Murder Accusations against Guatemalan President: The Truth Comes out
Murder Accusations against Guatemalan President: The Truth Comes out
A UN investigation concluded that a slain Guatemalan lawyer hired a hit man to stage his own murder, despite a video alleging the country's president was behind the killing.
In a country where you can literally get away with murder, Guatemalans were shocked to hear that the murderer of attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg, whose infamous video accused President Alvaro Colom of assassinating him, was Rosenberg himself who plotted his own death in a tangled web of intrigue. The intellectual authors of the murder were his ex-wife's cousins, pharmaceutical company owners Jose Ramon Francisco and Jose Estuardo Valdez Paiz, who where identified by 11 suspects arrested in September 2009, and who had been asked by Rosenberg to help him find a hitman to deal with an extortionist. But it was his own death that Rosenberg had plotted and the Valdez Paiz brothers are still on the run.
“We cannot talk about Rosenberg’s death as a suicide. It is about a person who is in charge of his own murder, but the people who execute it don’t know it is Rosenberg planning it,” said Carlos Castresana, Director of the International Commission against Impunity, a Spanish jurist in charge of the investigation of the Rosenberg murder. On January 12, the investigation results were broadcast live online on Justin.Tv—a fitting medium since Rosenberg was last seen looking into the camera during a YouTube video on March 11, 2009, saying: “Good afternoon, my name is Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano and, sadly, if you are watching and hearing this video it’s because I have been assassinated by Mr. President Alvaro Colom with the help of Gustavo Alejos and Gregorio Valdez."
It was the video that launched thousands of young protesters to the streets asking for President Colom and his administration's resignation. For a tense two weeks, Guatemala's executive was in political limbo, with the president's authority and credibility at stake.
Read the full text of this web exclusive at www.AmericasQuarterly.org.
Kara Andrade is a Central American-based freelance journalist who has worked as a multimedia producer and photojournalist for Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, San Jose Mercury News, and Oakland Tribune, among other publications.
