Fausta's Blog

Colombia’s Perilous Peace Talks
Former President Álvaro Uribe warns that negotiations ‘validate’ FARC terrorists.

Under Colombia’s 1991 constitution, a criminal conviction disqualified an individual from running for office. Now the “framework for peace,” an amendment to the constitution that was signed into law last year by President Juan Manuel Santos, converts FARC atrocities into “political crimes” and gives the attorney general discretion over which ones will be prosecuted.

By categorizing violent crime and even what are essentially crimes against humanity—including the recruitment of child soldiers—as “political crimes,” the Santos government can now offer the FARC political “eligibility” in exchange for an end to hostilities.

Make no mistake, the FARC insist that they will not surrender their weapons, will not disarm, and will not serve time in prison. They want a similar deal to that of the IRA in Northern Ireland.

That should not come as a surprise, considering how the IRA trained the FARC, and how now the IRA is lending its expertise to the negotiations taking place in Havana.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos got his neighbors in a flutter by hinting that he would like Colombia to join NATO, unlikely as that may sound,

According to Santos, Colombia has been collaborating with NATO for a long time. “We have always been clear about that,” he said in a press conference in London as reported by Los Angeles’ Hispanic newspaper La Opinión. “We will continue our relationship with the alliance.”

The Colombia president met up with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Saturday, where the allusions to becoming a “partner” of NATO started pouring in. As vague as Santo’s remarks have been about his country’s possible candidacy for the alliance – there were no words uttered about the application process, time frame or how they would meet the requirements for such membership – the very thought of Colombia joining NATO has sparked alarm in other countries in Latin America. The Ministers for Defense of both Ecuador and Brazil expressed their reservations about such an event, and pointed out that this issue should be discussed “throughout the region.”

While the current Colombian defense minister said no to NATO membership,

Santos, himself a former defense minister, announced over the weekend that “NATO is going to sign an agreement with the Colombian government, with the Ministry of Defense, to start a whole process of reaching out, of cooperation, also with a look at entering that organization.”

You’re not alone if you’re confused about the issue of geography,

That puzzled NATO officials because Colombia, as a country close to the equator, does not meet a NATO rule restricting membership to North Atlantic nations.

but at least it got a rise out of the Venezuelan regime (plus Bolivia and Brazil).

According to Daniel Duquenal,

Bogota is also, among other things, implying that South American institutions lack seriousness and thus it prefers to look elsewhere for countries that may not love Colombia but at least will deal with Colombia on a serious basis. If you ask me, being a mere associate of the NATO group is definitely more reassuring than being a member of UNASUR where the only thing that matters is what Brazil says. The US of A may be the driving force of the NATO but it has been quite clear that in the last decade and a half its country members participate or not at will in NATO actions though the general aim is respected: democracy and freedom from tyranny.

Santos is sending out a message by meeting with Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles, and now with the NATO statement: if the ALBA/Foro de Sao Paulo countries were counting on him simply because of the FARC negotiations taking place in Cuba, they need to think again.

Henrique Capriles to set off the alarms before international bodies
Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles Wednesday condemned the “non-compliance” with the election audit requested by the opposition alliance and endorsed by the Union of South American Nations (Unasur). He lambasted the steps taken by Venezuelan electoral authorities

“An agreement was reached with Unasur to conduct a (comprehensive) election audit. The audit did not take place. What they (Venezuelan electoral authorities are doing is a farce.”

The Maduro regime is furious that Colombia’s president Santos met with Capriles,

The Maduro government has vilified Capriles as a “fascist” trying to stir a coup in Venezuela, and powerful Congress head Diosdado Cabello, who is also the No. 2 in the ruling Socialist Party, was the first to complain about the meeting in Bogota.

“Colombia must clarify if the government is with Capriles’ coup intentions, or with the people of Venezuela and with the legitimate, sovereign and constitutional government of comrade Nicolas Maduro,” Cabello told state media.

“President Santos is putting a bomb in the good relations that President Chavez urged so much … He is receiving a murderer, a fascist right there in his palace.”

Considering Venezuela’s ever-increasing reliance on Colombia for food, Cabello would do well to measure his words.

As a side news, Santos apparently has been comparing Alvaro Uribe to Caligula. An unwise slip of the tongue, considering how Uribe retired from the presidency with a 75%+ approval rating, but I digress.

Jaime Bayly traveled to Colombia on Tuesday to interview Capriles (videos in Spanish), which aired on MeagaTV and Capriles.tv last night.

Here’s the first hour.

