The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: Gómez Limón, Monseñor Hernández, presidential guard, Bishop Gerardi, Father Mario, Captain Lima (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist Goldman (The Divine Husband, etc.) pursues in his first nonfiction book the infamous murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi, the Guatemalan human rights leader murdered after the release of his multivolume report on the genocidal terror campaign led by the army in the 1980s and '90s, in which 200,000 people disappeared or were killed. The book, which began as a New Yorker piece, casts light into the darkest corners of this tortuous case, the U.S.-supported war in Central America and the continuing legacy of violence and corruption. The large cast and myriad details can be overwhelming, but overall Goldman manages a clear narrative (aided by a dramatis personae and chronology). Drawing on a wealth of sources, including interviews, declassified documents and court records, his meticulously researched book is an impressive organizational achievement, as well as a vital moral accounting. Goldman—who was baptized in Gerardi's church of San Sebastian, attended by his Guatemalan-born mother—invests this eye-opening account with a layer of personal reflection. Like Latin American writers García Márquez, Vargas Llosa or Carlos Fuentes, his journalism isn't so much a departure from his fiction as an extension of his concerns with the fraught landscapes where truth is as contested as the soil underfoot, yet central to battles waged over it. (Sept.)
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From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Pamela Constable

Francisco Goldman, an accomplished novelist who specializes in evoking murky tropical worlds, could easily have concocted a macabre and fantastic plot in which right-wing military officers of a Central American country murder a leftist cleric, then set about terrorizing witnesses and planting salacious rumors to distract the public and cover their tracks. The assassins are never found, the powerful institutions behind them remain entrenched, and justice proves as elusive as a rare quetzal bird flitting through the jungle.

But The Art of Political Murder is not a novel. It is a painstakingly researched account of the assassination of a Guatemalan bishop, Msgr. Juan Gerardi, whose bludgeoned body was found lying in a pool of blood in his parish garage on the night of April 26, 1998, just four days after he and a team of human rights investigators announced the publication of a devastating, 1,400-page report blaming Guatemala's security forces for a 30-year reign of murder, torture, massacres and disappearances. Goldman's book is both a horrifying exposé and a triumphant tale of justice belatedly served in a country where the concept had lost all meaning, of institutional evil unmasked in a place where it had long operated behind a thousand disguises, of plodding police work and personal courage overcoming a culture of impunity and fear.

It is also alarmingly relevant to current events in Guatemala, where a season of national elections has been savaged by political assassination and skullduggery. One of the two leading presidential candidates is Otto Pérez Molina, a former army general and military intelligence chief who was in office at the time of the Gerardi murder. He has campaigned on a law-and-order platform and has said he would not hesitate to restrict civil liberties to crack down on crime.

Starting from the grisly murder scene, Goldman slowly builds a case against the killers and their shadowy protectors. His journalistic investigation closely tracks a laborious, multi-year inquiry by the human rights office of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Guatemala as well as a badly flawed official prosecution that nevertheless led to the first-ever convictions of Guatemalan army officers in a human rights crime. In the process, he lays bare the inner workings and powerful reach of an amoral shadow state. The Guatemalan-born author employs a blend of literary prose and factual reportage to keep readers engrossed in a complex tale involving dozens of characters, a thicket of deception and constantly shifting versions of events. He zooms in like a detective on tiny forensic details, scrutinizing casual comments and wisps of evidence until they begin to make sense. At the same time, he repeatedly reminds us of the murder's context in a bloody history that goes back to the U.S.-sponsored overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954, the establishment of Central America's most ruthless military machine and the launching of a protracted guerrilla war that took an estimated 200,000 civilian lives.

Goldman briefly recreates the era of anti-communist dictatorships and counterinsurgency campaigns, touching on some of its most notorious murders and shedding light on his own motivations. In particular, the 1985 torture-killing of a human rights activist named Rosario Godoy de Cuevas and her infant son haunted him for years. The pervasive fear and sorrow of that period, he writes, "stayed inside me like a dormant infection that can sometimes be stirred back to life, even by a glance."

Following the 1996 peace accords, Guatemala theoretically became a civilian-ruled democracy. But as this book argues persuasively, the nature of power did not really change, and the country remained hostage to shadowy military forces whose anticommunist mission had morphed into criminal enterprise, employing an army of informants. This system thrived in an atmosphere of conservative politics, media compliance and social prejudice in which many affluent Guatemalans looked down on the Mayan Indian poor whose cause the guerrillas championed.

