Guatemala. Days later, four Guatemalan policemen - including the head of the organized crime investigation unit - were accused of the murders. But before they could be tried for the crimes, the four were assassinated inside their maximum-security prison cell, left face down in a pool of blood, shot with their throats slit. Authorities and opposition politicians in Guatemala say the policemen were part of a group...
...Berger, it means a failure of his campaign promise four years ago to clean up Guatemala's politics, notoriously corrupt since the country's 36-year civil war ended a decade ago. During that war, which claimed nearly a quarter-million lives, the Guatemalan military launched a scorched-earth counterinsurgency campaign against leftist guerillas, massacring entire Mayan villages accused of supporting the rebels. Many wartime figures were never prosecuted for their offenses, and human rights groups and the U.N. have warned that former state security forces - laid off after the peace accords mandated a downsizing of the military - could...
...Salvadoran deputies, Berger said that "a drug-trafficking gang with ties to both countries" was responsible. On Friday, the country's top police investigator, who was in charge of the policemen accused of murdering the congressman, resigned. And it will be seen in the coming weeks if other top Guatemalan officials, including the police chief or the interior minister, will be the next...
...interior minister of El Salvador, Rene Figueroa, who is collaborating on the Guatemalan investigation, is the vice president of the ARENA party and a personal friend of the murdered congressmen. He said at a press conference that his goal was to clear the name of the politicians. But such close connections have raised questions about the objectivity of any investigation that either government will be able to carry...