Implications of the Massacre in Guatemala's Peten Department

On the night of May 14-15, some 30 Guatemalan laborers were murdered on a farm in the southwestern corner of Peten department, Guatemala's northernmost province. The mass killing appears to be the work of Mexico's Los Zetas, a cartel known to have a presence in the region and to control the three Mexican states that border Peten — Campeche, Tabasco and Chiapas. Although information has emerged since the massacre that suggests different scenarios, the one we believe is the most logical is the opening of a second front in Los Zetas' war with the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels.