How to Lose an Ally
By Robert Novak


Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe returned to Bogota this week in a state of
shock. His three-day visit to Capitol Hill in Washington to win over
Democrats in Congress was described by one American supporter as
"catastrophic." Colombian sources said Uribe was stunned by the ferocity of
his Democratic opponents, and Vice President Francisco Santos publicly
talked about cutting U.S.-Colombian ties.

Uribe got nothing from his meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other
Democratic leaders. Military aid remains stalled, overall assistance is
reduced, and the vital U.S.-Colombian trade bill looks dead. The first
Colombian president to crack down on his country's corrupt army officer
hierarchy, and to assault both right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing
guerrillas, last week confronted Democrats wedded to out-of-date claims of
civil rights abuses and to rigidly protectionist dogma.

This is remarkable U.S. treatment for a rare friend on the South American
continent, where Venezuela's leftist dictator Hugo Chavez can only exult in
Uribe's embarrassment as he builds an anti-American bloc of nations. A
former congressional staffer, who in 1999 helped author Plan Colombia
against narco-guerrillas, told me: "President Uribe may be the odd man out,
and that's no way to treat our best ally in South America."

Uribe has not given up on the Yankees. When he returned to Colombia, he
issued boilerplate about his visit being "very important in opening a
dialogue with American leaders." This week he publicly urged the sluggish
army to "rescue the hostages" held by narco-guerrillas and "go after the
ringleaders," while privately chewing out the generals for inactivity. At
the same time, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, whose Foreign
Service career includes Latin American duty, was in Bogota Tuesday insisting
that the United States remains a great friend of Colombia.

A truer portent of the Colombian reaction to the rebuff in Washington last
week was Vice President Santos's television interview Tuesday. Santos, a
University of Texas graduate and former editor of the influential El Tiempo
newspaper, said failure to ratify the free-trade agreement would "send a
message to the external enemies of the United States" (meaning Venezuela's
Chavez) that "this is how America treats its allies." He added that Colombia
might "have to re-evaluate its relationship with the United States." A U.S.
diplomat called that "a cream pie in the face" of the visiting Negroponte.

Hopes that the Democratic majority in Congress might perceive the importance
of supporting Colombia were dashed April 20 when Al Gore canceled a joint
appearance with Uribe at an environmental event in Miami. Gore cited
allegations of Uribe's association with paramilitary forces a decade ago,
charges denied by the Colombian president.

Gore's snub legitimized what the new congressional majority is intent on
doing anyway. Democrats follow both left-wing human rights lobbyists and
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney's protectionist campaign against the
Colombian free-trade agreement. Rep. Sander Levin, chairman of the Ways and
Means subcommittee on trade, as usual echoes labor's line against the bill.

In the wake of Uribe's visit to Washington, two prominent House Republicans
-- former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, ranking
minority member of the Foreign Affairs Committee -- made a quick trip to
Colombia. Visiting there for the first time in many years, they were struck
by the progress. They met with Colombian national police who had just
returned from Afghanistan, where they advised NATO forces in techniques for
dealing with narco-terrorists.

Democrats in Congress seem oblivious to such help or such progress. Sen.
Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee dealing with
foreign aid, last month held up $55.2 million in military aid to Colombia
because of "human rights" concerns. While Pelosi and her colleagues could
not find a kind word for Uribe, Leahy insisted that he "supports" the
Colombian president. As Lenin once put it, he supports him as a rope
supports a hanged man.

President George W. Bush at least gave lip service to Uribe last week, but
his concentration is on Iraq as the U.S. position in its own backyard
deteriorates. Passivity is the best description of the administration's
posture, while Democrats follow human rights activists, environmentalists
and labor leaders on the road to losing an important ally.

CARTA DE FERNANDO VALLEJO

"A México llegué el 25 de febrero de 1971, vale decir hace 36 años largos, más de la mitad de mi vida, a los que hay que sumarles un año que viví antes en Nueva York. ¿Y por qué no estaba en Colombia durante todo ese tiempo? Porque Colombia me cerró las puertas para que me ganara la vida de una forma decente que no fuera en el gobierno ni en la política a los que desprecio y me puso a dormir en la calle tapándome con periódicos y junto a los desarrapados de la Carrera Séptima y a los perros abandonados, que desde entonces considero mis hermanos. Me fui a Nueva York a tratar de hacer cine, que es lo que había estudiado, y de allá me vine a México y en pocos años conseguí que Conacite 2, una de las tres compañías cinematográficas del Estado mexicano, me financiara mi primera película, Crónica Roja, de tema colombiano. Entonces regresé a Bogotá a tratar de filmarla con el dinero mexicano.

