Disappeared But Not Forgotten: A Guatemalan Community Achieves a Landmark Verdict
On August 31, 2009 a tribunal in Chimaltenango, Guatemala, sentenced former military commissioner Felipe Cusanero Coj to 150 years in prison. Cusanero’s conviction for surreptitiously kidnapping and murdering six Guatemalan citizens in the early 1980s, keeping their whereabouts and fate concealed, marks the first time in Guatemalan history that a court has found a member of the military guilty of a crime against humanity.
As Mexico continues to be plagued by organized crime, governmental corruption and high unemployment, citizens look forward to the 2012 presidential elections. Due to it’s position as a recipient of federal funds never accounted for, but assumed diverted to the governor’s pocket, the poor state of Oaxaca emerges in a position to have a powerful financial effect on deciding who will be Mexico’s next president. 