Thousands of civilians forced to fight in a 36-year civil-war set fire to buildings and took a provincial governor and a mayor hostage in southern Guatemala on Monday to protest being left out of a controversial state compensation plan, police said. Some 3,000 former “civilian patrollers” forced by the army to hunt down leftist guerrillas during the 1960-96 conflict stormed the town of Chicacao on Guatemala’s south coast after authorities refused to hand over checks, local police spokesman Cordero Garcia said. Police regained control of Chicacao late on Monday after enraged ex-fighters burned down municipal buildings, the mayor’s house, the market and a fire station, but some 1,500 former paramilitary fighters were still holding departmental governor Fernando Tercero hostage in the town of San Francisco Zapotitlan, Garcia said. Full Story
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