First, I wish "Nikol" and "Katal" much luck with their new site and the town much luck with their volunteers.

The incident is Quixabaj is a hard one to read about. It puts other somewhat similar incidents in perspective. I have read that there had been 48 incidents of vigilante "justice" in the country this year as of last week. I have no idea how accurate this stat. is. I know in general that such actions don't tend to be well reported and I when I search Prensa Libre, one of the main Guatemalan daily papers, I find no reporting of these incidents-- though my Spanish is not really good enough to be certain of my search.

Maybe someone who really reads Spanish can correct that.

The tie between this and the government sanctioned "limpieza social" is even more disturbing than these acts of mob justice. (But I think any response from you about that would take you into political waters.)

How difficult to have no effective system of justice. My guess is that this is another terrible legacy of the years of civil war.

The fallout for Quixabaj and its volunteers is only one of the most immediate aspects, though a sad one, of having no fair system of justice.