The top story this morning, as reported by the AP in the New York Times and in the Wall Street Journal, is from Guatemala where a murdered lawyer’s posthumous video tape has thrown the country into political disarray. Rodrigo Rosenberg was shot dead Sunday by unidentified assassins, but in a prerecorded video he claims his murder, were it to occur, would have been ordered by President Alvaro Colom. Colom denies the accusations, but the Guatemalan government has called for the U.N. and FBI to investigate. Interestingly, the AP reports that television stations repeatedly aired the video and “so many people watched it on Guatemalan internet sites that some temporarily collapsed. Further, More than 5,300 people joined a Facebook group called “Guatemalans for the dismissal of Alvaro Colom.” In the WSJ, Guatemala expert Anita Isaacs says, “This speaks to the incredible violence that takes place every day in Guatemala from organized criminal networks that have infiltrated the state.” Some analysts believe the killing may have been carried out by organized-crime networks that sprang from paramilitary or military groups. As for a possible motive behind the killing, Rosenberg says he was a wanted man for defending businessman Khalil Musa. Musa had refused to get involved in purported illicit transactions of the Guatemalan Rural Development Bank for which he was a board member. He was shot and killed in March along with his daughter.
Not far from Guatemala, the LA Times writes from El Salvador on that country’s struggles with crime and violence. The paper reports that “drugs, corruption and a history of violence and abuse contribute to a per capita homicide rate that is 10 times that of the U.S. In the first three months of 2009, 12 people were killed each day in a country of only 7 million— five times the homicide rate of media-headliner Mexico. “Life is cheap,” writes the LAT. “Throw in drugs and impunity, and a flawed judicial system whereby few if any killings are ever solved, and the death toll will continue to climb.” While many murders are committed by gangs fighting for money and power in the wake of the government’s “iron fist” crackdown, one of El Salvador's leading human rights organizations, affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, has analyzed homicides every year since 2004 and concluded that “hundreds were committed by rogue police officers, private security guards and people hired to carry out ‘social cleansing’ -- the elimination of undesirables through extrajudicial executions.” Shockingly, 70% of victims of homicides in El Salvador are between the ages of 15 and 39. “Death has become natural to me,” says Fr. Anthony Rodriguez. “Ten years ago, this kind of thing was an inconceivable scandal to me. Now I live with death in a very natural way. If it happens to me, imagine those born into this culture.”
In the Miami Herald a report on Cuba says that U.S. anti-Castro broadcasters Radio and TV Martí will be undergoing major staff cuts and retooling as their budget shrinks. In its funding request to Congress, the agency that oversees the Miami-based Radio and TV Martí submitted a budget that allocates $2.4 million less for the controversial broadcasts and 20% of the broadcaster’s staff will be laid off. Critics maintain that hardly anyone listens to Radio Martí, and virtually no one watches TV Martí in Cuba. The Cuban government constantly jams the signals, and many people have said the programming is simply too dull to be effective. Last year, fewer than 1 percent of 1,200 people surveyed over the telephone said they had listened to Radio Martí in the past week. But the Government Accountability Office, who conducted the study, adds that nearly half of new Cuban arrivals to the United States said they had listened to the broadcasts in the past six months. “Why continue to fund an operation that has absolutely zero benefit?” asks Congressman Bill Delahunt (D-MA) who commissioned the report.
And outside the major papers, the AP in El Nuevo Herald reports this morning on Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s re-election bid. The very popular leader, the paper writes, has been put in a very bad mood of late when asked about his attempt to seek another term as president. However, the report lays out the major obstacles Uribe faces in calling a referendum that would extend his mandate beyond that which is currently allowed by the Colombian constitution. This list includes a scandal of over 1600 assassinations of civilians--many of whom were portrayed by security forces to be guerrilla fighters when in fact they were not—an economic crisis, and a domestic spying scandal yet unresolved. Interestingly, intellectuals, in particular, have rejected re-election by Uribe. “All of the intellectuals and practically all of the opinion makers are against [re-election],” wrote the magazine Semana earlier this week.
In other news, the NYT reports that the United States won a seat on the UN’s 47-member Human Rights Council on Tuesday. The controversy surrounding Council, which assesses the rights records of United Nations member states, was underscored” by the General Assembly’s re-electing other nations condemned by human rights organizations for abusing their own citizens,” writes the paper. Such nations include Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Cameroon. But the Obama administration decided that it could be more effective in changing the council’s behavior if it joined the organization. “While we recognize that the Human Rights Council has been a flawed body that has not lived up to its potential,” UN ambassador Susan Rice said, “we are looking forward to working from within with a broad cross section of member states to strengthen and reform the council.”
Also in the NYT, the AP reports that Peru has granted asylum to two more former Bolivian government ministers who fled the country in the face of genocide charges for the 2003 army killings of dozens of protesters. A trial in Bolivia is scheduled for May 18 on the genocide charge—a charge which carries a penalty of 30 years in prison. But former officials claim that they cannot get a fair trial in what they call a politically motivated case.
The LAT looks at Mexico’s new advertising campaign directed at foreign tourists. The paper reports that one group of Mexican hotels, Secrets and Dreams Resorts & Spas, is offering a "flu-free" guarantee: Guests who catch the H1N1 virus at one of its resorts can get three vacations for free.
And one opinion in the WSJ today. An editorial there looks at two lawsuits against Dole Fruit Company--recently tossed out by a California court--calling claims made by the plaintiffs an attempt at “extortion.” The paper writes: “The allegations against Dole, the world's largest fruit and vegetable producer, involved banana plantation workers in Nicaragua who alleged that exposure to the pesticide DBPC in the 1970s left them sterile. The only problem is that most of the plaintiffs had not worked at plantations and weren't sterile.” The judge in the case said she had heard evidence of “U.S. attorneys colluding with judges, lab technicians and local officials in Nicaragua to suborn perjury and doctor medical reports.” The defense claimed ten thousand men were rounded up and coached to make false claims of sterility in hope of reaping billions of dollars from companies like Dole, Dow Chemical and Amvac. “Anyone who revealed the ruse was threatened with violence, as were the U.S. investigators hired by the defendants.”
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