GUATEMALA TARGETS DRUG GANGS AFTER MASSACRE

MEXICO CITY-Guatemalan soldiers searched Tuesday for the culprits of a
massacre in a remote province after the country's president declared a
state of siege there, a sign that Guatemala is escalating its own war
against drug traffickers as violence spills over from Mexico.

The measures came the day after authorities blamed a Mexican drug
cartel called Los Zetas for killing and decapitating 27 people in the
remote El Peten province. Under the state of siege, security forces
may conduct searches and make arrests without warrants, confiscate
weapons and break up groups seen as subversive.

"Guatemala must take on this aggression, aggression which is not just
aimed at this country, but also at the entire region," President
Alvaro Colom said in a televised speech announcing the state of siege.
In an interview with local radio, the president promised to make
"important arrests" related to the massacre in the next 48 hours.

Photographs published by the local press showed a military tank in the
El Peten town of Santa Elena as camouflaged soldiers patrolled a
nearby street.

The moves marked the second time in recent months that Mr. Colom
declared a state of siege in efforts to combat Mexican traffickers,
suggesting Guatemala could be gearing up for the kind of fight against
gangs that Mexico began in 2006. In that time, nearly 40,000 people
have died in drug-related violence in Mexico.

In December, Mr. Colom ordered 600 soldiers into the central Alta
Verapaz province where he said outside drug groups were beginning to
operate. The operation ended in February.

Sandino Asturias, a security expert in Guatemala City, warned that El
Peten is a far larger and more unstable region than Alta Verapaz,
something that could complicate the security forces' chances of
success there. He said warrantless searches and detentions also mean
prosecutors often lack evidence when it comes time to prosecute
suspected drug traffickers. "The state of siege is not the solution,"
he said.

El Peten has long been a hot spot for drug trafficking, say Guatemalan
and U.S. authorities, a remote jungle area in the country's north,
home to few security forces or major cities. In recent years, many
airstrips and abandoned planes have been found in the region,
suspected to be involved in trafficking from Colombia and Venezuela.

Its border with Mexico is largely unpatrolled, making it a prime point
for human trafficking, another racket of organized crime groups. On
Tuesday, Mexican authorities said they had detained 513 immigrants,
many from Central America, on the Mexican side of the border being
held in "inhuman conditions" inside a U.S.-bound tractor trailer.

The area is also key to Guatemalan tourism, the home of the popular
Mayan ruins like Tikal.

The Sunday killings rocked Guatemala, a violent country, but one where
such massacres are rare. Most of the victims had worked as day
laborers in a dairy ranch known as "Los Cocos," according to news
reports, and the perpetrators had written messages in blood that they
were looking for the ranch owner.

As Mexico has stepped up its crackdown against its own drug cartels,
experts say they have expanded their operations into neighboring Guatemala.

"Guatemala possesses many essential features of an ideal transshipment
point...accessibility by drug trafficking organizations via air and
sea; weak public institutions; endemic corruption; and vast ungoverned
spaces along its borders," according to a 2011 State Department report
on drugs.