The "Spanish Indictment" and More: Hugo Chavez's Ties to Basque Terrorists, the FARC, Narcotics Smuggling, etc.

 

Spanish Judge Eloy Velasco, left

I want to begin by posting an acknowledgement to Venezuelan blogger Pedro Burelli, who has brought together seven "exhibits" that are all currently in the news regarding Hugo Chavez and his numerous connections to international terrorist and narcotics smuggling operations in a post published Tuesday in both English and Spanish, Exposing Hugo Chavez.  Pedro's compilation of these issues presents a remarkably compelling accumulation of seven related controversial news items now at hand, three of which were developed in an indictment issued by Spanish National Court (Audiencia Nacional) Judge Eloy Velasco of six ETA (Basque Terrorist) and seven Colombian FARC members for a variety of offenses, including the planning of two separate attempts to assassinate two Colombian presidents, a third plot to assassinate Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar, weapons and bomb-making support for terrorist attacks, and large scale drug smuggling operations.  The indictment also specifically cited Hugo Chavez's government for facilitating much of this nefarious activity and the Spanish government has requested an explanation from Venezuela.  And even beyond all this there is also a developing international effort in which the U.S. government is now involved to bring Venezuela into the limelight for human rights violations following the recent release of the OAS's joint Inter-American Committee on Human Rights (IACHR) Report on Democracy and Human Rights in Venezuela.

There is a lot to cover here, but since so much of it derives from the Spanish court's actions, I want to provide some additional commentary on the legal proceeding from the American perspective, because I think the court case brings together several matters which deserve rather close examination.

Background to the Indictment:  The Veracity of the Documents from the Reyes Laptops

It has now been two years since the Colombian Army's raid on the FARC encampment just across the Ecuadoran border which netted one of the great intelligence finds of recent years, the laptops of FARC leader Raul Reyes, whose authenticity was verified by an Interpol investigation.  The Interpol examination of the contents of the laptops that immediately followed was, in and of itself, the topic of some rather muddled, and at times inane, attacks from leftist apologists and propagandists who sought to discount their validity as evidence, perhaps guessing correctly that the international ties to Hugo Chavez and the terror and narcotics trafficking of the FARC would not serve the Bolivarian leader very well.  Indeed!  Just ask the Spanish National Court what they think of Hugo.

But let us set aside the noise surrounding the Reyes laptops for the moment, the fact of the matter is that the National Court of Spain has reviewed Interpol's work and understands that the facticity of the Reyes documents has been proved, and that there is now substantial reason to move on and address the meaning of their content within legal proceedings.  This leaves those of us in the western hemisphere to hang our heads in shame as we realize that it took a Spanish court to bring the terrifying implications of Hugo Chavez's misconduct into the light of day.  And for anyone who was as angry as me that OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza refused to investigate the documentary content of those laptops; well, just read Eloy Velasco's decision and you will understand.  If only George Bush had a pair, we would have pressed an issue that truly would have made the War on Terror something more than a largely cultural conflict played out in the Middle and Near East.  Sigh!

Velasco's Case:  An Opportunity to Demonstrate the Fair Use of the Rome Treaty?

From the American perspective, there is one additional thing to grasp about the Spanish National Court's actions; they have met the test of "Legal Standing" (Locus Standi) as defined within American jurisprudence that is, in the view of most American critics, absent from the Rome Treaty's provisions for taking a case to the international criminal court, and which forms the basis for the greater part of U.S. objections to its ratification.  No matter what may come of the legal proceeding Judge Velasco's court has proferred, its foundation in law is rooted in the fact that, not only are many of the ETA suspects Spanish citizens, but several of the crimes mentioned in the indictment occurred on Spanish soil.  Others, while planned or plotted in South America, were nonetheless intended for execution in Spain.  These crimes include the unrealized plot of 2003 to assassinate then Colombian President Andres Pastrana and Colombia's Ambassador to Spain Noemi Sanin on Spanish territory, a 2004 plot to assassinate then Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar with surface to air missiles, and more.  In both of the aforementioned plots the ETA had the cooperation of FARC leaders Raul Reyes and Ivan Marquez; the latter has resided openly in Venezuela for several years and has enjoyed the company of Hugo Chavez himself publicly.

Ivan Marquez of the FARC with Hugo Chavez

If supporters of the Rome Treaty who are critical of the U.S. for its failure to ratify it wanted a test case to demonstrate the utility of the pact while also adhering to the American standard of legal standing, this would be it.  But unfortunately, in my opinion, those supporters are not likely to rally to this particular judicial proceeding because they are much more interested in its polemical use in matters such as the Guantanamo Bay prisoners controversy.  The Velasco case presents a unique opportunity to establish the basis for amending the Rome Treaty to accommodate American reservations, using the example of sound jurisprudential practice as instructive of a proper use of international criminal proceedings, but which will likely go unsupported.  And that is a pure shame, because I believe that if the governments of Europe, who are common signatories to the Rome Treaty, were to support the Spanish Indictment diplomatically, the basis for a common understanding between the U.S. and the international community could be developed to amend the pact and bring in the Americans.  But I personally doubt that the governments of Europe and Latin America have the stomach for meaningful action here or elsewhere.

The Spanish Indictment

There are three relevant items that stem from the Spanish court's decision, as Pedro Burelli listed them, and which are worth repeating here:

Colombia's Request for an Explanation from Chavez Regarding Separate Assassination Plots Against Two Colombian Presidents

Taken from the Bogota newspaper El Tiempo, in which former President Andres Pastrana declares that Chavez owes the explanation, while sitting President Alvaro Uribe counsels "prudence," though the Spanish Ambassador to Colombia has been called in for a "followup" to the affair.

Cooperation of Venezuelan Government in Facilitating ETA and FARC Collaboration is Evident

From the Spanish newspaper El Pais, we have Judge Velasco's own words in the decision, there was "Venezuelan governmental cooperation in the illicit collaboration between the ETA and the FARC."  (Underline emphasis mine).

Statement of the Government of Spain Requesting an Explanation from Venezuela

Confirmation of the official request came from Spanish Prime Minister Jorge Luis Zapatero in Germany, as reported in Spain's El Mundo newspaper.  "We are awaiting clarification from Venezuela and, according to that explanation, so will the government of Spain act."

The above three items, which include the expressed statements of two national governments in matters of foreign affairs and the conclusion of the Spanish National Court, all directly implicate Hugo Chavez's government as both a facilitator and sponsor of terrorist conspiracies against two other nations.

But returning to Pedro Burelli's post, there has been other news from the U.S. government over the past nine months which supports the Spanish Indictment, some of which is now worth reviewing.

Relevant U.S. Government Complaints About Chavez's Misconduct:  July, 2009 - March, 2010

American government complaints center upon narcotics, support for terrorism, and human rights abuses.

U.S. Department of State Links Venezuelan Security Forces to Support of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs)

The State Department's International Narcotics Strategy Control, Vol I publication of March 1 states that "There is strong evidence that some elements of Venezuela’s security forces directly assist these FTOs (foreign terrorist organizations)." (p. 16).

U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) Report of July, 2009 on Venezuelan Provision of Safe Haven and Support for Armed Colombian Groups Engaged in Narcotics Smuggling Raised Again

The GAO Report to the Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations states that "Venezuela has extended a lifeline to Colombian illegal armed groups by providing significant support and safe haven along the border. As a result, these groups, which traffic in illicit drugs, remain viable threats to Colombian security. A high level of corruption within the Venezuelan government, military, and other law enforcement and security forces contributes to the permissive environment, according to U.S. officials." (p. 2)  These conclusions from last year are given new weight by the Spanish Indictment.

Senators Richard Lugar and Christopher Dodd Request the OAS to Take Up the IACHR Report on Democracy and Human Rights Violations in Venezuela in Open Session; March 1, 2010

In a joint bi-partisan statement Senators Lugar and Dodd asked the U.S. Mission at the OAS to have the report openly discussed at its Permanent Council stating they (Lugar and Dodd) were "deeply disturbed by some of the [IACHR] report’s observations" especially with respect to its findings on the erosion of an independent judiciary, which has led to "the use of the State’s punitive power in Venezuela to criminalize human rights defenders, judicialize peaceful social protest, and persecute political dissidents through the criminal system."

To wrap up the remainder of Pedro Burelli's post, he also mentions the IACHR report itself, cited in paragraph one above, and the Annual Report of the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board for 2009, which notes that cocaine seized in Africa has in many cases been smuggled through Brazil and Venezuela.

As to what will come of all this, my guess is not very much in the short term, because Chavez can still count upon the international support of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador to protect him.  Over the past several years this has also included Jose Miguel Insulza, but his stock appears to be falling currently in light of his pursuit of re-election to the OAS Secretary General's job and, thankfully in my opinion, it now appears that he probably will not succeed in this regard, owing primarily to the opposition of the U.S., for numerous reasons which are now evident.  But the international calculus in the region is clearly against Chavez, who is becoming a true pariah more and more with each day.  That is a process which is likely to continue unabated, since Hugo does not appear likely to reform his conduct anytime soon.

Of perhaps greater import is how this is all playing within Venezuela itself.  All the indicators are that its people are turning against Chavez, including many of his former supporters.  This news must certainly hasten that trend.  The big test for this year will be the parliamentary elections and, if the Venezuelan people show enough activism in opposition to Chavez's hand-picked candidates, Venezuela's internal political climate may begin to experience a sea change that reverses the deterioration of democratic freedoms and human rights abuses of the last eleven years. 

But the world must continue to pay attention.  Chavez must be kept in the spotlight.

StJacques

 
P.S. -- Good work Pedro!

