Bush in a Colombia Beset By Scandal and Insecurity

Though some early articles on Bush's stop in Colombia have amazingly totally ignored the broiling scandals, the NY Times does a pretty good job setting the scene below. An embarrassing security breach at Bush's possible retreat is also making headlines. Don't miss this piece on how the supposedly rock solid economy of Colombia suddenly seems pretty shaky. Late word also has news of a rarely admitted joint US-Colombia military operation hours before Bush arrived.

I can't let this Amnesty International scuffle with Uribe's freedom loving government go either.

Bush Heads to Colombia as Scandal Taints Key Alliance
By SIMON ROMERO

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, March 10 — The Bush administration has no closer ally in South America than Colombia, the recipient of more than $4 billion in American aid this decade to combat drug trafficking and guerrilla insurgencies. But a widening scandal tying paramilitary death squads and drug traffickers to close supporters of President Álvaro Uribe is clouding President Bush’s brief visit here on Sunday.
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Claims of human rights abuses by political allies of Mr. Uribe, including the use of information from the executive branch’s intelligence service to assassinate union organizers and university professors, have already resulted in the arrest of Jorge Noguera, a former chief of Colombia’s secret police who was awarded that job after working on the president’s campaign.

“Uribe has certainly been considered a bright light here in the United States, but at some point you have to ask: what are these people doing?” Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the Senate panel that oversees aid to Colombia, said in a telephone interview from Washington. “It’s time to take a pause and look at what we’ve done,” he said, referring to the effectiveness of aid to Colombia.
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The court’s diligence despite death threats to its members has resulted in startling actions like an arrest warrant issued this month for Álvaro Araújo Noguera, a regional political boss implicated in the kidnapping of a member of a rival political family. Mr. Araújo, the father of Mr. Uribe’s former foreign minister, María Consuelo Araújo, remains at large.
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Beyond the paramilitary scandal ensnaring members of Mr. Uribe’s government and at least eight members of his coalition in Congress, human rights organizations are calling attention to the killings of trade union officials in the past six years. And there are claims of abuses involving American companies like the Drummond Company, a coal producer based in Birmingham, Ala.

A judge in Alabama this week allowed a civil lawsuit against Drummond to go forward in which the company is accused of allowing paramilitary gunmen to kill three union leaders at its operations in northern Colombia.
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More than 7,000 police officers have been assigned to protect Mr. Bush.

Colombia: Murder of Union Members May Hinder US Trade Deal

While the rest of the mainstream media has studiously ignored this huge story from our closest South American ally, at least we have a few newspapers that care about the possibility that our tax dollars and corporations are (again) funding murder and mayhem.



Unionists' Murders Cloud Prospects for Colombia Trade Pact
By Juan Forero, Washington Post
Tuesday, April 10, 2007

SANTA MARTA, Colombia -- Zully Codina was a mother, veteran hospital worker and union activist. The last role was the one that cost Codina her life at the hands of paramilitary death squads, whose records show they collaborated with the country's intelligence service to liquidate her and other union activists.
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Recent disclosures about the purported role of the Colombian intelligence service, the Administrative Security Department, or DAS, in the murder of Codina and several other union leaders has ignited a political firestorm here that is reaching Capitol Hill just as the Bush administration is fighting for congressional approval of a free-trade pact with Colombia, the third-largest recipient of U.S. aid.
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The Uribe administration's efforts have been hurt by the February arrest of the DAS's former chief, Jorge Noguera, who was charged with working with paramilitary members as they infiltrated the political establishment and silenced adversaries along the Caribbean coast. The illegal militias, organized a generation ago to fight Marxist rebels, have morphed into a Mafia-style organization dedicated to drug trafficking and extortion.

A clandestine paramilitary operative named to DAS by Noguera said in a recent interview that the intelligence service compiled lists of union members, along with details about their security, and handed them over to a coalition of paramilitary groups known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.

"This list went to Jorge Noguera, and he made sure it reached the Self-Defense Forces," said the operative, Rafael Garcia, now in jail and working with prosecutors. "The DAS knows the movements of union members."
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"I think the trade pact is in jeopardy," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), who recently met with union leaders in Colombia. "With each passing day, it goes higher and higher. It goes to military leaders, the head of the secret police and prominent politicians. I don't know how far this leads, but it's too close for comfort."

The disclosures are now reaching two American firms here. An Alabama coal company, Drummond, is being sued in U.S. District Court by Colombian workers who accuse company executives of contracting with paramilitary groups to kill three union leaders. Colombian prosecutors are also going to investigate the smuggling of 3,000 assault rifles in 2001 to a Chiquita Brands International dock in northern Colombia; the weapons wound up in the hands of paramilitary fighters, according to an extensive report by the Organization of American States.
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Even so, 72 union leaders and activists were murdered last year, making Colombia by far the world's most dangerous country for trade unionists, according to the National Union School, a labor research group in Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city. Of 2,100 murders of union members since 1991, there have been only 30 convictions.

Paramilitary documents seized by authorities bolster allegations that intelligence operatives worked closely with the paramilitary groups.

One lengthy document, under the heading "Information DAS Friends," lists union members murdered by paramilitary fighters. An internal attorney general's report notes that DAS officials in the city of Barranquilla pinned rebellion charges against union activists, the main accusation made against guerrillas. Those activists, once freed for lack of evidence, were then killed by paramilitary hit men, who labeled the victims as rebels.
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Carolina Barco, Colombia's ambassador in Washington, said that while the disclosures have been troubling, they cannot tarnish the whole government. "This is definitely not state policy," she said.
Whole thing

Of course not Carolina. Just because the head of the national intelligence AND now the armed forces have been proven in documents to be conspiring with terrorists and murderers does not mean a thing. We should continue to give the government (mostly military) billions of our tax dollars, and we should negotiate a trade pact that gives Colombia preferetial status. And when we write supposed "human rights" reports, we must not include any of this unpleasantness. Sure...

