First taste.

Latin American countries are somewhat infamous for having corrupt governments, police, and just about everything else, right down to convienence store owners. Living in Guatemala, I have seen and heard a bit of this and a bit of that involving corruption on small levels. For example, paying off the cops for false or legitimate arrests, people paying for lawyers and the lawyers skipping town, etc, etc. However, I am experiencing my first taste of federal government level corruption as we speak.

If any of you read or watch the news, maybe you have heard. Two days ago a video was released to the media of a lawyer named Rodrigo Rosenberg(pictured above). In this video, Rosenberg said something along the lines of, "If you are seeing this video, it is because I have been murdered by order of the president(of Guatemala)". In the video he said much more, including other accusations and giving support to the Vice President of Guatemala to heal and take back the country.

True, this man is dead, and in proper Guatemalan fashion, they printed pictures of his dead body in the newspaper, laying right beside his bicycle where he was murdered in broad daylight.

¿¿¿WTF???

A day after the release of the video, the President of Guatemala(Alvaro Colom, pictured below)denied having anything to do with this mans death. Also, a day after this story broke to the media, there were massive protests in front of the presidents house calling for his resignation. The Guatemalan government also promtply flew mayors in from towns and cities all over Guatemala, to the capital to support the president. All this done on the tab of the Guatemalan tax payers, and at no small price.

Forgive me, but this is so fucked. Basically, there is hard core, prerecorded proof that this mans assination is directly related to the President, and done by his order. Now, we must consider that it is potentially a conspiracy created by this Robert Rosenberg himself, in order to stir up the government. However, the history of Latin American governments points to this story and his accusations being true.

There have been promised "unadulterated and unbiased" investigations into these recent happenings. And my response to that is: how can anyone possibly believe that these investigations will not be corrupt? This country was born from corruption and unfortunately it may fall from the same corrupt practices. What could happen? It will be so interesting to find out.

Get on Google and read something. This is too crazy to be true, and it has every single person in Guatemala talking. Imagine a video of a very notable and famous lawyer coming out saying that if we are seeing this it means he is dead and that our president is responsible. Seems it could never happen. Nuts.

In turn, nobody knows what will happen. Will the president step down? Will more people turn up dead? Will the investigations acutally be legitimately un corrupt, unbiased and clear? How can we feel safe in this kind of political environment? The questions in the minds and heard from the voices of people here, myself included, are unending.

The Prensa Libre(the main Guatemalan newspaper)printed today that the FBI is getting involved in the investigations. However, that does not really mean anything. I am sure the Guatemalan government has worked with the FBI before to the disadvantage of the people. Hmm, let me think, oh yeah, the nearly 40 year civil war this country went through.

I cannot deny that part of me is furious at all of this. And most of my anger comes from the fact that whoever killed this man will likely walk free the rest of his life as many murderers do in this place, whilst this corrupt president continues to rule this oh so fragile country. . .

May Rodrigo Rosenburg rest in peace.