 

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The Silence of the Loons: The Obama Administration's Quiet About Face on Honduras

 

Hillary Clinton	Manuel Zelaya and Hugo Chavez	Barack Obama

A Relatively Quiet Honduras

We have not heard much recently about events in Honduras, where the constitutional crisis provoked by the ouster of former President Manuel Zelaya last June dominated news on U.S.-Latin American relations for months. The recent negotiation of an agreement to resolve the conflict and continue with the presidential elections scheduled for last November 29 apparently brought an end to the worst fears that the country might slip into political chaos. The Obama administration has dropped its earlier hard-line stance against the interim government and has very quietly recognized the results of the elections, which gave the presidency to National Party candidate Porfirio Lobo in a contest thankfully free of violence and in which voter participation met the requisite international norms.

The international community's previously unified stance in opposition to Zelaya's removal, which typified the political climate of the past five months, is now unraveling in the wake of the Honduran presidential elections. In addition to the U.S. acknowledgement of Lobo's victory, at least four other countries in the hemisphere have recognized the legitimacy of the vote; including Colombia, Panama, Peru, and neighboring Costa Rica. Naturally, a contradictory view is held in Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Argentina; all of whom have announced their rejection of the election's results, though President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil has at least held out the possibility that his country would be open to some gesture which restores Zelaya in time to preside over the inaugural ceremonies, which are scheduled for January 27, when Lobo will assume the powers of his office under Honduran law.

The central problem the Hondurans now confront is deciding what to do with Zelaya, who remains holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, working his cell phone until the late evening hours trying to rally international support for his return and, in the opinion of the interim government and most Hondurans, trying to destabilize the impending presidential transition. The November accord negotiated to bring an end to the standoff Zelaya created when he sneaked back into the country last September required the Honduran Congress to vote on his reinstatement, which they did on December 2, rejecting him by a resounding vote of 111-14. Following this embarrassing defeat for the ex-President, which on his part suggests a serious lack of understanding of the wishes of the Honduran people, Mexico offered to take him out of the country and even sent a plane to pick him up. But the interim government refused to let Zelaya leave unless he agreed to travel only as a private citizen seeking asylum and not as a claimant to the presidency, an offer Zelaya rejected.

Honduran Congress Votes Overwhelmingly Against Reinstating Zelaya as President Source: European Pressphoto Agency

Zelaya's Future: Embassy Prisoner, Destabilizing Force, or Exile?

The interim government's refusal to permit Zelaya to depart the country under any status other than that of a private citizen leaves the former president's own future in doubt. Brazil says he can remain at their embassy in Tegucigalpa and that no limit will be set on his stay. But this almost disinterested public stance on the part of the Brazilians is belied by the fact that they are also pressing the U.S. to secure Zelaya's safe passage out of the country, a position the State Department has supported consistently as part of the settlement of the crisis. President-elect Lobo has offered to meet with Zelaya "anywhere" to negotiate an end to the matter, though there is no mention of the possibility of any impending action the incoming President might take once in office.

Honduran leaders continue to insist that so long as Zelaya refuses to recognize the results of the election, that he will continue to represent a genuine threat to their country's stability. These fears are not entirely unfounded. Just this past week Fidel Castro sent a letter to Hugo Chavez to be read before the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (Spanish acronym: ALBA) conference being held in Havana which accused the U.S. of continuing its historic tradition of "aggression" in Latin America and pointedly cited Honduras as the major focus of this renewed "offensive." Given that Chavez's fiery temperament does not lend itself to passive inaction, it should not be ruled out that he will be prepared to finance a campaign to destabilize the Central American country in retaliation for its rejection of his twenty-first century socialist agenda. President Micheletti has in fact warned of the possibility that Zelaya might try to attack Honduras from exile, which has been the interim government's primary motivation for refusing permission for the ousted leader to leave the country without a renunciation of his claims to power.

Why the Silence from Washington?

One almost has to dig a little to find any news out of Washington with respect to the Obama Administration's policy towards Honduras. Some of what they have released has been positive for its effect in dispelling misinformation. Immediately following the November 29 vote, the State Department acknowledged that turnout apparently had exceeded that of the previous presidential election, which conflicted with the propaganda emanating from the small minority who continue to support Zelaya within Honduras, doing much to dismiss it in the process. But the recurring refrain from Foggy Bottom has been constant on three points; Zelaya should be reinstated before the inauguration of the new President, a national unity government should be put in place to handle the transition to a new administration, and a "Truth Commission" should be formed to make clear to Hondurans, as well as the rest of the world, exactly what happened with respect to the ouster of Zelaya.

With the exception of the demand that Zelaya be returned to the presidency, it appears that the Hondurans are at least attempting to fulfill all other conditions Washington has set. The national unity government seemed to be in place until the Honduran Congress rejected Zelaya's reinstatement, and with less than six weeks remaining before Porfirio Lobo's inauguration, attention has shifted to the formation of his cabinet. The Truth Commission is still promised, but it will take Lobo's support to make it possible and he has pledged to move forward with the proposal. But one wonders just how much "truth" Washington will be able to take here. After all, it was the State Department which buried its own legal analysis of the events leading to Zelaya's overthrow, leaving the Congressional Research Service's study as the only publicly-released overview from within the U.S. government, and the CRS found that, with the exception of Zelaya's forced exile, practically everything that had been done in Honduras was in accordance with the country's constitution and laws.

Honduras is quite simply one topic the Obama Administration would prefer not to discuss. Wall Street Journal editorialist Mary Anastasia O'Grady revealed recently that she has learned of new evidence supporting the allegation that Zelaya intended to use the supposed "non-binding" referendum on constitutional reform to remain in power, after Honduran officials informed her of a planned celebration for the evening of the vote which several leftist Latin American presidents would attend, as well as Zelaya's refusal to authorize the transfer of state funds to enable the November elections to proceed. Yes; a Truth Commission may be a good idea indeed, but how much embarrassment will the Obama Administration face as a consequence if its policy of supporting Zelaya's return is shown to be flawed for upholding an attempted overthrow of Honduran constitutional democracy?

It may be that a larger problem the Obama Administration faces is that the 2008 presidential campaign is over and they are now learning that the sloganeering and public posturing that appealed to the left wing of their political base does not work in the real world. During the campaign, then-Senator Obama frequently mentioned--and genuinely overstated--the problems Colombia had with labor violence, pinning the "right wing bastards" label on the country and its government, a tactic that had broad appeal among the American left, especially when coupled with political rallies and campaign offices where Ché t-shirts and posters abounded. But now that the work of governing has begun, the administration has moved to expand the U.S. military presence in Colombia, an act directly at odds with Obama's earlier opposition to Plan Colombia while on the campaign trail. Pro-Chavez Obama supporters are not an unknown quantity--they are rather numerous in fact--and it cannot be easy for the new President to explain the Chavez threat to them, whose nature is now grasped at least in part within the administration, regardless of the rhetoric, which the expansion of Plan Colombia makes clear. This same analysis can be applied to Honduras.

Thus can we arrive at an explanation for the silence in Washington with respect to the Honduran crisis. Coming so soon after a major national election, Obama cannot expect forgetful minds to overlook the atmosphere of the recent campaign. Containing or deterring Chavez's threats to Colombia and Honduras have become necessary goals within his Latin American policy. And when compared against his campaign rhetoric and the posture of the American left that supports him, the distinctions have become recognizably broad.

One wonders if there are those in the new administration in Washington who are asking themselves just how looney the American left truly is for its failure to grasp the reality of Chavismo in action. Such questions do not return easy answers.

So perhaps the best thing for the Obama Administration to do is to stay silent and leave the loons to their delusions. Even if they did vote for you. And especially if you want them to think you're still one of them.

StJacques
 

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The Return of the FARC We All Know: Just Plain Murder

   

Colombian Forensics Team Scours Through Blast Rubble in Ituango Source:  Reuters

They have done it before. And so long as they exist, the horrible truth we must all face is that they likely will do it again.

The FARC and murder are still synonymous. Forget the cautious and protective advocacy of so-called human rights organizations and other NGOs on behalf of these narcoguerrillas. Forget the political spin of their pro-Chavez apologists who try to tell us the FARC have a popular base of support in Colombia rooted in an ever-present problem of endemic poverty that the developed world cannot grasp. And especially forget the FARC's own statements in which they attempt to cast themselves as the last group of romantic guerrillas still standing after all these years.

The FARC are just plain murderers.  Last Thursday night in Ituango, a small town located in the north of the Department of Antioquia, they reminded anyone who may have forgotten.  While local residents celebrated an annual fair they call Ituanguinidad, i.e. "being Ituanguan," an explosive device placed in a trash can in the vicinity of several local shopping stalls exploded, killing seven and wounding approximately fifty others.  The region has been the focus of recent efforts on the part of the Colombian military to eradicate FARC-managed coca cultivation, which immediately identified the perpetrators.  Antioquia Police Commander Colonel Luis Eduardo Martinez affixed responsibility for the attack to the FARC's 18th Front and stated that it was committed "in retaliation against the campaign to eradicate illicit crops."  Colombian authorities have detained and charged one Jhon Jairo Ortiz, known by the alias El Pajaro (the bird), and charged him in the attack, accusations which he has denied.

It also may be worth adding that several top FARC commanders have been killed this year, including Raul Reyes and Ivan Rios, which might be encouraging the narcoguerrillas to retaliate.

Source:  Reuters

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe traveled to Ituango afterwards, along with Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos and Luis Alfredo Ramos, the Governor of the Department of Antioquia, to meet with the townspeople personally.  Uribe spoke to local reporters on the scene, saying "we must have solidarity with the community and support it.  And reaffirm the steel will we have in the defeat of terrorism."  He announced that he would enlarge the local police authority in the vicinity and that the Colombian government would pay an indemnity to the families of the victims in an amount equivalent to about $5,400 U.S.