Colombia: US Ambassador Visits Gen. Montoya

The commander of Colombia's army Gen. Mario Montoya reads a sign in an official visit to a school in Medellin, Colombia - the city where at least 36 people died and 50 went missing in an operation he led with terrorists in 2005.

No one seems to care about the massive human rights abuses our best friend in the region is committing, but the scandal grows every day. Montoya will probably remain free forever because no one really wants to investigate or cooperate, particularly the Bush Administration and apparently the LA Times. The US Ambassador in Bogota made a point of visiting the potential war criminal the other day too.

Here's two LA Times letters to the editor. Guess which one came from me?

Suspected ties in Colombia
March 31, 2007

Re "Colombia army chief linked to outlaw militias," March 25

Shame on The Times for publishing a front-page article that is mainly designed to play into political games with the clear objective of making Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's government look bad. It is amazing that I have to read more than half of the article before I find that a CIA spokesperson said the sources are unconfirmed. The Uribe government has enjoyed tremendous support among Colombians, and Colombia has been our best friend in the Americas. Since Uribe took office, Colombia is at peace in most of its territory and has benefited from Uribe's policies of attracting foreign investment, commerce and tourism and achieving a high economic growth rate.

•
I commend The Times for coming forth with the leaked CIA report on suspected Colombian military links to terrorist groups and operations. Considering that more of our tax dollars go to Colombia's military than to the rest of Latin America, getting to the bottom of this and expunging U.S. culpability is a must. Colombia's army commander, Gen. Mario Montoya, has called on The Times to produce the documents. Will The Times join the Bush administration in not allowing those documents to be seen?

The Times basically have already said (in the original piece) that they are not going to provide any of the details that would prove the illegal cooperation between the army and the right-wing paramilitaries (on the US terrorist list). As the CIA didn't want them to print anything about this, it is doubtful the Times will blow the whistle on a major ally. But as the investigation goes forward in Bogota, this piece of evidence may be the crucial link to blow the entire thing open. Also, watch the democrat led Congressional hearings on the $700 million a year we send to these guys. The scandel may yet get more interesting.

Colombia: Video links President Uribe with Terrorist Leader

Leaked video shows a 2001 meeting between Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the leader of a US-delcared terrorist group - the AUC. Uribe has repeatedly said he's never had any meetings with these folks. Interestingly, the AUC leader - commandante Esteban - is not one of the handful who have surrendered to authorities to take part in the disarmament and truth committee proceedings currently undeway. This man was responsible for at least hundreds of deaths. The Colombian FBI had been staking him out for arrest during the period. He was arrested in connection with 80 deaths just two months later.

By FRANK BAJAK, Associated Press Writer, June 17, 2007

BARRANCABERMEJA, Colombia - In his five years as president, Alvaro Uribe has repeatedly denied accusations that he's been cozy with Colombia's murderous right-wing militias, whose thousands of victims include suspected rebel sympathizers and union activists.

Yet newly uncovered video of his 2001 campaign shows him shaking hands with a militia leader who was arrested only weeks later on suspicion of involvement in multiple murders, and is now a fugitive with a price on his head. It's the latest headache for the law-and-order president, who has seen one ally after another jailed for allegedly colluding with the outlawed militias.

"I haven't known the paramilitaries, haven't been friends with them, haven't had contact with them," Uribe declared on national television on April 19.

The militia chief in the video, which bears an Oct. 31, 2001, time stamp, was identified by three people familiar with him — including human rights activists — as Fremio Sanchez Carreno. Carreno, better known as "Comandante Esteban," had just finished spearheading the bloody militia takeover of this steamy oil-refining city on Colombia's main river when Uribe met with him and about a dozen other people.
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Local human rights activists say Uribe could be expected to know that the local leaders in the videotaped meeting answered to the privately bankrolled outlaw army that had just secured control of their city — a takeover that helped persuade the State Department to add Sanchez's paramilitary umbrella group, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia — known by its initials AUC in Spanish — to its list of international terror organizations only weeks beforehand.

Opponents contend Uribe, beginning as governor of the neighboring state of Antioquia in the 1990s, promoted landowner-bankrolled militias as a means of eradicating Colombia's half-century-old leftist insurgency and ending a plague of kidnappings and extortion targeting ranchers and other businessmen.

Twelve of Uribe's allies in Colombia's Congress have been jailed since late last year on charges of colluding with the paramilitaries to gain office or other favors. Uribe's former domestic security chief is among his confidants accused of working with paramilitaries, and Colombia's foreign minister stepped down in February after her senator brother was arrested in the scandal on charges including kidnapping.

Uribe's press secretary posted an appeal on the presidential Web site Friday, asking the media to "abstain from making malevolent insinuations," after the video's existence was first reported by The Miami Herald's Spanish-language paper, El Nuevo Herald.

It shows the local leaders pleading with Uribe, who would be elected the following May, to campaign publicly in their city. But Uribe seemed hesitant, telling them: "Barranca is a very delicate case for me for innumerable circumstances, and I'll have to give this the most delicate treatment."

