In light of the recent state of emergency called by President Bernardo Arevalo, I have spent this past week assuaging the many concerns and anxieties coming from our students traveling in and to the country. These anxieties are understandable—by the time the violence reaches our news sources, it appears to be random, rash and brazen; that it was undertaken by erratic criminals and gang members; and that it reinforces the region’s already-poor reputation for security. In the recent news stories, you’ll read[1][2] that this state of emergency began with prison riots on Saturday, escalated to retributive killings in Guatemala City on Sunday, and left ten police officers dead by Monday morning.
We at the school are keeping a close eye on the situation at-hand, and these acts of violence are certainly not to be taken lightly. However, what is important to understand is that these waves of gang activity are not randomly directed. The gangs specifically targeted law enforcement in a coordinated and simultaneous action against Arevalo’s administration, responding to the President’s refusal to negotiate after Saturday’s prison riots. Arevalo, who has been less favorable than his predecessors to the greasy-hands of corruption that collude with these gangs, has now called the state of emergency to show state power in the face of organized crime.
Here, we see three different actors emerge in the conflict: Arevalo, who is exhibiting the supremacy of the state’s apparatus of law and order; the gangs, who deal precisely in the extra-legal margins of state power and are now renegotiating their contract of (non-)violence with this apparatus; and the third, the corrupt political class interested in deposing Arevalo and retaking power in the country. Among this third group is Sandra Torres, who lost the 2023 elections against Arevlo and is currently under investigation for suspicious familial ties with a prominent member of the gang that carried out Sunday’s attacks.[3]
All of this is to say that the recent violence devolves from a certain game being played amongst those at the highest levels of power in the country. Here, gang violence emerges as an act of political terror, sanctioned and deployed by those whose interests are precisely terrorism—to keep people afraid, whether that be to secure their vote, to maintain the necessity of “law and order,” or to balloon the state’s power of intervention. There is perhaps no phenomenon more sensationalized in Latin America than its organized criminal violence, and that phenomenon is used. Although distinct from cartels, these gangs nonetheless occupy a significant place in the discourse of drug/human trafficking that haunts this region.
It is no coincidence that these riots and subsequent killings come right at the time of a midterm election, where, notably, the country’s Attorney General Consuelo Porras will be up for reappointment. The acute effects of this violence, with those police officers now dead and the country in a state of emergency, makes the question of gangs here immediate and urgent—and pulls eyes away from other matters of state. For instance, amidst the political tumult of the moment, one might forget the arrest last week of Basilio Puac García, former vice-president of the 48 Cantones of Totonicopan (and a political opponent of Porras).[4]
Especially since these attacks, the same questions swirl here in Guatemala as they do throughout the rest of the continent: Are drug cartels or gangs running the country? Is the country running drug cartels or gangs? Who is funding who, where does the money go, how can we stop “them”? These questions run rhetorical circles around each other. Each of these sectors have different interests in organized crime and each play by different rules to achieve their political goals. However, there is at least one common rule that stands between them that is relevant to us foreigners in the country: that is, they will not mess with tourists.
In the end, it might be better to ask: who benefits from this narrative of regional instability? How disposed are the rest of us to believing it? What are the actual risks that we face and how do we redress the harm already done? These questions might have applied well to Nayib Bukele’s rise to dictatorial power in El Salvador, and certainly still apply to Donald Trump’s ongoing invasion of Venezuela.
So to be as direct as I can be, the violence that we are seeing now is not, nor do we expect it to, actively target civilians. While the effects will certainly bear down here on the communities implicated in gang-violence—particularly those zones in Guatemala City where these organizations operate—they have little to do with tourists and travelers in the country. As a recent student joked with me, Antigua might be the safest place on Earth right now.
As always, we advise to be vigilant while traveling in the country, and during this 30-day period—which, as of now, is scheduled to end February 16th, 2026—we suggest an additional precautions to always carry identification on your person. Yet even as the US State Department bumps up its travel advisory to level 3 (“reconsider travel”), we here in Xela are continuing as normal and expect keep on as such. With any doubts or hesitations, please, feel free to ask.
With great appreciation, I, Manni, am writing this newsletter as my last. I am grateful to all of you that have made this past year at PLQ really quite special! When I came as I student in 2024 I did not imagine that I would be here so long, and I am really quite glad that I did. I’ll be starting with the organization NISGUA to continue my work in Guatemala. My colleague Brandon will be taking over as the PLQ student coordinator beginning today, January 26.
Brandon (or Bran) (he/they) is a social worker and chaplain joining us from New York City. They recently worked as a social worker at a public defender’s office and previously as a chaplain at a public hospital in New York City. They’ve been involved in community and student organizing efforts in NYC related to public schools, prison abolition, family policing abolition, movement chaplaincy, and Palestinian liberation. Brandon previously spent several months at PLQ and La Escuela de la Montana in 2024. They are very glad to return to Xela, bring their experiences to PLQ/EM, and connect with students across the world.