Part 1,

Part 2,

Part 3,

Part 4,

Bayly will broadcast the second hour tonight on MegaTV, which posts the Bayly programs on YouTube the following morning. I’ll post the YouTubes tomorrow.

Colombia’s President Santos has prostate cancer, surgery set for Wednesday

61 yr-old Santos says the operation will be done with local anesthesia (link in Spanish), and that he has a 97% probability of a total cure.

He was diagnosed on the day he gave his speech at the UN.

Here’s his announcement, in Spanish,

UPDATE, Sunday April 15
Summit of the Americas update: Hillary ties one on

Obama is now in Colombia for the Summit of the Americas,

but before he arrived, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos was urging him to focus on Latin America. Hardly surprising, considering how Obama wasted the North American Summit with Canada and Mexico by derailing the press conference to talk about Obamacare. One could say that Nobody is dancing the “Hope & Change” in Latin America anymore.

Also before he got there, U.S. Secret Service agents leave Colombia over prostitution inquiry

Edwin Donovan, an agency spokesman, said that an unspecified number of agents have been recalled and replaced with others, stressing that Obama’s security has not been compromised because of the change. Obama arrived in Cartagena on Friday afternoon for this weekend’s Summit of the Americas, a gathering of 33 of the hemisphere’s 35 leaders to discuss economic policy and trade.

Donovan declined to disclose details about the nature of the alleged misconduct. But Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, said the accusations relate to at least one agent having involvement with prostitutes in Cartagena.

I’m actually puzzled as to what is going on. An “unspecified number” recalled, because of “at least one agent”?

Adler said the entire unit was recalled for purposes of the investigation.

Was this a set-up? Protectus interruptus?

At the Summit, the Latin Americans want to discuss two things,

The twin issues — the pros and cons of drug legalization and Cuba’s continued exclusion from the summit — were expected to dominate the agenda of the Summit of the Americas, highlighting the growing disconnect between Washington and an increasingly assertive and independent Latin American bloc led by powerhouse Brazil.
…
The hemispheric leaders were also to tackle regional integration, reducing poverty and inequality, combating transnational crime and increased access to technology.

But uppermost in their minds will be whether to rethink the fight against drugs, which are creating havoc across the region.

As of yesterday, Hugo Chavez wasn’t sure if he’ll attend, which will deprive Obama of another photo op and maybe some reading material (remember 2009?),

but today’s photo shows that Obama greeted Santos warmly

.

(Click on photo to enlarge.)

UPDATE,
Hugo’s not going.

Update 2: At Americas summit, Obama says no to legalizing drugs
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and others want to talk about what they call the failed war on drugs, as President Obama tries to focus on economic ties.

Linked by Instapundit. Thanks!

Dan Miller writes on Walid Makled, Venezuela, Latin America and the United States
Good for Chávez, good for Colombia, good for Obama; bad for Makled, bad for freedom in Latin America and bad for the United States.

I have posted in the past on Walid Makled, one of the world’s top three drug kingpins. He’s now being extradited from Colombia to Venezuela, where he is wanted for three murders.

Former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe explains why Makled is of interest to the United States,

The US had actually failed to follow up on Colombia’s offer to extradite Makled to the US

in addition to being one of the most prolific drug kingpins in the world, Makled may know enough to expose the connections between the drug trade, the Venezuelan government, and terrorist group Hezbollah.

As you may recall, last Sunday Jackson Diehl of the WaPo was asking, Why isn’t Obama fighting Colombia’s dirty deal with Chavez? Diehl’s answer is that Obama has no stomach for taking on Chavez, since Obama eschews aggressive US leadership.

Miller, in turn, expands on the issue,

Although Colombia has given U.S. officials, primarily Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents, “full access” to Makled, little seems to have come of it to disparage Chávez and his merry band;  once he is sent to Venezuela, nothing more will. He will not be in a position to testify in any U.S. court and it seems unlikely that anything he has said or is likely to say once in Venezuela will become publicly known in the United States.  Former Colombian President Uribe has stated that he opposed Makled’s extradition to Venezuela.