Paramilitaries assassinated 600 people in 2001 in Barrancabermeja, said Ravelo.
Whole Thing

US Must Reject Giving Colombia More Money, Trade Preferences

While the right-wing in Colombia is trying to distract public opinion from the ever growing "para-gate" scandal, it appears Democrats in the US may finally be ready to put human rights concerns over narrow business and foreign policy (anti-Chavez) considerations. Or at least lets hope so, as the Bush Administration is giving this a full court press.

By Mark Weisbrot
Washington Post

A May 22 news report in The Washington Post summed up Colombia's ever-widening scandal: "Top paramilitary commanders have in recent days confirmed what human rights groups and others have long alleged: some of Colombia's most influential political, military and business figures helped build a powerful anti-guerrilla movement that operated with impunity, killed civilians and shipped cocaine to U.S. cities."

Yet the Bush administration wants to sign a "free trade" agreement with Colombia, which is the Bush administration's closest ally in Latin America and receives $700 million annually in mostly military aid. Congress is threatening to block the agreement, and they should.

The word "paramilitary" is a euphemism. In the 1980s, when the Reagan administration was supporting the mass murder of tens of thousands of civilians in countries like Guatemala and El Salvador, these organizations were called "death squads."

The Colombian death squads -- which are classified as terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department -- were mostly demobilized in recent years under an agreement that allows lenient sentences for the murderers in exchange for telling the truth about their crimes. But the truth has shown increasingly close ties between the death squads and high-ranking allies of President Alvaro Uribe. More than a dozen legislators, mostly Uribe allies, have been arrested, and his foreign minister has resigned. As the investigation progresses, including to President Uribe's home state, it is becoming clear that the death squads have been an integral part of the government.

One of the most sinister revelations has been the government's role in the murder of trade unionists, which continues despite the incomplete demobilization. Last year 72 trade unionists were killed, making Colombia the most dangerous place in the world by far for a union activist. According to witnesses cooperating with the Colombian Attorney General's office, the government's intelligence services provided names and security details of union activists to the death squads. The former chief of the intelligence service -- who managed Uribe's 2002 presidential campaign in the state of Magdalena -- has been arrested and charged with conspiring with the death squads to kill union leaders and others.

Over the past three decades the United States has greatly expanded trade with -- and moved factories to -- countries where workers have limited rights to form unions or bargain collectively. One of the main purposes of such commercial agreements as the NAFTA and the WTO has been to reduce wages here by throwing U.S. workers into competition with their much lower-paid counterparts throughout the world. Partly as a result of these policies, the average real wage in the United States has hardly moved over the last 30 years, despite productivity increases every year. These "free trade" agreements have therefore become increasingly unpopular, and this issue helped tip the balance of Congress to the Democrats in the 2006 election.

These agreements have also lost popularity in Latin America, where the governments of Ecuador and Bolivia -- accountable to their voters -- cannot sign the kind of agreement that Colombia and Peru are willing to accept. All four countries currently have access to U.S. markets under the ATPDEA (Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act). But some Republicans in Congress are threatening that duty-free access in order to punish Ecuador and Bolivia for not signing a "free trade" agreement, and for not being sufficiently subservient to foreign investors. This kind of bullying will not force these governments to ignore their electoral mandates and will only increase resentment against the United States in the region.

Congress should allow a two-year extension of the current ATPDEA, and reject the agreements with Colombia and Peru. Approving the Colombian agreement would send an especially chilling message to the world that Washington is seeking access to cheap and repressed labor -- and doesn't care how much violence is used to terrorize workers into submission.

Colombia: Chavez Wins FARC Pledge to Release Hostages

Farc pledges to release three hostages
By Benedict Mander in Caracas
Published: December 19 2007 01:38

Colombian rebels said on Tuesday they would release three hostages to Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, including an aide to former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt held captive since 2002.

Clara Rojos, her son Emmanuel, who was born in captivity, and Consuelo Gonzalez, a former lawmaker kidnapped in 2001, would be released in Colombia to Mr Chávez “or someone he designates”, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, said in a statement to Cuban news agency Prensa Latina. The statement, dated December 9, did not say when the release would take place.

Mr Chávez recently put relations with Colombia “in the freezer” after Alvaro Uribe, Colombian president, cancelled his role as mediator in the hostage crisis.

The leftwing guerilla group called its decision “compensation” for the families of the kidnapped and for Mr Chávez, whose treatment by Colombia’s government it described as “diplomatic ­barbarism”.

Mr Uribe terminated Mr Chávez’s role as mediator on November 21, after it became clear the Venezuelan leader had contacted Colombia’s army chief despite being asked not to. Mr Chávez reacted angrily, calling Mr Uribe a “pawn” of the US.

Videos were subsequently released showing prisoners, including Ms Betancourt, a French-Colombian politician captured during her presidential campaign in 2002, were still alive.

“It was thanks to Chávez that we got the proof of life of Ingrid and that the problem was recognised by the international community.” Lorenzo Delloye Betancourt, Ms Betancourt’s son, said. “I ask Chávez to continue.”

Mr Delloye Betancourt urged the international community to increase pressure on the Colombian government to achieve the release of the 45 hostages held by Farc in exchange for 500 imprisoned rebels.

Farc said Mr Uribe’s offer this month of a 250-sq km “meeting point” where a possible prisoner swap could be discussed was “unacceptable”. Instead, it continued to demand a larger demilitarised zone in southwest Colombia for the talks.

Luis Carlo Restrepo, Colombia’s high commissioner for peace, said the news should be treated with “caution”, since Farc had previously said it would release prisoners without fulfilling its promise.

Farc’s statement thanked Mr Chávez for “his dedication, his colossal effort as a facilitator, his good faith, [and] his solidarity with the peaceful cause of the Colombian people”.

