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,
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.
Linked by Instapundit. Thanks!
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.
The subject of today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern: Syrian-born Venezuelan-national, international drug lord Walid Makled.
Dispatch: Colombia, Venezuela Bargaining Over Extradition
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).
Been there, done that, but here he goes again,
Venezuela Sends Troops to Colombian Border
Venezuela’s president says he has deployed troops to the border with Colombia, as tensions rise between the two South American countries.
Hugo Chavez said Friday he believed the outgoing government of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe could be planning to attack Venezuela.
The move follows Colombia’s accusations last week that Venezuela is harboring leftist Colombian rebels.
Mr. Chavez, denying the charge, had harsh words for Mr. Uribe. In a phone call to a Venezuelan television show Friday, Mr. Chavez said the Colombian President should see a psychologist, saying he sees peace as a “little trap.”
Here’s Hugo ranting about Uribe in Spanish, if you want to hear it,
Of course Colombia denies any intention of invading Venezuela (link in Spanish).
Colombia’s president-elect, Juan Manuel Santos, is scheduled to take office on August 7, and Hugo needs a distraction from all the country’s problems, so here you have it: mobilize troops, offend everyone.
The topic of today’s 15 Minutes on Latin America:
Santos wins in Colombia
Articles:
BBC Profile: Juan Manuel Santos.
WSJ Colombia: Santos Wins Presidency, Set To Keep Uribe’s Policies
Mary O’Grady: Colombia’s Army Shows Its Stuff
A dramatic hostage rescue reflects the military’s increasing professionalism.
Noticias 24: Las primeras palabras de Juan Manuel Santos: “A las FARC se les agotó su tiempo”
Over in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez cancelled his TV show because he was celebrating Father’s Day.
Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. Today’s big story: Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos won the country’s presidential runoff by a landslide,
Santos is credited with delivering some of the biggest blows against the FARC while serving as defense minister from 2006 to 2008. These include the 2008 rescue of 15 hostages including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. defense contractors. He also ordered the raid into Ecuador that killed the group’s second in command, Raul Reyes.
ARGENTINA
Argentina’s two leading newspapers want government to withdraw from newsprint business
BOLIVIA
Drugs, USAID Complicate Relations
Relations between Bolivia and the United States are still on a roller-coaster, two years after Bolivia expelled the U.S. ambassador, with Bolivian President Evo Morales now threatening to kick out the main U.S. government aid agency.
Inteligencia militar: grupo “Tupac Katari” protege a terrorista peruano
BRAZIL
Brazil’s foreign policy
An Iranian banana skin
Lula has little to show for his Tehran adventure
Doing business in São Paulo (audio)
COLOMBIA
Colombia’s Santos is elected president
Colombian Stocks Rise As Investors Anticipate Santos Victory
Colombia Election Skunks The Media
Washington and the Colombian Elections
Colombia’s Coal Mining Accident
Hackers attempt attack on Colombian journalist’s website
CHILE
Carta destacada de la semana: Plan Regulador Metropolitano
CUBA
A Beautiful Comeuppance (One Hopes), via Dan.
The Pedro Pan organization responds to CNBC
Prelate restates Church-State relationship and the inviolability of religious freedom
Cuba Involved in Mexican Drug Trafficking and Human Smuggling
ECUADOR
Ecuador Says To Respect Colombia’s Elections
‘Gringo chief’ Randy Borman helps Ecuador’s Cofan Indians survive, thrive
EL SALVADOR
Customs canine sniffs out cocaine soup at Dulles
GUATEMALA
Recibí una amenaza contra mí vida y esta es la evidencia
HONDURAS
Assaultcracy
JAMAICA
Jamaica to host world domino championships. My brother-in-law ought to participate.
MEXICO
Mexico’s deadly drug violence claims hundreds of lives in past 5 days
Arizona Sheriff: Mexican Drug Cartels Now Control Parts Of Arizona
Human Rights Defenders Seek Protection in Mexico
NICARAGUA
Today’s Video: Remnants of war
PANAMA
A Morning In Parque Cervantes
PERU
Joran Van der Sloot retracts confession; claims police ‘tricked’ him: report
Holloway suspect to face judge on Monday in Peru murder
PUERTO RICO
Newt Gingrich Interviews Luis Fortuño, Governor of Puerto Rico
Meanwhile, back at the banana plantation
Remember that Oliver Stone propaganda movie that premiered in Caracas last week? Pro-Chavez Documentary Bombs In Venezuela – Report And it’ll bomb here, too:
“South of the Border” is due to hit U.S. screens next week.
Venezuela’s Chavez fights off criticism of economic record
When an opinion becomes “close to a crime” and the real crimes go unpunished in Venezuela
UNA NUEVA ESTRATEGIA PARA UNA VICTORIA DE VERDAD
IMMIGRATION
Obama Orders Dance Classes, Movie Nights, and Bingo for Illegal Detainees
Worst NYT Article EVAH! … ‘Border Violence in Arizona Totally Exaggerated’
The week’s posts and podcasts:
Colombia’s runoff election tomorrow
US asks Paraguay to extradite suspected Hezbollah financier, formerly of Broooklyn and New Jersey
Illegals in Mexico: What Calderon doesn’t want the US to know
Globovision owner flees Venezuela
National Lampoon Caribbean Vacation: Venezuela edition
Chavez at the BBC’s HARDtalk: Never answer what they ask you VIDEO
At Real Clear World,
Colombia: Santos Wins in Landslide