The way it worked out, probably without any wise guidance from the Obama Administration, Venezuela will soon silence Makled, at least for a while or perhaps permanently, and that’s a good thing for el Presidente Chávez as well as perhaps  for President Obama. Besides, Colombian President Santos seems to have got some good from it and that probably hurt Chávez. A perceptive blogger in Venezuela notes,

Chávez really, really wants narcocelebrity Walid Makeld back to Venezuela where a mock trial will silence, for a few weeks at least, all the narco charges pressed against some of the highest military ranks of the Venezuelan army, and who knows how many that are into the laundering system of Venezuela, made proficient through extensive washing of corruption dirty clothing. So Santos had no trouble to force Chávez to seat [sic] down with cursed Honduras president Lobo and have the picture published, with a Chávez looking so ill at ease that for a brief instant I had some kind of sorry pity feeling for him. But very brief, rest assured, as soon as I remembered that he has only himself to blame for all the blackmail that Santos and Colombia are putting him through. Big hit for Santos if you ask me! With an additional slap at Lula, by the way as now Roussef will have it easier to renew ties with Honduras. Don’t you love this moments of ground shifting?

Another English language blogger in Honduras wrote recently that since Honduran President Lobo wanted Honduras back in the OAS he had to talk first to Colombian President Santos, the circus owner, and only after things were arranged to Chávez, a mere circus clown.

Not that the Obama Administration had all or any of this in mind; very little attention is paid (or has for a long time been paid) to goings on in South and Central America and what interest the Obama Administration has shown has generally been maldirected, as the Obama Administration waffle flipping contest in Honduras during the “military coup” that wasn’t a military coup pretty clearly demonstrated. President Obama’s Ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, was firmly on Zelaya’s side and would have been better employed monitoring EPA noxious gas emission gauges in some remote corner of Montana. The former U.S. ambassador, Charles Ford, had a very good grasp of what Zelaya was about and Llorens did not.

If we had a strong president, more interested in freedom and democracy than in “democracy” without freedom, it would be a good thing if he were more attentive to and active in Latin American affairs. As things stand, it’s better if he continues to remain aloof.

A missed opportunity, indeed.

Taking longer, for all the wrong reasons, the final approval of the free trade agreement with Colombia is now on a new treadmill, in time for President Santos’s meeting with President Obama,
Colombia Pact Clears Path for Other Trade Agreements

The Obama administration unveiled a revised free-trade pact with Colombia that boosts the chances for congressional passage of three trade-opening agreements that have languished for more than four years.

The deal requires Colombia to stiffen its laws to provide greater protection of Colombian labor organizers and up to five years’ imprisonment for those who disrupt or threaten union organizing or activities. By satisfying at least some Democrats concerned about Bogota’s history of violence against union leaders, the deal sets the stage for action on trade pacts with South Korea and Panama, senior administration officials said.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who is in the U.S., is expected to meet Thursday with President Barack Obama and sign off on the revised trade pact.

Republican leaders propose to move the three trade pacts in a similar time frame, if not together. To retain Democratic support needed to pass the agreements, lawmakers say they must also renew a Trade Adjustment Assistance program for workers who are displaced as a result of trade agreements.

Key to ensuring Colombia keeps its part of the bargain is renewal of an Andean Trade Preferences program providing favorable tariff treatment to imports from Colombia and other Latin American nations linked to the narcotics trade, in order to foster alternative industries.

Republicans helped drive the administration’s effort to revamp the Colombia agreement by linking action on the much larger Korea pact to movement on the smaller Latin American deals. U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk early this year accelerated an effort with the Colombian government to revise the trade pact to draw enough Democratic support to move the deal forward.

Rep. Dave Camp (R., Mich.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over trade pacts in the House, urged the administration to begin drafting the first stage of the legislation, “so that Congress can consider all three of our pending trade agreements by July 1.”

Trade pacts between the European Union and Korea, and between Colombia and Canada, take effect July 1, potentially limiting the positive impact of the U.S. pacts on U.S. exporters.

Aides to Mr. Camp said congressional leaders and the White House had yet to agree on when, and in what order, they would consider the three agreements.

Here’s the glitch:

Administration officials said they didn’t expect the revised pact to satisfy labor unions, or many of their congressional allies.

In a perfect world, the FTA with Colombia will prevail.

Since it’s not a perfect world, I’m not holding my breath.

Interestingly, the Colombians are extraditing Walid “The Turk” Makled – a suspected drug trafficker who in his heyday was said to smuggle 10 tons of cocaine a month into the U.S. – to Venezuela and not the USA:

Observers say Mr. Santos’ plans to send Mr. Makled to Venezuela make sense because Colombia wants to continue improving relations with the Venezuelan government after trade and diplomatic relations soured under former Colombian leader Alvaro Uribe. Venezuela is an important trading partner with Colombia.

One good trade leads to another, indeed.

