Security & Strategic Review December 2007 (ISSN 1741-4202)

President-elect Álvaro Colom promised during his campaign that within eight months of taking office he would be able to guarantee better public security and improved living conditions. This is a pledge he will be hard-pressed to fulfil. Though the number of homicides in Guatemala has actually been declining, it is still at twice the level recorded in 1999. Guatemala's murder rate is now the second-highest in Central America, the security and political establishments are deeply infiltrated by organised crime, and the law-enforcement agencies are seriously under-equipped and understaffed.

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