Letters to the Editor

A few minor details

An article on Guatemala, “Despot’s return stirs up violence” (World, Oct. 18), is incomplete at best and inaccurate at worst. It states that Guatemala’s constitution “prohibits those who participated in coups from seeking the presidency.” This is true, but it is equally true that the 1986 constitution bars retroactive application of its provisions save to mitigate prison sentences. Gen. Efrain Rios Montt’s coup occurred in 1982.

The Constitutional Court did not lift the ban in response to July mob action. The ban was lifted previously, reinstated and then lifted again on successful appeal to the Constitutional Court.

While one can charitably leave aside the unsupported assertion that the level of political violence is “unusually high,” one cannot ignore the simply erroneous statement that Guatemala has a population of 14 million. This overstates the accepted figure (United Nations Development Programme, U.S. Embassy) of 11.2 million by 25 percent, and that wide an error casts into doubt the accuracy of the entire article. The 14 million figure apparently comes from an AP story, and The Washington Times can do better when reporting on an already deplorable situation.

CARLISLE JOHNSON

ABC Radio International

Guatemala City, Guatemala

Giving TSA the slip

As James Bovard points out (“Airport trick or treat,” Commentary, yesterday), the best analysis of college student Nathaniel Heatwole’s slipping of box cutters onto multiple passenger jets was by airline expert Michael Boyd, who observed, “The [Transportation Security Administration] is a poorly focused, unaccountable Washington political bureaucracy geared to screen for objects, not for security threats.”

As embarrassing as is the fact that a college student can slip box cutters aboard passenger jets, it wasn’t American college students who hijacked four passenger jets on September 11 and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and, except for the actions of heroic passengers, almost into the White House.

Our concern should not be solely for what can be smuggled on aircraft, but primarily who on board is likely to smuggle anything with malice aforethought and what can be done if they and their instruments of destruction get on board.

We know that 19 out of 19 September 11 terrorists were young males of Middle Eastern descent, 15 from one country, Saudi Arabia. Yet, Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta incredibly stated on “60 Minutes” recently that a 70-year-old woman from Florida and an Islamic man from New Jersey should be subject to the same level of scrutiny. Why? Acting on this information would not be racial profiling. This information in normal police work is called a “description of the suspects.”

Story Continues →