Guatemala drug slayings put pressure on government

By Mica Rosenberg

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemalan President Oscar Berger is struggling to contain fallout from the murders of politicians and policemen in an election-year scandal that has revealed drug gang links to high-level security forces.

In the space of a few days, the nation has been gripped by a saga involving the slaying of three foreign lawmakers, the arrest of a senior detective for the killings and the discovery of prisoners with their throats cut.

The opposition and rights activists hold up the scandal as clear evidence that top officials have allowed shadowy armed groups free rein to kill and smuggle drugs, weapons and people.

Berger, who took office in 2004 promising to clean up corruption in politics, admits his government is reeling.

"I have to confess, the events of recent days have overwhelmed the advances achieved in these years of government," he said this week.

Interior Minister Carlos Vielmann has been under increasing pressure to resign since suspected drug hitmen killed four policemen at a high-security prison last Sunday. They were shot and had their throats cut.

The policemen, including the head of the squad that targets organized crime, had been arrested for the drug-related murders a few days earlier of three Salvadoran members of the Central American parliament whose charred bodies were left on an isolated road.

In a twist to the tale, one of the slain lawmakers was the son of Roberto D'Aubuisson, an infamous 1980s death squad leader during El Salvador's civil war.

"THIS IS ANARCHY"

A candidate for this year's presidential election says groups with links to organized crime operate within the police force and the ministry and were behind the recent killings.

"We can't allow Guatemala to go on in this situation -- this is anarchy," said candidate Otto Perez Molina, a former military intelligence chief running second in opinion polls to center-leftist Alvaro Colom.

The president backs Vielmann but says the minister may have to take a lie detector test.

The scandal is the latest blow to the image of Guatemala, a U.S. partner in a regional trade pact that is still recovering from a 36-year civil war that ended in 1996.

Most cocaine destined for the United States from South America is smuggled through Guatemala, also plagued by youth gangs and police corruption.

Neighboring El Salvador, itself a country with high rates of crime and violence, is demanding Berger take action over the killing of the lawmakers.

"There are authorities in Guatemala who must face justice, we have requested this with total respect to President Berger," El Salvador President Antonio Saca said.