Colombia: Uribe's Cousin Probed on Death Squad Links

I am losing count, but I think we now have probes and indictments against the head of Colombia's Army, the head of the secret police, the ex-Foreign Minster's father and cousin, at least a dozen pro-Uribe legislators and now we have President Uribe's own first cousin. This comes a week after a video surfaced showing then candidate Uribe meeting with a most wanted terrorist.

The worst fears of conscientious observers is being confirmed in front of the world's eyes, but is barely being reported on because it is a bit inconvenient to have the Empire's bulwark against Chavismo implicated in such crimes. We now have proof that Colombia's most influential political, military and business figures helped build and assisted death squads and terrorists to operate with impunity, kill civilians and send cocaine to the U.S.

STILL, with the walls crumbling around Mr Uribe, we must read about conservative Canadian President wanting to cozy up to Uribe at this very moment. We must also read that Colombia's Foreign Minister thinks that anyone who has doubts about Uribe and his Government must be treated like "slow students." Likewise the Economist bemoans the fact that the international community does not show enough love towards Uribe and his Government. Darn state sponsored terrorism... how dare it interfere with trade preferences and military aid deals


Cousin of Colombia's Uribe probed for "para" links
By Hugh Bronstein
BOGOTA (Reuters) - A scandal linking political allies of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to right-wing death squads deepened on Wednesday when the Supreme Court opened an investigation into his first cousin, Senator Mario Uribe.

The president's international standing has already been damaged by the scandal in which his former security chief and some of his closest allies in Congress have been jailed and are awaiting trial for supporting paramilitary militias.

The scandal began late last year when members of Congress admitted they had signed a document agreeing to support paramilitary groups formed in the 1980s to help defend drug lords and cattle ranchers against left-wing rebels.

Since the 1990s the "paras" have grown rich on Colombia's multibillion-dollar cocaine trade and notorious for massacring peasants suspected of leftist sympathies.

"It is very worrying that the 'para-political' scandal is getting closer and closer to the president's inner circle," said Jorge Rojas, head of Colombia's top human rights group.
Whole thing

Colombia's Uribe Tied to Escobar, Attacks Journalist

It has not been a good week for the US's best bud in Latin America - Colombia's President Uribe. First a book comes out from Pablo Escobar's ex-lover alleging Uribe assisted Pablo Escobar's drug activities as head of the aviation administration. Then press freedom groups CPG and RSF condemned Uribe for his reckless comments against a US-based journalist whom be blamed for the book (a journalist who has required official bodyguards for 3 months due to a death threat). And now today Uribe's first cousin was forced to resign his seat in the Senate in order to avoid investigation by the Supreme Court. As an expert was quited in Rueters, "It is looking more and more like President Uribe and allies such as cousin Mario won office in 2002 with paramilitary support." But at least he met our Defense Secretary Robert Gates (above). The NY Times reports:

BOGOTÁ: President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia has lashed out at allegations in a new book that he had close ties to the late cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. He said he never aided Escobar's drug dealings or benefited from his political patronage.

Uribe's comments Monday were in response to the book "Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar," by Virginia Vallejo, Escobar's former mistress. Vallejo repeats claims that Uribe, as head of the civil aviation authority in the early 1980s, helped Escobar's cartel secure licenses for landing strips used to transport cocaine.

"I had no political relations with Escobar, I had no business dealings with Escobar and I was not a friend of Virginia Vallejo," Uribe said in comments broadcast on Caracol Radio. Vallejo, who is believed to be living outside Colombia, could not be reached for comment.

Uribe, the Bush administration's closest ally in South America, has been dogged by claims of his links to Escobar since his political star began to rise in the 1990s, allegations that became pronounced during his presidential campaign in 2002. Vallejo's book, published here last month, had not received much publicity in Colombia until Uribe's emotional reaction to it this week.

The president also denounced a journalist, Gonzalo Guillén, a correspondent in Bogotá for El Nuevo Herald of Miami, claiming he had helped Vallejo write the book. The claim drew a sharp denial from Guillén, who said he would sue Uribe for slander.

Vallejo, a former actress and television personality, also refers to Uribe's father as one of Colombia's "first drug traffickers" in her book. The president says his father was killed in 1983 by Marxist rebels.

A declassified U.S. intelligence report from 1991 described Uribe as a "close personal friend" of Escobar's. The report, by the Defense Intelligence Agency, also listed Uribe among Colombia's important drug traffickers and said he was linked to an unidentified business involved in narcotics in the United States.

Uribe's office denounced the intelligence report when it was first publicized in 2004 as fitting within a trend of political attacks against him, but it did not specifically address the assertion that Uribe was linked to Escobar. U.S. officials have also disavowed the report's findings. But Uribe's comments Tuesday showed more explicit efforts to distance himself from any association with Escobar, who was killed by the police in Medellín in 1993.

Venezuela vs. Colombia: The People Choose Venezuela

We are told over and over again that Colombia is led by a great President and Venezuela has one of the worst. That Uribe's Colombia is on the way up and Chavez's Venezuela is about to self-destruct. One wishes there were a way to test those assertions.

Wait a second. Aren't the 2 countries right next to each other? So it might be reasonable to ask what country's people are migrating to the other country in greater numbers. Turns out the numbers aren't even close. It is a blow out. Colombians, even in a time of much improved security, are flocking to Venezuelan in huge, unprecedented numbers. Why? Because of Venezuela's "greater employment opportunities and more secure social safety net."

