Deal With Colombia
A trade pact that can stand on its own merits

Friday, November 9, 2007; A20


COLOMBIA IS plagued by drug trafficking, guerrilla war and common crime. But violent as it is, Colombia is much less dangerous than it was five years ago. Since President ¿lvaro Uribe's first election in 2002, the murder rate has dropped by half, and kidnappings are down 75 percent. For the first time, some of those guilty of massacres have been brought to justice, and, though controversial, the Uribe government's demobilization policy has put some right-wing paramilitary leaders in jail and thousands of their foot soldiers out of action. Left-wing guerrillas are increasingly marginal.

This progress, fragile and incomplete as it may be, is attributable not only to Mr. Uribe but also to a bipartisan U.S. policy, begun under President Bill Clinton and continued under the Bush administration, of economic and military aid for Colombia. The question now is whether Colombia deserves congressional approval of a trade promotion agreement (TPA). The administration says yes. Colombia's exports already enjoy preferential access to the U.S. market under periodically renewable trade preferences. The TPA would expand them and make them permanent -- while U.S. producers would gain duty-free access to Colombia's market for the first time. But congressional Democrats say no, citing Bogota's alleged failure to stem the murders of trade unionists, which have made the country, in the words of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, "the most perilous place in the world for union activity."

The issue dramatically links human rights concerns with concerns about globalization's impact on workers. But is it really a good argument against this agreement? Among the tens of thousands of people killed in Colombia since 1991, 2,245 were labor union members, according to the country's National Labor College, known by its Spanish initials, ENS. (Of these victims, about 500 were union "leaders.") This sounds like a lot of people -- and it is, in the sense that even one murder is too many. Lately, though, labor union members have been less likely to be murdered than other Colombians. In 2006, union members made up 4.8 percent of the labor force, or just under 2 percent of the total population, of 43.5 million, according to ENS. Yet of the 17,206 murder victims in Colombia that year, only 70 -- or 0.4 percent -- were union members. There have been 26 killings of unionists in 2007.

To the extent any perpetrator can be identified, right-wing paramilitary units appear to be the most culpable -- but the murders are not always connected to the victims' political or union activism. On June 6, for example, a group of armed men killed the son of Hernando Melan Cardona, leader of a textile workers union. At the time, Mr. Melan's union was involved in contract talks, and nongovernmental organizations around the world suggested that the murder might be related to the bargaining. Subsequent investigations have shown that it was not, according to human rights activists.

Mr. Uribe has offered protection for unionists and set up a special prosecution team to try those accused of killing them. His critics argue that he shouldn't get the TPA until his prosecutors win some convictions. The issue of "impunity" for such killings is real, but Mr. Uribe's critics are rarely specific about how many past cases must be cleared before they'll drop their objections.

Ratification of the trade promotion agreement would help consolidate Colombia's progress by bringing jobs and income to its people. To make them wait indefinitely while Colombian authorities go through cold-case files would be to substitute some Americans' priorities for those of the Colombian voters who reelected Mr. Uribe last year with over 60 percent of the vote. The United States should not write Mr. Uribe a blank check, but the appropriate means of pressuring him already exist in human rights conditions Congress has attached to Colombia's military aid packages. It's time for Democrats to drop their strained human rights objections to the Colombia trade promotion agreement and deal with it on its merits.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/08/AR2007110802095_pf.html

Candidate Watch
Obama Misleads on Colombia
Posted on October 17, 2008 at 3:06 PM ET | Category: 2 Pinocchios, Barack Obama, Candidate Watch, Other Foreign Policy
Washington Post

Presidential debate, Hofstra University, October 15, 2008.

"The history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis and there have not been prosecutions."
--Barack Obama, Hofstra presidential debate, October 15, 2008.

In between all the controversy over "Joe the Plumber," a foreign policy issue sidled its way into the final presidential debate earlier this week: should the United States conclude a free trade agreement with Colombia? John McCain calls the trade agreement "a no-brainer." Barack Obama opposes such an agreement, at least for now, on the grounds that the Colombian government has done little to stop the "targeted assassinations" of hundreds of Colombian trade unionists.
The Facts

Over the last two decades, Colombia has been one of the most violent countries on Earth. Trade Union activists have been frequent targets. According to Human Rights Watch, there have been more than 2,600 murders of trade union activists in Colombia since 1991, including many by right-wing paramilitary groups. Since President Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002, the violence has been coming down, as the security situation in the country improves. The question is: has it come down enough?