¡Imposible! Ahí estaba el Incomex para impedirme importar el negativo y los equipos; la Dirección de Tránsito para no darme los permisos que necesitaba para filmar en las calles; el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores para no darme las visas de los técnicos que tenía que traer de México; la Policía para no darme su protección durante el rodaje y el permiso de que mis actores usaran uniformes como los suyos y pistolas de utilería pues había policías en mi historia...

Y así, un largo etcétera de cuando menos veinte dependencias burocráticas con que tuve que tratar y que lo más que me dieron fue un tinto después de ponerme a hacer antesalas durante horas.

Entonces resolví filmarla en México reconstruyendo a Colombia. En Jalapa, la capital del Estado de Veracruz, por ejemplo, encontré calles que se parecían a las de los barrios de Belén y de la Candelaria de Bogotá y allí filmé algunas secuencias. Con actores y técnicos mexicanos, con dinero mexicano e infinidad de tropiezos, logré hacer en México mi película colombiana a la que Colombia se oponía, soñando que la iban a ver mis paisanos en los teatros colombianos.

¿Saben entonces qué pasó? Que mi mezquina patria la prohibió aduciendo que era una apología al delito. Una apología al delito que se basaba en hechos reales que en su momento la opinión pública conoció y que salió en todos los periódicos, la del final de los dos hermanos Barragán, unos muchachitos a los que la policía masacró en un barrio del sur de Bogotá.

A cuantas instancias burocráticas apelé, empezando por la Junta de Censura y acabando en el Consejo de Estado, la prohibieron. Nadie en Colombia, ni una sola persona, levantó su voz para protestar por el atropello, que no era sólo a mí sino al sueño de todos los cineastas colombianos, quienes por lo demás, sea dicho de paso, también guardaron silencio.

Como yo soy muy terco volví a repetir el intento con mi segunda película colombiana, En la tormenta, sobre el enfrentamiento criminal entre conservadores y liberales en el campo cuando la época llamada de la Violencia con mayúscula, y con igual resultado: no me la dejaron filmar, la tuve que hacer en México y me la prohibieron, aduciendo que el momento era muy delicado para permitir una película así.

Como yo sólo quería hacer cine colombiano y no mexicano, ni italiano, ni japonés, ni marciano, desistí del intento. En alguno de mis libros, aunque ya no me acuerdo en cuál, conté todo esto pero con más detalle: los camiones de escalera y los pueblitos colombianos que tuve que construir, los platanares y cafetales que tuve que sembrar en las afueras de la Ciudad de México, los ríos quietos como el Papaloapan que tuve que mover para que arrastraran los cadáveres de los asesinados con la ira del río Cauca, la utilería que tuve que mandar a hacer o traer de Colombia a México, como las placas de los carros y las botellas de cerveza... Nunca acabaría de contar esas cosas.

Lo resumo en una sola frase: Colombia, la mala patria que me cupo en suerte, acabó con mis sueños de cineasta.

Entonces me puse a escribir y durante diez años investigué, día tras día tras día, en un país o en otro o en otro, en bibliotecas y hemerotecas de muchos lados, sobre la vida de Barba Jacob, mi paisano, el poeta de Antioquia, que durante tantos años vivió en México y que aquí murió, y acabada mi investigación de diez años en uno más la escribí y me puse a buscar quién la editara.

Se acercaba el año 1983, el del centenario del nacimiento de Barba Jacob, y el Congreso colombiano se interesaba en ello. No creían lo que yo les contaba del poeta ni los años que llevaba siguiéndole sus huellas. Me pidieron que les mandara pruebas y les mandé entonces fotos e infinidad de documentos. Nada de eso me devolvieron, con todo se quedaron y el libro lo pensaban publicar en mimeógrafo. Les contesté que eso no sólo no era digno de Barba Jacob, un gran poeta, sino de ellos mismos, unos aprovechadores públicos que se designaban como el Honorable Congreso de la República. Que se respetaran.

