Bush Amigo's Para Pals (The Nation)

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editorial | posted March 8, 2007 (March 26, 2007 issue)
Bush Amigo's Para Pals
Liliana Segura


When George W. Bush embarked on his five-country tour of a left-leaning Latin America in early March, he no doubt looked forward to visiting his one remaining ally in the region: the man he calls "mi amigo," right-wing Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. But a recent series of explosive revelations of Colombian government collusion with paramilitary thugs ought to put a damper on the occasion. The first came November 9, when Colombia's Supreme Court issued warrants for the arrest of three uribistas in Congress for their alleged ties to the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), Colombia's murderous right-wing paramilitary group. Rivals of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the paras have grown increasingly powerful over the past decade, dominating the drug trade, even as they have become beneficiaries of the so-called Peace and Justice Law, which last year granted amnesty to some 32,000 paras in exchange for their disarmament.

Then, on February 15, five more senior senators were arrested for paramilitary ties, including Senator Álvaro Araújo, the brother of Uribe's Foreign Minister, María Consuelo, provoking her resignation February 19. A warrant for the capture of their father, Álvaro Araújo Noguera, was issued March 2; meanwhile, former security and intelligence head Jorge Noguera, a campaign chief for Uribe in 2002, was arrested for arranging the assassination of union leaders and academics by paramilitaries.

The unraveling confirms what has long been an open secret: The Colombian government is rife with paramilitary influence. "What we are discovering here is not just a series of meetings between politicians and criminals," Senator Gustavo Petro of the leftist Polo Democrático told Congress November 30. "What we are discovering, before the eyes of all citizens, is the building of a mafioso regime in Colombia."

The Bush Administration has been largely mute about the mounting parapolitica scandal. But with the advent of a Democratic-led Congress and the State Department requesting a new round of funding for Latin America, the upheaval in Colombia may become impossible to ignore. For the first time since the passage of Plan Colombia--the Clinton-era drug-eradication package that under Bush became a $4.7 billion boon for the Colombian military and American corporations outfitting the drug war--Democrats head key committees that under Republican control have funneled US dollars to Bogotá. ....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070326/segura