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Weekly Report - 02 December 2010 (WR-10-48)

GUATEMALA : Private security under the spotlight

After more than eight years in the pipeline, Guatemala's congress last week approved a law regulating private security companies. It came just over a week after Carlos Castresana, the former head of the UN-backed anti-impunity commission in Guatemala (Cicig) spoke at a conference on human rights and justice in Madrid in which he identified the proliferation of private security guards as precisely one of the main causes of the continuing security crisis afflicting the country. With many sceptical as to how far the new law will prove effective, the debate surrounding its approval highlights how the privatisation of security in the country is a contributing factor rather than possible solution to the problem of violence.

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