Return to Guatemala: unlike East Europe, fear without hope.

Nation, The, March, 1990 by Godoy, Julio

December 9, 1989. Although it's only 8 P.M., the commercial heart of Guatemala City is somber ?-nd empty in the midst of Christmas-time. The season's traditional lights are absent this year. Cafes and restaurants close earlier than expected. Movie theaters cancel their 9 P.M. shows. Driven by the wind, old newspapers and the remains of fast-food packaging flutter around, crisscrossing the hurried steps of the few pedestrians who dare to venture out onto these otherwise desolate streets.

If the Guatemalan economic atmosphere is depressing, the political one is scarcely more encouraging. That same night, somewhere in the city, a young man was tortured. Most likely his screams weren't heard in the city's commercial area, far echoes lost in the spectral silence...