"If you are watching this message, it is because I was assassinated by President Alvaro Colom with help from Gustavo Alejos." Those were Guatemalan lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg's last public words on a video he recorded indicating that if he was found dead the President and his aides would be responsible. His family released that tape to the public posthumously, the day after Rosenberg was shot dead while riding his bike on May 10th, and since then thousands of protesters have flooded Guatemala City to demand President Colom's resignation.

President Colom has adamantly denied any involvement and has asked the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and a United Nations panel to investigate. Mr. Rosenberg alleges on the video he recorded that he was perceived as a threat by the president due to his investigation of the death of a governmental aide Khalil Musa. But the Guatemalan government, whose policies have rattled the country's conservative elite, has claimed that the allegations are an attempt to destablize the government and the relatively new democracy.

Although President Colom is the Central American country's first freely elected leftist leaning leader in over 50 years, the country has remained deeply divided since their civil war ended just a century ago between the ruling aristocratic class and the largely indigenous population.