Five killed in Guatemalan clash over land

GUATEMALA CITY - At least five people were fatally shot or slashed to death with machetes in Guatemala when peasant farmers tried to invade a large estate they had been evicted from, according to police.

Some 200 families attempted to invade a property, called Finca Mocca, in the central department of Alta Verapaz on Saturday local time but clashed with armed peasants on the land, said police spokeswoman Myrna Morales.

The human rights ombudsman's office said the armed peasants were current employees of the farm, something that the owner denied.

Tension is high in parts of Guatemala's countryside as President Oscar Berger's government evicts groups of landless farmers from farmland they took over in a wave of invasions under his predecessor.

There may be as many as nine people dead at Finca Mocca and over a dozen injured at the property, a former coffee plantation that was converted into a tree farm in 2002, according to media reports in the small Central American nation.

"One hundred and fifty police agents and 25 soldiers are en route now to the farm to bring the situation under control," Morales said.

Hundreds of people were fired from Finca Mocca when the owners converted the land into a hardwood and pine tree farm, according to the estate's owner, who asked not to be named.

Since then, the workers - who say they lost their homes and were kicked off land they have lived on for years - have been in a labour dispute with the farm owners demanding land and unpaid wages.

In protest, the mostly Mayan Indian families invaded the farm last year but were forcibly removed this past April.

When the same group tried to re-enter the land on Saturday, they were attacked, the human rights ombudsman's office said.

The majority of land in rural Guatemala is held by a small group of landowners, and there are often conflicts between them and the largely impoverished indigenous population.

- REUTERS