Grenade Kills 2 at Mexican Embassy in Guatemala

Terrorists tossed a makeshift grenade into the garden of the Mexican Embassy here Wednesday, killing two Guatemalan employees and shattering window panes and causing extensive damage throughout the building, the ambassador said.

The Mexican government news agency, Notimex, quoted police investigators as saying that the explosive device was a booby-trap device wrapped in rags, and was hurled from the street.

A fire department official at the scene identified the victims as Heraldo Gamez Soto, 25, hired as a messenger two months before, and Eduardo Roldan Hernandez, 45, a gardener who had been at the mission for several years.

Set Off Grenade

Roldan Hernandez picked up the device to examine it and set off the explosion, which rocked the residential district where the embassy is located.

The ambassador said the explosion wrecked a ground-floor library, damaged the military attache’s office and shattered window panes throughout the building.

‘No Compensation’

“It was an unfortunate action,” the envoy, Abraham Talaveram, said later. “A grenade exploded and two Guatemalans at the service of the Embassy of Mexico lost their lives.

“There are no material damages that can compensate for the loss of two human lives.”

The fire official, policemen and embassy officials said they did not know who carried out the terrorist attack, and no group claimed responsibility for it.

If there were political motives for the blast, those too were not immediately clear. However, in recent years, northern Guatemala has reportedly been the scene of extensive repression by forces of the right-wing military government against the majority Indians of the region. An estimated 46,000 people, most of them Indian peasants, have fled to Mexico since 1980.

Guatemalan officials charge that refugee camps in Mexico serve as recruiting centers and are safe havens for leftist guerrillas, an accusation that Mexico denies.