The human rights activism of Bishop Gerardi's team was an intolerable challenge to this system, Goldman writes, and his slaying was no random crime. It was the calculated lashing out of a threatened monster; a symbolic act in a mighty confrontation between two major institutions, the military and the church; and a "complex chess move" designed to preserve a culture of privilege and profit.

The masterminds of the murder went to extraordinary lengths to disguise it as something else. Titillating rumors were planted in the press and the public imagination, with just enough plausibility to be believed: Gerardi had been the homosexual victim of a violent lovers' spat. He was done in by his housekeeper's vixen daughter and her gangster boyfriend. He was attacked by a German shepherd named Baloo who belonged to the secretive, fetishistic parish priest.

This last version gained such currency that the poor dog was imprisoned, the bishop's corpse was exhumed to look for bite marks, and cars sprouted bumper stickers saying, "Free Baloo!" Lurid gossip became official truth, dutifully repeated by the national media and sucking in even the distinguished Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who opined in 2004 that the plot had been concocted by an array of "scoundrels, opportunists and petty politicians" and that the actions of the church's human rights investigators were "supremely suspicious."

Behind the soap-opera smokescreen lay a plot of breathtaking ruthlessness and seemingly infinite reach. Guatemala's military intelligence apparatus seemed to know everything about everyone, and its methods of intimidation ranged from blackmail to whispered phone threats to sadistic atrocities -- one investigator's brother was found dead, his arms and legs torn off. Witnesses vanished, fled into exile or suddenly recanted. "It was in the long post-execution stage," Goldman writes, "that the murder of Bishop Gerardi was especially masterful."

Slowly, however, the pieces of the puzzle began to fit together. Much of the evidence came from a demi-monde of vagrants, informers and ex-soldiers whose portraits are among the most riveting and revealing parts of the book. They were both accomplices and victims of the system, nobodies who could be manipulated, abandoned or eliminated when necessary. The key witness was Rubén Chanax, a jobless former soldier who had been paid to spy on the bishop and gradually found the courage to tell what he knew. He appears again and again in the book, each time imparting more information about the crime, himself and the sinister system that employed him. Most chilling are his descriptions of training for an elite intelligence unit, which included being forced to decapitate a puppy and shoot a civilian couple chosen at random.

Several major figures in the drama are more opaque or complex, including two convicted in the murder. One is Father Mario Orantes, the owner of Baloo, a man of bizarre habits and relationships whose apparent role in the crime was never clarified. The other is Army Capt. Byron Lima, a former intelligence official who projected spit-and-polish rectitude but ran lucrative rackets inside prison and hinted at a vast conspiracy behind the bishop's death.

The author also plays a crucial role in the book, weaving in and out of the drama as he tracks down nervous witnesses, plucks facts from webs of deception, reflects on the tragic history of his homeland and unforgettably evokes a world of subtle but omnipresent evil that Bishop Gerardi and his colleagues sought to chronicle as a warning to future generations. Above all, The Art of Political Murder is a passionate cry of outrage that should be read and passed on by anyone who believes, as Goldman proves here, that truth is always more improbable than fiction.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1 edition (September 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802118283
• ISBN-13: 978-0802118288
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #515,496 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you read one piece of non-fiction this year...., September 30, 2007

By	J. Simon "Jean-Marie Simon" (DC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

read Frank Goldman's book, The Art of Political Murder. Even if you are not interested in Central American politics, this is still a page turner. Unlike scores of other journalists who parachuted into Central America over the past 25 years to get the scoop and then go on to the next newsworthy story somewhere else, Frank Goldman's seven-year quest for the truth behind the murder of Guatemalan Archbishop Gerardi deserves kudos for its indefatigable research as well as his ability to spin a yarn, albeit one that sadly is true, that one simply cannot put down. And even those well-versed in the brutality of Guatemala's history of military rule -- whether by decree or by civilian proxy -- will be riveted by the seamless tale that Frank Goldman expertly tells. Read it and weep.

30 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timely, Taut, and Terrific, October 22, 2007

By	David Corbett - See all my reviews

Francisco Goldman has written a brilliant non-fiction account of the 1998 murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi and the ensuing investigation and trial of the persons responsible for the crime: a conservative closeted homosexual priest who was sharing the parish house with the bishop, and several military officers with the Presidential Military Staff (Estado Mayor Presidencial--EMP) who are also linked to organized crime.

