JOSE Ruben Zamora, chief editor of Guatemala’s independent newspaper, El Periodico, was recently named one of the 20th century’s 50 heroes by the International Press Institute for his uncompromising courage. But to the country’s former president, Jorge Serrano Elias, and the current head of state, Alfonso Portillo, Zamora is nothing more than a problematic ‘extremist.’

Zamora was terrorized and threatened in the course of his work. In