CICIG investigation refutes video tape from beyond the grave
Rodrigo Rosenberg became a household name in Guatemala after he posthumously accused the President and First Lady of ordering his Mother’s Day murder last year. His words, left behind in video taped days before he was shot to death on a tree-lined boulevard, sent tens of thousands of protesters into the streets and sparked youth-led reform movements: “If you are watching this message, it is because I was assassinated by President Alvaro Colom, with help from [presidential secretary] Gustavo Alejos... I knew exactly how [they] were responsible for that cowardly murder [of Musa], and I told them so." But the case that once seemed powerful enough to topple a presidency came to a bizarre end on January 12 as investigators concluded that Rosenberg, distraught over the murder of his girlfriend and her father, ordered his own death.
The Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a UN-backed investigatory body, found that Rosenberg instigated his own killing. He told his cousins that he and his family were being threatened by an extortionist, and requested that they hire hitmen to end the situation. However, the extortionist was fictitious, and the cousins were unaware that the target of the assassination would be Rosenberg himself. The cousins contracted 11 hit men, more than half of whom are former or current military or police officers, to carry out the killing, investigators said.
The results of the investigation have been tentatively accepted by the national media, and the CICIG's work on the case held up as the standard by which all Guatemalan enquiries of this kind should be conducted.
Colom regards the investigation's results are a "vindication". In fact, the prime minister has emerged from the case with high approval ratings, appearing very much the statesman. He says now his name has been cleared, he plans restart stalled initiatives, like a tax-reform package and fighting violent crime. “The issue of security is one of the most important reforms for my government,” he says. “It’s the issue that affects Guatemalans more than any other”. Indeed, the country has a murder rate more than 8 times that of the US. Only 3.5% of last year’s 6,451 slayings were solved, CICIG said.
