Rodrigo Rosenberg and His Video Accusation

Ghost In The Machine

A sad and strange case and one that might topple the Guatemalan government.

RODRIGO ROSENBERG was not the best-known, richest, or most powerful victim of the endemic violence that dogs Guatemala. His murder on May 10th—he was shot by an unknown gunman while bicycling on a busy avenue—was not even unusually brazen by the country’s grim standards. But Mr Rosenberg, a Harvard-educated lawyer, did something to distinguish himself from the other 6,000 people killed in Guatemala in the past 12 months. Four days before his death, he recorded an 18-minute video in which he began by saying: “If you are watching this message it is because I have been murdered by President Álvaro Colom” with the help of Gustavo Alejos, his chief of staff, and Gregorio Valdez, a businessman, and the approval of Mr Colom’s wife, Sandra Torres. With that he plunged Guatemala into its most serious political convulsion since the end of a 36-year civil war in 1996. He also highlighted the continuing lawlessness of a country that comes as close as any in the Americas (Haiti apart) to a failed state.

The heart of the issue is that a client of Rodrigo was offered a job by President Colom, then turned the client down on fear he would reveal corruption. Allegedly to cover his tracks he then murdered him. For the record there is no eveidence yet that President Colom ordered the hit, although I suspect the job offer aspect was true. The President, in charge of a center left government won office on the basis of good government, something which has made the mess stink even worse. To be frank, he and his wife are not helping the situation as they use class warfare to defend themsleves:

Mr Colom, his wife and the others named by Mr Rosenberg have all angrily denied his claims. After at first questioning the video’s authenticity, Mr Colom then suggested that it was part of a right-wing plot to destabilise his government. (The journalist who recorded the video, Mario David García, is a conservative commentator who in the 1980s expressed sympathy for an attempted coup.)

The first couple have tried to turn the case into a political battle along class lines. They ordered mayors to mobilise supporters for a large pro-government demonstration outside the presidential palace in Guatemala City on May 17th. Although this was organised with public money, it was outnumbered by a rival protest demanding justice in the Rosenberg case. “They’re well-groomed, with new shirts and shiny shoes, when there are more than a million malnourished children nobody worries about,” Ms Torres said of the protesters. She seems to model herself on Eva Perón, Argentina’s populist heroine; some think she wants to succeed her husband as president, following the example of Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Using state money to organize rallies smacks of Chavez and corruption, as for the shiny shoes quote, what does that have to do with a murder?