VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHGT #1579/01 3590927
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 240927Z DEC 08
FM AMEMBASSY GUATEMALA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6690
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE
RUEHME/AMEMBASSY MEXICO 5044

UNCLAS GUATEMALA 001579 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR G/IWI AND G/TIP 
DEPT PASS TO USAID FOR LAC/CAM EBOSTIC 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV KCRM SOCI KWMN ASEC ELAB ECON GT
SUBJECT: POVERTY AND VIOLENCE PLAGUE GUATEMALA CITY'S ZONE 7 
 
REF: A. GUATEMALA 1468 
     ¶B. GUATEMALA 771 
     ¶C. GUATEMALA 1517 
     ¶D. GUATEMALA 1364 
 
¶1. Summary: On December 11, poloffs toured a 10-kilometer 
stretch of Guatemala City's Zone 7, considered a dangerous 
"red zone" of high criminal activity, and met with 
government, NGO and community representatives to better 
understand the issues affecting this marginalized portion of 
the capital.  Begun as 47 illegal settlements of tin-roof 
dwellings in the aftermath of Guatemala's 1976 earthquake, 
this portion of Zone 7 has remained a non-transient community 
where - 32 years later - most residents still remain.  While 
40 out of the original 47 settlements have been legalized and 
two-story concrete homes dot the landscape where tin roofs 
once predominated, endemic problems of security, intra-family 
violence, and poverty continue to plague this 10-kilometer 
stretch of Zone 7, known to local residents as the peninsula. 
 The Ministry of Agriculture recently implemented an urban 
agriculture program designed to decrease hunger in the area, 
and community organizations have attempted to tackle the 
problems that plague the peninsula, with some success. 
However, scarce funding for community organizations limits 
their ability to more greatly address these crucial problems. 
 End Summary. 
 
Crime A Daily Part of Zone 7 Life 
--------------------------------- 
¶2. According to Jhomwanny Fuentes Lopez, Deputy Director of 
the National Civil Police (PNC), approximately 60 percent of 
the peninsula's population are members of the 18th Street 
Gang or Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), although Fuentes believes 
that gang-related problems are more prevalent in other 
sectors of Guatemala City, such as Zone 18 (Ref A).  Children 
and adolescents comprise a majority of the peninsula's 
population of 250,000, according to Fabiola Gonzalez, Social 
Coordinator in the Office of the Assistant Mayor, which may 
help to explain the high rate of gang membership.  Robberies 
are a part of daily life in the peninsula, according to 
Fuentes, and drug distribution is also a major problem. 
Fuentes expressed frustration at lax laws and inadequate 
prison sentences that allow criminals to quickly pass through 
the justice system and return to their lives of crime, making 
it difficult for the PNC to have a positive impact on crime 
reduction. 
 
¶3. Deputy Director Fuentes also stated that criminals are 
better armed than are PNC officers and lamented the limited 
resources and personnel available to his team.  According to 
Fuentes, 25 police officers - less than half the number that 
should be available as mandated by law - staff his police 
station responsible for patrolling the El Amparo section of 
the peninsula, which has a population of 23,860.  After 
accounting for vacations and other administrative absences, 
there is one officer patrolling the streets of El Amparo at 
any given time.  According to Karina Melendez, Executive 
Director of the Institute for Social Cooperation (ICOS), an 
NGO based on the peninsula, there are typically two daily 
assaults on delivery trucks providing water, gas and other 
services to the peninsula and gang members demand that these 
drivers pay an extortion fee or "tax" to be allowed entrance 
into the community. 
 
Violence Against Women Prevalent 
-------------------------------- 
¶4. According to PNC Deputy Director Fuentes, the majority of 
calls that the El Amparo police station receives concern 
aggression against women, particularly intra-family violence. 
Qaggression against women, particularly intra-family violence. 
 Although the police station receives approximately 25 calls 
regarding aggression against women daily, the Ministry of 
Government has provided no specialized training to the PNC of 
El Amparo to help women who are victims of crime.  According 
to ICOS Executive Director Melendez, intra-family violence is 
the most common issue that the organization's psychologist 
and therapist find among community members that participate 
in ICOS programs.  Melendez explained that mothers who are 
victims of violence are often the perpetrators of violence 
against their children, making it difficult to break the 
cycle of intra-family violence.  ICOS programs include 
counseling to mothers on how to respond to their children 
non-violently. 
 
¶5. According to Gonzalez of the Assistant Mayor's office, the 
local government has organized support programs for female 
victims of crime and 40 individuals have requested assistance 
from a recently established Doctors Without Borders program 
for female victims in the less than two months that the 
program has operated.  According to Melendez, it is well 
known that a sexual trafficking center exists in the La 
Bethania section of the peninsula and in a separate 
subsequent conversation, Jose Marroquin of the National 
Commission for Support to the Strengthening of the Justice 
Sector (CNSAFJ), indicated that a disproportionate number of 
female trafficking victims come from the peninsula area of 
Zone 7. 
 
First Lady Focuses on the Poor 
------------------------------ 
¶6. According to Gonzalez, most of the peninsula's residents 
live in "extreme poverty" and a majority of residents 
participate in the informal economy as street vendors in 
other zones of Guatemala City, making their incomes sporadic 
and their family's ability to regularly purchase food 
increasingly difficult.  On September 16, the Ministry of 
Agriculture (MAGA) established an urban agriculture program 
for settlements in Zone 7 to help address the area's urban 
poverty.  The MAGA program is intended to complement First 
Lady Sandra Torres de Colom's Social Cohesion Council's 
"Solidarity Baskets" program, which provides basic food 
supplies to urban families living in extreme poverty.  (Note: 
Ref B provides additional information on the First Lady's 
poverty-reduction programs.  End Note.) 
 
