Often used as a vehicle of protest and a platform for making speeches, the pageant to crown Rabin Ajau is a celebration of Guatemala’s indigenous community.
The congas, timbales and Afro-Latin guitar and organ rhythms on smash covers such as "Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen" and "Oye Como Va" redefined the parameters of rock-and-roll.
The opposition's greatest challenge will be to retain control of the country's biggest cities – especially the Caracas metropolitan area and the oil city of Maracaibo.
For some local residents, the killing opened a window onto a world they knew little about: a struggling Central American country where poverty, crime and natural disasters have driven thousands to the Washington area, and where corruption and military intervention have weakened a poor but once-stable democracy.
