MEXICO CITY — Álvaro Colom, who as president of Guatemala from 2008 to 2012 put the nation’s forgotten Indigenous communities on the middle of his authorities however confronted fierce opposition from the elites, died on Monday at his house in Guatemala Metropolis. He was 71.

His dying was confirmed by his niece Alejandra Colom, who mentioned he had been handled for esophageal most cancers.

Mr. Colom expanded entry to training and well being care in a rustic scarred by deep inequalities and a long time of civil warfare. However his time in workplace was shadowed by a weird scandal through which he was accused of assassination and finally exonerated by a United Nations-backed anti-corruption fee.

He additionally confronted the rising attain of Mexican drug cartels, notably the Zetas, that had allied with native prison gangs to site visitors cocaine. He supported a crusading lawyer normal who labored with the anti-corruption fee to arrest a few of the nation’s most violent criminals.

But it surely was his dedication to giving a voice to Guatemala’s Indigenous peoples that set him aside from the nation’s old-guard political energy brokers. Mr. Colom had spent many of the Nineteen Nineties heading a authorities fund set as much as put money into villages that had been deserted by the federal government in the course of the 36-year civil warfare between army regimes and leftist guerrillas.

“I noticed the faces of poverty, the faces of abandonment and the wealth of the Indigenous tradition that we didn’t respect and that we didn’t worth,” he advised CNN in 2011.

Carlos Menocal, who served as inside minister in Mr. Colom’s authorities, mentioned Mr. Colom was one of many few white Guatemalans who was thought-about an ally by the Mayan elders. He used the Mayan calendar in his each day life and as president flew a flag over the Nationwide Palace celebrating the nation’s Indigenous peoples.

His bid for elective workplace was an effort to scale up the work he had finished with the funding fund, the Nationwide Fund for Peace, mentioned Ms. Colom, his niece. He ran for president thrice earlier than successful beneath the banner of the celebration he based, Nationwide Unity for Hope, identified by its Spanish initials U.N.E.

However 17 months into Mr. Colom’s presidency, a lawyer named Rodrigo Rosenberg was fatally shot whereas using his bicycle. In a video launched posthumously, Mr. Rosenberg mentioned that if he have been killed, it could be as a result of the president had ordered his homicide.

Conservative leaders seized on the case to demand Mr. Colom’s resignation. In response, he requested the United Nations panel, the Worldwide Fee in opposition to Impunity in Guatemala, identified by the Spanish acronym CICIG, to analyze the Rosenberg killing.

The investigators’ conclusion, eight months later, might have been the plot of a movie noir. The fee discovered that Mr. Rosenberg, suicidal over the murders of a lady with whom he had been having an affair and her father, had organized for his personal killing in a fashion meant to inflict political injury on Mr. Colom.

Mr. Colom referred to as the case the most important problem of his presidency. He argued that the calls to take away him had emanated from pursuits against his insurance policies. “I might be one of many presidents, if not the president, who’s most unbiased of financial energy,” he mentioned within the CNN interview.

Anita Isaacs, a Guatemala knowledgeable at Haverford Faculty in Pennsylvania, mentioned that on reflection, the Rosenberg case demonstrated the facility of pursuits aligned in opposition to any effort to finish the privileges of Guatemala’s white ruling lessons.

“I actually see him as a basically respectable, well-intentioned man, dedicated to peace and rectifying the wrongs of the previous,” she mentioned. “Anyone who dared promote peace and justice and democracy was going to satisfy a destiny just like what they foisted on Colom.”

Álvaro Colom Caballeros was born on June 15, 1951, in Guatemala Metropolis, the fourth of 5 youngsters. His father, Antonio Colom Argueta, was a lawyer with a background in liberal politics. His mom, Yolanda Caballeros Ferraté, labored as a secretary earlier than elevating their youngsters.

Mr. Colom was educated at Roman Catholic colleges and earned a level in industrial engineering on the College of San Carlos of Guatemala, the nation’s primary public college. He constructed a profitable profession within the garment trade, manufacturing clothes for export.

However politics have been by no means far-off. In 1979, his uncle Manuel Colom Argueta, a former mayor of Guatemala Metropolis, was assassinated shortly after he had registered a brand new political celebration against army rule. Mr. Colom regularly cited his uncle’s legacy as a think about his political profession.

In 1991, as the federal government and the guerrillas have been engaged in peace talks, Mr. Colom was tapped to steer the Nationwide Fund for Peace, and he started to journey the countryside to satisfy with Indigenous folks.

Ms. Colom recalled taking journeys along with her uncle throughout faculty holidays to distant mountain villages. He was so dedicated to the duty at hand, she mentioned, that he would overlook to eat, though he chain-smoked always.

“I’m satisfied that his dedication to the nation got here from non secular, emotional, ethical conviction — after which the engineer kicked in,” Ms. Colom mentioned.

Mr. Colom’s standard social packages as president, mainly one which offered conditional money transfers to the poorest Guatemalans, have been the primary of their type in Guatemala, however they led to fees of electoral manipulation.

Stephen G. McFarland, a retired diplomat who was the US ambassador throughout Mr. Colom’s presidency, mentioned that the primary assist program “appeared to be moderately run” and “appeared to be contributing to the welfare of poorer folks.”

Mr. Colom’s first spouse, Patricia Szarata, died in a automobile crash after they have been each 25, leaving him to lift two babies, Patricia and Antonio. He had a 3rd youngster, Diego, together with his second spouse, Karen Steele. That marriage led to divorce.

His third spouse, Sandra Torres, served as first girl throughout his presidency, however the couple divorced in 2011 in order that she might get round a constitutional prohibition on a president’s kinfolk working for a similar workplace. The nation’s prime court docket blocked her candidacy, nonetheless. The couple by no means reconciled.

Mr. Colom’s three youngsters survive him, as do two grandchildren.

In 2018, Mr. Colom and a number of other former members of his cupboard have been arrested because of a CICIG investigation into inflated contracts to a shell firm for a brand new bus system within the capital throughout his presidency. Mr. Colom had signed off on the contracts organized by his personal secretary, however prosecutors introduced no proof that he had personally obtained kickbacks.

He declared his innocence, including, “I’ve all persistence and tranquillity on this planet for the method to proceed.”

He spent three months in jail earlier than being launched on bail. The case stalled and by no means went to trial.

The arrest got here as a shock to many who knew him. “Álvaro Colom was man, however he bought badly handled in politics towards the top,” Mr. McFarland mentioned. “However he’ll be higher handled by historical past.”

Jody García contributed reporting from Guatemala Metropolis.