Mrs. Gereda,

I respectfully disagree with your self-ascribed "expert" adjective.

I try to read your weekly column at Guatemalan newspaper "El Periodico", and your opinions are usually biased and inaccurate. In my opinion, you assume that these gang-members are victims of an 'evil' society. While it's true that the Guatemalan society is extremely unjust, nothing justifies treating those criminals like 'victims'. The only victim is the average Guatemalan citizen who tries to survive sanwiched between critical economic conditions and violence generated by gang-members.

In today's newspaper (March 05, 2009), there's the story of a teacher, a family man who was taken hostage by 69 jailed gang-members while teaching at the local prison. The criminals were demanding several things (i.e., conjugal visits, even though the majority of them are minors). When the authorities responded by sending police into the prison, the criminals murdered the teacher by smashing his skull, and once dead, proceeded to remove his heart, intestines, and other organs which they flung towards the police.

Are those gang-members "victims"? Please, Mrs. Gereda, how can you be so irresponsible and continue writing these individuals commit such monstrosities because they allegedly lack opportunities?

Just a few weeks ago you tried to convince your lectors to sympathize with your opinions by writing about Ñoño (Nono). Afterwards, it was about a young Garifuna who lacked employment opportunities....in Izabal, which has one of the most booming economies of Guatemala (with industries like tourism, port authorities, free-trade zones, textile, minery, fishery, bananas, cattle ranches, etc., etc.). How can you not symphatize with the average Guatemalan and instead choose to side with these criminals?

In choosing to do so, you demonstrate you have what in my opinion is a very narrow, biased, and inaccurate perception of the reality of things.

Respectfully,

Carlos Eduardo Lopez Y.
boris33763@hotmail.com

PS: I usually try to convey these messages and opinions to you in your Columns, but El Periodico's Censor omits them.