International Reaction

In a year in which Colombia's struggles with the FARC have been much in the news, the aftermath of the Ituango attack has resulted in uncharacteristic expressions of solidarity with the country and its people.  Human Rights Watch issued a press release that was outstanding for its very rare mention of the FARC with no simultaneous allusion to the Paras, the usual tactic HRW has followed when addressing -- and subtly supporting -- the narcoguerrillas.  HRW did not fault the Colombian government for inattentiveness to the population because they recognized that officials in Bogota previously had issued a warning to the citizenry in Ituango that they might be at risk from a FARC attack.  The office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations in Bogota issued its own statement of condemnation, and even went so far as to describe it as typical "of a war crime."  But in perfect keeping with the twilight zone perspective of the UN, the commissioner requested that the FARC Secretariat "assume publicly the full subjection of its organization to respect humanitarian norms and to teach its members the order to fully respect their humanitarian obligations."

A much more meaningful step was the action Interpol took in response, in which they issued an order for the capture of Rodrigo Granda, the "Foreign Minister" of the FARC, who has enjoyed international immunity for over a year, permitting him to travel abroad frequently.  Henry Cobas, speaking for Interpol in Bogota, stated that they were working "through Interpol channels" to coordinate the capture and extradition of the FARC leader whose seizure in Venezuela and transfer to Colombia in 2004 provoked an international incident between the two countries, leading to the arrest and imprisonment of Venezuelan Lieutenant Colonel Humberto Quintero, who remains a political prisoner in Chavez's jails to this very day for the "crime" of arresting Granda.

Perhaps Humberto Quintero's case deserves another look?  Forgive me, for I diverge from the subject at hand.  I was thinking of justice.

My Comments

Though there appears to be some movement in international opinion to marginalize the FARC recently, and especially in the wake of events this year such as the release of the Interpol report on the Reyes laptops and the daring rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and the 15 other FARC kidnapped hostages, I am still disappointed that this event has not been publicized more prominently.  We're still largely dependent upon news sites and those very few blogger-heroes who keep an eye open, like Martha Colmenares (¡Que Dios te bendiga Martha!), and a couple of others.

The time has come for everyone to demand an end to the atrocities of the FARC.  It's just plain and simple murder, nothing more.

StJacques
   

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Human Rights Groups & the FARC: From the WSJ

   

Wall Street Journal Columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady

Over the past several years a number of Human Rights groups, usually referred to as NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), and the Colombian government have been in near constant conflict with each other over the twin issues of Colombia's struggles with the Paras (paramilitaries) and the FARC narcoguerrillas.  Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has accused these organizations of harboring or demonstrating pro-FARC sympathies and they have responded with the counter-charge that the Colombian situation must be viewed in the context of right-wing and left-wing violence taken as two halves of the same whole.  But the approach of these various NGOs does not match the reality on the ground because the paras have entered into a demobilization process, which admittedly has revealed problems, but continues to be monitored by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the OAS.  The FARC have entered into no such agreement and they persist in holding hundreds of kidnapped Colombian citizens as hostages to force the government to cede a populated and agriculturally-viable section of the country's national territory to them as a prelude to entering negotiations for a peace settlement.  The area the FARC are demanding is in the south-central portion of the country and contains mountainous land and the plains to its east which are quite suitable for the cultivation of coca, which the FARC use as a cash-generating source to fund their continuing narcoguerrilla operations -- they have in fact long ceased to be a guerrilla insurgency, it is all about the drug trade now.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has consistently maintained from early in his presidency that he would be willing to offer both the paras and the FARC a negotiated settlement to end their lawlessness provided that the solution created a lasting peace and did not compromise Colombian sovereignty.  The paras accepted such a deal in 2004 and they remain within the demobilization phase of the implementation of that agreement, which has not been carried out to the full measure of its terms, especially regarding the protection of witnesses coming forth to testify against former para leaders, but complaints of the IAHCR monitors to that effect have been met with responses from the Colombian government and the IAHCR has reported progress (see link in 1st paragraph).  The Colombian government has even been pursuing its own independent investigation of what is called Parapolítica (Para Politics), even to the point of prosecuting some members of the Colombian government for their ties to the paramilitaries.  And earlier this year, Uribe's government extradited 14 top paramilitary leaders to the United States for failing to comply with the terms of the demobilization accords.  It is not a perfect process, but it is underway and the Colombian government is honoring its obligations, though some human rights groups continue to criticize it for failing to act more vigorously.

But what of the human rights groups and the FARC?  The real test was February 4 of this year, whenever more than a million people throughout Colombia and hundreds of thousands more elsewhere marched in opposition to the continued violations of human rights the FARC persist in committing by the holding of over 700 kidnapped hostages, many of whom have been held for years.  Numerous human rights organizations refused to support the march, though they did show up for a subsequent demonstration protesting the paras the following month in Bogota, which was only attended by some 40,000 people by comparison.  Thus was the mask lifted.  The human rights groups are pursuing a left-leaning political agenda and have turned their backs on the hundreds now held hostage by the most powerful narcoguerrilla group in the world, who no longer engage the Colombian army in combat, but who still kill with wanton abandon.

I am referring everyone to the July 7 editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Mary Anastasia O'Grady, who writes the Americas column for the newspaper.  Her article "The FARC's 'Human Rights' Friends" puts it all in perspective.  I quote: ". . . the already robust evidence that left-wing NGOs and other so-called human rights defenders . . . are nothing more than propagandists for terrorists. . . . Left-wing NGOs have made undermining the Colombian government's credibility a priority for many years. . . ."  It is a very good read, and can also be found in Spanish at this link.

StJacques
   

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¡¡¡VIVA COLOMBIA!!!

   

Voy a publicar una entrada especial para enviar un mensaje de celebración a mis amigos colombianos, con ocasión de la liberación de Ingrid Betancourt y otros 14 rehenes que fueron rescatados por el ejército colombiano en una operación brillante y derramamiento de sangre el día antes de ayer.  Hay tanto quisiera decir en este momento, pero creo que sería mejor mantener mi propio comentario breve a fin de preservar un cierto grado de dignidad en el reconocimiento de los cientos de otros que permanecen en cautiverio a manos de las FARC.  Pero aún hay cosas importantes que decir.

En primer lugar, lo que sucedió fue una clara victoria para la libertad y los derechos humanos.  Es mi esperanza que los demás aquí en los Estados Unidos reconocerán que Colombia es un pais poblado con gente que comprender el significado de estos conceptos claves y que demuestran con sus actos, a veces paciente y en otros audaces, que van a apoyar la causa de la humanidad.  Les ofrezco mis disculpas a los colombianos en todas partes por la calumnia algunos políticos norteamericanos han hablado de ellos recientemente.  La nación de Colombia y los colombianos merecen mucho mejor que la que han recibido de mi país.

Segundamente, quiero felicitar al Ejército colombiano por su brillante ejecución del rescate.  Este fue un ejemplo perfecto de una organización profesional que funcione al más alto nivel de eficiencia.  He leído los artículos de noticias en repetidas ocasiones en asombro por el hecho de que nadie resultó muerto y todos fueron rescatados en buen estado de salud.  Ingrid lo dijo mejor: "impecable".

Como estadounidense, yo también quiero dar las gracias por el rescate de tres ciudadanos de mi país.  Sé que sus familias han sufrido la falta de noticias de su condición de todos los días.  Esto es una tragedia demasiadas familias colombianas han conocido.  Gracias.

Yo en particular quiero felicitar al Presidente Alvaro Uribe por su persistente esfuerzo por alcanzar una solución justa a la crisis de los rehenes.  Señor Presidente, usted ha aprendido las valiosas lecciones de la historia reciente de su país en su lucha para lograr la paz con honor y justicia.  Ha servido ambas causas bien.  Usted es un verdadero estadista.

Por último, quiero felicitar al pueblo colombiano porque demuestran que hablar con una sola voz en oposición a las FARC.  Sé que este debe ser un factor vital en el complejo proceso de toma de decisiones en el gobierno colombiano.  Sus líderes saben que tienen su confianza y se les hace más fuertes como resultado de ello.  Cada ciudadano colombiano que hizo oír su voz, puede enorgullecerse de este resultado.  No me sorprende en lo más mínimo a su conducta, porque yo vivía en su maravilloso país durante casi un año.  Yo sé quiénes son ustedes y espero que no importan si yo llamo a mí mismo de su amigo.

¡VIVA COLOMBIA!

StJacques
   

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NEWS OF THE YEAR!!!! Ingrid Betancourt and 14 Other Hostages Freed!

   

Ingrid Betancourt (right) Hugs Her Mother Yolanda in Bogota Source:  AFP

The Colombian Army is on a roll!

That is not the way the story is being reported in the mainstream media today.  No; the MSM spin, at least here in the U.S., is that Ingrid Betancourt, the most highly-profiled of hundreds of kidnapped hostages held by the Colombian FARC has been "freed" along with 14 others, including three American military contractors.  You would think the FARC might have let her go to gain goodwill.  But in spite of all the MSM effort in this country to hide the truth from the American people, the Europeans are getting the story straight.  It was a rescue operation of the first order carried out by the Colombian Army, which now has two major success stories in its battle against the FARC this year, the other being their March 1 sortie across the border into Ecuador to take out Raul Reyes.

I am going to paste in the full text of an article from the British newspaper site of The Guardian that gets the story right.

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Colombian forces trick Farc rebels into freeing hostage Betancourt

Presidential hopeful was held captive for six years

14 others including three Americans also liberated

Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent Sibylla Brodzinsky Bogota
The Guardian, Thursday July 3, 2008

Ingrid Betancourt was savouring freedom last night after Colombia's security forces rescued her and 14 other hostages from a guerrilla camp deep in the jungle.

The French-Colombian politician's six-year ordeal as a bargaining chip ended in a military operation yesterday which dealt a devastating blow to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

Military spies tricked the Marxist rebels into handing over their most valuable captives to disguised military helicopters without a shot being fired, said the government. Betancourt, called her rescue "absolutely impeccable" and said she and 14 other hostages had no idea they were being rescued until they were airborne. "They got us out grandly," she told Colombian army radio.

