A video from the grave throws Guatemala into crisis

[RagingInMiami]

Source: Time

On Sunday, Rosenberg was shot in the head while riding his bicycle. In the previously recorded video, he declares, "If you are watching this message, it is because I was assassinated by President Alvaro Colom, with help from Gustavo Alejos ... I knew exactly how were responsible for that cowardly murder , and I told them so and told those who wanted and could hear it."


Colom has repeatedly denied the allegations and refused calls to temporarily step down. "There is no proof, aside from the recording, which I discredit completely," he said. Colom also asked for assistance from international bodies, including a U.N.-backed investigatory body and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations. Embassy officials said an FBI agent arrived in Guatemala on Wednesday to help the government.

Colom won the presidency in 2007 with strong support from the country's impoverished indigenous Mayans. He ran on a leftist platform that included confronting government corruption and violent crime, legacies of the country's 36-year civil war. That war ended in 1996, giving way to rampant street crime and drug trafficking. An average of 18 people are killed daily in Guatemala, making it one of the most dangerous countries in the Americas.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1898360,00.html

[snot]

1. k&r'd

[ProgressIn2008]

2. Quite a story, thanks for posting. K&R nt

[babylonsister]

3. Wow. Thanks. So much going on here, but this needs to be read. Rec'd. nt

[imdjh]

4. wow k n r

[struggle4progress]

5. Interesting story but broke three days ago and so not LBN. Link from LA forum:

rabs (306 posts)
Tue May-12-09 08:31 AM
Original message
"Good afternoon, if you are watching this, it is sadly because I have been assassinated
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x15076

[RagingInMiami]

6. The breaking news is that the country is in crisis

We already knew of the actual assassination.

[struggle4progress]

7. Maybe you're right. It's not clear to me what TIME's reporting that's new. There have

been protests this week, Colom has requested outside help investigating, and so on. There's no doubt it's an important story, and nobody knows what to expect next. So far, it's tame compared to the late twentieth century crises there, but that doesn't mean it's not potentially serious. Still, we're not getting a lot of English language updates -- a twitterer has been arrested for trying to start a run on the bank, for example -- so there may not be much surface activity

Video Accusing Guatemalan President of Murder Unleashes Political Crisis, Deepens Social Divisions
Written by James Rodríguez
Friday, 15 May 2009
Source: MiMundo.org
... Last Monday, May 11th and one day after Rosenberg’s assassination, a video began circulating in which Rosenberg himself states: “If you are watching this, it is because I was murdered by President Alvaro Colom.” His wife and two close aids, which were major campaign contributors, are also mentioned by name ... As a result of the crisis, two very different protests were carried out in the central park of Guatemala City. The first gathering brought thousands of demonstrators who angrily demand justice for Rosenberg’s death in addition to a resolution for the out-of-control violence in which Guatemalan society lives today. This first group, composed primarily by residents from the wealthier sectors, also demands the immediate resignation of President Colom ... Simultaneously, dozens of buses brought hundreds of organized people to show their support for President Colom in front of the Presidential Palace. These governmental sympathizers come primarily from low-income shantytowns, known as asentamientos, within the outskirts of Guatemala City. During a live CNN interview on Tuesday the 12th, President Colom admitted his UNE party had strong presence and support in such areas. These demonstrators claim that Colom’s government is victim of a movement seeking political instability. Despite the tensions among the groups, no violent confrontations occurred ... http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1862/1/

Twitter Tweeter Arrested in Guatemala
05/14/2009
One minute, you’re telling people “what you are doing,” the next minute, you’re getting hauled off to jail. That’s what happened to a man in Guatemala who police say could have “incited a panic” with his viral Tweeting. Jean Ramses Anleu Fernandez was taken into custody after suggesting on Twitter that everyone who had money in the Banrural bank should withdraw it all. The reason?: “to break the control that corrupt entities” have over the state-run bank. Sounds innocent enough until you know the background. Long story short – the bank has been at the center of a political controversy that has involved the murders of an attorney and a finance expert, as well as accusations that the government has been complicit in those crimes ... http://www.von.com/news/twitter-tweeter-arrested-in-guatemala.html

[rabs]

8. Posted this in Latin American forum yesterday (Wednesday)

It is information I gleaned from the Guatemalan press and some of my own observations. Today religious, academics, politicians and business leaders called for the crime to be resolved and for the people to remain calm.

