I left Guatemala under duress eight years ago. My work as a journalist had earned me threats, and I believed it was no longer safe for me to live in that country. In the years since, I have grown distant, to the point that I now feel more American than Guatemalan. But every now and then, you come across a story so powerful that you cannot help but be moved. That is the case with the death of Rodrigo Rosenberg, a Guatemalan lawyer who has shocked his country from the grave, prompting a civic uprising that may bring down an increasingly unpopular president.
Rosenberg, a 47-year-old father of four, was gunned down on Sunday while he rode a bike near his home in Guatemala City. The following day, at the funeral, his family released a video recorded by the victim just days before his death. In it, he accuses Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom of planning and ordering the murder. “If you are listening to this message,” said Rosenberg, “it’s because I was murdered by President Alvaro Colom, with the help of [the president’s private secretary] Gustavo Alejos and [alleged drug dealer] Gregorio Valdez.”
Click Below to Watch the Victim’s Posthumous VideoThe Cambridge- and Harvard-educated lawyer was, by all accounts, an honorable citizen. He spent 21 years in private practice and as a professor at Rafael Landivar Law School in Guatemala City. In his posthumous video, he explains that the government elite put a hit on him because he knew too much about the murder of a client, Khalil Musa, who was killed in April. Musa was a prominent businessman who had been tapped by the Colom administration to join the board of a bank owned in part by the government. According to Rosenberg, Musa discovered a deep web of corruption within the bank, and, wishing to keep his hands clean, asked the president to accept his resignation. Colom and his advisers allegedly feared that Musa would blow the whistle, and decided to off him.
In the video, Rosenberg called the Guatemalan president “a thief, a murderer, and a coward.” He said Colom’s secretary had approached him directly, warning him that he would be killed if he didn’t stop denouncing Musa’s murder. The accusations have prompted two consecutive days of protests in Guatemala. Local media reports thousands of people dressed in black, calling for the president to resign. And a Facebook group called “United Guatemalans Demanding Alvaro Colom’s Resignation” has drawn over 20,000 members since Monday. “I was very proud to join the protests in Guatemala City,” said blogger Luis Guillermo Pineda in an interview with The Daily Beast. He added, “We demand the immediate resignation of President Alvaro Colom because he has lost the legitimacy to be the head of government; we also call for the prosecution of first lady Sandra de Colom, as well as Gustavo Alejos, the private secretary of the president, who have been accused of corruption on several times.”
From an American perspective, it is important to understand that the corruption of which Colom and company are accused is not your run-of-the-mill kickbacks from government projects. Corruption in Guatemala must be understood within the context of the growing power of organized crime in Mexico. Guatemala represents the southern border of the Mexican drug lords’ fiefdom. Kingpin Joaquin Guzmán has been known to use Guatemala as his hideout, and it has been widely reported that the cartels have recruited former officers of the Guatemalan army for their private bands of mercenaries. Indeed, Colom has been accused of having links to the drug mafia since at least 2003, when his failed presidential campaign came under scrutiny for donations he received from alleged drug dealers.
View as Single Page 12 Back to Top May 13, 2009 | 8:50pm EmailsEmails | | print Print Murder, Mexico, Drug War, Drug Cartels, Drug Lords, Rodrigo Rosenberg, Guatemala Murder, Guatemalan President, Alvaro Colom, Gustavo Alejos, Gregorio Valdez, Khalil Musa, Guzman (–) Show Replies Collapse Replies Sort Up Sort Down sort by date: sophia5
"Mexico's drug violence is infecting other parts of Latin America-and threatening to destabilize the entire region." Is it unfair to ask the question, when has the entire region of Latin America ever been "STABILIZED?" In the context of Latin America, "destabilize" meaning what . . . even more corruption and violence than before?
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Robert Windrem is a Senior Reserach Fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security. For three decades, he worked as a producer for NBC News. During that time, he focused on issues of international security, strategic policy, intelligence and terrorism. He is the winner of more than 40 national journalism awards for his work in print, television, and online journalism, including a Columbia-duPont Award, mostly for his work on international security issues.
John Batchelor is radio host of the John Batchelor Show in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Reihan Salam is a fellow at the New America Foundation and the co-author of Grand New Party.
Gregory Gilderman is senior producer at The Daily Beast and a former writer for Philadelphia magazine.
Peter Stothard is editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He was editor of The Times of London from 1992-2002. He writes about ancient and modern literature and is the author of Thirty Days, a Downing Street diary of his time with British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the Iraq war.
Constantino Diaz-Duran is a writer living in Manhattan. He has written for the New York Post, the Washington Blade, El Diario NY and the Orange County Register.
Constantino Diaz-Duran is a writer living in Manhattan. He has written for the New York Post, the Washington Blade, El Diario NY and the Orange County Register.
Constantino Diaz-Duran is a writer living in Manhattan. He has written for the New York Post, the Washington Blade, El Diario NY and the Orange County Register.
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by Constantino Diaz-Duran
Constantino Diaz-Duran is a writer living in Manhattan. He has written for the New York Post, the Washington Blade, El Diario NY and the Orange County Register.
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