Drug lords hold Guatemala hostage

Guatemala is soon to become - if it has not already - Latin America's first narco-state, according to prosecutors who are leading the fight against mafia activity in the country. "Guatemala is a small nation with a long tradition of corruption and an economy so weak - the tax burden is less than 10 percent of GDP - that it cannot develop social policies," one prosecutor said.

Organized crime has taken over the sectors abandoned by the state, and public support for traffickers isn't rare. In a recent EL PAÍS interview, President Álvaro Colom said: "I can assure you, without the fear of being mistaken, that the previous government planned to deliver this country to narco-traffickers."

According to prosecutors, Guatemala is run by two local criminal organizations, which are trying to keep the Mexican cartel Los Zetas from invading the country. But the Zetas have already set up operations based on extortion and murder in the north of the country. Last month - and only a few days after the beheadings of 27 farmers in the Petén department - the Zetas killed again. This time it was the assistant prosecutor in Cobán, Alta Verapaz department.

"The two crimes were well planned," one senior prosecutor told EL PAÍS. "They were separate messages, one for the public and other to the institutions. And I know personally that the fear campaign is already beginning to take effect. There are prosecutors who are resigning and others who are asking for transfers to safer areas."

On a recent Sunday evening, President Colom received in his office a list of 12 names of judges and prosecutors who have a price on their heads. After the president discussed the issue with his Interior Minister Carlos Menocal, he told reporters: "The state does not have the capability to provide an armored car to the each of the judges who have been threatened."

That acknowledgement, according to prosecutors, was a bad sign. "What the government did was to offer these officials as targets. Maybe people don't realize that in Guatemala, and in Central America as a whole, the drug trade is moving very quickly. They'll kill more prosecutors; they will kill more people."