Zapatero al rescate! Preserving the Castro-Chavez-Evo Axis

 

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

Zapatero Comes to the Rescue of Chavez and Castro

On Saturday Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero came to the rescue of Hugo Chavez, not only saving the Venezuelan president from being called to answer for his regime's collaboration with the Basque terrorist ETA and the Colombian FARC, but also pulling the rug out from underneath his country's own Audiencia Nacional (National Court), which issued an indictment for six ETA and seven FARC members earlier this week.  What did he do?  Well, in the ultimate act of spin control, he qualified the recent indictment as a mere "hypothesis" of Venezuela's relationship with the ETA and the FARC and, after changing the demand for an "explanation" to a simple request for "information," the Spanish government joined with that of Chavez to issue a joint statement "reaffirming their fight against the ETA," effectively setting the matter aside for Chavez.  It is an absolutely perfidious development which, had we paid closer attention, should have been expected all along, as there were definitely signs of Zapatero's moral degradation and insensitivity to democratic and human rights long before this ultimate act of policy pursued on behalf of tyranny, not to mention the abject betrayal of his country's own legal system.

In addition to his rallying to the aid of Chavez, there is also the matter of Zapatero's current role within the activism of the European Left, who have successfully protected the Castro regime against European Union sanction for overt human rights violations, which the recent death of Cuban dissident and political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo has brought to the forefront of discussion.  Zapatero is now playing an absolutely sinister role in European and world politics, that of Defender of the Socialist Faithful, regardless of the tragic consequences for democratic and human rights abroad, as well as the undermining of both the legal institutions of his own country and the safety of the Spanish people from ETA terrorism.

Zapatero's Political Profile:  A Deceitful Ideologue Bent on Cultural Warfare

Regardless of one's opinion of Zapatero, and I will make clear that I hold him in very low esteem, his personal history is a cloudy one which, when told, always excites reaction from either his supporters or opponents, as the case may be, who insist that their alternative is the proper version.  But I think it would be accurate to say that throughout his political career, he has appeared much more ideologically oriented as an activist among Spanish and European Socialists than when presenting himself politically to the Spanish people.  He has even been accused by the opposing Partido Popular (Spanish People's Party or PP) of stealing some of their ideas, such as the Anti-Terrorist Freedom Pact of December, 2000, which was largely aimed at isolating Basque terrorists.  By supporting it as one of the earliest initiatives of his tenure as leader of Spain's Socialist Party (PSOE), Zapatero cast himself before the Spanish public as a moderate; a man who wished to develop a less confrontational and threatening profile for Spanish Socialists.  He even referred to his personal style as Oposición Tranquila (Calm Opposition), which gave him a public image that placed him within what most would consider the political mainstream.

Zapatero's opponents in the PP never viewed him as a mainstream politician, but as the issues around which they contested his policy initiatives during his tenure as Prime Minister demonstrate, their focus was clearly directed more to confrontations on cultural values than upon economic, fiscal, and foreign policy issues; which did not serve the PP well because Zapatero's fiscal and economic policies have been a disaster for Spain.  Currently the country faces double digit unemployment, a budget deficit of 11.4% of GDP, and has been ordered by the EU to implement an austerity plan that must bring its deficit down to 3% of GDP by 2013.  Zapatero remarkably claims that these targets will be met even though social spending, research and development funding, sustainable economy funds, and development aid all will remain unaffected by impending budget cuts.

When one considers that Spain is only one notch above Greece in the EU's mandated austerity program, it becomes difficult to understand how Zapatero and the PSOE have remained in power these past six years.  The answer is that the PP and other opposition groups in Spain spent their collective effort at resisting Zapatero and the PSOE on cultural issues.  During Zapatero's Prime Ministry the left successfully passed initiatives recognizing same sex marriage, expanded adoption rights for gay couples, legal recognition of transsexual identity, and expanded access to abortion services; all of which angered the traditional Catholic right within Spain and provoked no small amount of outrage within their political activism.  And at the same time, Spain has emerged as the center for the cultural left within Europe, which only aggravated Zapatero's opponents further.  But a coherent and cohesive critique of his fiscal and economic policies has never emerged within Spanish politics, much to the discredit of the PP.

