State of emergency declared after farm massacre

SAN BENITO (AP):

Guatemala declared a 30-day state of emergency for the northern Peten region following the brutal massacre of 27 people at a cattle ranch. President Alvaro Colom called the killings sadistic and perverse, and said they were the work of a drug gang.

Colom said he would go to the jungle-covered region to personally direct operations aimed at rooting out what is believed to be a Mexican drug cartel that has taken up residence in Peten.

"Guatemala must face up to this aggression aimed not just at our country but at the whole region," Colom said in an address broadcast to the nation late Monday.

Such declarations traditionally give the army emergency powers, including permission to detain suspects without warrants.

The attack late Saturday and early Sunday on an isolated cattle ranch was of one of Guatemala's largest post-war massacres.

Gunmen believed to belong to Mexico's Zetas cartel killed 27 farm labourers, including two women and two children, and left their severed heads scattered across the pastures of the cattle ranch.