A quick press review from the last week, looking at the instances when Guatemala has been referred to as or likened to a ‘failed state’.

A Saturday, March 10 editorial in the Prensa Libre (largest paper in Guate) is called Efectos de un Estado fallido (Effects of a Failed State).

Reuters ran a story March 7th called Guatemala minister offers to quit over drug murders, opposition Congresswoman Roxana Baldetti is quoted as saying: “We are on the edge of becoming a failed state.”

Spero News reported on March 6, that UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Anders Kompass said Guatemala was a “failed and collapsed State.”

A NYT article from March 5th, In Guatemala, Officers’ Killings Echo Dirty War, included this quote by Dan Wilkinson of Human Rights Watch: “I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a failed state, but it’s very dysfunctional.”

Spain’s El Pais ran a story called Guatemala se ‘colombianiza’ on March 3rd. They quote Prensa Libre as saying that “Guatemala se está acercando peligrosamente a lo que se conoce como Estado fallido.” (”Guatemala is becoming dangerously close to what is known as a failed state”).

March 3rd in Prensa Libre is the quote straight from the UN’s Anders Kompass: “El Estado es ahora un Estado fallido y colapsado” (”the state is today a failed and collapsed state”).

Some much needed context to this post: Section of Responsibility to Protect doctrine draft referring to “humanitarian intervention” in “failed states.”

I also just noticed that current VP of Guatemala, Eduardo Stein, was on the R2P commission (which was handpicked by the government of Canada).