Her voice trembled with emotion last night as she related to Colombian radio her last moments of captivity.

She said the hostages who were being marched toward the helicopter thought they were part of an international hostage deal but when they saw the pilots dressed like guerrillas their hopes were dashed.

"They tied our hands and feet," Betancourt said. "It wasn't until the hostages were aboard the helicopter and that the pilots subdued the rebel commanders that they realised they had indeed found freedom. "We are with the army, you are free," the pilots told the hostages, Betancourt recalled.

The elaborate sting would "go into history for its audacity and effectiveness", said Juan Manuel Santos, the defence minister.

Relatives expressed surprise and joy... that the gaunt woman glimpsed in harrowing videos was on her way back to them. "If true, (it is) the most beautiful news of my life," said her teenage son, Lorenzo Delloye-Betancourt.

Betancourt was being taken last night to the Tolemaida military base where government officials were due to greet them, along with three US military contractors and 11 Colombian former captives.

Analysts said the breakthrough could signal the demise of Farc. "For the Farc this is a mortal blow. They will never be able to recover from this," said Alfredo Rangel, director of the Security and Democracy Foundation in Bogotá.

George Bush phoned Colombia's president Álvaro Uribe, an ally whose security forces are funded by Washington, to congratulate him. Nicolas Sarkozy, who had made Betancourt's liberty a priority, also spoke to Uribe.

The day's emotion was heightened by the dramatic circumstances of the operation. At a press conference in Bogotá Santos drew gasps and then applause when he announced that Betancourt was among 15 hostages freed in Guaviare province, in the south-west.

Santos said intelligence agents infiltrated the guerrillas' seven-man ruling secretariat and led the commander in charge of the hostages, Cesar, to think they were to be taken by helicopter to Alfonso Cano, Farc's supreme leader.

The hostages, who had been divided in three groups, were taken to a rallying point where two helicopters piloted by Colombian agents were waiting. The helicopters took off with the hostages, Cesar and one other rebel, and those two "were neutralised" during the flight, Santos said.

Betancourt, 46, an outspoken politician, was abducted in February 2002 as she was running for president. As her captivity lengthened she became an international symbol for the plight of all the hostages. Images of her face adorned vigils and marches around the world.

As punishment for repeated escape attempts she was tied and chained up and became sick. The last images of her in captivity showed a frail, despondent woman with lank hair and a blank gaze.

"In all these years, I thought that as long as I was alive, as long as I continued to breathe, I must continue to hope," she wrote in a letter released at the end of 2007. "I don't have the strength I used to have."

Last night Clara Rojas, a political ally who was kidnapped along with Betancourt and freed in January, called the rescue "a blessing from God. I think that meeting again with her children is going to be fundamental for her."

The three American captives, Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell and Thomas Howes, were US defence department contract workers who fell into rebel hands in 2003 after their light aircraft crashed in the jungle during a counternarcotics operation.

Read More. . . .

Before the Reyes Documents: Martha Colmenares on Chavez's Ties to the FARC (translation included)

   

Interpol Secretary General Ronald Kenneth Noble

The confirmation of the authenticity of the documents taken from the hard drives of former FARC leader Raul Reyes has been made.  In a press conference in Bogota on Thursday representatives from the Interpol computer forensics team who examined the four laptops at the request of the Colombian government made a full report to the world that presented their findings that the Colombian government did not insert new files, nor did they tamper with existing files, nor did they modify or alter the content of the hard drives in any way.  According to Interpol's Secretary General Ronald Kenneth Noble "the eight proofs [presented by the Colombian government] registered no modifications."  Noble went on to say "we did not request to be involved, but when the call came from Colombia we did not doubt that we would accept the task, even though we knew that this could create a lot of criticism."  Interpol also made clear that the volume of data to be examined was extensive, that analyzing it required the use of ten Interpol computers and more than four thousand hours of work time, and that there was too much data to do a thorough study of the content.

Conclusions:  Colombia did not mess with the evidence and Interpol is not going to comment on the full meaning of what the documents present.

I expect to see a rush on the part of many bloggers who have been waiting for this moment to trumpet the authenticity of the Reyes documents and I wish them well.  Some of these bloggers, like me for instance, have been studying Chavez for years and we've known the FARC connection was indisputable.  There have been some very shameful attempts on the part of Chavez idolators to discredit the information Colombia released to the public, in spite of some very good indications -- external evidence -- that events following in the wake of the seizure of the laptops; such as arrests in Thailand, the search of a FARC safe house in Costa Rica where $480,000 in cash was found, the seizure of 66 pounds of uranium in a home north of Bogota and more, all pointed to the likelihood that this was an intelligence bonanza.  But I want to take a step back from the cheering among the good guys right now and raise one very important question I consider timely at this moment.

Haven't the Colombians and Venezuelan dissidents been telling us that Chavez was directly behind the FARC, both for reasons of substantial and indisputable evidence along with his own openly declared policies and known personal history?

The answer is an obvious "yes," they have been informing the wider world.  But their repeated efforts to publicize the truth have been drowned out by the background noise of a concerted campaign to delegitimize them, and the story they tell, for their avowed opposition to leftist politics, as well as for the deliberate intent of a major news media establishment that neglects their view as either uninteresting or at odds with a political agenda they only attempt to disguise.

And what did we hear from these sources?  Well; let me put up a quick list:

The details of Hugo Chavez's personal biography going back to at least the late 1980's show a consistent involvement with the Latin American Left; including Cuba and the Sao Paulo Forum, where his most important contacts were established and from whom he received significant resources enabling his rise to power.

Chavez has openly endorsed the FARC and they have returned the favor likewise, a relationship that has been well-established since the late 1990's, as has been made clear in the public statements of both.

Chavez's support of the FARC has been a publicly-stated policy of the Venezuelan government from the earliest days of his regime.

Venezuelan government officials under Chavez have openly admitted that they support the FARC as a policy initiative.

Chavez's involvement in recent efforts to free kidnapped hostages of the FARC has only been cynical political theater as his regime has assisted in the kidnapping of its own countrymen.

With the authentication of the Reyes documents, it is now time to revisit the information that has come from these sources, whose stories have been vindicated in the content of the archived correspondence of a known terrorist leader.  I have been presenting a good deal of evidence over the past three weeks from the Colombian perspective.  I now want to return to an important Venezuelan dissident, Martha Colmenares, whose work I have highlighted before.

The following is a translation of an article by Martha which was posted on the Spanish news site Minuto Digital on January 29 of this year.  That's a full month before the attack on the FARC encampment in Ecuador where Reyes was killed.

Read the details and ask yourself why we did not hear more of this before March 1.

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Translation:  Chavez's Relations with the FARC

Published January 29, 2008 | Author: Martha Colmenares

Chavez's relationship with his Colombian allies is longstanding, one part of it was kept secret, and another part has come into public view.  Before entering the Military Academy, Chavez was a communist agent, supervised by his brother Adan and together they must have begun their contacts with the Colombian guerrillas.

On leaving prison pardoned in 1994, he traveled to Colombia to look for political and financial support for his political aspirations in Venezuela, offering compensation in return if he achieved his aspirations for power.  Therefore he traveled to Havana in December 1994, where he was received at the airport by Fidel Castro himself.  The alliance with Castro gave Chavez a direct passport to communism in Colombia.  Already by 1990 Castro had formed the Forum of Sao Paolo (FSP) with all the communists who were left disbanded following the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In May 1995, Chavez traveled to Buenos Aires, picking up Argentine revisionist Norberto Ceresole, a denier of the Holocaust, on his way.  Both of them continued on to Montevideo, where leftist General Liber Seregni (of the Frente Amplio) received them, and who introduced Chavez and his MVR-200 (Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement - 200) at a meeting of the FSP.  The organization was holding its fifth gathering in that city.  Once enrolled in the Forum of Sao Paulo, Chavez took on a formal and functional relationship with the Communist Party of Colombia, the FARC and the ELN, who are also members of that organization.

In 1996, Chavez traveled to El Salvador to participate in the Sixth Meeting of the FSP.  This would serve as a setting to interact with the Colombian delegates, including the FARC guerrilla Raul Reyes, who later publicly expressed his sympathy for Chavez and who classified him as a "patriot."  That same year he said that the FARC are "about the same" as Chavez.

In January 1999, three weeks after assuming the presidency, Hugo Chavez publicly modified the traditional position of Venezuela regarding the Colombian guerrillas, who ceased to be enemies. Venezuela would be "neutral."  On October 2 of the same year, he told the news media that the guerrillas were no longer the common enemy of Colombia and Venezuela.  He previously had expressed his readiness for the ELN to carry out its national convention in Venezuela.  The terrorist group said that Chavez was a leader to follow.

There is a document from the year 2000 which states that Chavez was the candidate of the Colombian guerrillas.  This can be confirmed from a review of the clippings in the Venezuelan press at that time.

As early as February 2000, the FARC issued a statement supporting President Chavez.  Months later, the former director of the Venezuelan security agency DISIP (Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services), Jesus Urdaneta, said that Chavez was impelling the guerrillas against the government of Colombian President Andres Pastrana.

Pastrana denounced the fact that the Colombian government ordered him to deliver 300 thousand U.S. dollars to the Colombian guerrillas, adding that President Chavez always had wanted to give them arms.  The guerrillas were trying to launch a final offensive towards Bogota and overthrow the Pastrana government.

When the FARC linked the political party named Movimiento Bolivariano (Bolivarian Movement) with the "New Colombia," on the 5th of May, 2000, Chavez showed his satisfaction with the creation of the new party and publicly welcomed it.

On July 16, 2000, General Victor Cruz Weffer, one of the military leaders closest to Chavez, told the weekly newspaper Quinto Dia that the Colombian oligarchy was more dangerous than the guerrillas.

Since then, there have been numerous items of public evidence of the mutual support between Chavez and the Colombian Communists:  from the Communist Party, the Democratic Pole, the FARC and the ELN.  You can get enough of this evidence by regularly reading the FARC's website.