According to data provided by the Colombian government, assassinations of trade union members declined from 205 in 2001 to 26 in 2007, significantly outpacing the overall fall in the murder rate. The government attributes the decline in part to a state-run protection program that now covers around 2,000 senior union leaders and the creation of a special sub-unit in the Attorney General's office to investigate killings of labor activists.

Colombia's critics concede that the murder rate of Colombian trade unionists has dropped since Uribe took office. According to USLEAP, a labor rights group that has tracked the situation closely, murders of Colombian trade unionists declined from 186 in 2002 to 39 last year. At the same time, convictions rose from 3 in 2002 to 26 in 2007. (The Colombian government claims 38 successful convictions in cases involving murdered trade unionists in 2007, up from only one in the entire decade from 1991 to 2001.)

Maria McFarland, principal specialist in Colombia at Human Rights Watch, linked the declining violence against trade unionists to pressure from the Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress on withholding free trade benefits from Colombia, which pushed the Colombian government into forming the special sub-unit. "Without substantial pressure on the government, this would all fall apart tomorrow," she told me, in a telephone interview from Bogota.

While some of the murders were the work of common criminals, McFarland said that most had been carried out by right-wing paramilitary groups, linked in some cases to members of Uribe's ruling party. After a sharp decline in 2007, the murder rate increased during the first half of this year, to around 40 for the period January-July.

The debate over anti-trade union violence in Colombia has become intertwined with a larger debate on whether to approve the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, concluded by the Bush administration in February 2006. Advocates of the agreement, including the Wall Street Journal editorial page, have played down the problem of political violence in Colombia. Opponents have made the assassinations the central plank in their campaign to persuade Congress to delay ratification.


The Pinocchio Test

Obama was correct in noting that Colombian labor leaders have been "targeted for assassination," but he failed to note that the murder rate has dropped significantly over the last few years. While the vast majority of the murders have gone uninvestigated, it is untrue to say that "there have not been prosecutions." The prosecution rate may still be unacceptably low, but it has risen over the last two years, thanks in part to measures taken by the Uribe government under pressure from the United States.

(About our rating scale.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/10/obama_misleads_on_colombia.html

