Crisis Group Guatemala

Background

Although murders have fallen compared to 2009, Guatemala remains one of the most violent countries in Latin America. Homicide rates in recent months are higher than the same period last year, an increase that has put President Otto Pérez Molina on the defensive. His government has relied heavily on the military for law enforcement, dispatching joint army-police patrols to high-crime urban areas. But using the armed forces to maintain public order is at best a stop-gap measure that cannot substitute for a strong civilian police force. Indigenous peoples make up nearly half the population but still enjoy little political representation at the national level and suffer high rates of poverty and malnutrition. In some regions wounds from the armed conflict that ended in 1996 are still raw. The ongoing prosecution of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt offers hope for accountability, but the trial has been undermined by repeated delays.

Impact

The report Police Reform in Guatemala: Obstacles and Opportunities has been widely cited in Guatemalan and international media reports, as well as in commentary about criminal violence and the militarization of counter-narcotics operations.

"The police are the DNA of a democratic state.  Their conduct and performance determines whether the state can or cannot carry out its primary constitutional mission of protecting society.  This is exactly what Crisis Group reminds us in its well-documented, comprehensive report on police reform", Edgar Gutierrez, Guatemala's special envoy for drug policy reform, former foreign minister, December 2012

Latest reports

Totonicapán: Tension in Guatemala's Indigenous Hinterland, Latin America Report Nº 47, 6 Feb 2013

Police Reform in Guatemala: Obstacles and Opportunities, Latin America Report N°43, 20 Jul 2012

Guatemala: Drug Trafficking and Violence, Latin America Report N°39, 11 Oct 2011

Future Research

  • Guatemala's Insecure Borders.
  • From Maras to Mafiosos: The Evolution of Guatemalan Street Gangs.

Podcasts

Mary Speck on Tension in Guatemala's Indigenous Hinterland (February 2013)

Mark Schneider on Guatemala: Drug Trafficking and Violence (October 2011)

Video

In Pursuit of Peace: General Attorney Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey (December 2011)

Mark Schneider on Drug Trafficking and Violence in Guatemala (October 2011)

Blog

The Rios Montt Conviction and Impunity in Guatemala, Mary Speck, 14 May 2013

 

Media Release

Statement on the Ríos Montt Conviction for Genocide, War Crimes, 13 May 2013