US embassy cable - 05GUATEMALA144

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 GUATEMALA 000144 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR DS/IP/OPO AND DS/IP/WHA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ASEC 
SUBJECT: FUNDING REQUEST FOR DS - RESIDENTIAL SECURITY 
 
REF: 04 GUATEMALA 2801 
 
1. This is an action request to DS for residential security 
funding in the amount of $45,000 to locally purchase 85 
single B&W camera and single monitor systems to protect our 
staff in their homes from a serious and increasing crime 
threat. 
 
2.  THE PROBLEM - One typical scenario (see others below), 
too frequently within our approved residential zones, unfolds 
like this - - On a street in a nice neighborhood of 
single-family homes, a well-dressed man rings the doorbell of 
a home typical to the area. At this home surrounded by a tall 
wall, he tells the occupant that he is there to leave an item 
for the homeowner, naming him or her, from a known and 
reputable company.  A family or staff member goes to the door 
and, upon opening a small viewing doorway or partially 
opening the door, finds that they are confronted with a 
handgun.  Under a valid threat of death, the door is opened 
completely and the well-dressed man enters.  He then opens 
the garage door, admitting a car full of his confederates, 
both male and female, who are usually armed with long guns. 
 
3.  Once in the house, the assailants gather the occupants, 
rough them up or beat them, perhaps commit sexual assault 
against females of any age, and tie everyone up.  Since they 
have likely entered into the walled home without being 
noticed by neighbors (who are behind their own walls), the 
villains are at liberty to explore, abuse, rob and ravage at 
will.  Two horrifying hours or so after it all began, the 
robbers simply open the garage door and, using their own 
vehicle and perhaps the homeowner,s car, quietly drive off 
with the occupants, most valued possessions. 
 
4.  The victims eventually untie themselves and assess the 
damages.  The panic is over, temporarily.  The victims often 
decide not to report the crime to the local police or 
prosecutor.  While the criminals took their time ransacking 
the home and threatening the occupants, they also made a 
point of identifying each person, using their now-stolen IDs. 
The threats were not veiled - - &Call the police and we will 
return.  We know who you are, where you live, we have 
pictures of your kids and know where they go to school.  We 
will kill you.8  The victims also know that active duty 
police officers are at times involved, or at least complicit, 
in these crimes.  (NOTE:  There have been shoot-outs between 
on-duty police and off-duty police committing these kinds of 
crimes.  The inability of the police, prosecutorial system 
and judicial system to investigate and resolve such crimes 
has been well documented in other Embassy reporting.)  The 
victims, fearing for their own safety, decide not to report 
the crimes.  Frequently, some time after the robbery, the 
victim will receive a call from one of the culprits to remind 
them that those who invaded the home have not forgotten. 
 
5.  HOW DO WE KNOW?  Although the victims do not make reports 
to the police, they do want to talk.  Several local NGOs 
focus on crime in Guatemala and collect some data. Others, 
including many AmCit residents, report assaults to the 
Embassy.  Often, these crimes are reported via neighborhood 
grapevines.  None of these channels provide reliable 
statistics, but they leave no doubt that these robberies are 
occurring. 
 
6.  OTHER SCENARIOS ) The well-armed and organized criminal 
gangs who roam the streets looking for residential targets of 
opportunity do not limit themselves to the scenario above. 
Variations include catching a victim as they arrive at or 
depart from the property and, under threat of death, force 
them to take the robbers inside where the scenario above then 
unfolds.  Cutting the grass or pruning the shrubbery outside 
of the home,s security wall is risky business.  Order a 
pizza?  Better make sure that the pizza man is not being held 
at gunpoint before opening the door. Going to visit friends? 
Hope that they are not being robbed.  Culprits have 
intercepted visitors to one home, split the family (holding 
some hostage) and forced one family member at gunpoint back 
to their own home to conduct a robbery there.  Worse yet are 
groups, with active duty police officers involved or at least 
with people dressed as police, coming to the home, ringing 
the bell and stating they have a warrant to be served. 
&Open the door or we will break it down!  You are going to 
jail (not pleasant given the local jail conditions) if you 
don,t open this door!8  Fixed guard?  This is a risk worth 
its own paragraph. 
 
7.  FIXED GUARDS ) The Wrong Response to the Criminal 
Methodology.  The guard business in Guatemala averages over 
100% turnover yearly, making management, training and the 
development of loyalty difficult.  A bored, minimum wage and 
poorly educated guard, regardless of instructions, will open 
the door and talk to a neighboring guard or the cute maid 
across the street, or just look around.  The organized 
criminal element looks for any opportunity to access the 
home, and a guard, armed or not, opening a door is a great 
opportunity.  The guard simply becomes another victim and the 
criminals now have another weapon.  The residential area of 
La Canada in Zone 14 is generally thought to be the safest 
gated community of our approved residential zones.  La Canada 
includes homes of many diplomatic personnel, numerous foreign 
missions and the residences of wealthy business people.  But, 
this has not stopped the crimes there.  Shoot-outs have 
happened, drug smugglers have been busted, pedestrians have 
been robbed and home invasions have occurred.  Recently, a 
group of people, well armed and dressed like police, disarmed 
a fixed-post guard and entered a home of an AmCit to rob and 
ransack it.  Luckily, the homeowners were not at home. 
 
