The Reign of Chaos

Chaos is the perfect word to describe the situation we are currently living in Guatemala City.
Just in the past week so many horrible things have happened that its hard to believe we have to keep on standing.
The things we hear, see and read every single day are just enough to make anyone feel helpless and vulnerable and simply frightened.

Impunity in this country has reached a level that seems unbelievable. This has become a city were around 15-17 violent deaths are reported EVERY DAY. Now any day can be your last day, you just pray the Lord to keep your loved ones and yourself and leave your home with the huge weight of worries hoping to see them all safe when you come back.
Since the start of year 2009, more than 30 bus drivers have been murdered, that is without counting the victims of the lost bullets in the shootings. Amongst these innocent people we can now count a 2 month old baby boy that was hit in the abdomen by a lost bullet and died that same day in a national hospital. I am happy to say at least one of the men that caused this deaths were captured. But here that can't be much of a consolation since most of the criminals are released 1 or 2 days later. After paying a certain amount of money they remain free on bail.
What kind of sick authorities do we have? Allowing murderers, rapists, drug dealers, thiefs and kidnappers walk out of jail as if they had done anything wrong?

We have heard so many times of people calling the police to report a robbery, a kidnapping or any kind of criminal activity and either the police never shows up or if they do they come too late. We all wonder if they actually care a tiny bit about the safety of the nation or are they as the rest of the people in the government just worried about how they are going to get their pockets filled with money?

All of this has left us living a collective psychosis, we are afraid to drive our cars with the windows open or even ride a public bus because there reports of 200 robberies EVERY DAY.

We no longer trust anyone else besides our family members because we no longer know if that person is going to kidnap you later or break into your house to steal or if you can get into a fight with they could send assassins to kill you or somebody else in your family. Could they do that? In a place were they have found entire families killed and women chopped in pieces, teenagers shot dead when they were going home after church... with no suspects... I think they could.

A couple of weeks ago a teacher was brutally murder by his students, he work in a detention center for teenagers. They were pissed off after an inspection and the teachers always waited a couple of days so the interns would calm down, but this time some of the teachers decided not to wait and entered the place to do their jobs. After a few minutes they found themselves trapped in the middle of a riot. The prisoners had said what they were capable to do and under the lens of the media they chose their victim, first they hit him to death and then opened his chest, took his heart and intestins out and they threw them against the gratings... and that is not it, after they did this they DANCED around the body!

The police later said that the ones that comited this atrocity are 20 year olds that belonged to some of the worst gangs ("maras"). What are this men doing among 13 to 18 year olds? What are they learning from those psycopaths?

What kind of savages are we raising? Aren't they supposed to be rehabilitated in these places?

How can this be happening? How much longer are we going to have to take it?

Then the president shows up on tv and in the radio blamming the past governments and saying there are organized crime groups trying to destabilize HIS government instead of offering reassurement or at least one good plan to stop this horrible violence.

Believe me we are not going to stand this for much longer. Guatemalans are used to be stepped over by the ones with power but we are being pushed to our limits and we can not stand watching 2 month old babies or anyone else dying victim of drug cartels of whatever it is that is causing this chaos.

Pacific marches are being organized and everyone is finally starting to raise their voices in the hopes of PEACE for Guatemala. We are not giving up, we are not going to bend because of the fear or intimidation anymore.

If you are reading this PLEASE pray so Guatemalans can finally find some peace and hope and for the ones whose lives were taken.