That sequence of events was denounced in Venezuela, by people such as the President of Fuerza Solidaria (Solidarity Force), Alejandro Peña Esclusa.  Even then, there were sufficient reasons to judge him for betrayal of the country.

In 2001, Hugo Chavez Frias refused to sign the Asuncion Declaration against Terrorism and Narcotics Trafficking in Paraguay to which the participating nations subscribed.

The insolent and shameless eulogy to the FARC's war crimes delivered at the National Assembly of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, during the presentation of the report on government management last Friday January 11, on the part of the sinister Chavez, has only ratified his pretensions of ending the stability of the continent's democratic countries, especially Colombia.

It is not left to anyone in the world to doubt his claims in the least.

Like those of a ruler who indignantly denies the existence of dozens of kidnapped Venezuelans, repudiated by the people of his country for that reason.  For his alleged playing of the hero of the show, as we became witnesses to the occasion of the liberation of the Colombians Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez.

Capable of bathing his country and his neighbor, Colombia, in blood to impose these heartless ones responsible for crimes against humanity with such force.  It was his decree of war to the death. Hence "Socialism, Homeland or Death," his sentence of judgment engraved in stone.

But outside the spirit of that decree of War to the Death, which on June 15, 1813 the headquarters of Trujillo, Venezuela left as testimony to the Liberator Simón Bolívar, in response to the crimes committed by the worldly Domingo de Monteverde.

Spaniards and Canarians, count on death, even if indifferent, if you do not actively work in favor of the independence of America.  Americans, count on life, even if guilty.  (see note below)

In no way does this correspond to the patriotic sentiment of the Liberator, that of Hugo Chavez who proclaims these murdering insurgents of the FARC "Bolivarians."

Chavez only profanes Bolivar every time he invokes him.

Martha Colmenares

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Translator's Note:  This italicized quote is the final line from Simon Bolivar's famous Decree of War to the Death of June 15, 1813.

StJacques
   

Read More. . . .

Nueva agenda exterior Demócrata para América Latina (Traducción)

    

El Senador por Coneticut Christopher Dodd

Autor:  StJacques    Traducción por:  StJacques y Jorge Pareja

La siguiente es una traducción de mi propia entrada del 20 de abril titulado (en Inglés) "The New Democrat Foreign Policy Agenda for Latin America, Part I ...".

Parte 1: Colombia  ¿Un aliado desechable?

Visitando el blog “Oppenheimer Report on Latin America” encontré un acertado análisis a un discurso reciente del Senador por Coneticut Christopher Dodd -Reconocido al interior del Senado norteamericano como experto en América Latina-.  Andrés Oppenheimer concluye que el Senador Dodd está “aspirando a ser nuevo Secretario de Estado” y yo estoy plenamente de acuerdo con esta aseveración.  Pero si vamos más allá encontraremos que el Senador en mención, hace una presentación muy sutil de lo que en realidad son algunos cambios mayores que le depara a la política extranjera de los Estados Unidos incluyendo América Latina en caso, claro está, que los demócratas logren el control de la “Casa Blanca”.

Les presentaré este análisis en dos partes:  en la segunda discutiré la síntesis “Multi-polar” que los demócratas ahora están impulsando y sus implicaciones para Latinoamérica.  Pero en esta parte 1, pretendo demostrar como la manipulación de la discusión pública, con la intención de ocultar del pueblo norteamericano la aterrorizante realidad que enfrenta día a día el pueblo colombiano.  Las consecuencias de la decisión de no voto al Tratado de Libre Comercio –TLC- son una puñalada sutil pero mortal a la espalda de los colombianos.

Vamos a algunos apartes de la intervención del Senador Chris Dodd:


"[...]  Colombia todavía lucha con la desmovilización de los paramilitares, con la impunidad y otras violaciones de los derechos humanos.  Ha tenido avances hacia la seguridad de sus ciudadanos y establecer el imperio de la ley.  Colombia ha soportado 40 años de violencia enfrentando organizaciones terroristas poderosas empeñadas en destruir el Estado.

Millares de ciudadanos fueron asesinados y secuestrados. En un caso particularmente descarado, las guerrillas se asociaron al cártel de la droga de Medellín, asediaron al Palacio de la Justicia colombiano por 26 horas, y asesinaron once Magistrados.

A la luz de una historia violenta, y a la luz de los desafíos complejos que todavía asedian a Colombia, me parece que enfocar de manera tan estrecha la solución en los acuerdos comerciales bilaterales carece de sentido.  El comercio bilateral [de Colombia] con los Estados Unidos es importante, pero es solamente un elemento.

[...]  El Presidente Uribe ha centrado sus esfuerzos en reuniones con los Estados Unidos, pero él tiene que aplicar la misma energía para reunirse con sus vecinos.  El Presidente Uribe tiene que pasar tantas horas en viajes a la Argentina, al Brasil y a otros vecinos igual a la intensidad con que viaja a Washington.  Al hacerlo, forjará relaciones políticas, sociales y económicas más profundas.

[...]  La seguridad y el futuro económico de América latina no están vinculados solamente a los acuerdos bilaterales con los Estados Unidos.  El comercio regional y el compromiso político van a servir mucho mejor los intereses de todos juntos con repartos comerciales independientemente negociados e instituidos con los Estados Unidos.  [...]"


Comunicación Simbólica Entre los Demócratas:  No discutamos sobre las FARC

Lo primero que debemos notar acerca de los comentarios de Dodd sobre Colombia, es que haciendo uso de la comunicación simbólica envía una señal para ser entendida por todos los aliados partidarios presentes:  la “línea del Partido” ahora será desarrollada.  Dodd se introduce en el tema colombiano con una referencia a las dificultades que los paramilitares representan para el país y después asocia el problema paramilitar como el problema más grande de la violencia en la historia reciente de Colombia, pues en el resto de su introducción, hablando del Palacio de Justicia nombra una organización que ya fue desmantelada  –El cártel de Medellín que fue desvertebrado a principios de los años 90-.  Y tras el habitual formato del discurso político, es después de su introducción sobre los problemas de Colombia que Dodd procede a dar sus recomendaciones para una correcta política exterior estadounidense para abordar esas dificultades.  Pero vamos a resistir examinar esas recomendaciones por el momento, ya que tengo intención en llegar a ellas en un segundo post.  Por ahora centrémonos en la introducción que dio Dodd, porque lo que no dijo es precisamente la parte clave de su comunicación.

El Senador Christopher Dodd hace un recorrido transversal de los problemas de Colombia y hace sus recomendaciones para superarlos sin mencionar por su nombre a las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC.  Más adelante en el discurso, después de presentar sus sugerencias para los cambios en la política de los Estados Unidos con respecto a Colombia, él las refiere dos veces, pero esas dos referencias se hacen totalmente fuera de su análisis introductorio de las cuestiones importantes para la política extranjera de Colombia y de los Estados Unidos; son otras referencias oblicuas al incidente de frontera reciente con Ecuador y cómo la crisis fue evitada dentro del contexto de una reunión conjunta de los líderes latinoamericanos.

La decisión de Chris Dodd de no hacer referencia directa a las FARC no puede ser considerada un accidente.  Se podría discutir que los incluye tangencialmente cuando menciona "organizaciones terroristas poderosas" quiénes están "empeñadas en destruir el gobierno colombiano".  ¿Pero si son tan poderosos y sus metas son tan terribles, porqué Dodd no puede desagregar y llamar a cada organización por su nombre?  La respuesta es que deben mantener esa comunicación simbólica crucial para su partido:  "no habrá discusión abierta del terrorismo de las FARC" porque se desviaría la atención del problema de los paramilitares y minaría la justificación política para “matar” el Tratado del Libre Comercio EE.UU-Colombia.

El Senador entiende lo que cualquier otro opositor del Tratado del Libre Comercio EE.UU-Colombia entiende:  Deben prevenir el debate público de las actividades de las FARC en Colombia con el fin de evitar el escrutinio público de su decisión de “matar” al tratado.  "Mantengan el foco en los paramilitares" es la línea del partido Demócrata, muy bien leída por sus emisarios en el Congreso pues invocan simbólicamente a El Salvador de los años 80, cuando las escuadrillas de muerte paramilitares patrocinadas por el gobierno mataron a millares,  -situación totalmente diferente de los paras colombianos, que fueron organizados fuera de los auspicios del gobierno y representaron una respuesta popular a la incapacidad del Estado de protegerlos contra los depredadores de las FARC y otros grupos de guerrilla izquierdista-.  Con la estrategia de no referirse a las FARC, como mecanismo útil para justificar la “muerte del TLC” están evitando que este grupo terrorista forme parte de la discusión pública del pueblo norteamericano, lo que conlleva un encubrimiento de parte del Partido Demócrata hacia ellos.  Se trata pues, cuando menos, de un crimen político, porque las FARC llevan años ejerciendo actos de terrorismo que agravian a toda la humanidad.

En los dos últimos decenios las FARC han matado a miles de colombianos inocentes en ataques directos y bombardeos terroristas.  Han secuestrado a miles más, algunos han logrado su libertad después de haber pagado rescates, algunos perdieron la vida cuando los términos de la negociación no fueron seguidos a su antojo, han reclutado por la fuerza a miles de jóvenes colombianos, niños y niñas llevados a servir en sus filas, matando a muchos de aquellos que se niegan a hacerlo.  Han construido un imperio del narcotráfico que les genera cientos de millones de dólares al año en ganancias que los conecta con redes de distribución que se extienden por Bolivia, Perú, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panamá, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, y especialmente en México.  Todo esto hace inobjetable decir que:  las FARC cometen crímenes contra la humanidad pues estamos hablando de asesinato en masa, ataques terroristas, secuestro extorsivo y narcotráfico generalizado.  En comparación, los paramilitares, que tienen también su terrible historia, están ahora dentro de un proceso de desmovilización supervisado por los grupos de Derechos Humanos [otra cosa que Dodd omitió en su análisis].