Venezuela vs. Colombia: The Battle Over Emigres

Fredys Villanueva has abandoned his native Colombia for neighboring Venezuela. But he's not quite like the hundreds of thousands of Colombians who have fled their country's bloody 44-year long civil war for the safety of the land of Hugo Chávez. Instead, he's like 2 million or more Colombians who have moved to Venezuela because it offers greater employment opportunities and a more secure social safety network.

After coming to Venezuela from Barranquilla, Colombia, in 2003, Villanueva, 55, found steady work with decent pay at an aluminum factory, a job that came with a free house and other benefits. "There's a health clinic over there," he says, pointing down a dusty road lined with haphazardly constructed brick houses. "The Cuban modules are nearby too," he adds, referring to the free clinics, started by Chávez, that use Cuban doctors in poor neighborhoods. "They give me free pills for my hypertension."

...As many as 75% of the more than 3 million to 4 million Colombians living there have come for economic reasons. Juan Carlos Tanus, president of the Association of Colombians in Venezuela, says that Venezuela's advantages include jobs and subsidized food and health provided in the past 10 years by Chavez's socialist government. In fact, Tanus notes, from 2002 to 2008 — even as Colombia got safer thanks to President Alvaro Uribe's offensive against leftist guerrillas — the number of Colombians emigrating to Venezuela each year rose from 21,200 to 93,000.

Why haven't we been told this story before?

US Certifies Human Rights Record of Colombia, Freeing $55 Million

I thought this might be an April Fools joke considering the already huge, but still developing paramilitary-military scandal that is rocking Uribe's Government to the core (see below). But since only a half dozen US newspapers have even reported on the story, I should not expect this usually routine US announcement to raise any eyebrows among any 'normal' people.

If police and military working with terrorist groups to commit war crimes is not bad enough to warrant some pause in the billions we send their police and military, we have another (again unreported) human tragedy unfolding in the Narino region, where thousands of civillians are displaced and without water - right now. The UNHCR has had to issue a plea to the Colombian Govt to get their act together.

If you want to read an interesting piece of artful bureaucratic twisting and concealing, check out the actual 53 page State Dept. report that officially certifies the Colombians as 'all clear' on the human rights front. I pity the poor folks in Foggy Bottom that had to write this up.

The report has tedious detail, listing out the 178 Admirals, Colonels and whoever else that was removed from the armed forces in 2006. But there is not a single word on the extremely serious allegations against the Chief of the Armed Forces (Gen. Montoya) that appeared on the front page of the LA Times 2 weeks ago, based on a leaked CIA report. about Not a word about the document in US posession that says that the fine General signed his name to a plan where the military would stand watch and protect while a terrorist group murdered and 'disappeared' nearly 100 slum dwelling civillians.

As for the 2,000 (99%) of Colombian labor union leaders who've been killed with impunity, don't fret - the US Government did not forget you. They certified that your Government "has taken action" to find your killers - though actual progress is another matter, as the weak language suggests.

If I need to spell it out the point again, just imagine if Colombia's President Uribe was one of those 'bad-left' Latin socialists, or that the paramilitary 'terrorists' were not right-wingers. State would not be the Department charged with coming up with bullcrap to justify terrible US policy, it would be Defence possibly getting to implement Bush's supposed Afghanistan doctrine.

PS - Sorry for the tone. I get angry when the press writes hundreds of stories about every Chavez or Castro hiccup, but next to nothing about the most serious human rights abuser in the hemisphere - a country that our Government makes excuses for and recieves billions of our taxpayer money.

Published: Tuesday April 10, 2007
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has concluded that Colombia is fulfilling US requirements on human rights and can receive 55 million dollars in military aid, her spokesman said Tuesday.

Rice certified to Congress on April 4 that Colombia's government and armed forces "are meeting statutory criteria related to human rights and severing ties to paramilitary groups," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

The release of the 55 million dollars, budgeted in fiscal year 2006, depended on Rice's ruling.
...
Colombia is Washington's top ally in South America, receiving four billion dollars in US aid since 2000 through Plan Colombia to combat drug trafficking and left-wing rebels that have battled the government for four decades.

US-Andean trade deal 'to hurt developing countries'

Maryian Alowo | Kampala, Uganda
15 June 2006 04:46
Mail and Guardian

The move by the United States to sign free-trade agreements (FTAs) with the Andean countries of Peru, Colombia and Ecuador will harm thousands of small farmers, Oxfam has warned.

The agreements will block access to affordable medicines and favour foreign investors, says Oxfam in a report titled Songs of the Sirens it released on Wednesday. The report outlines the negative effects of the proposed agreement.

"The US is demanding concessions that could affect the sustainability of development policies and weaken the ongoing process of integration with neighbouring countries,” Oxfam says.

The report says although negotiations with Ecuador have been temporarily suspended, the agreement with Colombia is awaiting final executive approvals and the Peru agreement, already signed by both countries, will be considered by the Peruvian Congress in the coming days and in the US Congress in the coming months.

“Developing countries have been enchanted by the appeal of free-trade agreements, but, much like the song of the sirens, this attraction is ultimately self-destructive,” says Stephanie Weinberg, trade policy adviser for Oxfam. “The benefits that an FTA offers Peru, Colombia and Ecuador will be far outweighed by the negative impact of agricultural dumping, harsh patent rules and deregulated foreign investments.”

According to the report, Oxfam believes that the Peru and Colombia agreements on agriculture, intellectual property and investment rules would harm the development of these countries.