Operación Jaque

TRIBUNA: MARIO VARGAS LLOSA
El Pais
13 de julio de 2008

La liberación de Ingrid Betancourt, junto con tres norteamericanos y once militares colombianos que llevaban muchos años como rehenes de las FARC, ha sido una hazaña de corte cinematográfico -la destreza, audacia y perfección del rescate hacía pensar en las proezas de Jack Bauer, el héroe de «24»- por la que hay que felicitar, antes que a nadie, al presidente Alvaro Uribe, luego a su ministro de Defensa Juan Manuel Santos y a los anónimos oficiales de inteligencia de las Fuerzas Armadas de Colombia que la diseñaron y ejecutaron.
Esto parece obvio pero no lo es, pues cualquiera que haya ojeado la prensa y escuchado a los medios aquí en Europa en la última semana, diría que el verdadero héroe de la operación ha sido el presidente francés Nicolás Sarkozy quien, sin haber intervenido para nada en la Operación Jaque -así fue bautizado el salvamento-, salvo para obstruirla y demorarla, es quien hasta ahora le ha sacado mayor provecho publicitario. Pero, ya sabemos, la política y los políticos son así.
El rescate no sólo pone fin a los indescriptibles padecimientos a que fueron sometidos a lo largo de muchos años Ingrid Betancourt y sus compañeros de cautiverio en manos de la organización narcoterrorista en que se han convertido las FARC. Además, pone en evidencia la naturaleza criminal y sádica de esta guerrilla para la que hasta apenas ayer el presidente Chávez de Venezuela, con amplios apoyos en América Latina y en Europa, pedía la legitimación política internacional y que fuera borrada de la lista de partidos, movimientos y grupúsculos terroristas en que aparece, en lugar prominente, en la Unión Europea, los Estados Unidos y la comunidad de países democráticos. Después de haber escuchado el testimonio de la propia Ingrid Betancourt sobre las condiciones en que transcurrió su cautiverio y la conducta y actitudes de sus verdugos, esperemos que nadie -nadie que no sea imbécil o cómplice, se entiende- pretenda todavía presentar a las FARC como un romántico movimiento de idealistas que ha tomado las armas para luchar por la justicia y la igualdad de los colombianos.
Pero la conclusión política más importante que se desprende de la Operación Jaque es la lucidez de visión y el coraje de ese gran estadista latinoamericano que es Alvaro Uribe, el primer gobernante colombiano que, enfrentándose para ello no sólo a sus naturales enemigos -la guerrilla terrorista, el extremismo antidemocrático, los comunistas, Cuba, la Venezuela de Chávez y la internacional de tontos útiles al servicio de la revolución para América Latina- sino, también, a los gobiernos y partidos democráticos de buena parte del mundo que lo demonizaron y acosaron sin descanso todos estos años, ha demostrado en los últimos meses que las FARC no eran invencibles, ni siquiera populares, y que podían ser militarmente derrotadas, con el beneplácito y la resuelta colaboración del pueblo colombiano. No es de extrañar que Uribe, cuya discreción y casi mudez luego del rescate han sido casi totales, a diferencia del aprovechamiento frenético que ha hecho de él, el mandatario francés, goce ahora de un 90% de popularidad, seguramente el más alto porcentaje de respaldo a un gobernante democrático en el mundo entero.
En las decenas de artículos y comentarios que he visto, leído u oído en la prensa a lo largo de la semana referidos a la liberación de Ingrid Betancourt no he visto uno solo que recuerde la insolencia y la insistencia con que el gobierno francés exigió al mandatario colombiano que evitara las acciones militares contra las FARC, y que diera muestras de apaciguamiento y buena voluntad contra la pandilla de asesinos, torturadores, secuestradores y narcotraficantes que anida bajo esas siglas, incluso liberando a uno de sus jerarcas, y las simpatías que mereció en la comunidad internacional la intromisión del presidente Chávez, de Venezuela, y sus afirmaciones de que sólo él era capaz de conseguir la liberación de los rehenes en manos de las FARC (sus amigos y cómplices, como demostraron los ordenadores capturados en el campamento de Raúl Reyes).
Nadie se acuerda ya, por lo visto, que el Parlamento Europeo perpetró la ignominia, hace muy pocos años, de recibir al presidente Uribe con un bosque de carteles de vituperios en manos de diputados socialistas, comunistas y hasta algunos liberales, como a un enemigo de los derechos humanos, y que Al Gore, cuando era vice-presidente de Estados Unidos, se negó a reunirse con él, alegando la misma razón. América Latina ha servido siempre a politicastros europeos y norteamericanos, y buen número de intelectuales, supuestamente demócratas, para darse un disfraz progre y una buena conciencia revolucionaria sin riesgo alguno. Es verdad que la capacidad del extremismo antidemocrático de izquierda para desacreditar y satanizar a sus adversarios es casi infinito, y, por ello, buen número de gobernantes y políticos latinoamericanos, temerosos de ser víctimas de esas campañas de desprestigio montados por la extrema izquierda, ceden y se dejan manipular y paralizar por unas supuestas fuerzas populares que, a menudo, como las FARC, resultan ser, a la postre, unos gigantes con pies de barro.
El presidente Alvaro Uribe no pertenece a esa clase de políticos acomodaticios, pusilánimes y sin principios que tanto abundan en América Latina. Desde que asumió el gobierno dejó muy en claro que, en nombre de la legalidad y de la democracia, se enfrentaría a la guerrilla terrorista con resolución, a la vez que dejándole siempre una puerta abierta para negociar su rendición. Las fantásticas campañas lanzadas contra él en Colombia y en el exterior, y los atentados contra su vida, no lo hicieron cambiar un milímetro en esta línea de conducta que, muy pronto, fueron haciendo suyos sectores cada vez más amplios de la sociedad colombiana, a medida que, como resultado de aquella política, el Estado recuperaba las carreteras y regiones enteras del país, y un sentimiento de esperanza echaba raíces en la población. La Operación Jaque es la culminación de aquel progreso en la lucha contra la barbarie y el terror y un ejemplo de lo que debe ser la conducta de un gobernante democrático frente a quienes han desatado una guerra a muerte contra la democracia y la libertad.
La lucha de Uribe contra el terror se ha llevado a cabo sin menoscabar en lo más mínimo la libertad de prensa, la independencia del poder judicial, la oposición parlamentaria y extra parlamentaria, y haciendo al mismo tiempo un esfuerzo continuo para desarmar a las fuerzas paramilitares y combatir la corrupción, muy extendida por desgracia en el aparato político y estatal y aún en su propio entorno. Aunque ha habido errores y fallos, también en estos campos el progreso ha sido considerable, como lo comprueba cualquiera que vaya a Colombia y viaje por el país y hable con la gente, y lo haga con el espíritu abierto y sin prejuicios. Yo lo he hecho, varias veces en estos años, y cada vez tuve la impresión de que había un avance considerable y que no sólo la esperanza, también las instituciones y la economía mejoraban y las FARC retrocedían. Por eso me parecía una injusticia atroz que el gobernante democrático que con más talento y valentía defendía la libertad en América Latina tuviera en la escena internacional menos consideración y respeto que demagogos pintorescos y ruinosos para sus países como Evo Morales o Hugo Chávez.
¿Cambiarán ahora las cosas? Confiemos en que, por lo menos, algunos ingenuos abran los ojos y entiendan de veras lo que pasa en Colombia. Que la liberación de Ingrid Betancourt y sus catorce compañeros de martirio no fue una casualidad ni un milagro, sino consecuencia de una política inteligente, audaz y firme en defensa de la libertad. La única que corresponde a un gobierno democrático que no quiere suicidarse y entregar a su país al absolutismo y al terror.
¿Qué ocurrirá ahora? Si quisiera reelegirse por tercera vez, Uribe lo conseguiría con absoluta facilidad. Esperemos que no lo haga y que se retire al término de su mandato, para que no se diga de él que la codicia de poder enturbió la formidable tarea que ha realizado. Ahora ya sabe que sí hay en Colombia quien puede reemplazarlo con éxito en la política que ha llevado a cabo. Juan Manuel Santos, su ministro de Defensa, ha sido, en todo este tiempo, un colaborador, leal y tan firme como él en el objetivo por alcanzar, que es la pacificación de Colombia y el fortalecimiento de su democracia. Ambos están ahora más cerca que nunca en las últimas décadas.

