Guatemalan bishop laments massacre on border with Mexico

Guatemala City, Guatemala, May 23, 2011 / 12:04 pm

Bishop Gabriel Penate Rodriguez of Izabal, Guatemala has expressed both sadness and outrage over the massacre of 27 people near the country’s border with Mexico.

These persons endured “a cruel death, carried out with unheard of brutality and barbarity. It is impossible to believe that a human being could be capable of committing such an act,” the bishop said in a May 20 statement.

All of the victims were found decapitated in the province of Peten. The attack took place the weekend of May 14.

Bishop Penate Rodriguez said that the victims of the massacre carried out by the drug cartel “Los Zetas” were poor and humble people who “sought their livelihood in Peten by working at the large farms there.

“They went in search of life and they found death.”

Bishop Penate called on officials to launch an immediate investigation to protect citizens “from these criminal gangs who wander about our country with impunity.”

He urged those behind the acts “to repent, to cease giving their lives over to death and to spreading so much pain and suffering among Guatemalan families.”

“They should abandon evil and devote themselves to good. Let us build a world of love,” the bishop concluded.