Cada día en Estados Unidos vivimos con la tergiversación de la verdad como un hecho de la vida política.  Es algo que realmente no podemos evitar, pero debe haber límites.  Ocultar un crimen contra la humanidad está más allá de cualquier límite aceptable y cualquier persona que desvía la discusión del tema de las FARC está encubriendo un crimen.  Tales acciones constituyen crímenes en si mismos.

StJacques
   

Read More. . . .

Nancy Pelosi and the Politics of Poison

   

Bush	Pelosi	Uribe

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's recent decision to refuse to schedule a vote on the U.S.-Colombian Free Trade Agreement has placed American trade and security policy within the center of the political landscape for the current election year.  Pelosi has justified her position publicly by reason of what she describes as Colombia's failure to make significant headway in addressing the problem of the paramilitaries in that country, who are still in a process of demobilization following a 2004 agreement to disarm and disband implemented by the Colombian government and monitored by international human rights groups.  Included among these is the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States, who last month released their report for 2007 on Colombia, in which they observed that the Colombian government had demonstrated "its commitment to pacification," though they also expressed concerns about the need for greater protection of witnesses testifying against former paramilitaries, within a legal process necessary for victims and their families to receive awards for damages and reparations, as well as presenting evidence that not all paramilitary groups had disarmed and there was even the possibility that some could be reforming.  But the sum total of all evidence regarding paramilitary violence in Colombia is that it has dropped off dramatically since the 2004 accord, which the IACHR has noted.

A second issue Pelosi has raised, along with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, is that violence against labor union leaders in Colombia has not been addressed to their satisfaction.  This presentation has never been made forcefully to the American people, and for good reason as George Will has pointed out, given that the level of violence is so low that the life expectancy of labor union members in Colombia is above that of the general population.  Any honest and informed observer of the process should be able to say that the real motivating factors behind Pelosi's decision to deny a vote on the U.S.-Colombian Free Trade Agreement are two; she is keeping the Democratic Party marching in step with the trade protectionist positions of organized labor during an election year when they need labor's financial support and political activism and she is providing political cover for Barack Obama, who opposes the agreement and would be put under the microscope if the matter came up for a vote.  Hillary Clinton apparently opposes the agreement also, but her position has been ambiguous.

This is not the first time Nancy Pelosi has used her influence within the House Democratic Leadership to prevent an important debate from proceeding before the eyes of the American people.  While still House Minority Leader in September, 2005 she played the leading role in preventing a full-fledged congressional investigation into the handling of the disaster response to Hurricane Katrina, insisting that only the actions of the federal government could be investigated -- read "investigate the Bush Administration but cover the rear of Louisiana's then Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco" -- and no such inquiry has ever been held.  I live in Louisiana and within a week of Katrina's landfall I knew, along with many other Louisianans, that an open investigation would not show our state and Governor in a good light.  Inevitably the world would have known that the State of Louisiana had turned back private rescue efforts, that Governor Blanco's hesitation to call up the National Guard went so far as to extend beyond the outbreaks of post-storm violence and looting, that the State of Louisiana either did nothing or consented outright to the closure of a federal highway bridge leading into downtown New Orleans and therefore had a hand in isolating those who were stranded, and that from as early as the Tuesday after the storm Governor Blanco's own Department of State Homeland Security chief had refused permission to both the Red Cross and Salvation Army to travel to the Superdome and Convention Center to relieve the suffering saying the two sites might become "magnets," an outrageous remark that has never been explained.  What happened in New Orleans after Katrina may have been -- I actually would argue "was" -- the most significant civil rights crime in America since the era of legalized segregation and Pelosi refused to let the Congress investigate it or to have the facts discussed in front of the American people.  This was poisonous betrayal of the most vulnerable among us, pure and simple, but it gained political advantage for Pelosi in her drive to wrest control of the House of Representatives away from the Republicans, and she obviously has not forgotten the lesson.

Pelosi Also Played a Major Role in Preventing an Open Discussion in Congress of the post-Katrina Abandonment of Displaced New Orleanians

We can only hope that the venemous nature of political manipulation we have seen from Nancy Pelosi will be replaced by a more open and honest exercise of legislative leadership. This appears doubtful at present, so in the meantime we can only call it what it is openly.

It is poison, pure and simple.

StJacques
   

Read More. . . .

The New Democrat Foreign Policy Agenda for Latin America, Part I: Sacrifice Colombia, Conceal a Crime Against Humanity

   

Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd

I have a short excerpt to post from a speech Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd gave recently, which I found on the Oppenheimer Report on Latin America blog. Oppenheimer thinks this talk suggests that Dodd may be "running for Secretary of State," and I think I agree. But I also think that Dodd makes a very subtle presentation of what are in fact some major changes in store for U.S. foreign policy in general, and Latin America in particular in this speech, should the Democrats gain control of the White House. I am going to present this analysis in two parts. In the second one I will discuss the "Multi-Polar" synthesis the Democrats are now pushing and its implications for Latin America. But in this first installment, I want to show how the manipulation of public debate so as to conceal from the American people a terrifying reality the Colombians face every day represents, in the aftermath of the decision to prevent a vote on the Free Trade Agreement in Congress, a very subtle twist of the knife in their backs.

Here is the quote:


". . . Colombia still struggles with the demobilization of paramilitaries, impunity and other human rights violations.

It has made progress towards advancing its citizens’ security and establishing the rule of law.

Colombia has faced a 40-year onslaught waged by powerful terrorist organizations bent on destroying the state.

Thousands of citizens were murdered and kidnapped. In one particularly brazen instance, guerillas linked to the Medellin drug cartel laid siege to the Colombian Palace of Justice for 26 hours, and assassinated eleven Supreme Court Justices.

In light of a violent history, and in light of the complex challenges still facing Colombia, it seems to me our narrow focus on a bilateral trade agreements makes little sense. Bilateral trade with the United States is important, but it’s only one element.

“Free Trade” between Colombia and America is not a panacea—we should stop selling it as such.

President Uribe of Colombia has focused his efforts on engaging the United States, but he needs to apply the same energy engaging his neighbors.

President Uribe needs to spend as much time travelling to Argentina, Brazil and other neighbors as frequently as he travels to Washington.

In doing so, he will be forging deeper political, social and economic relationships.

Latin America’s security, and economic future isn’t just tied to bilateral deals with the United States.

Regional trade and political engagement will far better serve everyone’s interests along with independently negotiated and instituted trade deals with the United States. . . ."


Symbolic Communication Among Democrats:  Prevent a Discussion of the FARC

The first thing I noticed about Dodd's comments on Colombia is that he begins with one of those acts of symbolic communication that sends a signal that is mutually understood among partisan allies present that "the party line" will be developed now. Dodd introduces Colombia with a reference to the difficulties the paramilitaries present for the country and then goes on to associate the paramilitary problem with the larger context of violence in Colombia's recent history, which has the effect of proposing that the paras are Colombia's central difficulty, since he only names one other organization through the remainder of his introduction; the Medellin Cartel, who were effectively destroyed by the early 1990's. And following the usual format for policy speeches, it is after his initial presentation of Colombia's problems that Dodd then proceeds to give his recommendations for a proper American foreign policy he feels would address those difficulties. But let's hold off on examining those recommendations for a moment, since I plan to get to them in a second blog, because first I want to focus on the introduction Dodd gave, because what was not said symbolizes the key piece of information he communicated.

Dodd gets all the way through his discussion of Colombia's problems and goes on to make his recommendations for addressing them without once mentioning by name the two thousand pound elephant sitting in the room; the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia -- the FARC. Later in the speech, after presenting his suggestions for changes in U.S. policy with respect to Colombia, he does refer to them twice, but those two brief references are made completely outside of his introductory analysis of the important issues for Colombia and U.S. foreign policy; they are instead oblique references to the recent border incident with Ecuador and how the crisis was averted through a Colombian apology given within the context of a joint meeting of Latin American leaders.

Dodd's decision to omit any direct reference to the FARC when he presents his brief analysis cannot be considered an accident. One could argue, as I am sure Dodd would, that he at least tangentially includes them when he mentions "powerful terrorist organizations" who are "bent on destroying" Colombia's government. But if they are so powerful and their goals are so terrible, why can Dodd not call them by name? The answer is that he must maintain that crucial symbolic communication to his fellow partisans that there will be no open discussion of the FARC's assault on Colombia's people and institutions because that will draw attention away from the problem of the paramilitaries and undermine the political justification for killing the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Christopher Dodd understands what every other partisan opponent of the U.S.-Colombian Free Trade Agreement shares in common; that they must prevent public discussion of the FARC's activities in Colombia in order to avoid public scrutiny of their decision to kill the agreement. "Keep the focus on the paramilitaries" is the party line read out from the congressional Commissars as they order the invocation of the symbolism of El Salvador in the 1980's, when government-sponsored paramilitary death squads killed thousands, a situation totally unlike the Colombian paras, who were organized outside of government auspices and really represented a popular response in various locales to the inability of the Colombian government to protect them from the depredations of the FARC and other leftist guerrilla groups. The opponents of the Free Trade Agreement cannot let the FARC become part of the public discussion, which amounts to a decision to at least in part conceal the FARC's activities from the American public. That is a political crime, because the FARC are perpetrating what can truly be called a crime against humanity.

