Readers of mainstream U.S. news coverage of Guatemala’s November 2007 presidential election, in which voters handed a comfortable victory to Álvaro Colom Caballeros over Otto Pérez Molina, received a distorted picture of the issues Guatemala faces today. Reports mostly misrepresented the country’s political dynamics and misled the public about the nature of the violence that led to the deaths of more than 50 candidates, activists, and their family members during the campaign season.

The first round of Guatemala’s elections featured a range of candidates from across the political spectrum, including Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tom, who made history by becoming the country’s first indigenous person and first woman to run for president but received surprisingly few votes. The coverage of the second round focused on two candidates. Many left-leaning voters likely chose Álvaro Colom because of his image as the most practical candidate with the best chance of winning the presidency, rather than for his broad following among the left. Regardless, the U.S. press characterized the runoff election as a contest between the left and right.

Coverage inaccurately depicted Guatemala’s political space as being much broader and open to participation than it actually is, with simplified language that portrayed the race as a contest between a “right-wing former general” and a “left-leaning businessman” (Reuters August 8, 2007). However, in 2003 Colom described his National Unity for Hope (UNE) party as “center-right,” according to the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala.¹ And, since winning the election, Colom has said he may enact some of the policies that Pérez Molina proposed during his campaign, like using the military to combat crime.²

Other articles went so far as to depict the elections as dividing Guatemalan society between polemic viewpoints over “how to fight a surge in violent crime” (Reuters November 4, 2007). The Los Angeles Times flatly stated that citizens had to choose “whether the country needs a strongman who will crack down on organized crime or a man of compassion who will lead a regime of tolerance and social justice” (September 11, 2007). This characterization oversimplifies the issue and perpetuates the idea that there are only two means to fighting crime in Guatemala: deploying the military or combating poverty.

Guatemala’s alarming level of violent crime was a constant theme throughout the elections. In the context of the murders of candidates and activists, the U.S. media held firmly to the popularized notion that the violence was the work of “gangs and drug lords” (The New York Times, September 11, 2007). One report stated, “Most of the killings are blamed on violent youth gangs known as maras, or on turf battles between powerful drug cartels” (Time Magazine/CNN, November 3, 2007). But the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA reported that election violence was “deliberately targeted to inspire fear and demonstrate control,” and that “people are dying so that other candidates, with connections to organized crime and drug traffickers, can buy off towns without criticism or opposition.”

A pre-election report prepared by the Congressional Research Service elaborates on the depth of this problem. The report, “Guatemala: 2007 Elections and the Issues for Congress,” states that following the end of the civil war and the 1996 peace accords, “required reforms were not fully implemented and security forces were not purged, leaving intact the institutional framework through which organized crime has infiltrated the political process.” The impunity for former military and police officials responsible for committing the worst atrocities during the war allowed these officials to forge criminal networks along with the country’s corrupt elite, all the while maintaining strong ties to government officials. News reports failed to make the connection between impunity for perpetrators of past human rights crimes and the current level of political violence in Guatemala. One of the most important issues left out of the U.S. coverage is the fact that before the first round of elections, Guatemala’s congress passed a resolution to establish the United Nations–backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). The commission will investigate organized crime with the aim of dismantling the criminal networks and prosecuting the individuals involved in their activities.

Human rights activists expressed concern that in the lead-up to the second round of the elections, both candidates “avoided directly discussing the issue of criminal structures.”³ The U.S. coverage facilitated this by providing little background on the candidates. For example, the press frequently described Pérez Molina as a former military general “allegedly” linked to human rights abuses, but “never charged with war crimes” (Los Angeles Times, September 10, 2007). The article did not mention that not a single military officer has ever been prosecuted for war crimes in Guatemala. The press also omitted important information on Pérez Molina’s alleged role as a leader of El Sindicato, a network of current and retired military officers accused of corruption and of having ties to clandestine criminal groups.⁴ Reports also ignored crucial information on Pérez Molina’s past, like his training at the School of Americas and his tenure as head of Guatemala’s military intelligence in the 1990s, when he is reported to have been a CIA asset.⁵

Instead of addressing Pérez Molina’s controversial history, the media perpetuated the idea that Guatemala could use the mano dura (firm hand) of a former military man to fight crime. A Los Angeles Times article, for example, described how Pérez Molina’s role as the onetime head of “Guatemala’s feared military intelligence unit lent credence to the idea that the organized crime groups will fear him” (September 11, 2007). It also noted the ironic fact that “a series of spectacular killings refocused attention on violence” and that Pérez Molina’s campaign relied exclusively on his “anti-crime message.” However, no one in the U.S. press posed the real question, as the U.K. Telegraph did: “Who has the most to gain from the creating [sic] insecurity in the country? The candidates who say they will bring security back to the country, of course” (Telegraph.co.uk, August 28, 2007).

Coverage of Colom was no better. It similarly left out potentially damaging information about the candidate’s alleged links to drug traffickers and corrupt politicians. News reports potrayed Colom as the representative candidate of the left and described as a “member of a politically active family whose uncle, a former presidential candidate, was assassinated in 1979” (The Washington Post, November 5, 2007). The press left out reports that candidates from Colom’s UNE party had been expelled because of their links to drug cartels.⁶ One of these was Manuel Castillo, who is under investigation for his involvement in the political killing of the three Salvadoran congressmen in February 2007.⁷

The news media also left out the fact that the majority of the targets of political violence are human rights defenders who investigate the state’s links to organized crime, and that violent acts have the objective of silencing the broader community. The narrow coverage of Guatemala’s political violence keeps readers in the dark on the true nature of this violence and does nothing to break this silence.

While the opportunity to cover the importance of the newly established anti-impunity commission in Guatemala within the context of the election was lost, the media has the next two years to report on the work of the CICIG in Guatemala and the epidemic of political violence that specifically targets human rights activists. It would behoove the U.S. news media to broaden its coverage of Guatemala to illuminate these issues.

NOTES
1. Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala. “The Usual Suspects Retain Power: Guatemala Elections 2007,” http://www.nisgua.org/news_analysis/index.asp?id=3006
2. U.S. Department of State. “Security, Crime Are Top Issues Facing New Guatemalan President,” http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/November/200711141605431...
3. Washington Office on Latin America. “The Second Round: A WOLA Memo on Progress and Pending Issues for the Guatemalan Elections,” https://www.wola.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=viewp&id=595&Item...
4. Peacock, Susan C and Adriana Beltrán, “Hidden Powers in post-conflict Guatemala: Illegal Armed Groups and the Forces Behind them,” Washington Office on Latin America. http://www.wola.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=viewp&id=48&Itemid...
5. Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala. “The Usual Suspects Retain Power: Guatemala Elections 2007,” http://www.nisgua.org/news_analysis/index.asp?id=3006
6. Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA “‘No Sé’ Guatemalan 2007 Pre-Elections Report,” GHRC, http://www.ghrc-usa.org/Publications/Publications.htm
7. Latinnews Daily, “Guatemalan deputy linked to Savadorean murders,” July 31, 2007.

Jesse Franzblau is a research associate at the National Security Archive in Washington, DC