Reacting swiftly to two violent murders Friday, Sololá residents hours later lynched three people allegedly responsible, destroying government offices, the police station, three police vehicles and a taxi in the process.
In recent years, criminal gangs have targeted Guatemalan bus drivers for extortion, often exacting a lethal price when drivers refuse to pay.
On Friday, this bloody poison touched Sololá for the first time, leaving a local bus driver and a passenger dead less than a mile from where I lived last year. The bus, traveling down a steep hill, might have plunged off a cliff and left more dead (including a friend’s brother) had it not struck a telephone pole.
In 2008, about 147 Guatemalan bus drivers were killed. According to one published account, there have been 199 bus drivers and assistants murdered this year, mostly near the capital.
As in recent years, Sololá’s strongly traditional Mayan townspeople took matters into their own hands, showing no confidence — with good reason, unfortunately — in the national authorities to administer justice.
The suspects’ ill-conceived getaway plan proved to be their downfall. After they shot and killed the bus driver, Helmer Augusto de León García, 32, and passenger Marvin Gonzáles (the son of a former Sololá pastor), the alleged killers attempted to flee in a taxi. Townspeople somehow learned of this and managed to capture them before police intervened.
Police placed the three — two men and a woman — under arrest, transferring them to the town jail, but that turned out not to be a safe place. As the town’s informal justice system swung quickly into action, locals blockaded all roads in and out of Sololá. A mob somewhere between 300 and 3,000 demanded police turn over the trio, showing they meant business by overturning and torching three police pick-up trucks and the getaway taxi.
A palpable fear hung over the town. It was market day, when farmers and vendors crowd into town from the surrounding hillsides to sell their goods, but by the afternoon they had fled, leaving the market square strangely empty. My friend Jose was trying to give a seminar at Viña Studios on audio-video production to visitors from Peru, Ecuador and the States, and had to take measures to protect his guests and property. He lives just blocks from downtown and expressed relief that his children were with him at work that day.
Police tried to control the crowd, lobbing tear gas canisters. Police positioned themselves in front of the police station and atop nearby two-story buildings. Their efforts proved futile.
The mob set fire to the police station and the local government office, gutting both buildings. By some miracle, none of the 38 or more prisoners inside the town jail were killed or asphyxiated by the blaze.
Authorities may have been frightened at seeing their offices ablaze because not long after that, the alleged killers appeared in front of the green and yellow Wal-Mart-owned grocery store, La Dispensa Familiar, which, along with other businesses had closed down because of the tumult.
The mob took over, beating the suspects unconscious, dousing them with gasoline and setting them on fire by the central park, where buses park to wait for passengers.
They were identified by the Prensa Libre as Edwin Rivas Viña, 29, Lilian Mabel Ovalle Gonzales, 21, and Geyson Omar López García, 16, all apparently from Zone 6 or 7 of Guatemala City.
Friends here often ask me, why bus drivers? They’re not the only ones killed or targeted for extortion. I think there are around 10 to 15 murders a day in Guatemala.
But bus drivers are relatively easy, defenseless targets, and the killings always result in high-profile news, striking fear into hearts across the country. Some gangs also apparently use the killings as an initiation into the ranks.
If you think of it, please pray for the country. Average Guatemalans are plagued by all-too-common violence, and no matter who is elected the politicians have proven powerless to provide security.
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(This report and its images were compiled from reports in the Prensa Libre, Sololatecos.com, Noti5 TV of Sololá and from friends' accounts.)
Here are a couple of links to Spanish-language video reports of the day’s events. (WARNING: they show some very disturbing images.)
Print reports:
- Latin America Herald — "Three Suspected Criminals Lynched in Guatemala"
- BBC News — “Pay up or die: Guatemala City bus drivers targeted”
- Prensa Libre — “Linchan a dos adultos…”
- Prensa Libre — “Sololá empieza el fin de semana con las secuelas de linchamiento”
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