4 Journalists Held in Guatemalan Town

By: Sergio De Leon, Associated Press Writer (AP) About 500 former paramilitary fighters holding four journalists and three other people hostage were engaged in a tense standoff with hundreds of police in this small Guatemalan town.

The government named a team of human rights officials, prosecutors and U.N. representatives to negotiate for the release of the journalists -- all employed by the Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre -- and the other hostages, apparently passers-by.

The team was expected to arrive in the western Guatemala province of Huehuetenango by Tuesday.

The former paramilitaries took the hostages on Sunday to press their demands for payment for having served in a government counterinsurgency program in the 1980s. They said they would release the captives after meeting with the negotiators.

But Vice President Francisco Reyes said Monday in a televised address that the government is "not in a position to negotiate ... this kind of pressure tactic is not the way to resolve these problems." Reyes asked Guatemalans to pray for the hostages' release.

Reporters who saw the hostages said they were not bound or apparently mistreated; they were simply being held in the middle of the crowd of former combatants, most armed with sticks and machetes.

Various members of the crowd shouted that they did not plan to hurt the hostages. Huehuetenango Gov. Carlos Morales said earlier that the former paramilitaries "are armed and threatened to kill the hostages."

The protesters have blocked a highway in La Libertad and are manning a blockade about 200 yards from where police and army troops have taken up positions.

The men are former members of paramilitary Civilian Self-Defense Patrols formed by the government in 1982 to help it fight leftist guerrillas.

The groups were disbanded in 1996 as part of an agreement that ended the country's 36-year civil war and have been demanding compensation ever since.

In July 2002, the groups of paramilitaries staged protests across the country to demand $2,500 a person for their services. The government agreed to pay compensation, but reduced the amount to $650 to be paid in three installments.

Prensa Libre reporter Fredy Lopez and photographer Emerson Diaz came here on Sunday to cover a planned demonstration by the ex-paramilitaries, who instead seized them.

Two other journalists who came to report on the seizure, Mario Linares and Alberto Ramirez, also were captured.