The 16-year-old girl, her face already bloodied, tries to escape but is surrounded by the mob. Minutes later her body would lie ablaze on the ground, as the perpetrators watched her burn. A recent series of lynchings in Guatemala has once again drawn attention to that Central American country’s reputation for violence. News reports point to at least a score of lynchings in Guatemala so far this year, in which mobs attack, beat and often then burn to death individuals suspected of crimes. The latest Guatemala lynching went viral in the social media, in a video that showed how a mob of at least 25 people in the village of Río Bravo first savagely beat and then burned alive a 16-year-old girl. The girl, said to be the daughter of a convicted gang member, was suspected of taking part in the gang murder of a taxi driver, allegedly for not paying a “protection fee” to the gang. She was reportedly accompanied in that crime by two males, both of whom...
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Author Roberto Vivo comments on wars past and present, on the world’s great peacemakers and on the pathway to global peace. His basic philosophy: In a world where 9 out of every 10 victims of armed conflict are civilians, war is no longer a viable political alternative. Indeed, it is the ultimate crime against humanity. If rising generations are to have a future, the key will lie in world peace. War is the pathway to oblivion.