Finally; it must be mentioned that Zapatero also negotiated--you can forget any political spin which suggests otherwise--with the Basque ETA terrorist organization, which early into his administration appeared to some to suggest the promise of peace.  In March, 2006 the ETA supposedly declared a ceasefire that was rendered meaningless the following year with a bomb attack at Madrid's main airport.  Zapatero's ETA policy is boldly two-faced.  He consistently presents a public front of pursuing a hard line against the Basque terrorists, while again and again news surfaces of direct contacts with the organization maintained between his government, the PSOE, and other supporters.  It has been one of the most dangerous policy initiatives of his administration, because it does have the potential to unite the Spanish people against him.  Yet somehow Zapatero has always managed to defuse the critique of his ETA associations by appearing credible in his public pronouncements of getting tough with the organization, however much at odds with his policies this stance has been in fact.

In short, Zapatero is a successful politician who understands how to say publicly what people want to hear while pursuing policy initiatives that produce the opposite of what he promises.  He nonetheless succeeds politically by uniting his supporters around an agenda that is ideologically oriented towards advancing cultural conflict within Spain on values issues, which also gives him credibility and additional support from within the international left, while simultaneously rendering his opposition ineffective as they exhaust themselves in cultural warfare, always failing to hold him accountable for his mismanagement of the country's economy and government.  Saying one thing, doing another, and avoiding the consequences through his manipulation of his opponents and his obeisance to the ideological whims of his supporters, that is the Zapatero style.  You know--a liar.

Zapatero and the Latin American Left

As Prime Minister Zapatero has a record of supporting Latin American leftist regimes.  His attitudes towards their repeated violations of human rights and democratic freedoms do not match well with those of most of the developed world in either the western hemisphere or within the European Union.  But again, he has managed to mute criticism of his policies by effectively paying lip service to ideals which he either does not espouse or defines in terms quite differently than others.

Since first entering office in 2004 Zapatero has worked consistently to foster a leadership role for Spain among the Spanish and Portugese speaking nations of "Ibero-America."  Remaining true to his Socialist political affiliation, he has especially sought to make himself into a bridge assisting the integration of Castroite Cuba and other marginalized left-leaning governments, such as Venezuela and Bolivia, into the international community.  The principal foreign policy framework he has utilized to manage these associations has been the Ibero-American Summit.  Traditionally this has been a largely cultural and economic gathering of Latin American nations with Spain and Portugal that never amounted to much.  But it has given Zapatero an organizational mechanism for economic outreach to the left in Latin America through its proposals for debt forgiveness and restructuring via the Ibero-American Inter-Development Bank, always a friend to economically-challenged leftist regimes.  In their own turn, they have returned the favors in kind through the negotiation of commercial arrangements with Spanish business enterprise.

Rehabilitating the image of Castroite Cuba--as opposed to effecting real change within the country--was one of the first goals of Zapatero's Latin American policy.  He was unsuccessful in his attempt to arrange Fidel Castro's attendance at the 2005 Ibero-American Summit, perhaps because the gathering spent a great deal of its effort on promoting the right of free migration, which is not a topic that would appeal to Fidel.  But in 2008 Zapatero was successful in lobbying the European Union to repeal the 2003 sanctions it imposed on Cuba following one of Castro's many crackdowns on dissidents.  And he followed up that success just this week when, using his influence as temporary President of the EU parliament, he prevented the imposition of new sanctions as a response to the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo in a Cuban jail, limiting the action to a near useless declaration of indignation.

So what are we to think of Zapatero's support for Castro and his Cuban regime?  Well, it certainly is not economically motivated.  Though exact figures are not easily available, Spain agreed to forgive a good portion of Cuba's multi-hundred million dollar debt in 2008 and Cuba has not been a productive trading partner with Spain, or anyone else for that matter

The Relationship with Venezuela:  Selling the Spanish Soul

Though it is difficult to qualify and rank Zapatero's recent outrages, his rescue of Hugo Chavez from the indictment of the Spanish National Court would appear to be the most serious, given his obligations as Prime Minister to uphold Spanish law and support the country's institutions, not to mention Spain's stature within the international community, which can only have been damaged by the conflicting signals now being sent abroad.  The most important immediate consequence of the new "cooperative" (this sticks in my throat) approach to dealing with the ETA and the FARC that has been jointly announced in Caracas and Madrid is that there will be no arrests, nor any prosecution of the individuals named in Judge Velasco's auto.  There are obviously domestic political consequences within Spanish politics, but these may not be so negative as one might at first assume, since Zapatero has proven himself quite deft at angering the PP and then letting them become their own worst enemies as they splinter into fragments and fail to coalesce around a unified opposition stance.  All we are really left to ask ourselves is whether Zapatero's primary motivation for saving Chavez was ideological and political, as is clearly the case with Cuba, or economic, which is a new factor to consider with respect to Spain's relationship with Venezuela.

