Violent protests in support of former GUATEMALAN dictator Efraín Ríos Montt engulfed Guatemala City Thursday, forcing the U.S. Embassy to close and the president to call out the army to restore order.

Police said at least 5,000 demonstrators, many with machetes and clubs, urged letting Ríos Montt run for president Nov. 9. Demonstrators smashed windows, burned parked cars and blocked traffic.

Ríos Montt's military government, which took power in a 1982 coup, was responsible for some of the worst atrocities of Guatemala's 1960-96 civil war, but he is popular with some segments of society.

A court injunction has blocked him from registering for the vote until a panel of judges rules on whether his candidacy would be legal. The constitution bars former coup leaders from running for office.



In BRAZIL Thursday, a small army of squatters left a vacant 12-story São Paulo hotel, where they spent four days without water or electricity in a desperate bid for housing. Police had said they would send in riot police to evict them if necessary.

Ten miles away, about 3,500 other squatters have erected a shantytown on the city's outskirts, where they vowed to stay despite the threat of eviction.

The protest is quickly becoming a political dilemma for the new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. During his campaign he promised to help redistribute land to millions of destitute Brazilians in rural areas, but he made no mention of urban property reforms.



Police and soldiers clashed with about 4,000 villagers in western BOLIVIA Tuesday during a protest to force the government to pave a road there. One person was killed, authorities said.

The villagers want the government to pave a road through Santa Rosa, a poor town where international oil companies have drilled for years.

"We are so small, and these companies are so big, and all we want is our dirt road paved in return," said a tear-filled Isidro Celaya, 68, who stood outside the morgue waiting to claim the body of his son Luis, 32, who was killed in the confrontation.



Three more women were found dead Wednesday in MEXICO near Ciudad Juárez, a day after the government announced it would send 300 federal police officers to protect women from an epidemic of killings there.

More than 250 women have been murdered since 1993 in or near Ciudad Juárez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas.

At least half the murders are unsolved. Judicial officials have blamed drug trafficking, domestic violence, serial killers and even Satanic sects for the murders.