Word: guatemala
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...which was created in 1947 with the broad authority to conduct foreign intelligence missions. In 1953 the agency orchestrated a coup against Iranian Premier Mohammed Mossadegh that returned the pro-American Shah to power. Over the ensuing decade, it supported coups and assassinations in places such as Guatemala and the Dominican Republic to install leaders considered sympathetic to U.S. interests. Despite this legacy, many Americans were unaware of the CIA's clandestine operations until May 1960, when a U-2 spy plane was downed over the Soviet Union. The folks in Langley, Va., suffered another collective black eye from...
That's apparently what happened to Rodrigo Rosenberg, a corporate lawyer murdered on May 10 while biking near his home. In a twist that's macabre even for Guatemala, Rosenberg had taped a video three days earlier in which he anticipated his assassination and put the blame on President Alvaro Colom and his imperious wife Sandra Torres. They deny it, saying their right-wing foes coerced Rosenberg into making the video and then had him killed...
...since the shocking video was uploaded to YouTube on May 11, the nation has begun to confront the benighted lawlessness that plagues not only Guatemala but most of the rest of Central America too. Younger Guatemalans, organizing protests via social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, have turned out by the thousands to protest their putrid judicial system and festoon Rosenberg's murder scene with banners. "Older people say they haven't seen an awakening like this in 60 years," says Alejandro Quinteros, 26, a cherubic fast-food manager and political novice who helps lead the National Civic Movement...
...outcry over the Rosenberg case has opened doors to reform. Guatemala's congress was compelled to pass a law, long resisted by powerful political and business interests, that allows public scrutiny of judicial appointments. This month lawmakers say they're set to convene at least one special session to act on measures such as concealed-weapons laws and the creation of organized-crime and anticorruption courts. Activists like Alfonso Abril, 24, of the civic group ProReforma, want to revise Guatemala's sclerotic constitution to modernize lawmaking and codify individual rights. "I'm from the upper class," says Abril...
...themselves). In his video, Rosenberg says his coffee-baron client Khalil Musa was gunned down along with his daughter in April because Musa knew too much about drug-money-laundering. "Rodrigo wanted to talk about the deadly manipulation of laws and lives here," says his half brother Eduardo Rodas. Guatemala has asked the U.N. and the FBI to investigate his murder. After 500 years, Rosenberg's ghost may be the first to challenge Alvarado...