The economic ties Zapatero has helped forge with Venezuela are particularly important to Spain and especially so over the past couple of years.  Spanish investment in Venezuela has been huge, counting such enterprises as Telefónica Venezuela (over $2 Billion U.S.), Spanish oil developer Repsol YPF's stake in developing the Orinoco oil fields in Carabobo, which give the company proven reserves of 75 billion barrels of heavy crude, the Banco Bibao Vizcaya Argentario of Madrid's 55% share in Venezuela's Banco Provincial, and Spanish energy conglomerates Iberdrola and Elecnor's $2 Billion (U.S.) contract to build combined cycle electrical power plants in Venezuela's Sucre state.  There have also been weapons sales to Venezuela and more preceding these recent arrangements.

It can be argued that economics trumps politics and ideology, but in this instance the point is moot.  From Zapatero's perspective there is no conflict, all the aforementioned factors influence his actions in the same direction; saving Chavez and protecting Spanish investments and jobs all go hand in hand.

One might suggest that there is a moral conflict for Zapatero, in that undermining his country's system of justice and even placing the Spanish people at greater risk from Basque terrorism would mitigate against his pro-Chavez policy in this instance, but I would counter that this moral conflict does not exist. 

Moral conflicts are only for virtuous men.  That excludes José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

StJacques

 
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Update:  March 18, 2010, 4:10 p.m.  I have removed a quote and a paragraph from my original entry regarding a "letter" published in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo on April 10, 2007, supposedly sent from Zapatero to Fidel Castro.  While I cannot present any information which says that the letter is not genuine, nor has any been presented to me, and even though the author of the article in which it was published, Luis Maria Anson, has never stated that it was anything but genuine, I am taking the advice of Tea and Politics blogger Claudia Al, that I should not treat the letter as an historical document.  Whether the letter is genuine or not, I am certain that Claudia would not act to deceive me, much less protect Zapatero.  StJ
 

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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 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.

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Is the Wheel of Karma Turning Against Chavez?

   

Gustavo Coronel has put up a short but excellent overview of recent events in Latin America which seem to suggest that Hugo Chavez's international aspirations for spreading his Bolivarian revolution are failing and that the momentum is currently against him almost everywhere in the region.  And Coronel's opinion is not entirely his own, as you will be able to read that many among the Latin American Left have been angered over Chavez's recent about face in his announcement of his withdrawal of support for the FARC in the wake of the revelations emanating from the laptops of slain narcoguerrilla leader Raul Reyes, which have turned international opinion against Chavez to a considerable degree and emboldened the opposition to leftist regimes he supports throughout Latin America.

I would like to point out that in a recent blog entry of my own I wrote that "I believe that the current political trends in the region are against Chavez and Populism" as I discussed the prospects for a post-Chavez era in Venezuela.  In Coronel's blog you will see that some of the latest developments in Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, and Cuba all portend for the imminent failure of Chavez's political project and may point to the impending end of his own tenure in Venezuela as well.  Given that the evidence presented is of much more recent origin I think it safe to say that you can believe Coronel's version more easily than mine.

Here is the link.  Go and read "SOCIALISM OF THE XXI CENTURY IS STILLBORN."

StJacques
   

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Blog Link - "Hugo Chavez: Sponsor of Terrorism"

   

VCrisis.com Editor Aleksander Boyd

   
With so much going up on the web in the past few days following the release of the Interpol report authenticating the information divulged from the Reyes laptops, I would like to take a brief moment to recommend a short, but valuable statement of three paragraphs Aleksander Boyd has posted at VCrisis.com.

The real aftermath of the Interpol report should be that the defenders of Chavez can no longer be treated as unknowing dupes of a sponsor of terror.  I quote:

". . . From this day on, anyone openly siding with Chavez is, by association, a supporter of terrorism and should be treated as such by authorities and public opinion worldwide.  The honey moon has ended."

I encourage everyone to keep an eye on VCrisis.  If you lose track of its name, I have them on the links sidebar as "Venezuela in Crisis."

