Colombia's VP tells Uribe not to meddle in foreign affairs

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia's VP tells Uribe not to meddle in foreign affairs
Friday, 25 November 2011 15:35 Tim Hinchliffe

Colombia's current and former vice presidents expressed opposing views Friday over ex-President Alvaro Uribe's meeting with Venezuelan opposition leaders.

Uribe spoke with members of the anti-Chavez Democratic Unity Board (MEU) in Bogota Thursday, saying that they should demand that Santos explain his close relationship to his Venezuelan counterpart.

Following the ex-president's remark, Colombia's vice president Angelino Garzon asked Uribe not to meddle in international affairs.

Garzon told the ex-president that there must be mutual respect with regards to Venezuela. "Just as we don't want any country interfering in our affairs, we also have to not interfere in internal affairs of other countries," the vice president stated.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/20706-colombias-vp-asks-uribe-not-to-meddle-in-foreign-affairs.html

http://rt.com.nyud.net:8090/files/usa/news/bushs-baffling-choice-of-heroes/bush-new.n.jpg
Bush's baffling choice of heroes
Published: 18 January, 2009, 07:48

Despite extra-judicial killings, paramilitaries and murdered unionists; Colombia's President Uribe has won the USA highest honor for human rights.

On Tuesday January 13, in one of George Bush's last acts in power, he bestowed the USA's highest civilian honor on Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. The Medal of Freedom recognizes the promotion of democracy, freedom and human rights. The decision to bestow it on President Uribe has been met with scorn by human rights bodies.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) accuse the Colombian government of preferring to attack them with “false and dangerous accusations” rather than to address the South American country's human rights problems.

President Uribe even called José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at HRW, an “accomplice” of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

More:
http://rt.com/usa/news/bushs-baffling-choice-of-heroes/

[Wilms]

1. :D

[Judi Lynn]

2. He looks right at home in a guayabera. Just as natural as Dubya clearing brush! n/t

[Peace Patriot]

3. What do you make of this fight within the rightwing in Colombia?

I've been cogitating over it, and haven't come to any firm conclusions, but I'm guessing that control of the trillion+ dollar cocaine trade is part of it. Uribe is clearly a mafioso. Is Santos? Maybe not. And maybe that's what it's really all about. Uribe has lost his ability to spy on judges and prosecutors and send "hit lists" off to his military commanders and his paramilitary death squad network and is probably quite miffed at the U.S. for not supporting his coup for a third term--after all he did for the Bush Junta!

There are some good and honest people in Colombia's upper echelons, including the prosecutors and judges who have been trying to nail Uribe for his many crimes and it appears that Santos is allied with them. He has also been making some extraordinary progressive noises. Don't know yet if that's all they are (noise) but he started right off the bat, by making peace with Venezuela, followed that with promising universal health care by next year and return of peasant lands (--FIVE MILLION of whom were displaced by state terror under Uribe, with $7 BILLION in military funding from Bush & Co., i.e., from U.S. taxpayers), then recently he, a) said he could support legalizing drugs, and b) said they are close to a peace treaty with the FARC guerrillas (after 70 years of conflict and a bloodbath by Uribe including the murders of thousands of innocent civilians). The FARC were Uribe's rallying cry for military billions from the U.S. and "scorched earth" policies for the peasants. He also tried to turn the FARC into a war issue with Venezuela (no doubt guided by the Bush Junta).

So--as to statements of intention--there is a stark split on the right (Santos being of the same rightwing political party as Uribe). Cocaine is the hidden factor, and, difficult though it is to suss out, we need to guess at what has gone down and how that huge illicit economy is influencing the things that we can see. In that regard, I don't have enough info on or much sense of Santos. Uribe's rage at him makes me think he's clean. But, since the key connection here is Leon Panetta (Bush Cartel/"Old CIA" but anti-Rumsfeld)--Panetta having yanked Uribe from the stage and vetted and approved Santos, in one of this first visible actions as CIA Director--it could be that the cocaine trade has simply been moved into a more "gentlemanly" phase. Uribe did the rough work (smashing the FARC, smashing peasant growers, consolidating the thing into fewer hands). Now the big boys come in with a more "Sicilian" ethic, shall we say (women and children off limits; big charitable donations; kindness to the obedient poor; "laundering" the cash into legit businesses). Is the cash being "laundered" through a more legitimate president (Santos) while the murder and mayhem gets forgotten (except for a few minor thugs)?

Uribe was an easy "read" and Santos is not--is what I'm saying (--just as Bush Jr was an easy "read" and Obama is not).

One stark fact: The cocaine just keeps on flowing. Would Santos and Panetta permit this to occur without profit to the "powers behind the thrones"? Seems unlikely. Yet there IS a split on the right--or there sure seems to be--and it does have something to do with the drug trade, since Santos is thinking of legalizing it. A lot of the Leftist leaders and some Centrist leaders in LatAm feel the same, but to hear it from a Colombian leader is jaw-dropping.

Uribe is particularly upset by Santos' alliance with Chavez. What's happened in the countries that have evicted the DEA and the U.S. "war on drugs" (notably in Venezuela and Bolivia) is that, with the DEA gone, local police forces have been nabbing the big drug lords. It's quite possible that the Bushwhack-controlled DEA, in addition to colluding with rightwing coupsters in these countries, were protecting the big drug lords. Chavez's police forces busted up a Colombian "Black Eagles" mafia (successor to the rightwing death squads with which Uribe is associated) as it was trying to set up murder and mayhem shop in border areas with Colombia. That could have riled Uribe. And Santos cooperating with Venezuela in such actions--nabbing major drug traffickers--could be at the heart of the Santos vs Uribe dispute.

But it could also be that the smoother and even bigger drug operations (CIA, Bush Cartel) are muscling out Uribe's network for its excessive, high profile and indiscriminate violence (which has brought opprobrium on the U.S. in the region). The murders of trade unionists and other advocates of the poor may be convenient to U.S. "free trade for the rich" but they don't to be known for it. (That, I presume, is why Panetta yanked Uribe off the stage to begin with. But why they landed him on a silk cushion, and are protecting him from prosecution, is less clear and may have to do with U.S. war crimes in Colombia.)

It is very difficult for me to believe that anyone running Colombia is clean (isn't on the take from the drug cartels). But I don't want to rule out the possibility. Maybe the good and courageous people in Colombia's political establishment are sick of the corruption and the murder and mayhem, saw its worst manifestations with Uribe and decided they'd had enough--and THEY told Panetta what THEY wanted to do. Panetta may then have bargained with them to keep a lid on Bush Junta crimes in Colombia (his main concern and mission from Bush Sr being to keep Bush Jr out of trouble). (Panetta could also be quietly, unobtrusively running the consolidate drug cartel and easing or pushing Uribe to the side--with Santos maybe looking the other way?)

Lot of questions. No clear picture yet.

[Judi Lynn]

4. No doubt a lot of people are flummoxed by this right-wing "look," too.

Could it be the old "We admit we were ruthless and dirty in the past, but we've turned a new leaf. Now we've got a "compassionate conservative" running the show" ploy?

Santos went to Kansas University, aroumd 30 miles from Kansas City, here's a short mention from KU:

KU graduate to be sworn in as president of Colombia

LAWRENCE — University of Kansas graduate Juan Manuel Santos will be inaugurated as president of the Republic of Colombia on Aug. 7 in Bogota. Santos, who graduated from KU in 1973 with degrees in economics and business, was elected to a four-year term June 20.

Santos, 58, served three years as defense minister to outgoing President Alvaro Uribe. As defense minister, Santos played a role in the 2008 rescue mission that freed Ingrid Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate who was held captive by FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist rebel group.

Santos is following the footsteps of his great uncle, who was president from 1938 to 1942. The outgoing vice president, Francisco Santos, is his cousin. He also studied at KU, attending classes from 1979 to 1981. The Santos family founded El Tiempo, Colombia’s most influential newspaper, where President-elect Santos worked as an editor before serving as foreign trade and treasury minister in previous administrations.

http://www.news.ku.edu/2010/august/6/colombia.shtml

Just a Colombian "average Joe," right?

Reading your comments, I was reminded that as on the surface it appears Santos is really cleaning up the government, it remains to be acknowledged that the grotesque pattern of assassinations of Union workers, (and as we know, this cannot be attributed to their own natural lower class rowdiness which creates violent situations for them as claimed by filthy right-wingers) of human rights workers, of indigenous leaders and protesters of all shapes and sizes, etc., and the displacement certain continues unbroken. Terrorism, intimidation of the poor and voiceless is unchecked. Those who are being directed to return to their stolen land are being slaughtered, and are far worse off than when their land was merely forcibly stolen.

However, the surface does reflect an abrupt break with Uribe-styled, me-first, #### you politics. He may win many over just through his major acts, regardless. It's impossible to forget he WAS running Uribe's war machine, after all.

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts on this. We'll all be watching together, by all means.