Entonces publiqué mi biografía Barba Jacob el mensajero en México con dinero de amigos mexicanos. Cuantas veces me ha podido atropellar Colombia me ha atropellado. Hace un año me quería meter preso por un artículo que escribí en la revista Soho señalando las contradicciones y las ridiculeces de los Evangelios.

Eso dizque era un agravio a la religión y me demandaron. ¡Agravios a la religión en el país de la impunidad! En que los asesinos y genocidas andan libres por las calles, como es el caso de los paramilitares, con la bendición de su cómplice el sinvergüenza de Álvaro Uribe que han reelegido en la Presidencia.

Desde niño sabía que Colombia era un país asesino, el más asesino de la tierra, encabezando año tras año, imbatible, las estadísticas de la infamia.

Después, por experiencia propia, fui entendiendo que además de asesino era atropellador y mezquino. Y cuando reeligieron a Uribe descubrí que era un país imbécil.

Entonces solicité mi nacionalización en México, que me dieron la semana pasada. Así que quede claro: esa mala patria de Colombia ya no es la mía y no quiero volver a saber de ella.

Lo que me reste de vida lo quiero vivir en México y aquí me pienso morir".

washigton post
Assault on an Ally
Why are Democrats so 'deeply troubled' by Colombia's Álvaro Uribe?

Sunday, May 6, 2007; Page B06

COLOMBIAN President Álvaro Uribe may be the most popular democratic leader in the world. Last week, as he visited Washington, a poll showed his approval rating at 80.4 percent -- extraordinary for a politician who has been in office nearly five years. Colombians can easily explain this: Since his first election in 2002, Mr. Uribe has rescued their country from near-failed-state status, doubling the size of the army and extending the government's control to large areas that for decades were ruled by guerrillas and drug traffickers. The murder rate has dropped by nearly half and kidnappings by 75 percent. For the first time thugs guilty of massacres and other human rights crimes are being brought to justice, and the political system is being purged of their allies. With more secure conditions for investment, the free-market economy is booming.

In a region where populist demagogues are on the offensive, Mr. Uribe stands out as a defender of liberal democracy, not to mention a staunch ally of the United States. So it was remarkable to see the treatment that the Colombian president received in Washington. After a meeting with the Democratic congressional leadership, Mr. Uribe was publicly scolded by House Majority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), whose statement made no mention of the "friendship" she recently offered Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Human Rights Watch, which has joined the Democratic campaign against Mr. Uribe, claimed that "today Colombia presents the worst human rights and humanitarian crisis in the Western hemisphere" -- never mind Venezuela or Cuba or Haiti. Former vice president Al Gore, who has advocated direct U.S. negotiations with the regimes of Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, recently canceled a meeting with Mr. Uribe because, Mr. Gore said, he found the Colombian's record "deeply troubling."

What could explain this backlash? Democrats claim to be concerned -- far more so than Colombians, apparently -- with "revelations" that the influence of right-wing paramilitary groups extended deep into the military and Congress. In fact this has been well-known for years; what's new is that investigations by Colombia's Supreme Court and attorney general have resulted in the jailing and prosecution of politicians and security officials. Many of those implicated come from Mr. Uribe's Conservative Party, and his former intelligence chief is under investigation. But the president himself has not been charged with wrongdoing. On the contrary: His initiative to demobilize 30,000 right-wing paramilitary fighters last year paved the way for the current investigations, which he and his government have supported and funded.

In fact, most of those who attack Mr. Uribe for the "parapolitics" affair have opposed him all along, and for very different reasons. Some, like Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), reflexively resist U.S. military aid to Latin America. Colombia has received more than $5 billion in economic and military aid from the Clinton and Bush administrations to fight drug traffickers and the guerrillas, and it hopes to receive $3.9 billion more in the next six years. Some, like Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.), are eager to torpedo Colombia's pending free-trade agreement with the United States. Now that the Bush administration has conceded almost everything that House Democrats asked for in order to pass pending trade deals, protectionist hard-liners have seized on the supposed human rights "crisis" as a pretext to blackball Colombia.

Perhaps Mr. Uribe is being punished by Democrats, too, because he has remained an ally of George W. Bush even as his neighbor, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, portrays the U.S. president as "the devil." Whatever the reasons, the Democratic campaign is badly misguided. If the Democrats succeed in wounding Mr. Uribe or thwarting his attempt to consolidate a democracy that builds its economy through free trade, the United States may have to live without any Latin American allies.