Killings on the Campaign Trail

Colom has a historical claim to the effects of political violence -- his uncle, a former Guatemala City mayor and presidential candidate, was assassinated in 1979. Colom's campaign has focused on social projects, including improving health care and schools. Perez Molina, meanwhile, has seized ownership of the violence issue, gaining enough support to likely ensure a runoff election against Colom on Nov. 4, Berganza said. Colom is making his third run for the presidency after losing the runoff in 2003 and failing to reach the second round in 1999.

Guatemala's government and some international observers have said it's impossible to know whether the killings now dominating the campaign are linked to politics.

Diego Garcia-Sayan, chief of the Organization of American States mission that is monitoring the elections, said in an interview that preliminary Guatemalan law enforcement reports show no "pattern" to the killings of political workers and candidates. He also said the increase in violence began before campaigning started in earnest in May.

"We're seeing the same kind of violence now that we were seeing before May and that we'll see after November 4," said Garcia, who also serves as a judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Such arguments make no sense to the friends of Uyun Sican, a member of Encuentro por Guatemala, a new political party that translates loosely as Together for Guatemala and is headed by Rigoberta Menchu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner. They say their party's workers have been found slain with campaign posters on their bodies, a clear signal that the killings are meant to send a political message to the party, which is focused on indigenous rights. Yet in other instances, authorities appear to be trying to cover up political motivations behind killings, said Angel Canil, Menchu's husband.

Uyun Sican's body was found Wednesday in a white pickup truck on the road that winds for 25 miles from her village down to Guatemala City. A bullet left an ugly hole in her chest. Alongside her was Wenceslao Ayap?n Zet, a 35-year-old Mayan who was running for local office. Assassins' bullets had blown off much of Ayap?n Zet's head, leaving him so mutilated that a white shroud covered most of his face at his wake Thursday night.

Local police spread the rumor that Uyun and Ayapan Zet, a married father of eight, were having an affair, friends say. People who knew both say the rumors are ridiculous. Rumors of blood feuds or business rivalries had been spread in previous killings of candidates and political workers in hopes of distancing slayings from politics, said S?nchez, the congressional candidate.

"They say there is no pattern to these killings," he said. "But the pattern is clear: They look for motives, and if there aren't motives, they invent them. These killings are minutely planned and calculated."

Sanchez shifted uneasily in his seat and peered into the darkness, where dozens of villagers -- men in cowboy hats and women in bright, quilt-patterned skirts -- whispered in the Kaqchiquel dialect.

"I've got to get out of here," he said. "It's not safe."