Germain Vargas Lleras:The man of the moment (google translation)

[Judi Lynn]

The man of the moment

Germain Vargas 's mission is to bring to Congress the most ambitious reform agenda in recent times . Will he succeed?
Saturday August 21, 2010

http://www.semana.com.nyud.net:8090/photos/1477/ImgArticulo_T1_75939_2010821_165922.jpg

The new Minister of Interior and Justice, Germain Vargas Lleras, changed her luck in early May. At that time never took his presidential campaign and everyone wondered why his excellent marketing strategy , its elaborate proposals and commended entries in the discussions were not enough to get him out of the last places of the vote in the polls. From the political point of view was in limbo, because after having been a close ally of President Alvaro Uribe for six years opposed to the second re-election and earned the hatred of his former boss. I do not want neither Uribe nor antiuribistas .

However, politics is a roulette wheel. Today the Minister of the Interior is going through what could be the best time of your life. He finished the campaign with a dizzying rally and took a surprising third in the first round , behind Juan Manuel Santos and Antanas Mockus, by a vote of 1,473,627 , ie 10.11 percent of the total. The ascent was the hand of an image as a statesman, not only because of the seriousness of their programs, but by the eloquence of his speeches. Now, his description in the policy portfolio from the August 7 made him the man of the hour to lead the institutional transformation that President Juan Manuel Santos and he hope to implement in the coming months. Vargas moves like a fish in water in the Congress and the National Unity alliance , which are the scenarios where the battles will be fought in taking forward these reforms. As if all this were not enough , last week married his girlfriend of 11 years , Luz Maria Zapata, in a discreet ceremony in Miami.

Vargas Lleras , no doubt , is in its fourth hour. It took just a couple of days to change the atmosphere of confrontation that had worsened in recent years between the Executive and Judicial . Calmed the waters between President Santos and all the judges of the courts. He visited the parties that are not in the government coalition , the Democratic Pole and the greens , which were well received ads that promote discussion and respect the status of opposition. And sat with all the forces that are part of the National Unity -the U , the Conservative Party , the Liberal Party and his, the Radical Change , "and has been a climate of political peace had not felt several years ago.

Minister Vargas Lleras fits the criteria applied John F. Kennedy to choose their partners: is the right person for the right job at the right time . Juan Manuel Santos would have been able to marginalize his former rival, not only for injuries that always leaves a campaign, but because Germain Vargas has shown he wants to persist in their efforts to reach the presidency. Could have their own agenda , desires for ownership and intentions to compete with Santos , if that is seeking reelection in 2014. In these circumstances , the President might have concluded that it was inappropriate to give a platform so visible.

But Santos, in his intention to appoint a cabinet heavyweight , he delivered a crucial and complex task which depends greatly on the success of his government. President Vargas Lleras searched an antidote to the heaviness of the legislature and bureaucracy that is not clear whether the appointment , that he won the lottery jackpot or the tiger .

The Minister is aware of what has been , has had to move quickly. In just two weeks has made a comprehensive list of bills and constitutional amendments. Now the joyful times of ads and conciliatory attitudes will be replaced by a much tougher second stage . The first term , which runs through December, is very brief and final time . We know that governments have a honeymoon in which Congress approves them more easily their initiatives, and then everything becomes more difficult. In the corridors of the Capitol, between the Congress has made a career of the statement that "the government 's first year , the second is shared and the other two are ours. " If the government and the Minister Santos Vargas Lleras not seize the moment , it is very difficult to push a legislative agenda so heavy in the future.

The reform package includes issues with which Congress has no sympathy . Many of them have been neglected by the political tripe tread and the lack of consensus they generate. An example of this is to reform the royalty system , which involves taking away funds to the departments where natural resources are located , to redistribute a national standard . Other reforms have failed in the past , such as the abolition of the controversial National Television Commission , whose members have proven to be a strength ' lobbyists ' to the legislature . Still others affect interests of the participants, among which is that of ending the preferential vote , which enables them to individual campaigns . And some go against personal interests of those who have to approve the reforms, several senators and representatives, for example, are landlords and scrutinize the ambitious initiative led by the agriculture minister , Juan Camilo Restrepo , to change the ownership and possession of land for those who " work it with sweat "in the words of Juan Manuel Santos in his inaugural address .

Other agenda items also generate visceral reactions and radical oppositions . The law of victims and sank in the past for lack of agreement on two very thorny issues : the fiscal cost and the incorporation of those affected by actions of government agents . In restructuring the health system must make decisions about which diseases are excluded from the POS , which is a determination that involves high political costs. The law of first employment for young people is necessary to find out where are drawn six billion dollars that the State would receive for that concept. And the draft amendment to the Justice , one of the main goals of the campaign, includes several difficult issues , among which is the abolition of the Supreme Judicial Council , which had been proposed by former President Uribe, but wrecked in the stormy waters of the lobby made by magistrates.