8.  PROBING ) It is hard to determine the amount of probing 
when we live in a country where doorbell ringing is done to 
find work, ask for handouts, sell fruit or provide knife 
sharpening service.  But, we do believe there is a 
substantial amount of criminal probing. Recently, a Mission 
employee in La Canada reported the arrival of an &alarm 
company8 that claimed to need to check the system and change 
the code.  The occupant refused to come to the door and the 
person outside began asking questions like &Which embassy 
does this house belong to?8  This is typical of the sort of 
event our mobile patrols respond to quickly.  They seek to 
identify the person involved, although even those with 
criminal intent may appear legitimate. 
 
9.  OUR CURRENT PRECAUTIONS ) RSO averages one residential 
security notice to all staff, in one form or another, every 
60 days.  These usually entail reminders about good 
residential security procedures and updates on new criminal 
tactics.  Post conducts yearly refresher briefings during our 
annual cascade system meetings that involve all official 
staff.  RSO and residential security is the most prominent 
topic at official AmCit town hall meetings.  Twice annually, 
RSO provides a security training course in Spanish that is 
open to all household staff, drivers, gardeners and anyone 
else who might occupy our official AmCit,s residences. 
Participation is always high.  RSO staff, with complete Post 
Management support, tightly enforces our ResSec program. 
Rarely is there any resistance to our requirements, and 
contractors have learned that we have exacting standards. 
Post and RSO have made a point that incoming staff should 
strongly consider apartment life given the crime risks and 
have offered assistance to current staff members who want to 
switch to an apartment for security reasons.  (NOTE: 
Guatemala is an LQA post, so staff members find their own 
housing.  In our earthquake-prone environment, we also limit 
the number of staff in any single apartment building or 
neighborhood.)  Our ResSec staff responds immediately to all 
issues or concerns about any element of the program.  Our 
mobile patrol service, utilizing a group of police dedicated 
to the Embassy (and trained by RSO over years), is an 
integral part of the protection provided to our staff and 
they repeatedly respond well to issues they find on patrol or 
are called to address.  We have also used the Surveillance 
Detection team at times to supplement our other security 
measures in residential areas, given the critical risk our 
staff face here. 
 
10. GUARD COSTS - A fixed-post guard at today,s contract 
rate costs $10,587 yearly for a 24-hour position, plus the 
costs associated with the guard,s supervision and outfitting 
a reasonable guard post.  A 12-hour guard at nighttime will 
not protect family members when they are most at risk.  On 
average, Post housing includes 80 single-family homes (many 
employees at this post have families with young children who 
are at home much of the day).  At the listed rates, it would 
cost at least $845,000 yearly to provide fixed-post guards at 
each of these single-family homes.  Even at that high cost, 
these guards will not provide an effective deterrent to the 
kind of crime we confront.  For these reasons, we propose 
applying a DS facility guideline to our residential issues: 
the utilization of reliable and less expensive technical 
means to replace manned positions whenever possible. 
 
11.  PROPOSAL ) Residential security begins at the perimeter 
wall, not once criminals are already on the property.  The 
EAC at our critical-threat crime post has discussed this 
proposal on several occasions.  We agree that the most 
effective, cost-sensible, reasonable and prudent method to 
increase our personnel,s safety is to give them the ability 
to see outside the wall before opening the door.  Because of 
the layout of most of our homes, the only practical way to 
accomplish this is to mount a camera outside of the wall and 
place a monitor inside the home near the interior door.  A 
CCTV system would give the occupant critical information 
about what is going on outside of the gate without the risks 
of having a minimum wage, often disinterested, fixed guard 
make decisions that impact the occupant.  (NOTE: 
Airphone-type systems are not practical due to their limited 
field of view.)   Modern, simple CCTV systems are inexpensive 
and reasonably reliable.  Post can manage the installation 
and maintenance using current RSO ResSec staff, with the 
support of GSO personnel.  Post desires DS funding to locally 
purchase 85 single B&W camera systems, with single monitors, 
to be installed on each single-family home occupied by 
official staff.  The entire RSO is in full agreement with 
this proposal. 
 
12. ACTION REQUEST ) Post requests DS funding in the amount 
of $45,000 to locally purchase eighty-five (85) single B&W 
camera systems, with single monitors, including all required 
cabling, power sources and mounting brackets. 
 
13. COST FOR INACTION ) We are doing everything we can to 
manage the serious risks of serving the USG at this 
critical-threat crime post and appreciate the Department and 
DS,s continued support.  The total cost of cameras and 
monitors is nothing compared to the cost of the potential 
human tragedy, lost productivity, demoralization, 
investigative measures and recovery should one of our staff 
or a family member find themselves in their own invaded home, 
beaten, robbed or worse. 
 
HAMILTON