Over the past two decades alone the FARC have killed thousands of innocent Colombians in direct attacks and terrorist bombings. They have kidnapped thousands more, some have been released when ransoms were paid, some killed when negotiating terms were not followed, and over 700 still remain in custody. They have laid waste entire sections of the rural countryside which are now virtually uninhabitable due to the FARC's presence. They have forcibly conscripted thousands of young Colombian boys and girls to serve within their ranks, killing many of those who refuse to do so or who merely demonstrate they cannot be trusted. And they have built a narcotics trafficking empire that earns them hundreds of millions of dollars a year and involves them with drug producing and distribution networks that extend everywhere from Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and especially Mexico; all of whom have been named in revelations of the FARC's activities. When you add up the sum total of the human suffering the FARC has inflicted and continues to inflict upon human beings, it becomes difficult to deny the truth -- The FARC are currently committing a crime against humanity that involves mass murder, terrorist attacks, kidnapping, extortion, and widespread narcotics trafficking. By comparison, the paramilitaries, who have their own terrible history that mostly predates this decade, are now within a demobilization process monitored by human rights groups -- something else Dodd omitted from his analysis -- and look nowhere nearly so threatening.

Every day in America we live with spin as a fact of political life. It is something we really cannot avoid. But there must be limits to the extent to which spin can take us. The concealment of a crime against humanity is beyond any acceptable limit and anyone who tries to take a discussion of the FARC off the table acts to conceal the crime. Such actions are crimes in and of themselves.

StJacques

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The U.S. Betrayal of Colombia (Translation Included)

   

A FARC Commander Examines Kidnapped Colombian Hostages at a FARC Concentration Camp in the Colombian Jungle

This post will be the first of several I will make over the next 10 to 14 days on the subject of the U.S.-Colombian Free Trade Agreement.  I want to begin with my own clear assertion that I am a strong supporter of the agreement on economic, social, political, and national security grounds.  In direct reference to my interests in supporting democracy and human freedom in this blog, I also want to say that I do not believe there is any other piece of impending legislation before the U.S. Congress which could do more to strengthen these twin causes than this proposed free trade agreement.  And I am convinced that there is nothing our Congress could do this year which would result in greater harm to the causes of democracy and freedom in our hemisphere than to fail to pass it.

Colombia:  A True Friend of the United States

The United States has friendly relations with a number of countries in Latin America, but most of those who we could count as "friends" are not among the largest and most powerful nations in the region.  With the exception of Colombia we could include among those whose governments are amicable towards us; Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, Panama, El Salvador, Paraguay, and Peru.  From there we could proceed to Mexico and Chile, two of the more important nations in Latin America, as somewhat neutral in their relations with the United States and who have cemented close commercial ties with us but who also have outstanding differences on issues such as immigration policy, in the case of Mexico, and a perceived American inattention to the problems of international development, with regard to Chile.  Most of the remainder of Latin America has a very negative disposition to the United States, at least in so far as their current regimes express themselves officially, and at least five of these; Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Cuba, probably can be viewed as "enemies" given the public pronouncements of their leaders.  And sitting just outside of that group we would list Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay; not necessarily identifying them as enemies, but perhaps "unfriendly," since these three seem to have much closer relations with the preceding five and they pursue foreign policies that are frequently at odds with our own in the region.

It is within the larger context of an examination of the geopolitical map of Latin America, coupled with a knowledgeable understanding of what is taking place in Colombia and other nearby nations whose ruling regimes are either already under the control of leftist governments usually referred to as "Populist" in their orientation, or supportive of the thrust of populism, that we can best understand what Colombia's true significance to the United States is and why it is important that we pay close attention to what is transpiring there.

Colombia is a genuine democracy that has a truly open, secure ballot where the vote is exercised free of government intimidation; an autonomous press that practices journalism free from government interference, though like Mexico journalists do face threats from drug gangs and narco-guerrillas; a legal system that operates under the principle of equality before the law when given the chance -- it does on occasion face significant intimidation from drug cartels, but its political independence is such that recent indictments have been returned against the family of the Attorney General and even relatives of President Alvaro Uribe; and a growing economy that has moved steadily towards free market reforms that are producing significant economic growth and prosperity for its people.  But Colombia is also a nation under assault from Venezuelan and Ecuadoran-backed narco-guerrillas who have killed thousands and currently hold over 700 Colombian citizens hostage as kidnap victims, which intimidates the government from acting against them, especially where protection of guerrilla-controlled opium poppy and coca fields are at stake.

Hugo Chavez and FARC Commander Ivan Marquez

The significance of Colombia's choice for democracy can best be understood when contrasted with neighboring Venezuela, the nation the American Left seems to love.  In Venezuela electoral intimidation is a regular fact of life, the inflated numbers of voter rolls speak of fraud, fingerprints are taken and time-stamped at the moment votes are cast electronically, permitting a one-to-one correlation of the two, and by prior agreement election observers are not able to examine all aspects of the voting process nor comment upon them officially, only those which the government permits them to see.  Nor can it be said that Venezuela has a truly free press, especially in the opinion of international press associations who have criticized the Chavez government repeatedly for intimidation and restrictions of press freedoms.  The Venezuelan legal system has deteriorated shamefully since Chavez came to office and political prosecutions are becoming more common everyday.  And the economic disruption of Venezuelan life also has been significant; statistics on poverty are suspect to say the least, supermarket shelves are frequently empty leading to occasional mass protests and even riots, the level of corruption in state-owned enterprises has angered even many of Chavez's former supporters, and in the aftermath of recent electoral setbacks Chavez is now moving to create his own personal militia, with legally-sanctioned authority, such as it is.

Chavez's international ties are also a major concern.  He supports the FARC guerrillas with financial aid, military and logistical support, and the facilitation of their drug smuggling operations, the sum total of which amounts to a direct attempt to overthrow the sovereign government of Colombia and which sustains the FARC in their massive kidnapping and extortion operations as well.  Chavez has funneled financial aid to leftist regimes now in power in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.  He is also sending financial aid to the FMLN in El Salvador, to Peruvian militias now organizing in the southern part of the country, and to various leftist groups in Mexico.  Chavez's disruption of Latin American political life is serious and its long-term implications are dangerous for the interests of the United States.

02/04/08: Hundreds of Thousands of Colombians Demonstrate Against the FARC

But there is one nation in the region whose people have decided to stand against Chavez and with the United States; Colombia.  The Colombian government has been fighting drug cartels since the 1980's and left wing guerrilla groups since the 1960's.  Some of the latter, like the FARC, turned to narcotics trafficking in the 1980's which reinvigorated their operations.  The government has also been battling right-wing paramilitaries (the paras) since the 1990's, most of whom have been successfully demobilized though the process is ongoing and worrisome, but continues to be monitored with the participation of international human rights groups, most prominently the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States.  The Colombian people have been suffering through all of this, and it is really only since the administration of current President Alvaro Uribe that genuine progress was made in demobilizing the paras and the FARC has been forced to withdraw from many areas where it once moved with impunity.  But through it all Colombia's democracy has remained intact.

So why would the United States, which has provided aid for Colombia in its fight against all these threats and which has seen some tangible results in the ongoing demobilization of the paramilitaries and a reduction in the geographical reach of the FARC and other narco-guerrillas, not finalize the Free Trade Agreement now before the U.S. Congress?  Colombia has shown clearly that it is our friend, its people look to the democratic free market model for development we have urged for Latin America as their preferred choice, and they have suffered tremendous pain over the past few decades dealing with threats that all have either a direct or indirect origin in the American appetite for illegal drugs, which fuels so much of the conflict.  Colombia has also shown a willingness to act in cooperation with international agencies looking to monitor compliance in settling these difficult problems and progress is reported on a continuing basis.  That answer lies within American domestic politics, which I intend to examine more completely in upcoming blogs.  The question I want to address here is the Colombian reaction to the recent decision to postpone, and possibly kill, consideration of the proposed Free Trade Agreement.

A Colombian View of the U.S. Congress's Decision to Shelve the Free Trade Agreement

I am going to post a translation of a Spanish language blog from the Alambre Politico (Political Wire) blog site of the viewpoint expressed by Jorge Pareja, a Colombian blogger from Medellin.  I am putting this up to give American readers an opportunity to see what I consider to be a more honest examination of the merits of the agreement and an expression of the disappointment Colombians feel for its current non-consideration.  Please keep in mind that Colombia is a nation that has suffered enormous pain over the past twenty-five years and Colombians are acutely aware of the geopolitical stakes of the moment and the implications for their future if the close relationship they desire with the United States cannot be finalized.

I also want to make a couple of comments here.  One; Pareja's reference to Lara Bonilla refers to the 1984 assassination of Colombian Minister for Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who was killed on the orders of Medellin cartel chief Pablo Escobar.  Two; contained within this post are quotations from sources originally published in English.  I have only translated directly from the Spanish of the article and given that there are instances in which quotes have been translated twice, their exact wording may differ from what one would find in the original English.

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Translation:  The Color of the Glass

President George Bush described Colombia last January 28th as "a friend of the United States who is confronting violence and terror, and is fighting against narcotics traffickers," and he warned the Congress that "if we do not approve this treaty [Free Trade Agreement -FTA-], we will strengthen those who favor false populism in our hemisphere.  The way in which we must come together, is to approve this treaty and show our neighbors in the region that Democracy brings a better life."  The U.S.-Colombia FTA would be the last of a series of treaties -- negotiated by the Bush administration -- with five countries of Central America, the Dominican Republic, Chile and Peru.

The problem is that already on the 29th of June, 2007, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi and other leaders of the Democratic Party had announced their opposition to the FTA with Colombia.  With respect to the treaty they protested:  "There exists a generalized worry in the Congress for the level of violence in Colombia, the impunity, the lack of investigations and judgments, and the role of the paramilitaries . . . we consider that, concrete proofs of sustainable results in Colombia should be included, the members of the Congress will continue working with all the interested parties to reach this objective before considering any FTA.  As a consequence, we cannot support the FTA with Colombia at this moment."

Daniel T. Griswold and Juan Carlos Hidalgo, who carried out a study for the CATO Institute entitled:  "A U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement:  Strengthening Democracy and Progress in Latin America," instruct us in this respect:  "The labor organizations of the United States, especially the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations -- AFL-CIO by its acronym in English -- a key voting bloc of the Democratic Party, made the defeat of the treaty with Colombia one of its main political goals."  Why?