Governments have tried to pass far-reaching projects in Congress, in recent years have also clashed with the entrenched culture patronage . The MPs believe their votes are changed positions. But the government of Juan Manuel Santos has shown little willingness to resort to this instrument . First, because you do not like , not only for reasons of principle but for pragmatic reasons. The General Secretariat of the Presidency, that other governments have handled the famous computer that organizes the distribution of quotas, will be led by Juan Carlos Pinzon , who has a profile manager and not political. Vargas Lleras And the minister should not be associated with an image of patronage for their aspiration to consolidate second place in the Indian line of presidential candidates . Another not insignificant factor is a history of judicial proceedings are underway against former ministers Sabas Pretelt and Diego Palacio, an exchange of favors in exchange for congressional support Uribe 's reelection . "What used to be called bribery oxygen is now called , "say these days in the corridors of the Palacio de Nariño. In the " glass box " era Santos hopes that these practices are outdated .

Minister Santos and Vargas Lleras, therefore need a different scheme of relations between the executive and legislative branches . The backbone is the concept of National Unity. Although no explicit milimetría or covenants , the composition of government, which has been defined only at the level of ministers, deputy ministers and a few directors , will continue to include members of all coalition forces . Vargas Lleras has opened channels of communication with all parties, and the President himself has also been found with the banks that support it .

It has agreed to give priority to projects of royalties and healthcare reform , and the approval of the special powers to ensure that the Executive may , by order, create three new ministries -Justice, and Business Environment and restructure the DAS . The first challenge will be to win the first committee debates of the Senate and House that are in that traditionally have defined the major policy issues . There will also be parallel negotiations , outside of Congress to introduce the views of the Democratic Pole and the Green Party opposition to the statute , and the courts on judicial reform .

The government relies also on the banking law will help the party members of the National Unity Alliance vote in the manner agreed with the government. The Constitutional Court made clear in the ruling that overturned the re-election referendum last February, to vote against the decisions of his own party , according to their internal mechanisms, has serious consequences.

But more than a very sophisticated strategy or fear of legal sanctions , which ultimately will determine the success or failure of the reform package will work, day after day, the Minister Vargas Lleras. A man who knows the parliamentary- half has been a senator and chairman of the Corporation , and moves like Tarzan in the rainforest of Congress. The vast majority , the support of public opinion and an undeniable sympathy of the media towards these reforms are in your favor . On the other side of the scales , time runs against him: that no progress was made in the first hundred days, or the first term, it can get stuck in 2011 , a year of elections for mayors and governors. There is an imbalance between the size and depth of the agenda , many difficult projects and consensus - processing capacity of Congress. And in scenarios like that, in the past , have overstepped the bureaucratic appetites of Founding Fathers .

The bet is ambitious. Juan Manuel Santos wants his reformist presidential seal and take a big step forward in institutional matters , perhaps the most encouragement from the romp that introduced the Constituent Assembly during the government of Cesar Gaviria , two decades ago . The package involves the adoption of new laws including statutory and constitutional reforms aimed at solving structural problems that until recently was considered intractable. This big change , besides the political effort will require a considerable financial effort . To make this possible, it is really necessary to return the revenue bonanza of oil and mining, which some economists predict .

Will he succeed? The balance between opportunities and obstacles is favorable at the point of departure. But in politics things are not as they seem and there is no guarantee that the opportunities eventually prevail over the difficulties. To a large extent , the conclusion is in the hands of Germain Vargas Lleras , who for that reason is man of the moment. That is, a defining moment of his career can not end in the middle. Or is devoted or burned .

http://www.semana.com/noticias-nacion/hombre-del-momento/143358.aspx

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[gbscar]

1. Good profile. Lleras is ambitious but he is also capable. Time will tell though. (nt)

[Peace Patriot]

2. "In the 'glass box' era Santos hopes that these practices are outdated."

"We need to look forward not backward" --Barack Obama

But in both cases it isn't just vast corruption and vast looting of the poor, which are being swept under the rug, as to the crimes involved, and are being allowed to stand as a fait accompli, as to the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer--in the case of Colombia, for instance, the 5 MILLION peasant farmers displaced by state terror, deprived of their lands, forced into urban squalor; or in the case of the U.S., vast unemployment, loss of pensions, loss of homes, frozen wages in the face of ever-increasing costs of living, loss of public services, impoverishment of schools, loss of small businesses and downtowns, while the super-rich and war profiteers drain the nation's coffers.