Madrid, Julio de 2008

Mario Vargas Llosa
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/opinion/Operacion/Jaque/elpepiopi/20080713elpepiopi_10/Tes

Drop Dead, Colombia
Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocks a trade deal with America's closest South American ally.

Thursday, April 10, 2008; Page A22

THE YEAR 2008 may enter history as the time when the Democratic Party lost its way on trade. Already, the party's presidential candidates have engaged in an unseemly contest to adopt the most protectionist posture, suggesting that, if elected, they might pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared her intention to change the procedural rules governing the proposed trade promotion agreement with Colombia. President Bush submitted the pact to Congress on Tuesday for a vote within the next 90 legislative days, as required by the "fast-track" authority under which the U.S. negotiated the deal with Colombia. Ms. Pelosi says she'll ask the House to undo that rule.

The likely result is no vote on the agreement this year. Ms. Pelosi denies that her intent is to kill the bill, insisting yesterday that Congress simply needs more time to consider it "in light of the economic uncertainty in our country." She claimed that she feared that, "if brought to the floor immediately, [the pact] would lose. And what message would that send?" But Ms. Pelosi's decision-making process also included a fair component of pure Washington pique: She accused Mr. Bush of "usurp[ing] the discretion of the speaker of the House" to schedule legislation.

That political turf-staking, and the Democrats' decreasingly credible claims of a death-squad campaign against Colombia's trade unionists, constitutes all that's left of the case against the agreement. Economically, it should be a no-brainer -- especially at a time of rising U.S. joblessness. At the moment, Colombian exports to the United States already enjoy preferences. The trade agreement would make those permanent, but it would also give U.S. firms free access to Colombia for the first time, thus creating U.S. jobs. Politically, too, the agreement is in the American interest, as a reward to a friendly, democratic government that has made tremendous strides on human rights, despite harassment from Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.
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To be sure, President Bush provoked Ms. Pelosi. But he forced the issue only after months of inconclusive dickering convinced him that Democrats were determined to avoid a vote that would force them to accept accountability for opposing an agreement that is manifestly in America's interest. It turns out his suspicions were correct.

"I take this action with deep respect to the people of Colombia and will be sure that any message they receive is one of respect for their country, and the importance of the friendship between our two countries," Ms. Pelosi protested yesterday. Perhaps Colombia's government and people will understand. We don't.