They are manipulating information and for that reason it is serious, according to the comment of the researchers:  "The AFL-CIO cites the number of the 2,245 union members killed in Colombia since 1991 as the central argument against the approval of the free trade agreement.  But the greater part of the killings occurred at the beginning of the period considered, since more than four out of five killings happened before Uribe took office -- the AFL-CIO accepts a nosedive of nearly 90% in killings of union members during Uribe's administration.  Instead of recognizing the merits of Uribe in the drastic decline of the crimes, the AFL-CIO insists on sanctioning the sitting president, and those who elected him, for the failures of previous governments."  "The color of the glass," through which they are able to manipulate statistics in such a way as to reach an objective.  And they are achieving it!

The saying is that everything has "the color of the glass" through which it is viewed.  Today, with the freezing of the FTA in the North American Congress this popular saying is more valid than ever because each one of the players in the process has an extreme opinion on the subject, pitifully they have used Colombia as the first victim of the North American electoral process.  Today we can say that the FTA is dying.  And lamentably Colombia really needs it.

What moves Colombia to look with despair for the approval of the FTA?  With things being as they are, is the United States sending a negative message to Colombia?

Mary Anastasia O'Grady, Editor of the Wall Street Journal's "Americas" column, at the end of 2007 presented us with a revealing interview with Luis Guillermo Plata, Colombia's Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism.  In this interview the excellent Colombian Minister instructs us on the Irish model and on how the government's team has outlined this course for Colombia.  Let's take a look:

Luis Guillermo Plata spoke about the transformation of the Irish economy, of how it passed from being "the poor ugly duckling to the beautiful swan of Europe in just two decades," and how a "similar model of growth is just what Colombia needs."

The minister said to Mrs. O'Grady:  ". . . We began traveling to Ireland years ago, because we were looking at those countries in the world that have been successful in attracting direct foreign investment.  What we discovered was that Ireland reduced its corporate taxes from 40% to 12.5% and as a result began attracting investment; it had reduced the advantage of tax evasion and incremented tax collections.  We returned to Colombia and we said "why should we not reduce (our corporate taxes) from 38% to 12.5%?

Mrs. O'Grady continues:  "In a perfect world, he would have obtained a fixed corporate rate.  But he had to arrive at compromises and, in its place, the "singular free enterprise zone" was what he got.  The initiative extends the low tax rate to companies located within the "free zone," usually an industrial park, to any company that fulfills certain investment criteria.  Companies -- excluding those involved in mining and petroleum -- who qualify by fulfilling the minimum investment objectives and commit themselves to fulfilling certain employment goals will then pay a fixed tax of 15% instead of 33%.  Also, they import all raw materials without tariffs and they do not pay the value added tax.  Besides offering these tax advantages, the government is doing "stability contracts" to guarantee that the rules of the game are not going to change with the next president.  They are also working to reduce the regulatory load, since bureaucratic obstacles are one of the most common complaints of foreign investors."

The Minister contributes this important reflection:  "In 2006, American official aid for development, destined to alleviate poverty in the world, was US $23.5 billion and was a waste of money.  That is because development requires economic liberalization, and the leaders of the poor countries have few incentives to disturb the status quo of monopolies and protectionism that placed them in power . . . Colombia appears on this scene with a leader, President Alvaro Uribe, who is prepared to risk political capital to open domestic markets, to trim taxes and to push competition ahead on a track to fast growth in the Irish style."  "The only thing that his government requests of Washington is bilateral commerce," the journalist finishes.

The FTA, Minister Plata asserted, is as important for the growth of Colombia as entrance to the European Union had been for Ireland:  "That is the reason for which the FTA is so important . . . companies that invest in Colombia are looking beyond the domestic market and the recent dispute with Venezuela in which President Hugo Chavez threatened the closing of the border demonstrates the fragility of the Colombian export market.  Around half of Colombian exports at the moment go to Venezuela and Ecuador.  Having access to the American market and duty free imports originating in the U.S.A. are crucial questions for producers."  It cannot be seen more clearly, this is "the color of the glass."  We truly need this treaty.

We return to Daniel T. Griswold and Juan Carlos Hidalgo, the CATO Institute researchers, who with sufficient arguments demonstrated to us the benefits that the United States would obtain with the FTA:  "The Free Trade Agreement with Colombia is designed to strengthen the civil society of Colombia and, at the same time, to generate economic opportunities so that U.S. producers sell their products to 44 million Colombian consumers, who would enjoy an upward mobility and would have a positive view of the United States.  Like other similar treaties the United States already negotiated in the region, this one would demolish barriers to American exports.  More than 80% of U.S. exports to Colombia are of products destined for industry that would become duty free to those consumers if the treaty were promulgated, and the remaining tariffs would be eliminated progressively throughout the next ten years.  For agricultural producers of the United States, the FTA would allow duty free immediate access for high quality beef, cotton, wheat, soybean flour and most fruits and vegetables -- like apples, pears, peaches and cherries -- and many processed foods, like potato chips and crackers.  The treaty would improve the sale of exports of pork, beef, corn, fowl, rice and dairy products."

But the benefits do not end there:  In addition, "The FTA would strengthen protection of investments of American companies who are trying to reach Colombian consumers by means of a direct presence.  The treaty would guarantee the nondiscriminatory rights to U.S. companies in their presentation of bids to obtain contracts with a great variety of ministries, governmental bodies, and regional governments of Colombia, as well as better access for American suppliers of telecommunications services.  This FTA surpasses other bilateral treaties in order to satisfy the ever changing demands of the critics of trade treaties concerning the fulfillment of certain labor and environmental norms within Colombia."

"A study made in December of 2006 by the International Trade Commission of the United States considered that the treaty would increase American exports by 1.1 billion dollars.  Since Colombian exporters already enjoy a virtually duty free access to the market of the United States, a trade treaty would allow the equality of conditions that trade skeptics do not cease demanding . . . Because U.S. tariffs already are low or null for the majority of imports originating in Colombia, the treaty would not have to generate the opposition of local special interests. . . ."

". . . Bilateral trade between Colombia and the United States grew to 15.9 billion dollars in 2006 and is on track to surpass 17 billion in 2007.  This value is similar to the bilateral trade with Chile, another country with whom a FTA exists, and almost double the trade with Peru, which became a trade associate in 2007."  The truth, I think, is that we only can find ourselves in this situation for reasons of squalid political motivations, lamentably they chose us, the country that least deserves this treatment.

Well now, in a zone plagued by populist governments, with a leader who has won a place for himself thanks to an expansionist eagerness patronized with petrodollars, we do not understand how the United States would try to throw away Colombia, which is the only country that has put up a defensive wall against the growth of this socialist and anti-North American fever.  What an unfortunate message this is sending to the region!  With respect to this matter our friends at the CATO Institute pronounce themselves:  "The importance of Colombia has grown in the last few years owing to the ideological battle that we are waging in the Andean region.  With the coming to power of presidents of the populist left in South America, President Uribe represents the closest ally of the United States in Latin America."

Yes, Bush is totally right when he says: [ Colombia is ] "a friend of the United States who faces violence and terror, and fights against narcotics traffickers," that is certain, because a serious North American problem that we have faced bravely is drug trafficking.  It is estimated that 90% of powdered cocaine that is consumed in the United States comes from Colombia.  This represents a multimillion dollar business that illegal armed groups have been exploiting for more than one decade, and we have paid for it with deaths.

Compared with the United States, Colombia has compiled a relatively recent gangster history and we were released into the front lines of the war on narcotics trafficking very rapidly, it could be said from the murder of Minister Lara Bonilla.  Whatever tragedies have followed from that time, however many dead we have put away since then, however many generations of the young have been failed, whatever territorial wars we have had to overcome on account of armed groups fed by drug trafficking, it is all fed on an unbridled consumption in the "developed world."

Each North American who decides to consume drugs does so individually and they are far and away the world's major consumers, but they are imposing this war on us, which did not belong to us, because of "Say's Law," which says "all supply creates its own demand" and which is now in the process of being totally reevaluated, as we are sure that for the consumption of drugs "all demand creates its own supply."  From this point of view: if we managed to defeat drug trafficking and stopped being the world's leading producers, logically the business would be transferred to another country, probably in South America, because it is completely certain that they will continue being the world's major consumers and someone is going to produce drugs for them.

Peru, Mexico, Chile and Central America have free trade agreements with the U.S.A., which means that Colombia is automatically left at a disadvantage with the negation of our agreement.  We asked ourselves: Have they made Peru, Mexico, Chile and Central America more deserving to gain admittance to the FTA?  How many more deaths have these countries suffered in the war on drugs?  What iron positions have they taken in defense of the American people?  Which country, aside from Colombia, has been in the lead in restraining the expansionist plans of Hugo Chavez and his "Socialism of the 21st Century?"  Perhaps they do not realize that we are their last friend in a region of enemies?  Our people are not Bush's allies.  Our people are allies of the American people!  It is sad to see what they have done on the subject of the FTA.  But, President Uribe already made clear that the relationship with the United States would be affected if the FTA is rejected, during a visit to Washington, he said that Colombia will not be part of "a relationship in which the United States is the master and Colombia is the slave."

Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, was incisive in saying:  "If the United States gives it back to Colombia, the misfortune that we would suffer would be greater than that which no Latin American dictator could aspire to obtain."  As for me, I totally share the main conclusion of the CATO Institute in the study in question:  "To approve a free trade agreement with Colombia is to support a free market democracy in a region in which liberal values are in danger, it is being a reliable partner in turbulent times.  To reject a free trade agreement with Colombia due to the persistent violence that country suffers would be an irresponsible error of the Congress.  It would imply sacrificing our national interest in a stable hemisphere and prosperous Pacific in favor of ideological interests and partisan shortcomings of perspective."

Jorge Pareja

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