As with many third world countries, Guatemala has a great deal corruption among its law enforcement agents.
Tonight, I was having some Gauchitos (hamburgers sold on the streets) with a couple of my friends in the park. Suddenly a couple of cops walk to us and ask us stand up. Here, encounters with the cops are a somewhat frequent so we let them search us and see the contents of our pockets. They see that all three of us carry a mobile phone. They realize they haven’t found anything illegal and we were all carrying our IDs. So they begin to cite a bullshit law saying that we need to carry our phonecards with the phone at all times. By now they’ve decided they either want to take our phones or some bribe money. We argue for a while and a cop pushes my friend. I realize I don’t want take this shit anymore so I call my father who works for the embassy. They talk and they return our phones and go on their way with the tail between their legs. If my father didn’t work embassy, they would’ve taken our mobile phones or whatever money we had. Another funny part of this story is that after we saw that one of the cops had a mobile phone of his own we asked for the number and his name. We use one of our phones to call him and get the operator recording telling us that the phone number doesn’t exist. So we enquire about his phone. Now he fervently claims he never had a phone, when he was using it (or pretending to) a couple of minutes ago.
But corruption can also work to our advantage, since I enjoy smoking marijuana every once in a while (I believe it should be legal but that’s another issue entirely) and they have caught me before. Similar routine, except they come on stronger with their scare tactics. But these intimidating cops become extremely friendly once someone pulls out their wallet. In one instance, they offered to sell us back our weed.
I am not making any of this up. It’s blatant corruption. Anyone who has lived here can tell you. It’s sad really but as you can tell from the anecdote above it’s worked to my advantage, for better or worse.
I dealt with the same thing in Peru. While on one hand its very annoying having to deal with them when they are just trying to extort money from you when you’ve done nothing, on the other hand getting out of minor infractions at one tenth the cost and without the hassle (paying for say… a speeding ticket would take a whole day of waiting in line) is nice. If you are get scot free on marijuana charges even once in your life i’d wouldn’t complain about being hassled once in a while, i’m sure you rather lose your phone than go to a guatemalan prison.
Apos: Not only am I not a Guatemalan (didn’t the embassy part imply something?), your statement wouldn’t be valid even if I was. Most of the presidents of Guatemala were saints (from their recorded history at least) until they go into office. And Portillo is not a genocidal maniac, just a money laundering low life.
I don’t think in third world countries the electorial system is quite fair. Corruption in those countries buy votes. Shit the U.S. can’t even get the voting right and we’re supposed to be “#1”.
If you have ever been to Mexico, the federalies are terrible. Last time I went I spent $50 on food and drinks for a weekend. On the police I spent $100. And that was just me. Everyone else in my group coughed up as much over the weekend. And it had nothing to do with marijuana(although it was there). It has to do with being a Gringo(whitey) in Mexico. I guess even though we are the major source of money, we’re still agianst the law.
It’s federales, and that’s why you keep your money in at least a few different places–so when you pull your wallet out, shaking and groveling for forgiveness ;), it looks like you are giving them all you have, but you still have cabfare/whatever in your front pocket/shoe/orifice of choice.
I bet some press in Guatemala said so, but no, in 1982 he gained power following a military coup, another coup got rid of him in 1983, still, he had enough time to kill thousands.
Now that you mention this guy, it is my sad duty to report an ugly news flash:
Notice how the American administration says it would be “difficult”, but with this administration, I bet some way will be found. :rolleyes:
The election will be on November 9th, you may wonder why a troglodyte like him will have a chance to win, but the sad reality is, that while we in the US wonder or discuss if the media is conservative or liberal, in many Latin-American countries it is a fact that the mainstream media is right wing to the extreme.
Re-reading my post, the fact i enjoy smoking pot shows in my grammar :smack:.
Read_Neck That’s what it’s called around here too.
Arnold Winkelried You obviously didn’t look rich enough for these guys ;). Or more likely it wasn’t obvious that you were foreign or you didn’t hang out at suspicious places where they would find you alone. Sometimes cops are no better than muggers.
Wow! Great memories of Guatemala! I was there in 1976 after the earthquake. The PMA cops were on every corner with submachine guns, but were usually no problem unless you were running. The local cops, I see, haven’t changed a bit. I got shaken down for driving wrong way on a one-way. He wanted $10 and I only had a $20. He says “No problemo, I get you change”. And did. We used to go to the soccer games every Sunday, drink nickel beer, and then go out to the lake (Atitlan?) with our girlfriends (mine was Nicaraguan) for shrimp, Cabro and music. Great climate, great people. Loved it.
