Vigilante Justice

We had some big news in our little town early this week when a "mob" of people torched the car of some suspected kidnappers. As I was walking to the market yesterday I saw a burned up car sitting in the middle of the road. I thought nothing of it (hey, this IS Guatemala), until I saw that same car on the front page of one of our national newspapers the following day (I use "news" loosely when referring to the Diario, which is more like the National Enquirer than the New York Times).

Here's the scoop as far as I can tell: 4 young men tried to rob and kidnap a local chicken vendor. Fortunately for them, they were caught doing this by the Panajachel police and not the locals of Panajachel. I say fortunately because if the locals would have caught the men, what's left of them would likely be sitting charred in their car, which was set on fire soon after the police left the scene. Quite a lot of drama for Pana in one day!

I don't want to make any broad generalizations here, but there are times in Guatemala when locals, especially in the smaller villages, choose to take justice into their own hands. It seems that many Guatemalans do not trust that the authorities will handle matters properly when it comes to crime. On this day, the bad-guys car was just torched, but earlier this year, in the village where we work (Camanchaj), a couple of thieves were caught, beaten, and burned to death. On the upside, there's not much crime in the smaller villages, as you can imagine. However, one could also raise a pretty strong argument against such swift justice, especially when the suspects turn out to be innocent, as I'm sure has been the case on more than one occasion.

Not that I think any of this matters to the Diario, who I think is just happy to put another burning car or bloody body on the front of their paper...

UPDATE...

I just found out today (Saturday) from my friend in town that the car the locals burned up was actually the car of the man who was kidnapped! Doh! Talk about a goof-up in vigilante "justice." Oh well, we in Pana never claimed to be the brightest people, we just live in the most beautiful place. : )

Peace,

Jay