“In agriculture, the agreements would dismantle safeguard mechanisms that are vital for food security and the livelihoods of small farmers, while making no attempt to address the unfair dumping of American overproduction,” Weinberg says. “The livelihoods of a quarter of the population of these countries, especially the poorest in rural areas, depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.”

He adds: “The FTAs pry open the markets of Peru and Colombia without any consideration for the damaging effects of dumped, cheap, subsidised American products.”

On intellectual property, the report says the US has succeeded in extending pharmaceutical patents beyond 20 years, which goes well beyond agreements made at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

“As a consequence, medicine prices in Peru will increase by almost 10% in the first year of the FTA and 100% after 10 years. Colombia will have to spend an extra $940-million a year to buy more expensive medicines and nearly six million people will lose access to medicines,” says Weinberg. “Trade could be the engine to pull millions out of poverty, but the winners of this agreement are American and international companies.”

He adds: “In the Andean countries where half the population lives in poverty, this agreement will actually reduce access to affordable medicines and stifle opportunities for development.”

The US has started concentrating on bilateral agreements because the WTO’s Doha development round is deadlocked and talks on the Free Trade Area of the Americas have stalled.

Oxfam says the US is using these new bilateral deals to force poorer countries to give up a lot more than they would at the WTO.

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The Rise of the Colombian Left

Carlos Gaviria aka 'Papa Noel' = Santa Claus. The academic and former head of Colombia's highest court has leapfrogged past Liberal Party candidate Horacio Serpa to move into second place. Since March, polls show that support for Gaviria has tripled to 24 percent.

From the Comombia Review
by Garry Leech

Given the continued popularity of Colombia’s right-wing President Alvaro Uribe, many analysts have viewed Colombia as the exception to South America’s shift to the Left. While it is true that Uribe will likely be re-elected on May 28—although it no longer appears guaranteed that he will win outright in the first round of voting—his nearest competitor is no longer a candidate from one of Colombia’s traditional political parties. Instead, the center-left Democratic Pole’s candidate Carlos Gaviria is running second in three recent polls. This unprecedented support for a leftist Colombian presidential candidate follows on the heels of the Democratic Pole’s successes in March’s congressional elections. The recent rise of the electoral Left in Colombia has primarily come at the expense of the centrist Liberal party as the country has become increasingly polarized between Right and Left.

Despite being linked to several ongoing political scandals, Uribe’s Teflon coating still appears to be intact. A recent survey by pollster Napoleon Franco shows that 57 percent of Colombians intend to vote for Uribe on May 28. While this is still an impressive figure, it is significantly lower than the 70 percent who supported the president a year ago. The slip in support for Uribe has benefited the Left as Gaviria has seen his poll numbers increase to just shy of 20 percent over the past few months. If this trend continues, there exists the remote possibility that Uribe will fall short of the majority he needs for a first-round victory and that Colombia’s presidential election will enter a second round with candidates on the Right and Left facing off for the first time in the country’s history.

Colombia: A Creeping Dictatorship? And Coke

Colombia's Supreme Court yesterday voted to allow President Alvaro Uribe his wish to rule for another term, thereby changing the Constitution. The markets and Bush Administration officials love it. Colombia's neighbor's probably don't.

Uribe has been the US's (only?) stalwart friend in the region. That pleasure costs us $3 billion of our tax dollars wasted a year. We are supposedly fighting coke cultivation and are told that the nasty lil' guerilla war has nothing to do with it. Meanwhile, cocoa plants (and refugees) have just moved to neighboring countries and supplies remain unchanged.

The Supreme Court decision has Colombia riveted right now and touched off a growing public row between Justices, with nasty accusations swirling about. The decision to give Uribe another 5 years was not unanimous and many say, had little to do with the legal merits and was all about politics. The Colombian people don't seem to mind, despite terrorist attacks being up since Uribe's been in office.

Meanwhile, there were competing regional drug summits taking place yesterday. Uribe was promoting Plan Colombia (US funded fumigation) and (shockingly) talking about ecology. This despite the lack of progress in reducing acreage or overall supply and knowing full well the environmental damage of spraying mostly non-cocoa areas and that Plan Colombia is what's pushing cocoa into sensitive refuge areas.

The US will no doubt celebrate the Court's move and the media will not be bothered to mention the hypocrisy of the US position on extension of President's terms. I seem to recall a completely different US reaction to similar moves in Belarus, in Uzbekistan and when it was tried in Zimbabwe.

Colombia: US Alters Documents Showing True Intentions Behind new Military Bases

VHeadline.com - Washington alters USAF document to hide intentions behind Colombia accord

By Eva Golinger:

In an explicit attempt to hide Washington's military objectives in South America, a US Air Force document submitted to Congress in May 2009 that provoked deep concerns in the region has been modified and re-published on November 16, 2009. The official US Air Force document, revealed and denounced by this author on November 4, explained the justification for a $46 million request to improve the military installations in one of the seven bases Washington will occupy under the military accord signed on October 30 between Colombia and the United States.

The modified document has eliminated all mention of war and military operations in the region, as well as offensive language directed at Colombia's neighbors, Venezuela and Ecuador. Nevertheless, Washington's intentions remain the same.

The original Air Force document dated May 2009 outlined the importance of the military base in Palanquero, Colombia to enable "full spectrum military operations" in South America. The original military document also detailed the necessity of investing $46 million to improve the airfield, ramps and other essential installations on the base, converting it into a Cooperative Security Location (CSL) for US military missions in the region.

Hit the link for the original docments, and what they were altered to read now.

