COLOMBIA's Invasion of US-Uribe Sends Army of Lobyists & Infiltrators - FTA

[magbana]

Colombia’s Invasion of the United States
The Uribe Regime Sends an Army of Lobbyists and Infiltrators to Washington to Impose a “Free Trade” Deal

By Al Giordano
Special to the Narco News Bulletin

April 8, 2008

The stunning events of recent days, in which the chief strategist for the presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton, Mark J. Penn, was publicly demoted (but really, not: he’s still there) have torn a curtain. Behind it are the highest paid mercenary soldiers of the Colombian civil war: lobbyists, public relations firms and political consultants, doing the bidding of a foreign power in Washington.

MORE:

http://www.narconews.com/Issue52/article3059.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Here are some good comments on Uribe:

Colombia: The enemies of peace and democracy

The Colombian government of Alvaro Uribe is making strenuous efforts to identify the FARC guerrilla movement as the chief threat to the country's security and progress. But the evisceration of Colombia's state and society by paramilitary violence presents a deeper danger, argues Jenny Pearce for openDemocracy.

By Jenny Pearce for openDemocracy (09/04/08)

~snip~
President Uribe is a threat to democracy because he does not really believe in it, and a threat to peace because he has no interest in it. Uribe believes in his direct relationship with the people, and in an efficient state machine to deliver the decisions he makes on behalf of the wealthy interests he protects. He is not interested in autonomous social organizations; labor, civil and human rights; or scrutiny by citizens, the lifeblood of an accountable and meaningful modern democracy.

His main presidential goal is a military defeat of the FARC; and to that end he will turn a blind eye to violence committed by any other armed actor. The result is to sow the seed for renewed violent conflict. Now, speculation is rife that he is now about to achieve his goal, and that a significant weakening of the FARC has been achieved. For Uribe, that is worth being forced - for example - by the Organisation of American States (OAS) to apologize to Ecuador for his infringement of their territory in the assassination of Raúl Reyes.

Whether the FARC is truly being seriously damaged is hard to judge. There is evidence of high-level infiltration of the FARC secretariat. The killing of a second FARC commander, "Ivan Rios" by his own head of security - a few days after the killing of Reyes - is an indication of this. The FARC is reduced in size and has suffered many desertions and loss of territory. However, it remains in control of vast areas of the south of Colombia, and still has an estimated 13,000 men under arms.

The FARC, in short, is a diminished military force but by no means a defeated one. Alvaro Uribe needs to show some very convincing victories in the coming months if he is to retain his political momentum. In the meantime, the cost of his policies is very high, both for the immediate future of the hostages and for the long-term prospects for peace. Reyes was killed at the moment when a high-level delegation from France was on its way to discuss the hostage situation with him; its members were warned against entering the guerrilla-camp zone by the Colombian government. The Colombian government's raid on the zone eliminated one of the FARC's most experienced international negotiators (as French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said: "It is not good news that the man with whom we talk and have contact, is dead").

Uribe's domestic support gives him a great deal of leverage and legitimacy. But apart from his key allies in the Washington and London governments, his international standing is not so high. Even the Democrats in the United States have so far blocked Uribe's much desired free-trade agreement on the grounds of the absence of trade-union rights, and in view of the killings of 2,515 trade unionists since 1986 (mostly, where there is evidence, victims of the paramilitary). Most European governments (apart from Britain's) have been consistent in pushing for a peaceful negotiation to end the conflict, and improvement in Colombia's human-rights situation.

The international community has generally not accepted the intervention of the FARC in Ecuadorean territory as justification for the bombing of its camp and the killing of 21 people (including some Mexican students who were present). In Latin America, Uribe is isolated from the leftward regional shift in the 2000s. Many of his neighbors see Uribe's "pacification" project as ultimately one which favors certain sectors of the Colombian elite, particularly those which have accumulated their wealth through illegal and violent means.

More:
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=18843

[Judi Lynn]

2. Excellent Colombian FTAA talking points posted by DU'er eridani in LBN:

(These appeared in the thread about Nancy Pelosi blocking the bill _Bush is trying to ram up everyone's wazoo.)

In Colombia the FTA will:

• Undermine human rights and fuel the fires of conflict. Colombia is still a country at war. Its record on human rights is dismal. Attacks on civil society, union leaders, Afro-Colombians and Indigenous people continue with impunity. The FTA will deepen the economic disparity, which is a root cause of the conflict, and diminish human rights.
  
  
• Destroy small farmers. The agreement will favor only a small sector of Colombia’s large industrial farmers who export to the U.S. Overall income for small farmers would drop by more than 50%, whipping them out as happened in Mexico where 1.3 million farmers have been displaced since NAFTA. Farmers forced off land will add to Colombia’s 3.8 million internally displaced people, which is already second only to the Sudan, and disproportionately impacts Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities.
  
  
• Harm poor consumers. A corporate monopoly on basic grains as a result of the FTA could provoke a steep price climb in food staples, as occurred in Mexico in the case of tortilla as a result of NAFTA.
  
  
• Lock in corporate take over of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian territories. The internal conflict has disproportionately displaced Afro-Colombian and Indigenous peoples from their resource-rich, ancestral territories, violating their constitutional and legal rights. Laws put in place in anticipation of the FTA to attract investment dismantle these legal rights.  For example, the Rural Development Law allows displaced people’s land that is claimed by corporate interest and their armed backers to gain legal title if occupied for five years. FTA investment rules will make it too costly to reverse these legal reforms.
  
  
• Harm workers and environment. Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for union and labor organizers. There is little that the labor chapter can do to address the continued violence and impunity in the country. Moreover, the government has demonstrated little will to promote the labor laws and policies which are necessary for the full exercise of the international core labor rights.
  
  
• Hinder access to life-saving medicines. People in developing countries need affordable access to essential medicines, not only for pandemic diseases like HIV/AIDS, but for a whole variety of serious health conditions. The Colombia FTA undermines the right to affordable medicines. This will further weaken the Colombian health system that only covers 10% of Afro-Colombians.
  
  
• Increase the burden on women, children, and the poor. The FTA promotes the privatization and deregulation of essential services such as water, healthcare and education. As rates increase, these services become less accessible, women and the poor.
  
  
• Undermine U.S. and Colombian sovereignty. Like NAFTA, this FTA allows corporations to sue governments that pass environmental and public health laws that might reduce corporate profits.
  
  
• Threaten the Amazon and wildlife. The FTA will stimulate an increase in logging and other extraction projects in the Colombian Amazon rain forest that mostly reside in Afro-Colombian and Indigenous territories. This will further endanger the lungs of the globe and precious species.
  
  
• Pirate traditional knowledge. The FTA will pave the way for large pharmaceutical and agribusiness corporations to patent traditional knowledge, seeds, and life forms. This opens the door to bio-piracy of the Andean-Amazon region and threatens the ecological, medicinal and cultural heritage of Afro-Colombians and Indigenous peoples.

In the U.S. the FTA will:

• Increase drug trafficking. Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine. Corporate monopoly over Colombia’s basic grain market will leave some small farmers with no other alternative than to join the lucrative drug trade.
  
  
• Increase forced immigration to the U.S. Almost all people everywhere want to stay in their home country. However U.S. government economic and military policies are a critical factor in uprooting people from their homes and livelihoods. In the context of 3.8 million internally displaced, the FTA will increase forced migration abroad and to the U.S.
  
  
• Expand export-driven agriculture. The FTA benefits U.S. corporate agribusiness and industrial farms, accelerating agricultural consolidation and further undermining family farmers in the U.S. and in developing countries.

http://www.tradeandwar.org/connections/talking-points.html