Feb 172009
Gerardo Reyes in Saturday’s El Nuevo Herald: “What is your opinion of him [Ãlvaro Uribe] today?”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Colombia (1994-1997) Myles Frechette: “Very frustrating. He is a much different person than I thought. He is not democratic, he doesn’t have much respect for the judiciary or the Congress, he is an authoritarian and very populist person, in many senses he is very similar to [Hugo] Chávez.”
This interview is fascinating. Frechette relates a 1996 meeting with Ãlvaro Uribe, then the governor of Antioquia department, in which he confronts Uribe about rumored past ties to narcotrafficking. Frechette says he was “not satisfied” by Uribe’s answers.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Except that Chávez is a Martyr who is working for the benefit of Utopian Socialism, so all his mistakes are forgiven and his misjudgments are merely passing human temptations, so he is blessed by the worldwide collective and deserves our respect and love!
Regards,
Marcos.
February 17th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
That must be a new record for strawmen.
February 17th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
I went too far, but only because some seem like they would fit that general description when they praise Chávez and protest against any negative coverage of him in this blog, in the rare occasion when some of it is posted.
If you ask what about Uribe….Okay, Frechette doesn’t like him now and wasn’t satisfied by the answers he gave….but he was still able to say that he couldn’t find anything other than the fact he appointed César Villegas. He even questions the previous intelligence report as being far from perfectly trustworthy, unlike the robots who use it to spam the el tiempo and semana forums like it was a papal excommunication.
Regards,
Marcos
February 17th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Is Gerardo a brother of Raul? LOL
February 17th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
From my readings of this blog over the years, it seems that Chavez has been critiqued numerous times, by Adam and others. In the mean time, interesting comments by Frechette. Maybe he could shed some light on the declassified documents regarding Uribe from the mid-1990s…probably.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
i have just one thing to say about the perfidious carpetbagger myles frechette: may God truly shed his Justice on him and his family
and marcos, nobody here wants the farc or chavez or uribe to win…..
we want good governance, transparency in government, CIVIL SOCIETY EMPOWERMENT (u know real DEMOCRACY) and above all no violence…BY ANYBODY !!!!
we have all suffered and we should all pay for our crimes and be rewarded for our diligence or good deeds… and that includes your little scumbag Uribe, and his past foreign associations with neocons such as this piece of human feces frechette who now it “appears” is being blackmailed again…LOLOLOLOLOL
February 18th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
sorry, the carpetbagger frechette & co are blackmailing the drug dealer president…well actually that’s just the same blackmail they’ve been practicing ever since the DIA report surfaced….
you know what? good for uribe…if he’s finally getting off his knees in front of the rapacious neocon gringo with the gun uribe is so scared of, well its about damn time mr uribe…
and remember marcos…the other souther LatAm leaders have created the political space to throw off the chains of the “war” on drugs…. do it now that we have a decent person in the white house…now is the moment pequeno tirano….
February 28th, 2009 at 12:12 am
Uribe’s a splendid, magnificent man, who restored confidence and prosperity to beleaguered Colombia. Frechette was probably suspicious of the fact that Uribe was from Medellin and misjudged him.