Colombia Vs. Venezuela: US Media Distorts Human Rights Issues

FAIR Study: Human Rights Coverage Serving Washington’s Needs
FAIR finds editors downplaying Colombia’s abuses, amplifying Venezuela’s

This needed to be studied. This needed to be said. Very plainly.

Any evenhanded comparison of the Colombian and Venezuelan governments’ human rights records would have to note that, though Venezuela’s record is far from perfect, that country is by every measure a safer place than Colombia to live, vote, organize unions and political groups, speak out against the government or practice journalism.

But a new survey by FAIR shows that, over the past 10 years, editors at four leading U.S. newspapers have focused more on purported human rights abuses in Venezuela than in Colombia, and their commentary would suggest that Venezuela’s government has a worse human rights record than Colombia’s. These papers, FAIR found, seem more interested in reinforcing official U.S. policy toward the region than in genuinely supporting the rights of Colombians and Venezuelans.
...

As with the FAIR study, selective concern for these issues was the rule, a system in which editors seemed to have internalized U.S. strategic thinking, subordinating human rights commentary and reporting to politics, where a given country’s human rights record is held to greater or lesser scrutiny based on how friendly the country is with the U.S.

Rather than independently and critically assessing the Colombian and Venezuelan records, major corporate newspaper editors, to one degree or another, have subordinated crucial human rights questions.

No couldn't be. Not the NY Times, Washinton Post. Those scions would not totally get their Latin American human rights coverage ASS BACKWARDS, would they? I shudder to think what the coverage is like in less discerning capitalist rags.

Colombia: In Reversal, Cuban Doctors Denied US Entry

In what is either remarkable incompetence between the US bureacracies, or a rare instance of intelligent course reversal, 35 "Cuban doctors, social workers and sport advisors" who defected to Colombia were denied entry to the United States. The move was a surprise because last year the US publicly announced a program to allow Cuban Doctors who defect asylum in the US.

But today the Cubans, living off donations (from Miami) in a terrible Bogota neighborhood, showed off their rejection letters to the press. They can't work in Colombia, their US denial is final and they can't go back to Venezuela or Cuba without risking arrest, as defecting from medical missions is a crime (because of the US policy). Cuban doctors know this when they sign-up for overseas service (as volunteers).

Cuba has 31,000 doctors serving in humanitarian missions in 68 countries around the world. More than 20,000 work in Venezuela (in exchange for oil) and the other 10,000 are scattered around disaster zones and doctor-less ares around the world. This week doctors arrived in the poor Carribean coast of Nicaragua.

The world should call on Colombia to deny the asylum requests that are now before it. If the US denied the asylum, the defectors stories must be as pathetic as they sound - an opportunistic minority pulled along by the US Gov't and its mafia accomplice, with no basis at all to claim asylum. To make a special case for Cubans would only further encourage good doctors to think about abandoning their posts. The most needy pockets of Central and Latin America would be the only ones to suffer.

In related news, a Bolivian court has dismissed the case of a Cuban exile anti-Evo activist who had been deported under a law forbidding foreigners from acting politically. Right-wingers were trying to use the case to condemn the Morales Government.

Colombia: Documents Suggest Uribe Family Drug Link

A justice minister -- later assassinated -- complained in the 1980s that drug dealing had infiltrated politics, possibly even the Uribe family, documents showed. This is not the first time in recent months evidence of this sort has come out. Add that to the terrorism angle of these associates and you have the US's model "good guy" President in the region.

BY GERARDO REYES
El Nuevo Herald

Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, Colombia's former justice minister who led a campaign against drug trafficking in the 1980s, once said President Alvaro Uribe and his father were models of how Colombian society had been infiltrated by drug dealers, according to legal documents obtained by El Nuevo Herald.

In a sworn declaration made in 1984, Lara Bonilla's sister declared that he had cited the case of a helicopter that had been captured in a huge cocaine laboratory in the south of Colombia that, according to government information, was owned by the president's father, Alberto Uribe Sierra. He had made the statement just weeks before his assassination by ''sicarios'' from the Medellín Cartel.

President Uribe has denied any wrongdoing by either himself or his father and family, saying that the helicopter had been sold a month before the seizure. But there is no document showing the transfer of the chopper in the aeronautics registry.

Lara Bonilla's son and Colombia's current anticorruption czar, Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, told El Nuevo Herald that neither he nor his brothers had read the files of his father, who was killed in April 1984.

''Now that I know [of] these documents, I believe it is a delicate topic, and I will give a declaration the next few days,'' he said.

Weeks before he was assassinated, Lara Bonilla complained about drug traffickers infiltrating all sectors of society. His remarks weren't generic. They came with names, dates and places....
Whole Thing

Venezuela and Those Blown Up Bridges: More US Hypocrisy

In an attempt to get this blog some more action, I am going to do something I don't usually do, and post a straight rip from a blog I highly respect - Otto's INCA KOLA NEWS:

Another taste of bizarre today as the hypocrisy of US foreign policy towards Venezuela shows up once again. Several newswires are running the story about how Venezuelan troops "blew up two bridges" that connect Venezuela with LittleUSA (a.k.a. Colombia) in the Norte de Santander region this week. Anyone who knows anything about that spot on the planet knows that those bridges are used for two main purposes:

Carrying cheap fuel from Venezuela to Colombia illegally
Carrying cocaine from Colombia to Venezuela (need I mention that's illegal?)

But sure enough, LittleUSA is going to make a protest about the fact that Venezuela wants to protect its borders from Colombia's main source of dollars. Apparently, f*cking up your neighbours via a long term and very large cocaine habit is socially acceptable while watching them protect themselves from you is aggressive behaviour.

