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In the wake of the attacks, the U.S. State Department issued a traveler's advisory warning American citizens to stay away from Guatemala, and the U.S. Peace Corps has ordered its more than 200 workers in the country back to the capital. Even there, the assassination April 1 of the president of the Constitutional Court and the sniper bullet that wounded a Congressman five days later have added to the instability. "Whoever is behind all this wants to provoke a state of emergency," says government investigator Claudio Porres. "They want us to return to a dark past when everything was resolved through a military coup." President Ramiro de Leon Carpio stepped back from declaring a state of emergency but promised to take severe measures to ensure security.
Investigators believe the incidents were planned by one group. Diplomatic sources say two military intelligence agents were reported among the rioters in Santa Lucia. "The only institution with the capacity to act in various areas of the country, that can spread the rumors and incite the population through a vast network of civilian collaborators, is the army," contends a local human-rights expert.
Ironically, though illegal trafficking in babies for adoption abroad is a major business in Guatemala, foreign involvement is said to be minimal. In fact, attorney general Telesforo Guerra Cahn alleges that 20 local gangs are engaged in buying or stealing children and that one of the biggest illegal- baby-trafficking lawyers is the current president of the Supreme Court, Juan Jose Rodil Peralta. "We've tried to prosecute him, but it's hopeless because he controls the court system and the judges," says Cahn. "He's also protected under parliamentary immunity."
Whatever officials like Cahn may have concluded, however, average Guatemalans continue to clutch their children when they see foreigners on the streets.