Thu, 28 May 11:00 2009

An announced death

“Good afternoon. My name is Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzana and, unfortunately, if you are watching or listening to this message, it means I was murdered.”
So began a video made by lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg who feared for his life and whose fears were justified after he was gunned down while cycling in Guatemala City on May 10.
Rosenberg claimed in the video, recorded on May 6 by Mario David Garcia, presenter of a popular programme, ‘Hablando Claro’ (Plain Speaking), that if he died it would be on the orders of the Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom, his wife Sandra Torres de Colom, his private secretary Gustavo Alejos and Gregorio Valdez. Valdez, considered to be Colom’s financial backer, is a building constructor and a leading state contractor.
The 47-year-old, a father of four children, with masters’ degrees from Cambridge and Harvard, suspected that his life was in danger following the shooting of two of his clients. They were prominent businessman, Khalil Musa, and his daughter, Marjorie, with whom twice-divorced Rosenberg was sentimentally linked.
According to Rosenberg’s posthumous message, the Musa deaths and his own would be traceable to Banrural, a partially state-owned bank which handles vast amounts of government money.
The lawyer claimed in his video that Colom and Alejos invited Khalil Musa to join the Banrural board but he soon became aware that he was being used as a pawn between two groups using the bank’s funds for their own illegal activities.
These included payments to ghost companies, owned by Sandra Torres, and laundering money made from Valdez’s drug deals.
Once Musa refused to go along with the other board members, alleged Rosenberg, he and his daughter were murdered to prevent them from talking.
The next name on the list, he predicted, would be his own.
After the video was aired, Alvaro Colom denounced it as a fake, while his wife airily countered that it was ‘a dead man’s word against mine’.
Guatemalans turned out in their hundreds of thousands, on May 16, both to show support for Colom or to condemn him. The pro-Colom demonstrators were mainly farmers and workers who have felt the benefits of the Social Democrat government’s social programmes. Those against him were chiefly from the middle, professional and upper classes, who oppose Colom, Guatemala’s first left-wing leader since the CIA helped to topple Jacobo Arbenz in 1954.
At Colom’s request, an FBI team is collaborating with the local authorities, together with a UN team - International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala - set up to combat corruption.
Colom, meanwhile, might be holding his breath, but his opponents are watching their backs.

Set as favorite

Email this

Comments (0) Add Comment