This comes on the same day that The USA declares it wants to see Venezuela make more effort against drug runners. The arrogantly entitled 'Voice of America' (hint, 'America' is not a country, it's a double continent) starts off its report thusly:

U.S. anti-drug officials are calling for greater efforts by Venezuela to combat drug traffickers who are using the country to make illegal shipments.
So Venezuela has to make more effort to combat druggies, but when it does there's hell to pay. Go figure.

Again, go check out Otto's wonderful Latin American blog IKN. Don't hold it against him that he is also trying to make some money off gringo's irrational fear and misunderstanding of the region (mining stock).

Colombia: 9 Lawmakers Arrested for Terror Ties

Imagine if 9 ruling party legislators in Cuba or Venezuela (or any left wing country), including a brother and cousin of the Foreign Minister (pictured above with US Latin czar Thomas Shannon 2 weeks ago), were arrested for aiding and abetting a terrorist group (on the US list). Just think of the outrage that would ensue. According to the Bush doctine, there would be grounds for immediate attack and regime change.

Alas we have seen this happen in a very important Latin country, but instead of outrage, we are seeing barely a notice from any of the mainstream media (a whopping 67 articles thus far on GN), let alone the consciousness of people who matter than . The difference of course, is that the problem is in a US-friendly country = Colombia.

Expect some very interesting trials to be forthcoming, as the scandal moves closer to President Uribe. Also keep an eye on the US (lack of) reposne.

As an aside, check out this interesting piece in the Narco News about possible connections between this terrorist-government network (called the "Bogota Connection") and the downing of a US plane 4 years ago (3 US "contractors" on a spying mission are still being held)

Scandal in Colombia grows - Five more lawmakers are arrested, accused of having ties to illegal paramilitary groups.
By Chris Kraul, LA Times
February 16, 2007

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — The scandal involving alleged links between Colombian lawmakers and illegal paramilitary groups widened Thursday with the arrest of five more members of Congress, including a senator who is the brother of Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araujo.

The arrests of Sen. Alvaro Araujo and the others could further tarnish President Alvaro Uribe, who since being reelected to a second term in a landslide last year has been rocked by allegations that some close legislative supporters have ties to the right-wing armies. The arrests are also bound to increase calls that Maria Araujo resign.
...
The orders were issued by the Supreme Court, which handles criminal investigations involving members of Congress. All those arrested are staunch Uribe supporters.
...
Further complicating Foreign Minister Araujo's situation was the revelation Thursday that her cousin, Gov. Hernando Molina of the northern province of Cesar, is also under investigation in connection with alleged dealings with the paramilitaries, including illegal campaign financing.

When Sen. Araujo acknowledged in November that he was the subject of an inquiry, Uribe rebuffed calls that he fire his minister to eliminate a possible taint.

In November, four other sitting or former Congress members were arrested and charged with criminal involvement with paramilitary groups, including authorizing mass murder and government corruption.

Some of those arrested are among lawmakers alleged to have signed a document in 2001 pledging support to paramilitary groups to "remake the nation."
...
Uribe has been hurt by revelations that some paramilitary leaders have continued to run their criminal empires from jail since demobilizing and pleading guilty in exchange for lighter sentences. Investigations in some cases have confirmed that politicians at the local and national levels who support Uribe were complicit in militia crimes.
More

Colombia Declassified: Massacres of the State

The terrific National Security Archive at George Washington U. has released another bombshell of a report based on their tireless work to declassify US intelligence reports. Last year, some might recall them releasing US produced evidence from 1991 listing PResident Uribe as one of the top drug dealers and assasins in the country.

This latest report focuses on the relationship between Colombia's military and the right-wing paramilitaries, whom many have suspected worked together. Well we don't have to suspect any more.

We have first-hand reports that Colombian soldiers "had donned AUC (paramilitary) armbands and participated directly" in one of the massacres in which 150 were kille that month. We have frank assessments from Officers explaining why they choos to ignore the mass killings perpetrated by certain (rightist) groups. We see the US having full knowledge of such, despite the repeated public denials from Bush and Uribe.

The piece, written for Colombia's largest magazine Semana, concludes with the following:

"Cooperation with paramilitary groups was implied, according to the colonel. Abuses were tacitly condoned by the expectations of senior military leaders who sheltered themselves behind a wall of plausible deniability. Former Fourth Brigade commanders Harold Bedoya and Jorge Enrique Mora "looked the other way," he said, and "never allowed themselves to become directly involved in encouraging or supporting paramilitary activities." The once (Bedoya) and future (Mora) armed forces commanders simply "turned their backs to what was happening and felt the Colar [Colombian army] should in no way be blamed for any resulting human rights atrocities committed."

The generals just might get their wish. The lenient terms of surrender and the strict time limit imposed on investigations of paramilitary crimes ensure that they will uncover little new information on the critical role that Colombian military officers have played in fomenting and the groups, thwarting what might otherwise have been an opportunity to use the demobilization process to gather valuable information on the underpinnings of paramilitarism in Colombia. Unless an effort is made to explore this history of collaboration, it is unlikely that Colombians will know either justice or peace."

Add to that the new "Peace Accord" Uribe is pushing that would disallow any future extraditions to the United States of key drug traffickers and cartel leaders.
So lets recap, we have a leader of a country implicated by US DIA intelligence as a key supporter of the Medallin Cartel, who presides over a military who participated in (and allowed) massacres of civillians, who today wants to immunize those same drug dealers and paramilitaries from facing justice. Just imagine if this was a left-wing leader, say Hugo Chavez? The man would be looking at US bombs falling by now.