There was another anti-Colom demonstration today by several thousand people and signatures were being taken calling for the president to resign. A massive march is scheduled for Sunday, a week after Rosenberg was killed.

Below from yesterday.
-----------------------

There are some updates and facts not included. I am inclined to think that a slow-motion coup attempt is under way.

-- Colom is the first leftist president of Guatemala in 55 years. Since the CIA-sponsored overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954.

-- Today Colom said he will "never" resign and "only dead" will he be taken out of the presidential palace. (Shades of Salvador Allende in Santiago, Sept. 11, 1973.)
20:57 | 13/05/2009
El presidente de Guatemala, Álvaro Colom, aseguró hoy que no renunciará “jamas” y que “sólo muerto” lo sacaran de Palacio de Gobierno.

-- Colom said the accusations against him "are part of a plan" to destabilize the government.
Estas acusaciones, subrayo Colom, “son parte de un plan” encaminado a desestabilizar al Gobierno.

-- An unanswered question thus far is who benefited by the killing of the lawyer Rosenberg? Certainly not Colom.

-- Rosenberg was killed on Sunday, by Monday there was a highly-organized Facebook group of more than 5,000 organizing protests and calling for Colom's resignation.

-- At the funeral on Monday, a sinister character said he distributed 150 CDs of Rosenberg's video and that he had not had enough copies. Pretty fast work to make 150 copies from Sunday when Rosenberg was killed to his funeral on Monday.

-- That character is Luis Mendizabal, who was the Guatemalan liaison to El Salvador's extreme-rightwing ARENA party according to an article published by the newspaper La Prensa Grafica on Aug. 29, 2004.

-- Another article in the newspaper El Grafico (July 4, 2000) said Mendizabal was one of the founders of "La Oficinita," a group that defended military officers accused of massacres in Guatemala.

-- The government has said "organized crime" is behind assassination of Rosenberg, Khalil Musa and his daughter on April 14. Khalil Musa and Colom were close friends and both were textile executives. So Musa's killing makes no sense to the Colom government.

-- Guatemala -Narco-Business: A “New War” (Magazine Revista Envio, No. 332, March 2009)

President Álvaro Colom has been visibly surprised at the exponential growth of drug trafficking throughout the country. Narco-business is triggering a “new war” with thousands of victims. It is also leading Guatemala into a dangerous institutional atrophy and boosting impunity by nourishing a nest of vipers in the state.

A state infiltrated by criminal interests

There are unquestionable indications of incrusted powerful interests within the state that are working against its effectiveness in the struggle against big globalized national criminal capital.

-- Today there was an anti-Colom and a pro-Colom demonstration outside the presidential palace.
In the video, note the anti-Colom crowd and then note the pro-Colom supporters. The two groups were kept apart and there have been no clashes, so far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzbE4kGzUXk&feature=chan...

[struggle4progress]

9. I wonder if it is this Luis Mendizábal:

... Former interior minister Byron Barrientos, Deputy Director of the PNC Elmer Aguilar Moreno, and former head of Migración Luis Mendizábal, were all cashiered from the army after participating in an attempted coup against the first civilian government of Vinicio Cerezo in 1989...
Who Governs? Guatemala Five Years After the Peace Accords
January 2002
<pdf:> http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/hemisphereinitiatives/whogoverns.pdf
<html from pdf:> http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:wASGpLi-R3kJ:lanic.utexas.edu/project/hemisphereinitiatives/whogoverns.pdf+%22Luis+Mendizabal%22+%22Juan+Gerardi%22&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us