Friday 20 Aug 2011, Antigua, Guatamala
Oh dear. I was having a drink last night with Sean, the Welsh owner of the Ocelot Bar on 4th Avenue (it’s on Facebook) and an employee of his, Sophia, a black former teacher from the US. Around 10.15 Sean announces (after putting a bottle in his pocket) he’s going to walk Sophia down a dark alley to another bar. It turns out she changes her mind, goes to Riley’s Irish bar and then decides to return to the Ocelot. Sean returns to the bar, we chat some more and I leave at 10.45 as there are still people milling around and I assume that makes it safer.
In Second Avenue at 11.45 a black pickup with a white boxtop stops. A guy is threatened with an open razor and asked for money. He gives it over and then the guy driving the pickup gets out and slashes out. The pickup then goes down Sixth Calle and up to Sixth Avenue and this process is repeated involving six people, including an Aussie couple in their late 50s, Sophia gets a slashed leg, all robbed and razored and a Guatamalan guy gets stabbed and his skull is slashed. Sophie lost her mobile phone that she’d bought that day. A Canadian victim bleeds heavily (possibly) because he’s on coke. The likelihood is that after 10 minutes of egregious casual violence the perpetrators got away with a few hundred Quetzales (100Qs = 8 quid).
Alan, half Guatamalan and half British, who works for Jerome the owner of Travel Menu bar, and Sean are called down to help. They get Sophia into the ambulance. The ambulance contains just a wooden stretcher and the streets here are cobbled. The ambulance had to be push bump-started. Sean is called to go with Alan to the hospital to translate for the police.
At the National Hospital they are variously stitched up. They are all in shock and it smells like that. There is no paper in the toilet.
The ministry for internal affairs phones Jerome to get Sean’s number.
By Friday the Chinese whispers have grown the number to ten victims. Explanatory theories vary from politicians setting it up to encourage crack-down politics, crime increasing round election times, gang-entry rituals and it being a completely random attack by individuals on crystal-meth or crack cocaine.
Apparently this is all quite unusual and Antigua has the reputation of being a ‘bubble’ of safety. However, the damage done to Central Americans by coke, the corruption of the police and the presence of tourists make a toxic mix. Clearly Tripadvisor, Facebook and possibly news reports will have a damaging effect on tourism here as businesses are just moving into the quiet period till November. A few years ago a girl was kidnapped from here. The perpetrators were tracked down, the girl was seized by the police and the kidnappers all died, apparently, in a shoot-out. There were no police victims.
I’m here till next Thursday. Got a cab home tonight.