Weekly Report - 30 July 2009 (WR-09-30)

Last week thousands of campesinos across Guatemala took to the streets to demand that President Alvaro Colom make good his promises to improve the plight of the rural poor. This is the second such spate of unrest in less than month. With Colom struggling to assert himself amid the instability caused by the events in neighbouring Honduras, the show of discontent from what is purportedly his support base highlights the continued polarisation in the country and the pressures facing the President.