At the heart of Goldman's story is the account of how a group of human rights investigators, lawyers, prosecutors and judges, a small circle of whom jokingly referred to themselves as Los Intocables--The Untouchables-- pursued justice despite the onslaught of violence, threats, slander and condemnation hurled at them from virtually every direction: the military, politicians, defense lawyers, the press, even respected Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. One lost his brother to an unspeakably vicious death. Several had their homes bombed, or were forced into exile when military thugs followed their children to school to let them know how easy it would be to kill them. All endured countless death threats that they never disclosed to Goldman personally, out of an intrinsic sense of honor (he learned of the threats from other investigators, or by reading documents related to the case). But these people were true believers that justice had to be done, despite the cynicism of most of their countrymen. The story of that courage, plus the marvelous depictions of the inimitable characters involved, from ex-army street hustlers to inhabitants of Guatemala's gay demimonde, as well as an informed and daunting portrait of where Guatemala stands today--a country where criminal mafias led by military chieftains vie for control of the insanely lucrative narcotics, human trafficking, car theft and kidnapping rackets, and where "the line between crime and politics can be so fine as to not even exist"--and a clear-eyed analysis of the "schizophrenic" role of the United States in both some of the most galling and the most inspiring episodes in that country's recent history, make this a book that is simply too good to miss.

It also couldn't be more timely. It was hoped that continuing investigation would pursue other officers believed to be linked to the murder, including General Otto Pérez Molina--now a candidate for president of Guatemala, who is facing center-left businessman Álvaro Colom in a runoff scheduled for November 4th. If he is elected, as is expected--the general has received a baffling nod of approval from our own embassy, due to his impeccable anti-Chávez credentials (better a killer and a narco than a leftist, one assumes)--this path to justice will get closed for good, unless the U.N. Commission for the Investigation of Illegal Bodies and Clandestine Security Apparatus (CICIACS) enters the fray with the authority it deserves.

All of which is detailed in this terific book. Buy it, read it, talk about it, share it.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I'm in the middle, March 10, 2008

By	thersites - See all my reviews

The reviews here seem to fall into 3 camps: the "it's a perfect masterpiece"" camp, the "he was duped by ODHA - 'who killed biship' got it right" camp, and the "he is a lefist fool" camp. I belong to none of these, so let me throw my two cents in here....

I spent a brief time in Guatemala doing human rights work in the mid 80's (a shout out to any PBI alums in the house :)), and so was interested in the subject matter, and had at least a glancing acquaintance with the horrid murderous travesty that was the Guatemalan government, as well as the impenetrable fog of denials, mis-statements, forgeries, violence, hidden agendas, disappearances and murk that hid virtually any attempt to get at any truth.

I found the first half of the book (which focuses on the "who-done-it") outstanding. Here Goldman relates the story of the investigation - the false leads, the disappearing witnesses, the hopelessly (and deliberately) contanimated crime scene, the (deliberately) conflicting evidence, the overlapping areas (and agendas) of the investigators, etc. That the investigators were able to finally pierce it (not completely, but most crimes never are) is just amazing, especially given the very real threat to themselves and their families.

I think the other reviewers who criticize this book for not analyzing the case for/against Monsenor Mario, or for not analyzing the case made by 'who killed the bishop' are being unfair - goldman spends a _lot_ of time on each of these, especially the latter, to the point that you could almost criticize the book for over-focusing on it. Similarly, I think criticizing the book for not telling more of the story of the defendants is ludicrous - when your primary interactions with a defendant consist of their giving you death threats, it's hard to go much further!

The problem with the book lies in the second half, what is called the "second crime" - the multi-year "war of attrition" against the verdict, year after year of judicial games, wars in the press, maneuver after maneuver. Here, while I appreciate the author's work in showing us just how deeply broken the justice system and press were (and are), I just felt the book became a less interesting read - we know who done it, we know why, now we read chapter after chapter of frustration (although it sure made me glad I've never been a guest of the Guatemalan Penal system!). One last cavil - another reviewer says that Goldman never walks us through the final 'best guess' of the final crime, minute by minute - oh yes he does, it's near the end.

So in summary - a good book, an important book, a book alternately deeply depressing and deeply inspring, but not a great _read_, the only reason I am marking it down a little.