Guatemala's long-running problem with vigilantes took an unusual turn this week when police arrested seven armed Christian fundamentalists accused of extortion as they distributed religious leaflets and collected money on a local highway.
Using the slogan "Social Cleansing of the Town," at least seven men armed with assault rifles had apparently been operating for three months in the town of San Lucas Toliman,70 km west of the Guatemalan capital, police said on Wednesday.
"This was a fundamentalist Christian organization in character that harangued the town's population on religious themes, saying things like `having two women is against the Bible,'" Victor Soto, the head of the national police force's criminal investigations unit said.
Police also say the religious group enforced a rough brand of justice and are investigating the recent deaths of people accused by the organization of being criminals.
The suspects were being held without bail on Wednesday on suspicion of illegal weapons possession and extortion, while police carried out ballistics tests on their weapons to determine whether the group was involved in local killings. They were assigned a public defender, but the lawyer was not immediately available for comment.
Central America's largest country has been plagued by vigilantes and mobs that have lynched hundreds of suspected criminals in recent years. But few have exhibited the strange characteristics of the suspects arrested on Monday.
The group first allegedly targeted local men accused of being highway robbers, but quickly turned their attention to shaking down local bars, stores and other businesses, demanding money to protect them against thieves.
Meanwhile, the group also claimed to be acting in accordance with biblical precepts, and would harass anyone suspected of "not agreeing with the Bible," Soto said.
Residents suspected of petty theft or being unfaithful to their wives were sent notes containing quotations from the Bible and threats that they would be killed if they failed to mend their ways.
The men allegedly set up a roadside checkpoint and charged travelers 10 quetzales (US$1.25) to pass -- a "contribution" to their cause. They even handed out receipts for the so-called toll bearing the group's name and the slogan "Social Cleansing of the Town," authorities said.
"We are investigating them in connection with five deaths," Soto said. "They started out saying they were protecting the town from criminals, and they wound up extorting money from people."
Reports of vigilante killings in Guatemala have declined since the peak years of 1998 and 1999, but remain common. The practice has claimed more than 350 lives since the end of the country's 1960-1996 civil war.
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
Outside Havana, a combine belonging to a private Vietnamese company is harvesting rice, directly farming Cuban land — in a first — to help address acute food shortages in the country. The Cuban government has granted Agri VAM, a subsidiary of Vietnam’s Fujinuco Group, 1,000 hectares of arable land in Los Palacios, 118km west of the capital. Vietnam has advised Cuba on rice cultivation in the past, but this is the first time a private firm has done the farming itself. The government approved the move after a 52 percent plunge in overall agricultural production between 2018 and 2023, according to data
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
RSS