Pubdate: Tue, 17 May 2011 Source: Wall Street Journal (US) Copyright: 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Contact: http://www.wsj.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487 Author: Jose De CorDoba DRUG GANG BLAMED FOR GUATEMALA MASSACRE MEXICO CITY-Guatemalan officials said Monday that Mexico's most brutal drug cartel was responsible for the killing and decapitation of at least 27 people, the country's worst massacre since the end of its civil war. Carlos Menocal, Guatemala's interior minister, blamed the Zetas, who Mexican authorities say are also responsible for much of that country's most heinous violence, including the August massacre of 72 migrants, and the deaths of at least 183 people kidnapped, killed and buried in mass graves found in the state of Tamaulipas on Mexico's gulf coast in April. A 23-year-old man, stabbed in the stomach, and left for dead, had survived the attack, playing dead for hours, said the Associated Press, who spoke to him. Most of the victims worked as day laborers on a dairy ranch that Guatemala news reports said belonged to a man named Otto Salguero in the Peten area, by the Mexican border. The massacre's perpetrators wrote messages in blood saying they were looking for Mr. Salguero, Guatemalan news reports said. Mr. Menocal reportedly said Mr. Salguero, whose whereabouts are unknown, was not known to be involved in criminal activities. The massacre recalls the worst days of Guatemala's 36-year-old civil war, ended in 1996, in which tens of thousands died and massacres were common, said Sandino Asturias, a security consultant at Guatemala's Center of Guatemalan Studies. "This is a throwback to our dark and nefarious past," Mr. Asturias said. He urged to government to act promptly to solve the crime. "This shows how the state has been weakened to the point where such a massacre can occur in Peten, the department with the greatest military presence in Guatemala." Pressured by the Mexican government as well as competing drug cartels, the Zetas, once the enforcers of Mexico's Gulf Cartel, have moved in force to Guatemala in the last three years. In January, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom declared a state of siege in Alta Veracruz province, which also borders Mexico and lies directly south of the Peten, sending 600 soldiers to try to root out the Zetas. On Monday, Mr. Colom said he would consider placing the province of Peten under a state of emergency. The state of emergency in neighboring Alta Veracruz was lifted in February. As the Mexican government pressures the cartels they have moved into Guatemala, which has become the source for 70% of the drugs which enters Mexico en route to the U.S., said George Grayson, an expert on Latin America at William and Mary College who has written a book on the Zetas. Mr. Grayson said the Zetas have a long-standing relationship with former Guatemalan special forces known as Kaibiles, who developed a reputation for brutality during the civil war. Some Kaibiles, who specialize in counter-insurgency operations and jungle warfare, have been trainers for the Zetas, Mexican officials have said. The increasing influence of the Zetas in Guatemala poses a difficult challenge to the weak and corrupt Guatemalan state, Mr. Grayson said. "They are overmatched," he said. The Zetas, now believed to number more than 3,000, started as a group of about three dozen Mexican army special forces deserters, most of whom are now dead or in prison, who went to work for the Gulf drug cartel more than a decade ago. But since last year, the Zetas, who split with the Gulf Cartel, have been fighting a bloody turf war with their former employers for control of drug routes along Mexico's northeast border with the U.S. The war between the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel has turned Mexican border cities like Matamoros, Reynosa and Laredo into a no-man's land where the Mexican government exerts little control. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D