Although the 36-year civil war that plagued this Central American nation has been over for nearly 10 years, violence and crime continue to haunt its inhabitants, causing fear and frustration among the Guatemalan population. The growth of vigilante social cleansing groups is but a symptom of a much larger disease that has festered since the 1996 peace accords. The lack of social justice, peace, and order has led to the formation of social cleansing groups, often causing wider pandemonium and necessitating defensive groups. Although these groups are often formed with the best of intentions, power and greed often cloud their original purposes, making them no better than the groups they were designed to fight.
Throughout the 20th century South American governments have sanctioned the use of paramilitary organizations and death squads. This often generates short-term gains for the government while causing longer-term problems. The Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia is the clearest example of this occurrence. The AUC was initially designed by local Colombian ranch farmers to combat the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and narco-syndicates. The Colombian government also sought the services of paramilitary groups, employing local defense forces to combat FARC guerrillas. Over time, however, these defense forces, uniting under the umbrella organization of the AUC, turned into one of the most brutal paramilitary groups in the world. The AUC has become a major actor in the Colombian narco-trafficking business and regularly engages in direct confrontation with the Colombian government and terrorizes rural Colombian populations.
Similarly, during the 36-year Guatemalan civil war, death squads were mobilized by the Guatemalan army and engaged in a savage counterinsurgency campaign against Guatemala’s various guerrilla groups. These death squads were notoriously vicious, killing anyone suspected of assisting guerrilla forces. Today, evidence of similar brutality among Guatemala’s citizen militias are witnessed by local populations that awake almost daily to strangled and tortured bodies. Occasionally victims of social cleansing groups are innocently accused of wrongdoing and unjustly punished or killed for perceived actions.
Although the majority of Guatemalan citizens continue to applaud the actions of these groups and view their motives as altruistic, civil society and self-imposed justice are antithetical. The triumph of one will ultimately lead to the death of the other. The members of the groups are often former guerrillas or paramilitary members who long for renewed violence and continue to believe that a civil war is raging among them. The Guatemalan government has often been an unwitting accomplice in the actions of social cleansing groups, occasionally apprehending members of these groups to fain disapproval. Police officers often become part of the larger problem, choosing to engage in after hours’ brutality to supplement their meager incomes.
Guatemalan police have acknowledged a sharp decrease in crime since the birth of these groups, although they begrudgingly also acknowledge a steep rise in homicides throughout the country. Fear and poverty have forced many Guatemalans to flee their country for the sanctity of the US where an estimated 550,000 Guatemalans now reside.
The Guatemalan government must vigorously oppose unlawful social cleansing groups while purging their police ranks of corrupt and brutal officers. A robust police force that is capable of adequately responding to the needs of local citizenry will eliminate the inherent need for locally based defense forces. A reinvigorated Guatemalan police force will have the secondary boon of being economically beneficial to Guatemala, which suffers from widespread theft and black market economies. To achieve these ends, Guatemala must learn from the mistakes of Latin America peers, such as Mexico and Colombia , that continue to be threatened by police corruption and paramilitary organizations. The continued unhindered growth of these groups in Guatemala will have lasting, negative repercussions upon the state, damaging the country and its citizenry physically, psychologically, and economically.
