DRUG WAR IS OVERWHELMING GUATEMALA

Murder Of Politicians By Police Just Latest Indication Of Challenge

Guatemala City (AP) - Guatemala knows it is losing the battle against
drug trafficking - its police, military and justice system are
beholden to traffickers who use the country as a way station for
Colombian drug shipments to the U.S.

In a case that has laid bare the extent of corruption in the Central
American nation, FBI agents are trying to help discover who ordered
the murders of three Salvadoran politicians and the Guatemalan police
officers who said they were told to kill them.

The killings and apparent cover-up has exposed the seemingly
insurmountable challenges President Oscar Berger faces as he tries to
regain control of a defiant and even criminal police force.

"We were shocked by the brutality of the killings, but it was really
no surprise to us that organized crime has infiltrated the
government," Vice President Eduardo Stein said.

FBI officials met with Guatemalan and Salvadoran authorities last
week to discuss the case of the three slain politicians and to offer
the help of six forensic scientists, who are to arrive this week.
They "will help us in every aspect of the investigation, from crime
scene evidence collection to the tests that we need to run," lead
prosecutor Alvaro Matus said.

Many suspect the nation's powerful drug gangs are behind the Feb. 19
killings of three Salvadoran members of the Central American
Parliament and their driver, whose charred bodies were dumped just
outside the capital.

Four police officers, including the head of the Guatemalan National
Police, confessed to the killings after a satellite transponder in
their unmarked squad car put them at the scene of the crime. But
before they could testify against anyone else, they were killed
inside their cells.

Witnesses said masked gunmen from outside the prison stormed the
high-security facility; another theory is that imprisoned gang
members carried out the slayings using weapons hidden inside their cells.

Guatemalan officials have detained two dozen guards and the prison's
director for questioning, fired the head of the criminal
investigations unit and forced the country's second-highest police
official to resign. But they appear no closer to identifying who
ordered the string of killings.

Asks Bush for aid

Berger says he needs more help in fighting organized crime and will
ask President Bush when he visits March 12 to provide U.S.
helicopters, planes and radar equipment.

The U.S. government complains that three-quarters of the cocaine
reaching U.S. consumers moves through Guatemala. Traffickers use
speed boats and planes to carry tons of drugs along the narrow
Central American isthmus, dropping off shipments in the Guatemalan
jungle before sneaking them into Mexico and up across the U.S. border.

Guatemala relies on a U.S. system of radar-equipped planes to track
these drug shipments, but much of those resources have been
redirected to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And even when
radar does detect traffickers, Guatemala lacks planes and helicopters
to intercept the drugs.

Berger took office three years ago promising to reverse the drug
policies of his predecessor, Alfonso Portillo, whose lack of action
against smuggling prompted Washington to drop Guatemala from its list
of anti-narcotics allies. But interdictions fell sharply last year to
620 pounds of cocaine, compared with more than nine tons in 2003 and
four tons in 2004.

Police purged

Guatemalan authorities argue that seizures are not a good measure of
their anti-drug efforts because in the past, traffickers have offered
corrupt authorities huge amounts of cocaine to stage busts.

Guatemala has tried to change that by purging police forces -
including its elite anti-narcotics unit. In 2005, the group's
director, Adan Castillo, was arrested in Virginia for conspiring to
import cocaine to the U.S. and his 401 agents were given drug and lie
detectors tests. Only 50 passed.

Part of the problem is a culture of violence, fueled in part by youth
gangs that flourished here after their members were deported from Los
Angeles, and a brutal civil war that ended 10 years ago and claimed
more than 200,000 lives, mostly civilian. Many allege the death
squads during the nearly four-decade conflict live on, inside the
nation's police forces.

National Police director Erwin Sperissen says anti-corruption efforts
are further complicated because judges often reinstate police
officers who have been fired, creating a revolving door of impunity.

In an attempt to counteract that, Guatemala and the United Nations
are working to create an International Commission Against Impunity in
Guatemala, an independent office that would use foreign investigators
to investigate organized crime and police agencies corrupted by
criminal organizations. Guatamala's Congress must still approve the
U.S.-backed proposal.

At the U.S. government's request, the Guatemalan Congress has passed
laws to strengthen law enforcement's investigative abilities, such as
allowing undercover agents and phone taps. Guatemala's Interior
Ministry has yet to implement the measures, however.