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MUST-READ:
Trade agreements are about fairness; they are not a “Zero-sum game”, do not weaken the economy, do not drive trade deficits. Not convinced? Read this:
Misconceptions About Trade Agreements

The subject of today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern: Syrian-born Venezuelan-national, international drug lord Walid Makled.

Dispatch: Colombia, Venezuela Bargaining Over Extradition

Venezuela deports left-wing ‘rebels’ to Colombia
Venezuela has deported three suspected left-wing rebels to Colombia, a sign of improving relations.

Colombia spurns US extradition for reputed narco

Venezuela expulsó a 3 guerrilleros; Colombia “satisfecha” con entrega de los “delincuentes”

Noticias 24 video:

Llegada de Guerrilleros a Colombia desde Caracas
Uploaded by noticias24. – News videos from around the world.

Caracas Gringo: Bolivarian Gangster Chronicles (3) and (2)

Stratfor video below the fold, since it starts immediately,
(more…)

The topic of this morning’s podcast at 11AM Eastern,
Chavez to meet with Colombia’s new president (they met already).

What’s behind this?
Colombia busca que Venezuela pague deuda – Colombian businessmen are owed US $800 million by the Venezuelan government and want to get paid, among other things.

Related:
His own man
San Pedro Alejandrino, as much a place of reckoning as ever
Colombia no pedirá “verificar” la presencia de campamentos de las FARC en Venezuela
“Santos y Chávez voltearon la página con una velocidad sorprendente”
Santos promete no bajar la guardia tras explosión de coche bomba en Bogotá

This morning’s podcast was on Congressman Connie Mack’s visit to Juan Manuel Santos’s inauguration in Colombia last weekend.

The Obama administration did not see fit to send the Secretary of State to the inauguration, even when Colombia is America’s staunchest ally in the region – First Lady Michelle Obama was busy visiting the Cordoba mosque and doing lunch with the King of Spain, while Obama played basketball.

The US media apparently couldn’t be bothered to cover congressman Mack’s visit, either, with the exception of The Hill:
In Colombia, GOP Rep. Mack calls on Obama to put Venezuela on terror list

Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.), in Bogota on Saturday, called for the Obama administration to designate Venezuela as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Mack was one of eight lawmakers in Colombia for the swearing in of the country’s new president, Juan Manuel Santos. He met with departing President Alvaro Uribe and held a press conference in Bogota to detail his efforts to have Colombia’s neighbor placed on the terror list.

“I think the time is now to put him on that list,” Mack told The Hill by phone from Colombia, saying that President Hugo Chavez supported the FARC rebels in Colombia and was aligned with Iran and Syria.

Mack said the White House is aware of his effort, and added he’d talked with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as well.

“The response I get is, ‘We’ll look into it’ or ‘The timing’s just not right,’” he said. Still, he said he hoped the White House would “act quickly” to put Venezuela on the list.

“All that I can do is continue to push, try to build consensus with other members,” Mack said, adding that he’s never before seen such bipartisan agreement “that Hugo Chavez is a force in Latin America that’s on the side of evil and is determined to destroy freedom and democracy in Venezuela and encourage other countries to do the same.”

Venezuela cut off ties with Colombia late last month after Colombia presented evidence at the Organization of American States of 87 alleged FARC guerrilla camps running out of Venezuela. The FARC rebels are designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.

Shortly afteward, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened to cut off oil supplies to the U.S. if Colombia commits “armed aggression” against Venezuela. “We wouldn’t send one more drop” of oil to the U.S., which is the top buyer of oil from Venezuela, Chavez said.

Mack said he’s been lobbying since 2008 to beef up strategic reserves to the extent that the U.S. would not depend on Venezuelan oil, and told The Hill that it should be the U.S. that tells Venezuela it won’t buy oil.

Mack said Uribe, who leaves office with an 80 percent approval rating, told him that “he is bound and determined to continue to point out that Hugo Chavez continues to support terrorist organizations.” Santos, who served as Uribe’s defense minister, is expected to continue Uribe’s hard-line fight against the FARC.

Rep. Mack’s office also issued three statements,
Mack: Venezuela is as Democratic as Iran and Cuba
Mack: Name Venezuela a State Sponsor of Terrorism
Mack to Chavez: Choose Freedom Over Tyranny

Meanwhile, in Colombia, former president Álvaro Uribe says he’s willing to testify against Chávez at The International Court of Justice at The Hague, where he has filed a complaint against Chávez. The International Court has not confirmed that a lawsuit has been filed (both links in Spanish).

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I’m back in town after a couple of days in the big city, and am slowly catching up with the items on my to-do list. Thank you for your patience.