¶7. Through the MAGA program, families that have already been 
chosen as beneficiaries of the "Solidarity Baskets" receive 
four boxes of organic soil, a variety of vegetable seedlings, 
and technical assistance on how to grow the vegetables. 
According to Gerardo Garcia, Coordinator of MAGA's Organic 
Production Unit, the urban agriculture project has a total 
budget of Q9.8 million (USD 1.3 million) to service 105 
settlements in Guatemala City (out of a total of 350) that 
the Social Cohesion Council has determined are priority 
areas.  As of December 11, a total of 11,526 families in 
Guatemala City had benefited from the project in five of the 
capital's most impoverished zones.  (Note: Zones 18, 12 and 7 
are three of the five zones that have benefited from the 
urban agriculture project.  Ref A has additional reporting on 
Zone 18 and upcoming septel reporting will focus on Zone 12. 
End Note.) 
 
¶8. Brenda Castellanos,  beneficiary of the MAGA program, 
praised the program's effectiveness in helping her community 
to progress by giving them access to vegetables that had 
become unaffordable with the tightening economy and 
increasing market prices.  Castellanos also expressed 
gratitude for de Colom's influence and stated that under the 
First Lady's leadership, "it was the first time that someone 
remembered the poor."  Through the program, according to 
Castellanos, women have also had an increasingly important 
role in their communities and within their families since 
they are often responsible for planting and caring for the 
vegetables. 
 
Community Organizations Provide Refuge 
-------------------------------------- 
¶9. Community members of El Amparo and La Bethania have joined 
together through organizations such as the Institute for 
Social Cooperation (ICOS), the Association for the Prevention 
of Crime (APREDE), and the Group to Strengthen and Improve El 
Amparo (GESA), in an attempt to develop positive programs in 
their communities.  ICOS, the only NGO located in the El 
Amparo section of the peninsula, provides labor training and 
social services for the peninsula's children and adults with 
the goal of reducing poverty among the population, preventing 
at-risk minors from joining criminal gangs, and providing 
counseling to help reduce intra-family violence. 
Qcounseling to help reduce intra-family violence. 
 
¶10. ICOS provides technical training in carpentry, 
shoe-making and bakery for children from ten to 17 years old 
and its "Community Kitchen Project" teaches women how to 
improve their families' caloric intake, as well as how to 
make and package pastries that can then be sold within the 
community for additional income.  ICOS also provides a small 
library with computers that are connected to the Internet and 
its staff includes a psychologist and a therapist.  The idea, 
according to Melendez, is to provide comprehensive training 
that includes family values and self-esteem, as well as 
technical training that allows participants to be "productive 
within their communities."  Approximately 1,000 children 
participate in ICOS's programs each year. 
 
¶11. The ICOS facilities provide one of only two green spaces 
in the entire ten-kilometer space that comprises the 
peninsula and, according to one community member, ICOS is an 
"oasis on the peninsula," providing a refuge for children 
from the often-dangerous realities of their daily lives and 
skills that can lead to greater economic opportunities.  One 
mother recounted how her 23-year old son now works in 
carpentry, has never been a member of the 18th Street Gang or 
the MS-13, and provides money for his siblings to remain in 
school. 
 
¶12. The limitations of ICOS and the reality of scarce access 
to higher education for peninsula residents remain, however. 
Most mothers were extraordinarily grateful if their children 
managed to complete the sixth grade and almost no one spoke 
of graduating from high school.  According to community 
members, most youth, after completing elementary school, 
aimed to attend the Technical Institute for Training and 
Productivity (INTECAP), a technical institute funded by the 
private sector.  USAID funds helped ICOS initiate its 
operations on the peninsula fourteen years ago and ICOS 
received Q1 million (USD 133,000) through the Ministry of 
Education in 2008.  However, the GOG will not provide any 
funds to the organization in 2009, according to Melendez, and 
they may be forced to scale back their efforts. 
 
¶13. APREDE, a social organization with limited resources, 
works with actual gang members to convince them to leave gang 
membership.  APREDE works with GESA, another community 
organization that has been working in the peninsula for 23 
years to provide recreational activities for at-risk youth as 
a preventive measure against joining gangs.  GESA receives no 
funding from the GOG and must raise funds for each 
recreational activity that it organizes.  However, it has 
partnered with the Ministry of Sports and Culture to provide 
training for activities ranging from soccer to karate. 
 
¶14. Comment: Aggression against women, especially 
intra-family violence, continues to be a serious problem in 
Guatemala.  Programs and services such as the recently 
inaugurated 1571 hotline (Ref C), attempt to help female 
victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and other forms 
of physical violence.  However, as demonstrated by this visit 
to Zone 7, much more needs to be done to address this issue. 
With most of the peninsula's residents already living in 
extreme poverty, a tightening of the economy puts further 
pressure on this impoverished urban population, most of whom 
must resort to eking out a living in the informal sector. 
Government programs that address issues of poverty are a 
positive and much-needed step for Zone 7 residents.  However, 
to garner greater support from civil society and Congress, 
these programs must be executed with transparency (Ref D). 
The peninsula's sense of community helps it to tackle social, 
economic, and security problems.  However, scarce funding for 
community organizations limits their ability to better 
address these problems.  In the same vein, the need for 
additional police -- and for police who can work with the 
community -- is great.  The Embassy is encouraging the GOG to 
increase quickly the size of the national police force in 
order to better serve communities that, like Zone 7, are very 
insecure. 
McFarland