StJacques
   

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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
   

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Trying to Spin Tomorrow's Interpol Report Ahead of Time

   

Slain FARC Terrorist Leader Raul Reyes

   
Tomorrow the long-awaited and much-anticipated report from the Interpol computer forensics team will be presented to the public containing the results of their investigation into the four laptop computers recovered from former FARC terrorist leader Raul Reyes, who was killed in the March 1 cross-border raid into Ecuador.  The Interpol team was specifically tasked with an examination of the possibility of file tampering or hard drive manipulation on the part of the Colombian government so as to substantiate the authenticity of the Reyes Documents, whose contents have produced damaging revelations for Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa, and others regarding the nexus of contacts in place and maintained to support the FARC's war on the Colombian government.  Translation:  They are going to tell us whether the Colombian government or anyone else planted new information on the hard drives or manipulated files that already existed before they were seized.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who is aware of the awful support network that is in place in this country to support Chavez and his program that there is a rush on to control the spin of the information that will be made public when Interpol substantiates the veracity of the document content.  It is a sickening sight to see how the American news media permits blatantly open supporters of Chavez to appear suddenly and contest the authenticity of the Reyes documents -- before Interpol even releases its report -- presenting themselves as "experts" whose opinions can be taken as an objective analysis.  But we all knew it would happen, so we shouldn't be astounded, especially since the Chavez regime is jumping on the news, releasing it as fact in Venzuela.

Venezuelan Dissident & Blogger Gustavo Coronel

I encourage everyone to visit the Las Armas de Coronel blog to read this blog entry by Venezuelan dissident and all-round pesadilla de Chávez Gustavo Coronel.  Mr. Coronel nails the pre-emptive spin doctoring by the likes of Mark Weisbrot, Daniel Hellinger, James Early, and Miguel Tinker-Salas as nothing less than the purest form of leftist adulation and media-sponsored deception.  Go and get the truth!

Oh, by the way, those guys know nothing about computer forensics, not that it makes much difference to the American media.

¡Buen hecho Señor Coronel!

StJacques
   

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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
   

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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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Former FARC Guerrillas Confirm Venezuela's Assistance and Support (Translation Included)

   

Maria Angelica Correa Interviews Two Former FARC Guerrillas

Ever since the release of the first items from the laptop computers of slain FARC leader Raul Reyes in early March, there has been both a steady stream of information coming into the media about the FARC and its activities as well as a renewed effort among a few dedicated journalists, and especially within the Latin American media, to investigate the story of the FARC's activities. While we are still waiting for the report of the Interpol computer forensics experts that will verify the assertions of the Colombian government that all the information released is authentic, the early indications clearly suggest that the data provided in the Reyes documents is genuine.

It may be important to note that beyond specific details useful to intelligence services and international police agencies in their work, which have already led to the arrest of an international arms dealer in Thailand, the search of a FARC house in Costa Rica used in drug trafficking operations where $480,000 in cash was found, and the seizure of 66 pounds of uranium in a home north of Bogota; most of the information surfacing from the Reyes' computers has verified previous claims of the Colombian government and other informed observers of the international scope of the FARC's operations and support, to wit, that Hugo Chavez has been using the resources of the Venezuelan government to support the guerrilla insurgency against a neighboring state. Therefore; the substantial impact of the Reyes documents is about verification of this fact, not its discovery.

What follows is a translated article excerpt from the original Spanish up at the Perfil.com website (Buenos Aires), in which Venezuelan journalist Maria Angelica Correa interviews two former FARC guerrillas now "demobilized." The information they provide is significant, because it asserts a direct link between Hugo Chavez's government and the FARC guerrillas, including oversight and logistical support for both their kidnapping and drug-smuggling operations.


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Translation (Excerpt): Exclusive Testimony of Four Deserters

Regretful Former FARC and ELN Members Reveal How Chavez Supports the Guerrillas

The information found in the computer of fallen guerrilla leader Raul Reyes gave birth to a controversy that turned attention to the bonds between the Venezuelan government and the Colombian insurgency. Although President Hugo Chavez has publicly denied cooperating with the FARC and the ELN, four ex-members of those organizations interviewed by Perfil relate how they operated freely in Venezuelan territory and the way in which they received assistance from the Bolivarian security forces, including preparation of false documents, carrying out kidnappings and drug trafficking.

By Maria Angelica Correa

"I spent seven years among the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), belonging to the Bloque Oriental (Eastern Bloc), I was a militiaman of the Tenth Front. My duties were intelligence, logistical and military operations." The man speaking is one of the hundreds of Colombians who are deserting the guerrillas. To protect his personal security we are calling him "Javier." At his side is "Maria," his wife, who joined this same front of the FARC for a year to follow her husband. "I was assigned to the areas of intelligence, extortions, kidnappings, and the purchase of weapons," she relates.

-The two of you were in Venezuela?

Javier: Yes. From April of 2006 until September of 2007, which is when I was demobilized.

-Does the FARC recruit Venezuelan children to form a part of their ranks?

