While U.S. attention has rightly been focused on Mexico’s drug wars – with high-profile trips by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before this weekend’s Summit of the Americas – Mexico’s southern neighbor is in far more serious danger of becoming a failed state. Reeling from gangs, corruption and pervasive poverty, Guatemala now faces well-armed, well-financed drug cartels.

Narco traffickers and organized criminals dominate an estimated 40 percent of the country, from the Mexican border to the Caribbean coast, as well as in the little-populated Mayan jungle and forest preserves of the Peten. Opium poppy fields grow freely. The major threat, though, comes from more than $10 billion in cocaine passing through Guatemala each year, with a tenth of the money laundered in the country and used to bribe officials.

The drug lords and their friends have become the self-ordained local governments and police, either directly or by buying off others. The Sinaloa Cartel, which has run cocaine trafficking in Guatemala for the past several years, is pitted against the Gulf Cartel newcomers. Their “Zetas” (paid assassins) are ratcheting up violence that inevitably hits “civilians.” Last year there were more than 6,200 homicides reported in Guatemala.

Schneider paints a bleek picture. Can this be reversed?

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Guatemala in danger

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A pair of monumental (26-foot) stucco panels have been discovered at the important classic Maya site of El Mirador in the Peten by a team led by Richard Hansen of Idaho State University. The figures in the panels appear to represent the heros twins of the Maya creation myth.

This is clearly an important find. The panels can be dated to the Late Preclassic period, from about 300 BCE to a little after the beginning of the common era.

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Video via MSNBC

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A new discovery at El Mirador

Yesterday, Sunday Feb. 22, marked the first day of the Maya year 5125, according to the Maya solar calendar, or haab. The haab is also known as the “vague year,” because it did not adjust for the extra quarter day in the solar year. The Maya were, however, perfectly aware of the discrepancy, which they had calculated more precisely than was the case in Europe’s Julian calendar. Because they had several calendar systems it was not important to them that the haab include such an adjustment.

According to Prensa Latina, over the past couple of decades traditional Maya calendrical celebrations, which had been forced underground by centuries of repression, have become less secretive. The photo (by AFP via Straits Times (of all places, shows  men playing chajchaay, which is described in the caption as “an ancient Maya ball game,” in Guatemala City. It is questionable whether this game has any connection to those played on the ball courts of the classic Maya. Below is one of several YouTube videos showing the game.

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Happy Haab 5125

• Don’t look now, but Mexico is collapsing : As a result of drug wars
• Guatemala President to Visit Cuba: Cubans are working for literacy in Guatemala
• The fine art of preparing true Guatemalan coffee : An acquired taste. That I never acquired
• Bad Language, Naked Ladies, and Other Threats to the Nation: : A Political History of Comic Books in Mexico
• Tikin Xic : A simple fish recipe
• Marine conservation in Mexico : Working for a healthy reef
• Guatemala hosts conference on water governance in Latin America : More efforts toward good water

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Friday roundup

A combination of a geologic fault and water-soaked hills led to the slide. The villages of Aquil Grande and Aquil Chiquito, with a combined population of about 3,000, have been evacuated. At least two videos have been posted to YouTube:

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Landslide death toll rises

This photo of a furniture deliveryman on the streets of Antigua, Guatemala, comes from Michael R. Swigart’s photostream.

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Photo Wednesday: Furniture delivery

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More examples at English Russia.

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Maya playing cards

• A visit to Chiapas : With the NYT Frugal Traveler
• Fiambre : Puro Guatemalteco
• Maya jades to be returned to Mexico : From the Peabody Museum
• Blues And jazz festivals In Mexico : Sweet
• World Bank recommends increased public spending in Guatemala : Just like the U.S., and everywhere
• Portal to Maya hell found in Mexico : It’s okay to visit, but …

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Friday roundup

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Maya multiplication

With Day of the Dead around the corner, Rafael Jesús González’s blog is well worth visiting. He traces the celebration from its ancient roots through the colonial period and into the present.

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Above: Me (right) and a friend, at the 2006 Dia de los Muertos celebration at the Oakland Museum. Tee shirt image by José Guadalupe Posada, photo by Anne Christensen.

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Viene el dia de los muertos