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| Guatemala seeks new jails after clashes |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 08/22/2005 |
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Guatemala wants to build new maximum-security prisons to prevent the kinds of clashes between grenade-tossing gang members that killed at least 35 inmates last week. Interior Minister Carlos Vielmann said he would ask Congress on Tuesday for permission to build the prisons as part of a tough new security law. Hundreds of members of the rival Mara Salvatrucha and Mara 18 gangs attacked each other with grenades, guns and knives in at least six Guatemalan prisons on Monday. Many of the bodies were covered with shrapnel wounds from grenade blasts, and at least one of the dead had his eyes gouged out, witnesses said. The new prisons would be fitted with cameras, metal detectors and mobile phone blockers to prevent inmates from smuggling in weapons and communicating with each other. The battles started after the breakdown of a prison peace pact between the gangs, known as "maras," which have gone on a rampage of theft, murder and rape in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in recent years. Guatemala's prisons are old and badly designed, allowing gang members to smuggle in firearms and run parts of the jail beyond the control of prison guards. Easily available weapons, rampant poverty and a culture of violence left over from a 36-year civil war that ended in 1996 all help make Guatemala, with a population of around 12 million, one of the world's most violent countries. Some 10 people are murdered in the Central American country every day. Critics said that even with a new law, it would be hard for cash-strapped Guatemala to find the resources needed to build and run hi-tech prisons. Marco Antonio Castillo, who runs a drop-in center for gang members in the El Limon shantytown at the edge of Guatemala City, said security forces should have done more to prevent Monday's violence. "The first question is the ease with which the arms entered the prisons. Why did it take so many hours for the police to control the problem? Why did they let it go on for so long?" he asked. |
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