Some of you may have seen a YouTube video where a recently murdered lawyer, Rodrigo Rosenberg, explicitly accuses the Guatemalan President of murder, as he states: “If you are watching this, it is because I was murdered by President Alvaro Colom.” Rosenberg made this accusation because one of his clients, Khalil Musa, refused to take part in corrupt transactions with the the quasi state controlled bank Banrural (one of Guatemala’s largest banks). Mr. Musa and his daughter are also dead.
All these killings unleashed the worst political crisis for the Colom Administration, as Guatemalan citizens have taken to the streets in two separate protests, demanding the resignation of President Colom. Some of these protesters, along with some of our partners in Guatemala, have contributed to the new website FueraColom.com, which also asks for the President’s resignation. This rising tension has escalated the already existing violence in Guatemala, as noted in the LA Times by our friend Pedro Trujillo, a political analyst from Universidad Francisco Marroquin:
With this event we have come to the tip of the iceberg of the escalating violence taking place in Guatemala
Amidst this increased violence, the attacks have turned towards generation Y as the social networking scene in Guatemala is at risk of loosing its liberty. Yesterday, Jean Anleu Fernandez (@jeanfer) was arrested for twitttering that people in Guatemala should remove their funds from the Banrural bank, and break the control that corrupt actors have over state banks. Juan Carlos Hidalgo, from the Cato Institute, blogged about this attack on free speech in El Financiero, a prominent media source in Costa Rica.
A little over six months away from our Freedom Dinner, these incidents remind us of the volatile environments that many of our IE’s face around the world. If speaking out against state controlled financial institutions is a crime, then at least half of our movement would be in jail. Luckily, here in the United States the state has not taken these aggressive actions (yet), so this is even more of a reason to participate in our sound money essay contest and speak for those that cannot speak for themselves!
No comments have been made on this post.