prosecutors don't have life insurance at the moment
The increase in the killings of women here recalls the hundreds of slayings of women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, over the last decade. As in crime-ridden Ciudad Juarez, victims' families in Guatemala complain that investigators are overwhelmed, intimidated or simply don't care about bringing killers to justice.
"Some prosecutors don't have the will to investigate," said Sandra Zayas, a special prosecutor whose job is to investigate sex crimes and crimes against children in Guatemala City.
Zayas took on 30 cases of murders of women last year, mostly involving rape and mutilation or multiple, gangland-style slayings. This year, she agreed to add 50 more to her list, some of them cases where regular prosecutors were making no progress.
Out of the 30 cases last year, Zayas successfully ordered arrests in four cases that are about to go to trial.
On top of murder cases, her six assistants and six investigators are also responsible for 120 cases related to the trafficking of children. The investigators have one vehicle to do their work.
"I have told my people, I fear that these (female murder) cases are getting out of control now. I'm not sure we realize the magnitude of what we're dealing with," Zayas said.
The women who have been killed here are often strangled, burned, mutilated by knives or machetes or shot. Zayas is also prosecuting several gang youths accused of raping two sisters, 14 and 11, and cutting them into pieces because the elder girl spurned one of the gang members.
-
U.S. actress Jane Fonda and other activists traveled to Guatemala last December to spotlight the murders.
Guatemala is a nation of extreme inequality - 57 percent of the population is poor _ with a harsh legacy of violence and impunity. During an armed conflict between the early 1960s and 1996, more than 200,000 people died.Thousands are still missing and thousands were massacred during the 1980s, when the U.S.-backed army unleashed a brutal counter-insurgency campaign to root out support for leftist guerrillas.
-
Guatemala's prosecutors don't have life insurance at the moment because the state stopped paying into a fund, so many won't take on the risks of serious investigations, Zayas said.
-
She showed copies of letters she's written to George Bush, Tony Blair, the United Nations and Amnesty International asking for help.
"I am waiting for a miracle from God," Franco said. "Here, there is no justice."
Jennifer Harbury
Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA
