Congress blasts Colombia free trade pact

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Congress blasts Colombia free trade pact




Associated Press - April 7, 2008 4:33 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) - There's no shortage of opposition to President Bush's proposal for a free trade agreement with Colombia.

The pact is heavily opposed by Democrats, who claim Colombia has not done enough to halt violence, protect labor activists and demobilize paramilitary organizations.

Organized labor is against it, with one union saying it's an outrage for Bush to send Congress a trade agreement, "with a country that has 1 of the most ruthless records of repression of the trade union movement."

Business groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, back Bush's move and say they'll work to get the deal through Congress.



Read more: http://www.kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=8130583&nav=menu216_3

[Robbien]

1. Hopefully our congresscritters keep singing that tune

Having a free trade agreement with Uribe is unthinkable.

k&r

[gateley]

2. Excellent! Contact your reps in Congress, everybody! nt

[Judi Lynn]

3. Teamsters Will Strongly Oppose Colombia Trade Agreement

Teamsters Will Strongly Oppose Colombia Trade Agreement
WASHINGTON, April 7, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said Monday he will strongly oppose the trade agreement with Colombia that the Bush administration is sending to Congress.

"This trade deal is an insult to every American who works for a living," Hoffa said. "Workers are feeling the pain of the trade deals that began with NAFTA. They have been disasters.

"The Teamsters, the Change to Win federation and the entire labor movement will work tirelessly to defeat this job-killing trade deal that never should have been negotiated in the first place," Hoffa said.

The proposed deal with Colombia is especially repugnant to U.S. labor unions as Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for union members.

More than 2,500 union members have been murdered by Colombian death squads since the 1980s. There have been more than 400 murders since President Uribe took office five years ago. Yet the Colombian government has done very little to effectively stop death squads from murdering workers for trying to form unions.

Congress will now have 90 legislative days to act on the Colombia trade deal. The Democratic leadership has made its position clear: Until the union killings in Colombia stop and the murderers are brought to justice, this deal should not be brought to Congress.

"Workers don't need trade policies that kill jobs," Hoffa said. "In Pennsylvania alone, 1,583 plants, offices and warehouses have closed since NAFTA took effect because of trade. These trade deals must be stopped."

More:
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/teamsters-will-strongly-oppose-colombia-trade-agreement,342165.shtml

[Judi Lynn]

4. Pelosi and Rangel Statement on Administration Sending Colombia Free Trade Agreement to Congress

Pelosi and Rangel Statement on Administration Sending Colombia Free Trade Agreement to Congress

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel issued the following statement today on the announcement by President Bush that he will send the Colombia Free Trade Agreement to Congress tomorrow:

"President Bush's statement today regarding his unprecedented decision to send a free trade agreement to Congress without following established protocols of Congressional consultation is counter-productive, jeopardizing prospects for its passage. Under present circumstances, we cannot support the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

"A successful trade agenda depends on a joint partnership between the Congress and the Administration, where consultation is the norm, not the exception. Constitutionally, Congress is responsible for regulating international commerce. The President's disregard toward a co-equal branch of government serves only to work against the long-term interests of the United States and Colombia.

"The President's apparent disregard for the economic insecurity faced by millions of struggling American families highlights a misplaced set of priorities. Due to Republican intransigence, trade adjustment assistance to those who have lost their jobs due to trade lapsed last year and Republicans have blocked efforts to extend and expand these initiatives this year. Similarly, Democratic efforts to extend unemployment benefits, help those threatened by foreclosure, and strengthen health care for America's children have been rebuffed by President Bush.

"When congressional leaders meet with the President on Wednesday, we will urge him to focus on the economy and work in a bipartisan manner on a new stimulus package to help America's working families. We must work together to restore consumer, market, and worker confidence.

"House Democrats are committed to supporting Colombia and the efforts of President Uribe. We have twice passed the Andean Trade Preference Extension Act, providing economic development alternatives to illicit narcotics production and trafficking to create a more stable environment in Colombia. We have provided additional funds to support Colombia's efforts to strengthen its judicial system and stem violence against labor leaders. President Bush's efforts to create a false sense of urgency have no merit and ultimately ignore these valuable contributions to democracy in Colombia.

"Despite progress made by President Uribe, Colombia remains a dangerous place to be a labor activist, and for those who commit these acts of violence, there is little threat of prosecution or punishment. Sustained progress on the ground remains a prerequisite for our support."

DATASOURCE: Office of the Speaker of the House

http://orange.advfn.com/news_Pelosi-and-Rangel-Statement-on-Administration-Sending-Colombia-Free-Trade-Agreem_25661747.html

[Texano78704]

9. Excellent!

Despite not pursuing an impeachment, Nancy doesn't disappoint here.

[AzDar]

5. I swear to Jeebus, an unfailing rule-of-thumb is : If George W. Bush is selling it,

it's BAD for The United States Of America, and , most likely, the World.
Period. :patriot:

[Frisbee]

8. Sad but true...

It has reached the point were if GWB is for something, I automatically assume it is bad (if not truly evil, though then Cheney probably had a hand in it as well). And am seldom proven wrong. I can't think of a single time he has been on the right side of and argument, and if he ever was, you can bet your bottom dollar is was for the wrong reasons. Next to him, Benedict Arnold was a great patriot. I only hope that I live long enough to see half of the things he's ruined corrected. Hell, I hope 1/2 of them can be corrected.

[jody]

6. Draft of the “United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement” is at the link below.

Proposed United States - Colombia TPA Texts

Does “Chapter Twenty-One, Dispute Settlement” mean that an international arbitration panel has ultimate final say over cases?

If so, doesn’t that mean the U.S. has granted its sovereignty to an international arbitration panel rather than our own legal system culminating in SCOTUS?

[sasquatch]

7. I wonder if this is cause Dubya wants his coke faster and stronger?

:shrug:






























:D

[Judi Lynn]

10. Now for a few words from Bush's Sec. of Agri. on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement

Edward T. Schafer

STATEMENT BY THE SECRETARY ON THE COLOMBIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

April 7, 2008

"Today, the President signed a letter to Congress that will transmit legislation implementing the U.S. Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Congress needs to move forward with approving this agreement.

"For more than a year, this Administration has been seeking to work closely with Congress to identify a bipartisan path to bring legislation to implement this agreement up for approval. Without implementation, American farmers loose. It is time for fair and equal two-way trade with Colombia.

"Colombia is the largest market for U.S. agriculture exports in South America. In 2007, the United States exported a record $1.2 billion of agricultural products to Colombia.

"However, current tariffs between the United States and Colombia are one-sided, as 99.9 percent of Colombian food and agricultural exports enter into the United States duty-free while no U.S. agricultural exports to Colombia receive duty-free treatment. It is time for the U.S. to be on a level playing field with Colombia.

"Under the Free Trade Agreement, the United States will receive equal or preferential treatment on all key products under the agreement.

"Upon implementation, over 70 percent of U.S. agricultural products will immediately receive duty-free treatment. The remaining tariffs will be eliminated within 15 years.

"Approval of the Colombian Free Trade Agreement is good for American farmers. The President, this Administration and I are committed to seeing that Congress acts on this very important legislation. It's the right thing to do for America's economy and for American farmers."

http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB/.cmd/ad/.ar/sa.retrievecontent/.c/6_2_1UH/.ce/7_2_5JM/.p/5_2_4TQ/_th/J_2_9D/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?PC_7_2_5JM_contentid=2008%2F04%2F0092.xml&PC_7_2_5JM_parentnav=LATEST_RELEASES&PC_7_2_5JM_navid=NEWS_RELEASE

[Grinchie]

12. What he really means to say is:

When Edward T. Schafer says:

"Colombia is the largest market for U.S. agriculture exports in South America. In 2007, the United States exported a record $1.2 billion of agricultural products to Colombia.

He Really Means

"Colombia is the largest market for Monsanto's Roundup and Paraquat in South America. In 2007, the United States exported a record $1.2 billion of Herbicides and Pesticides to Colombia."

Don't be fooled, the U.S. and its policies are dumping toxic chemicals on villages in the name of a Perpetual War on Drugs", which is nothing more than a market for Monsanto and drug money. This crime against nature started with Nixon and continued unchecked to this day, and yes, Bill Clinton had a hand it it too.

It's all about the Money. It is time for us to flush these Corporate bacteria out of the system. Sadly, when I researched the Discovery of the Terminator Gene, the Clintons showed up in having ties with Stephens, Monsanto, and the rest of the money grubbing, earth destroying Corporations who feed the Politician resources like candy.

Clinton will continue to outsource America. Don't vote for a Corporate shill.

[Judi Lynn]

13. Wellstone was the Lone Ranger on Colombia at that time, it seems, doesn't it?

No doubt you remember this trip:

Published on Saturday, December 2, 2000
by the Associated Press
Senator Paul Wellstone Takes The Lead Against 'Plan Colombia'
by Andrew Selsky

BARRANCABERMEJA, Colombia (AP) - Hard-eyed men with Uzis stood guard as Sen. Paul Wellstone stepped out of a helicopter and into a bulletproof car and drove to a meeting with human rights activists. Hours earlier, police said they discovered a bomb along the airport road.
U.S. and Colombian authorities Friday downplayed the possibility that Wellstone and U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson, who accompanied the Minnesota Democrat, were the intended targets of the bomb. Their visit marked the first time a U.S. lawmaker or ambassador had come to the deadliest town in all the Americas - a sweltering cluster of cinderblock homes on the banks of the muddy Magdalena River.

There was heavy security for the U.S. officials during their three-hour visit Thursday. But Barrancabermeja's 195,000 residents have no such protection: this year alone, 470 of them have been slain in politically motivated attacks, human rights workers say. Massacres are commonplace, and the killers are rarely caught.

Wellstone said he made the perilous journey to show support for the human rights activists, who face immense risk.

``I don't know whether I was targeted, but I certainly know that the human rights activists are targeted,'' Wellstone told an airport news conference on his return to Minneapolis on Friday.

For Wellstone, a former civil rights activist and college professor, his two-day visit to Colombia also was aimed at making a stand against Plan Colombia, a drug-eradication effort being funded by $1.3 billion from Washington. Under the plan, dozens of U.S.-donated combat helicopters will ferry U.S.-trained Colombian troops into cocaine-producing plantations to seize them from insurgents.

But while the military is being strengthened, Wellstone says there is no firm plan to provide coca farmers with alternative livelihoods. He fears they will then be driven into the ranks of leftist guerrillas or the rival right-wing paramilitary group, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC.

Moreover, Wellstone is concerned that President Clinton authorized delivery of the aid even though the Colombian government has not met all the human rights conditions set by Congress. Among outstanding concerns is that the Colombian military has not severed its links to the AUC. The paramilitaries, responsible for numerous massacres of suspected guerrilla sympathizers, remain allied with the army in the field in anti-guerrilla operations. Many AUC gunmen are former government soldiers.

``If we continue to waive the (human rights) provisions of the aid package, then the message we are sending to the paramilitaries and the military is that human rights is not important to us,'' Wellstone told The Associated Press as he flew to Barrancabermeja.

Wellstone said he asked President Andres Pastrana on Wednesday for the government to bring paramilitary leaders to trial and protect human rights workers. Human rights workers whom Wellstone met with said the AUC was responsible for most of the killings in Barrancabermeja, 155 miles north of the capital, Bogota.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/120200-01.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No doubt you recall this strange episode, as well:

Toxic Drift: Monsanto and the Drug War in Colombia

by Jeremy Bigwood, Special to CorpWatch
June 21st, 2001

A prominent U.S. Senator and other government officials from both Washington and Bogotá stood on a Colombian mountainside above fields of lime-green coca -- the plant sacred to Andean Indians, but also the source of the troublesome drug cocaine. They were awaiting a demonstration of aerial herbicide spraying, part of the U.S. drug war in Colombia. The spectacle, put on by the U.S. embassy in Bogotá last December, was supposed to address Senator Paul Wellstone's doubts about the accuracy and safety of the U.S.-sponsored drug fumigation program. Wellstone, a Democrat from Minnesota, is a fierce critic of military aid to Colombia and the demonstration needed to come off without a hitch, to win him over to the use of aerially sprayed herbicides. The night before, U.S. officials had responded to the Senator's skeptical questions by assuring him that the spraying would target coca fields without harming food crops.

"They had said that by using satellite images they could hit very precisely targets without any chance of danger to surrounding crops" said Jim Farrell, Wellstone's spokesperson, who was also there. However that turned out not to be the case. "On the very first flyover by the cropduster, the U.S. Senator, the U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, the Lieutenant Colonel of the Colombian National Police, and other Embassy and congressional staffers were fully doused -- drenched, in fact -- with the sticky, possibly dangerous (herbicide) Roundup."

"Imagine what is happening when a high-level congressional delegation is not present," Farrell noted, pointing out that careful preparation had gone into the botched flyover. Wellstone left Colombia completely unconvinced by the Embassy.

The United States has sprayed tons of Roundup and Roundup Ultra, produced by the St. Louis-based chemical and biotechnology giant, Monsanto, during the 24 year-long drug war in Colombia. The use of these herbicides (both of which we refer to as Roundup in this story) has consistently produced health complaints from campesinos in the Colombian countryside. Those complaints have gone largely ignored by government officials in Washington and corporate honchos within Monsanto. Meanwhile, Monsanto's sordid history as the manufacturer of Agent Orange, a defoliant used during the Vietnam war, raises serious questions about its role in Colombia's drug war and the need for transparency in its dealings with Washington.

More:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=669









Children's pictures of the effect of these chemicals falling on their homes

[Texano78704]

15. Motive

I think you have established a motive for making a small plane to crash, particularly when billions of dollars are in play.

[AlphaCentauri]

16. those children drawings make me wip

[ronnie624]

18. We sustained a tremendous loss when Wellstone's plane crashed.

Thanks for the links.

[Judi Lynn]

11. (Treasury Secretary) Paulson urges OK on Colombia and Panama trade pacts

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson



Dr. Strangelove

Paulson urges OK on Colombia and Panama trade pacts
Published: Tuesday, 8 April, 2008, 08:28 AM Doha Time

MIAMI: US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson yesterday urged Congress to swiftly approve free trade pacts for Colombia and Panama, saying they would reinforce democracy in Latin America.

His renewed call at the Inter-American Development Bank Meeting here comes as President George W Bush said he would formally send the long-delayed Colombia free trade deal to Congress for a ratification vote.

“I call on the US Congress to show support for the Colombian people and provide greater hope for their future by passing the Colombian trade agreement without further delay,” Paulson said.

“Immediately after approving the Colombia FTA, Congress should turn to the pending agreement with Panama to further build the existing trade relationship with another ally,” he said.

More:
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=211747&version=1&template_id=48&parent_id=28
Bush’s decision to submit the Colombia deal to Congress marks a new offensive to persuade lawmakers to overlook objections over potential US job losses and ratify the agreement, which would cut tariffs on imported goods from both countries.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Lobby for Colombia Trade Pact Casts a Wide Net

April 8, 2008
Lobby for Colombia Trade Pact Casts a Wide Net
By ERIC LIPTON and STEVEN R. WEISMAN

WASHINGTON — There have been all-expense paid trips to Colombia for more than 50 members of Congress, featuring coffee tastings and dinner at a posh restaurant inside an old Spanish fort. The Colombian president has visited Washington to make personal appeals. Major corporations like WalMart and Citigroup are taking up the cause. And former Clinton administration officials have landed lucrative lobbying contracts.

This barrage of activity is over the trade pact that cost Mark Penn, a top adviser to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, his job over the weekend. Mr. Penn had been working for a presidential primary candidate opposed to the trade deal with Colombia, while also running a public relations firm hired by the Colombian government to promote it.

The debate has been quietly brewing ever since the Bush administration finished negotiating the pact to ease trade restrictions in late 2006. Human rights groups and labor leaders have urged Congress to put off considering the deal or to reject it outright, citing paramilitary violence against labor activists in Colombia.

The behind-the- scenes dispute has now escalated to a classic Washington boil in recent weeks after President Bush, growing impatient with Democrats on Capitol Hill, decided to send the agreement to Congress anyway, an action he announced formally on Monday.
(snip)

To help make its case, Colombia had already hired at least three firms on Capitol Hill, in addition to the work by Mr. Penn’s firm, Burson-Marsteller, paying out from $15,000 to $40,000 a month. Collectively the Colombian government has paid more than $1 million to firms that have negotiated or lobbied on behalf of the deal.

They include the Glover Park Group, the fast-growing firm set up by former Clinton White House aides including Joe Lockhart, who was chief spokesman for the president. (Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign communications director, was a partner at the firm but has taken a leave of absence.)

The firm has approached more than a dozen members of Congress, focusing on moderate Democrats who the lobbyists believe might be persuaded to disregard their party leaders and vote in favor of the deal.

Lobbyists at Johnson, Madigan, Peck, Boland & Stewart — whose partners include another former aide in the Clinton White House, Bill Danvers — have separately met with pro-business Democrats like Representative Joseph Crowley of New York. And Andrew Samet, a deputy secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, has been hired under yet another lobbying contract.
(snip)

To opponents of the deal, the campaign by the Colombia government, their lobbyists and the Bush administration proves how uneasy they are about the prospects for its adoption.

Bill Samuel, a lobbyist for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said, “They obviously think they have a product that is going to be difficult to sell.”
(snip)

The A.F.L.-C.I.O. intends to run newspaper advertisements this week that say, ”Don’t Reward Murder.”
(snip)

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/washington/08lobby.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

[natrat]

17. ok wheres the hillary bot to promote free trade re colombia or deny or whatever they do