Law and Order

As most of you know, we are big fans of the show Law and Order. We have probably seen all of them at least 3 times (of course when you fall asleep in the last 15 minutes of the show it makes the re-run a lot more interesting).

Anyway, it is evident that our neighbors here in the department of Quiche are also fans of law and order, except it is more of an Outlaw Josey Wales sort. This country is plagued by high crime rates especially from gang and drug violence. But when you add in the fact that there is very little respect for the law and not enough police manpower to enforce the law, many rural communities decide to address the crimes themselves. This occurred last Sunday in the town of Camanchaj, about 30 minutes from us. Three men were accused of kidnapping for ransom a woman and her young daughter, and were beaten until they confessed and then burned alive at the community center. This is called lyinching (linchamiento) and is usually done by a large group of people from the community.

There are actually some blogs and websites dedicated to the study of this phenomenon in Guatemala if you would like to know more.
http://www.nd.edu/~cmendoz1/datos/ (Data of lynchings in Guatemala--tables and charts and articles (one good one in English).
and http://www.linchamientos.blogspot.com/

It is not a black and white issue when you begin to tease apart the problem. There is not enough respect for law or officers of the law here to have an effective justice system. But people are afraid and very intolerant of violent crime in the rural areas--probably stemming from their experiences during the war. So this form of justice becomes prominant. But, it is a system prone to mistakes and prejudices and easily manipulated.

God has a lot to say about how we treat our neighbors. As christians we should set examples of how to love our neighbor as ourselves (Matt 22:36-40), forgive 7 X 7 times (Matt 18: 21-22) and make ourselves slaves to everyone to win as many as possible (I Cor 10:19).