Following on this morning’s post about Vice President Santos and Plan Colombia, here is a translation of Claudia López’s column on the same topic in today’s El Tiempo.
From pampered to spiteful
By Claudia López
El Tiempo (Bogotá, Colombia), March 17, 2009
While President Lula da Silva of Brazil meets face-to-face with President Obama in the White House to discuss global and Latin American policy, the Colombian vice president laments the mistreatment that, according to him, Colombia receives from a sector of the Congress and U.S. civil society, and proposes to do away with Plan Colombia, considering it to be a source of humiliation.
Those news make apparent the shameful contrast bewteen Brazilian and Colombian foreign policy. Thanks to the former, Brazil will become the United States’ strategic partner in the region, and thanks to the second Colombia will be it no longer. Brazil will take on this role for obvious reasons. Because it is the 10th-largest economy on the planet, the most stable and progressive democracy on the continent, the only one with a world-class foreign ministry and president, a player with regional and global leadership.
Colombia will lose its status as preferred partner, also for obvious reasons. Because its role was being exaggerated and because President [Ãlvaro] Uribe did away with the bipartisan relationship he inherited from [1998-2002 President Andrés] Pastrana and took the side of the Republicans, who lost the election. The result is that Uribe was decorated [with the Medal of Freedom, in January] by Bush, but Colombia is left without solid bipartisan bridges to defend the country’s interests.
The Vice President’s interview with El Tiempo [on March 15, in which VP Francisco Santos called for an end to Plan Colombia] is a strong indication that the Colombian government has not finished mourning Bush’s defeat. The interview could be summarized: “Before, we did the same thing and nobody questioned us about anything. Now, they ask us why unionists are killed and we don’t produce judicial verdicts to clarify the crimes; how are we going to ensure that labor rights are respected for free trade; they ask us why we wiretap and follow judges and journalists who make us uncomfortable; why members of the security forces kill innocent young people to give false evidence of combat progress; why criminal gangs continue to operate in zones where the paramilitaries supposedly demobilized. They ask us how we spend those piddling 550 million dollars that they give us for Plan Colombia. It is an outrage! They must respect us!”
No, Vice President. They don’t ask us that just because of the “piddling” money. They ask because they are interested in issues like democracy and human rights. Because the are a central part of the political platform with which they won the elections. Because, I remind you, more than a year ago the Democrats won the congressional elections and four months ago, the presidential election. But you haven’t noticed this detail. Your indignation about the questions, and not about the facts and violations, only reinforces the well-founded doubts that this government now has, and makes them think that you don’t care a bit about whether they kill unionists or violate human rights; the only thing that appears to matter to you is that for this “nonsense” they won’t approve the Free Trade Agreement.
You’re right. Plan Colombia now doesn’t work. It would work better if the United States would commit to an effective policy against narcotrafficking, which wouldn’t leave us bearing all the costs of failure, while the consuming countries ignore their responsibilities at home. But you don’t ask for that. You ask for more planes, more military bases, more fumigations, more prohibition. More of the same failure. And you also ask for an FTA, with no questions asked. When they don’t give you that, you kick and scream and threaten, and then you become indignant because you’re not treated like statesmen.
If you want to be treated like statesmen, behave like statesmen. Stop asking, stamping your feet and threatening. Take the initiative, propose things and keep your word. Develop a bilateral agenda that incorporates both countries’ issues, interests and concerns, and propose specific goals within specific time periods.
To achieve this national purpose, it would help a great deal if the Santoses [Vice President Francisco and his cousin, Defense Minister Juan Manuel] would allow Foreign Minister [Jaime] Bermúdez to dedicate himself to this task, instead of having to put out the fires they start.
March 17th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Hello
I just want to mention that the translation has some mistakes that make difficult to understand the article. Thank you.
March 17th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Lopez’s column is right on target. Uribe, los Santos and others in the GOC should have acted forcefully on the labor leaders’ killings, military connivance with the paras, judicial harrassment, and etc., long ago, and they should now – but they won’t. All the more reason that Uribe should not have a third term in office; it’s time for fresh thinking (liberal, progressive, whatever you want to call it) and decisive actions of the sort that Lopez cites as needed.
March 17th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
The only thing that bothers me about the post is that it pretends that the democrats are somehow going to retain power for eternity… what happens to the govts that court liberal principles when the republicans take control in the future… and don’t think it won’t happen.
… I bet a similar column will appear with just the opposite views. The sad, sad state of affairs we must live with these days.
Down with the whole system, dems and repubs. We need something completely new, out of the box!
March 17th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
chris it’s impossible, once you realize that the anachronistic and progressive forces coexist in the human way of seeing things.
Yesterday I was listening to the Savage Nation with Niels Bors (Don’t know if properly spelled) and he keeps bashing Obama to the balls day in and out , no matter what he does, but he seems to ignore the state of affairs Bush left the country in.
It’s a good thing to keep a balance of more or less alternating periods of those forces governing, to even the charges, but I agree it’s a problem with no apparent solution, that men are bound to go round the same old policy carrousel commiting the same old mistakes, killing each other over the same olf passions, acting mean and greedy on resources, as it has been since the beginning.
March 18th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Great column. It hits the nail squarely on the head.
March 19th, 2009 at 12:27 am
Lopez is all wet. She dismisses the ‘indignities’ Pacho describes as mere ‘criticism’ without so much as a thought. She obviously doesn’t know what is going on here. To effectively argue, she should drop the straw man about Pacho being thin skinned and unable to take criticism and confront head on all the bs going on over here against the Colombian government – everything from dirty pool on the rules, to constantly changing conditionality without end, done by people who want no trade, and no victory and no Colombian government. They have no intention of ever being satisfied.
March 19th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Circlejerk
March 19th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
That makes you a voyeuer, Marcos.
In any event, I agree with Greg and Tambopaxi, this is an excellent piece and Lopez nails it.
Greg’s comment at his blog is also spot on:
What’s more, Brazil has the savviest diplomats in Latin America and possibly in the world. Despite having numerous policy differences with the Bush administration, relations were always amicable. The world, to the Uribe administration is a nail and the only tool they have is a hammer.