Mob Justice in Guatemala

September 25, 2007

GUATEMALA CITY—On Feb. 8, residents of Sayaxché, 373 miles north of Guatemala City on the Rio Pasión, not trusting local authorities to catch armed robbers operating in their jungle community, took justice into their own hands. Miguel Sub Icó, 38, and his sons Mario and Carlos Sub Caal, 17 and 16, were killed by neighbors armed with guns and machetes who discovered the men assaulting motorists, reported a UN official present at the crime scene.

Some 300 people had threatened to lynch the alleged robbers two days earlier. They turned two suspects over to the police, but Sub Icó and his sons escaped. The UN official said the community was frustrated by the police's failure to act and killed the men before they could escape again.

Vigilante justice has increased at an alarming rate since the 1996 Peace Accords ended 36 years of civil war. The UN Mission to Guatemala (MINUGUA) reported 337 lynchings or attempted lynchings in the last five years, usually administered by setting the victims on fire. In 2000, there were 52 incidents of vigilante justice, resulting in 32 deaths.

Some 64% of lynchings take place in rural, indigenous communities, but despite popular perception that the phenomenon comes from Mayan culture, lynching is not a part of indigenous law. Traditionally, robbers are freed after jail or community service, according to a publication on Mayan law by the National Coordinator of Mayan People's Organizations (COPMAGUA).

Lynching is better understood as a legacy of the civil war, in which indigenous communities were hardest hit by violence and militarized by the army's counterinsurgency campaign against leftist guerrillas. The army instilled a culture of violence and eroded indigenous law. The dismantling of military leadership after the war created an authority vacuum that democracy has been slow to replace said one UN official.

Sociologist Paul Kobrak says vigilante justice is more likely to result in death in towns further from the capital and authorities. Communities lynch to deter future criminals, and according to Kobrak, it apparently works. "Crime routinely goes way down after a lynching; communities say it's a last resort," he said.

The Judiciary is conducting lynching-prevention workshops in municipalities, but given the misery into which most of the country has sunk, and the breakdown of legal institutions, it is an uphill task. As COPMAGUA representative Juan Loarca said, "Until the state improves the justice system and indigenous law is widely recognized, nothing will change."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Megan Feldman is an editor and writer for Central America Report, based in Guatemala City

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