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There has been a bloody lead-up to Guatemala's Sept. 9 national and municipal elections, with the Aug. 13 murder of a mayor bringing the number of people allegedly killed in connection to the elections to 40, according to media reports (though killings are underreported). The main source of the violence is a group of organized crime elements determined to intimidate politicians in all major parties on both the local and national levels. The criminals -- often led by members and former members of the military establishment, aided by government officials and connected to drug cartels -- are pruning the field of electoral candidates to guarantee that the winners stay in line. The criminals often target politicians' advisers or staff members rather than the politicians themselves.
There is no clear indication that this violence is a concerted effort by a united mafia or the military as a whole. Guatemala is generally plagued with murders and is a contender for the highest per-capita murder rate in the hemisphere, with nearly 6,000 murders in 2006. The politically motivated killings are likely an accumulation of efforts by multiple uncoordinated groups and interests. Regardless, they are just one aspect of the violence in Guatemala -- which could abate over the next 10 years, though it will be a slow process.
Guatemala's civil war stretched from 1960 to 1996 and produced a whole generation of soldiers and rebels who knew how to use their weapons, but not how to engage skillfully in any constructive trade. Though the war is long over and there are no more curfews at dusk -- after which people on the street are shot on sight -- the country never went through a real reconstruction after its civil war, and the state is not in full control of its security situation. Guatemala's military is deployed in the streets to provide some semblance of protection, but the people do not trust the military, which was responsible for more than half of the atrocities during the war. Public lynchings of suspected criminals in villages are a common sign that the people do not trust the government's judicial or security apparatuses and, in many cases, have not been shown a model of effective, reliable and peaceful conflict resolution.
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