ABOVE: Guatemalan Congressman Aldo Dávila participates in a protest in Guatemala City in 2019. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)
A gay congressman from Guatemala on April 19 survived a robbery attempt.
Aldo Dávila sent the Washington Blade a surveillance video that shows three men approaching his vehicle while it was stopped at a traffic light near Guatemala’s National Library in Guatemala City.
The three men appeared to have weapons when they approached the vehicle.
One of Dávila’s bodyguards who was driving the vehicle shot one of the men. The two other men ran away shortly before passersby and police officers gathered.
Dávila was not injured.
“I am thankful for life,” he said in a video he posted to his Facebook page after the attempted robbery.
Dávila — a member of the Winaq movement, a leftist party founded by Rigoberta Menchú, an indigenous human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner — in 2019 became the first openly gay man elected to Guatemala’s congress. Dávila had previously been the executive director of Asociación Gente Positiva, a Guatemala City-based HIV/AIDS service organization.
Violence based on sexual orientation remains commonplace in Guatemala. It nevertheless remains unclear whether the men targeted Dávila — a vocal critic of President Alejandro Giammattei, his government and political corruption in the country — because he is gay.
Dávila told the Associated Press he “constantly receives threats because of my work, but nothing more than that.” Dávila also said he now travels with several police officers.
“I will continue working, I will continue speaking out and I will continue speaking for people who have been historically excluded,” he said in his Facebook video.
Dávila told the Blade the Guatemalan Public Ministry is responsible for any investigation into the incident.
“They would be the ones who would have to determine if there will be an investigation or not,” he said. “There should be one in theory, but the Public Ministry in Guatemala is not the best, or the most trustworthy (institution.)”