J: Yes, in the Apure zone. It is a frequent sight to see Venezuelan girls of 15 or 16 years of age carrying a rifle and performing the normal work of all guerrillas.

-Do the two of you have Venezuelan identity papers?

J: Yes, personnel of the National Office of Identification and Foreignership (ONIDEX) sent them to us.

-Did you hand over your Colombian papers?

J: No. What they did was to take my photo, fingerprint, and I signed. They also handed me a Venezuelan passport. This was done in Caracas.

-Do you know of fellow guerrillas who have voted with these identity papers?

J: There are guerrillas who have Colombian and Venezuelan citizenship, and vote in Venezuela.

-Do you know who they voted for?

Maria: In the elections of December of 2006 the order from our command was to vote for Chavez.

J: We were promoting and, practically, submitting to the people that it was necessary and obligatory to vote for Chavez to continue with the revolutionary process that is being carried out in Venezuela.

-Did you have contact with Venezuelan government officials?

J: Yes. More than anyone with the National Guard. Logistically, they gave us a zone where we set up improvised encampments. There is a non-aggression pact [in force] there, of not putting us at odds with them nor them with us.

-What else did they provide?

J: Munitions and weapons.

-Do guerrilla leaders exist who have their bases of operations in Venezuela?

J: Yes, in Barinas and in Elorza.

-Did you have knowledge of meetings of high Venezuelan government officials with guerrilla leaders?

J: More than anyone of the mayors. Also government employees of the township and the government of Barinas.

-The two of you were in Apure. Did you hear any talk there of the Bolivarian Forces of Liberation?

J: Yes, they are also called "the Boliches." They have received military training from the FARC. They are operating in the Apure and Tachira zone.

-At any time did you receive medical attention from the Cubans?

J: Many times. When we would have injuries they moved us to clinics where [the Cubans] worked clandestinely with us in San Cristobal.

-Did you at any time use Venezuelan military uniforms?

J: Yes. Personnel of the National Guard supplied us uniforms from the Regional No. 1 [unit].

-Were the two of you present at the transport of drugs in Venezuela?

J: Many times we would receive the merchandise, cocaine, that came from Cucuta or from Arauca and we transported it up to the ports, where it would leave the country.

-The National Guard was not in the port?

J: The National Guard worked more than anything else in the transport of merchandise up to the arrival site.

-Did the customs bureau know you were guerrillas?

J: Yes, and also that we were escorting the merchandise. They were in charge of depositing it in containers and bringing it up to the departing ships.

-Has the FARC kidnapped Venezuelans?

J: Yes. I have knowledge of this because many times I was involved in communications operations with their families.

-In what conditions did you keep them?

J: The majority were kept tied up with polyester, hands and feet, for 24 hours a day. At meal times, we would release them, and when they needed to go to the latrine, they were also sent with two guards.

-Did you have a relationship with security organs of the Venezuelan state?

J: There were contacts with them, but the company commanders maintained them.

-How did these government employees collaborate with the kidnappings?

J: Often they did the kidnappings and took them to us up at the encampments. They took care of the transport of people and we, as FARC, were in charge of handling the negotiations and the possession of the person, and a percentage was given to them.

-How much?

J: The percentage that we handled was 30%.

-How did you note the difference when the kidnapping was in Colombia and when it was in Venezuela?

M: In the collaboration of the [Venezuelan National] Guard.

J: Because in Colombia we have the Army going about harassing, patrolling, while in Venezuela the zones are secure.

Recognized Journalist

Journalist Maria Angelica Correa, author of this series of interviews, was born in Valencia, Venezuela. She worked with El Nuevo Pais and Revista Zeta and in distinct audio-visual media. In January of 2007 she received an Honorable Mention for the King of Spain's prize for Ibero-American journalism, for an investigation about Giovanny Vazquez de Armas, the main witness to the murder of prosecutor Danilo Anderson.

In November of 2004 Anderson was murdered in Caracas. The government accused its adversaries of having planned his death. The Ministry of Justice pressed charges against the journalist Patricia Poleo accusing her, together with three other persons, of being the intellectual author of the crime. Vasquez de Armas gave assurances of having participated in three meetings where the murder was planned.

Correa demonstrated that this witness was a recurring pathological liar. He appeared as a psychiatrist but he had never been to a university and lied saying that he was a member of the third detachment of a known Colombian guerrilla group. Moreover, she verified that he never could have participated in those meetings because on those dates he was detained for fraud.

. . .

You can read more in the original Spanish on the rest of this article, which contains additional information on the recent tensions between Colombia and Venezeula at Perfil.com.

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