Martinelli made secret visit to Honduras and 'met with Uribe'

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

Martinelli made secret visit to Honduras and 'met with Uribe'
Sunday, 28 November 2010 07:47
Adriaan Alsema

http://colombiareports.com.nyud.net:8090/pics/2010/11/prez.jpg

Colombia's former President Alvaro Uribe met with Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli in Honduras, one day before Uribe's former intelligence chief controversially was granted political asylum in Panama, several media say.

Uribe was in Honduras for a meeting with President Porfirio Lobo from Sunday November 21 until Tuesday November 23. According to Spanish news agency Efe, Lobo confirmed that on that same Sunday he met with Martinelli. This meeting was not publicly known until Friday when Lobo admitted the Panamanian President had been in the country for a "private visit."

Lobo met with both Uribe and Martinelli on a military base near the capital of Tegucigalpa. According to Honduran newspaper El Heraldo, Lobo said Martinelli was in Honduras "to talk about investment issues together with the former president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe."

Unofficial Honduran sources told Efe that Uribe met Martinelli at the military base to talk about the political asylum that was previously requested by the former director of Colombian intelligence agency DAS, Maria del Pilar Hurtado, who is under criminal investigation in her home country for ordering the illegal wiretapping of opponents of Uribe.

Read more: http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/13147-martinelli-made-secret-visit-to-honduras-and-met-with-uribe.html

[WhiteTara]

1. I couldn't figure out what was going on here

so I did a bit more research from the same paper and this editorial gave more detail

http://colombiareports.com/opinion/153-jose-maria-rodriguez-gonzalez/13033-panama-undermines-colombian-justice.html
Panama's granting of political asylum to Maria del Pilar Hurtado, former director of Colombia's intelligence service DAS, appears to be proof of the political insecurity in Colombia, and of the inability of the government to protect its citizens. It is precisely this insecurity that the U.S. invokes in warning its citizens against travel to Colombia.

The FARC have for a long time borne witness to this lack of security, keeping a disproportionately large number of hostages for as long as they want, and thus demonstrating that the Colombian state is incapable of protecting its citizens and that there is no political security in Colombia.

The question that arises is: what made Panama, instead of refuting the FARC by not responding to the asylum request, confirm what the rebels have long demonstrated? We can answer this question by looking at who wins and who loses from the decision.

more...



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