Bad Times in Guatemala City

Every once in awhile someone gets the headline wrong.

The headline on Drudge Sunday was, "Guatemala in Uproar After Lawyer Predicts Own Murder." That happened to be the headline on the linked article as well.

But the headline should have read:

Guatemala in Uproar After Lawyer Correctly Predicts Own Murder

His allegations that drug money was being laundered through the presidential offices of the First Lady may have struck a raw nerve with someone.

Rodrigo Rosenberg, a middle-aged Guatemalan lawyer, has become an unlikely YouTube star in macabre circumstances. In a video recorded last Friday at the offices of a friend, he sits behind a desk and talks at the camera for 15 minutes.

"If you are hearing this message," Rosenberg begins, "unfortunately, it is because I have been murdered by the president's private secretary, Gustavo Alejos, and his partner, Gregorio Valdez, with the approval of Álvaro Colom and Sandra de Colom [Guatemala's president and first lady]."

Two days later, on Sunday, Rosenberg was shot while riding his bicycle in Guatemala City. He died on the street.

Apparently this happened a week ago, by the way. If you are wondering what this guy was doing riding a bicycle in Guatemala City under the circumstances, you are not alone. Of course, there are a lot of bicycle riders in Ciudad de Guatemala; maybe he thought he could blend in with the crowd. Plus, you eliminate the possibility of a car bomb, something not entirely unknown in this beautiful but corrupt city.

And maybe he figured he was marked for death anyway. Why not make it easy?

I've been to Guatemala a couple of times, and love the place, though I prefer the mountain villages. Notwithstanding its reputation as a hotbed of rebellion and drug running, the vast majority of Guatemalans are wonderful, friendly people who would like nothing better than for the hell-raisers to leave town, or get buried in the next inevitable earthquake or mudslide.

I do have a quibble with this story, however, in that the reporter states that "after a brutal military dictatorship lasting nearly 40 years to 1996 ..." That is pure B.S. The people have elected their presidents every four years pretty much most of the second half of the 20th century until today. Some of those presidents have been military men, true, but they had the votes. What happened in 1996 is that the government finally signed a peace agreement formally ending a 36-year war with Marxist insurgents. I guess that's the excuse the Brit reporter needed to declare everything before that "brutal."

The problem with Guatemala is that it is in between the drug-producing nations of South America and the United States, and the drug cartels are increasingly flexing their muscles over the government and social life of several South American countries.

The one thing you can count on is that left-leaning presidents, popularly elected or not, would rather cooperate with the drug lords than fight with them. There's more money in it that way, plus it's healthier than bicycling.