It is not just the 90 degree tilt of the "playing field"--like the Titanic as it went down, dumping the people into the cold, cold sea. It is the nearly unimaginable crimes--in Colombia, the murders of thousands of trade unionists, human rights workers, teachers, community activists, peasant farmers and others, a U.S.-funded slaughter (to the tune of $7 BILLION in military aid); mass graves with 2,000 bodies; innocent people murdered and dressed up like FARC guerillas. As for the U.S., the slaughter of one hundred thousand innocent people in the bombing of Baghdad alone, to steal their oil; the torture of prisoners, not just "terrorists" but random roundups, random torture, for purposes of terrorizing Iraqis, Afghanis and others; the ripping up of the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

To speak an absurdity like "We need to look forward not backward," with regard to the hideous crimes of the Bush Junta (all committed in the PAST, Barack), or to call bribery "outdated," are both reflections of the MINDLESS "river of forgetfulness" that has become the corpo-fascist 'news' legacy of our era. Slaughter the poor. Rob them blind. 'Let's move on, shall we?'

Colombia was a "little Bush Junta" with its "little dictator" Uribe, so like Bush Jr. Now it's another mirror--the mirror of no reflections. A blank mirror staring at itself. A mirror with no past. Looted people. Looted schools. Looted commons. Looted jobs. Looted pensions. Looted public coffers. Looted lands. Ravaged countries. Lots of dead people. Lots of people forever maimed by war, torture, depravation. And none of it exists. In Colombia. Or here.

Vargas Lleras will be Santos' engineer of forgetting--is the gist of this article. Rather like Nancy Pelosi ("Impeachment is off the table").

I don't want to underestimate the problem of dealing with the Bush Junta, nor misunderstand the very hard-to-see goings on in the corridors, dungeons and high rise office buildings of New Rome. We may be lucky that Daddy Bush intervened, to curtail Cheney and Rumsfeld, which is what I think happened. They had not only declared war on the CIA, they were moving fast toward a potential Armageddon, i.e., ordering the nuking of Iran, against the better judgment of the military brass. Bush Sr formed the "Iraq Study Group"--of which Leon Panetta was a member--got rid of Rumsfeld and curbed Cheney. They had their finger on the trigger and were perhaps planning martial law here. The inducement for Bush Jr, Cheney and cabal to go peacefully, when the time came, was "impeachment is off the table."

My guess is as good as anybody's as to the behind-the-scenes machinations of the very secretive, very undemocratic entity we call the U.S. government. But I think I'm not far wrong on this, and that a very similar thing has occurred in Colombia, which became the Bush Junta's "little monster"--its accompanying dwarf--imitative in its dreadful murderousness and corruption, lavishly funded by U.S. taxpayers. There is Empire. And then there is Emperor Caligula. The one may be exploitative, unjust and warlike. But the other is entirely depraved. Most people might do well, or at least have a chance to do well, with the one. But the other represents a grave sickness--psychosis, madness--in the top leadership of society. That is what occurred in Colombia. That is what occurred here. We had madmen ruling over us--people whom one could well imagine enjoying torture tapes--people who think nothing of slaughtering a hundred thousand people to steal their oil, or of irradiating the Middle East in order to exercise dominion over it.

So, in my scenario, Bush Sr represents the exploitative, unjust, warlike empire, that keeps the spoils of war flowing to Rome, provides "bread and circuses" to the plebians and is not all that bad at ruling its colonies once the initial conquests are over--in fact, prefers a civilized veneer and the appearance of the rule of law. This sort of imperial behavior can gain men's loyalty--can keep the Joint Chiefs happy and receive genuine salutes from the Praetorian Guard. The other sort of imperial rule--rule by the depraved, and in the case of the U.S., enormously dangerous and powerful psychotics--invites palace coups. And that is what I think occurred.

Colombia, in imitation, is going through its palace coup. Exploitation, injustice and war profiteering will continue but they won't be as sick in the head as before. They will have the appearance of virtue and the trappings of reform.

When I see this blather about "reform" in Colombia--as in this Time magazeeny article--so like the blather in Washington, this memoryless sort of reform, and this sweeping under the rug of "Caligula"'s crimes ("We need to look forward not backward"), without any thought whatsoever about the sort of basic structures of political power and wealth that would permit a Bush Junta or a Uribe Junta to inflict their reigns of terror, I despair at all that we have lost of true democratic ideals. We have been becoming an Empire throughout my lifetime, the first premise of which was another sort of palace coup, on November 22, 1963. We had a brief chance, at that time, to go down a different road, to relinquish our power to destroy the Earth twenty times over, and to create a real democracy and a more equitable world. (Read James Douglass' "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters"--a very important book) It does not seem possible, any longer, to recover that better path. I never despair of it. But I think it unlikely, unless we reignite a passion for the truth and work very hard, in very practical ways--such as restoring transparent vote counting--to base our society on facts, not spin, and on love, not war.

This is happening in OTHER countries in Latin America. It can happen here--but it will be even more difficult here because of the even thicker veils of spin that enmesh us.