The war behind the insults

Latin America
Mar 6th 2008
From The Economist print edition

The real enemy is the FARC guerrilla group and its Venezuelan supporter, not Colombia

THIS week it has seemed to the casual eye as if northern South America were on the brink of war. It began when Colombian forces bombed a camp just inside Ecuador, killing 21 FARC guerrillas including Raúl Reyes, a top commander. Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, chose to treat this as a casus belli. He broke off diplomatic relations and ordered troops to the border, warning Álvaro Uribe, Colombia's president, not to try anything similar against Venezuela. Ecuador's Rafael Correa, cautious at first, felt obliged to mimic his fellow leftist, breaking ties and moving troops up to his border.

So far the three leaders have fired nothing deadlier than epithets (“genocidal”, “liar” and “lackey” were the small arms of this verbal battle). Yet this is the most serious diplomatic conflict in South America for more than a decade. Political brinkmanship could easily tip over into shooting.

Its root cause is the FARC, a guerrilla army founded in the 1960s whose anachronistic Marxist language conceals its degeneration into a predatory mafia of kidnappers and drug traffickers. In the 1990s it came close to making Colombia ungovernable. Then three years of talks—during which the FARC kidnapped many of the hostages who now constitute its main weapon—showed that it had no interest in peace or democracy. Colombia's elected leaders turned to the United States for military aid to match the cash that American drug consumers were giving the FARC and other mafia armies.

Thanks to this aid and its own defence build-up, Mr Uribe's government has reduced the FARC, driving it deep into Colombia's jungles. But as long as the FARC's seven-man leadership remained at large, several of them apparently in camps across the borders, the guerrillas could claim to be winning—and so they have rejected genuine peace talks. That was why Mr Uribe authorised the bombing raid that killed Mr Reyes.

Was he right to do so? One objection is that Mr Reyes was involved in talks to free FARC hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, a Colombian who also holds French nationality. But weakening the FARC is more likely to free more captives (including Ms Betancourt). A second complaint is weightier: Colombia should have sought Mr Correa's consent before acting. But would the Ecuadoreans have tipped off the FARC? Colombia claims to have recovered Mr Reyes's laptops and says their contents point to connivance (see article).

The Organisation of American States criticised Colombia, but did not condemn it outright as Ecuador wanted. Certainly Colombia should make a full apology. But in return it deserves greater co-operation from its neighbours. In a democratic South America there is no place for the FARC. But Mr Uribe has been better at security policy than at diplomacy. If some governments mistakenly see him merely as George Bush's proxy in their backyard, that is mainly because Colombia has failed to win wider sympathy for its beleaguered democracy.

Danger: one imploding Venezuelan
The biggest threat in the region is not Colombia but Venezuela. Mr Chávez has recently veered towards outright support for the FARC. Colombia alleges that the captured laptops show that he gave the guerrillas $300m (and also that the FARC is seeking uranium for a “dirty” bomb). Mr Chávez's mismanagement of Venezuela's oil boom has made him increasingly unpopular at home. His regime runs a risk of imploding. A cornered Mr Chávez might think of a border skirmish as the perfect distraction—and as justification for more repression at home. Even as they scold Mr Uribe, Brazil and other South American countries should warn Venezuela that it is destabilising the continent—and it is high time it stopped.
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10808543

Revealed: Chávez role in cocaine trail to Europe
Sunday February 3, 2008
The Observer

The guerrilla group Farc has long been suspected of running the Colombian cocaine industry. But how does it move the drug so readily out of the country? In a special investigation, John Carlin in Venezuela reports on the remarkable collusion between Colombia's rebels and its neighbour's armed forces.

Some fighters desert from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) because they feel betrayed by the leadership, demoralised by a sense that the socialist ideals that first informed the guerrilla group have been replaced by the savage capitalism of drug trafficking. Others leave to be with their families. Still others leave because they begin to think that, if they do not, they will die. Such is the case of Rafael, who deserted last September after 18 months operating in a Farc base inside Venezuela, with which Colombia shares a long border.

The logic of Rafael's decision seems, at first, perverse. He is back in Colombia today where, as a guerrilla deserter, he will live for the rest of his days under permanent threat of assassination by his former comrades. Venezuela, on the other hand, ought to have been a safe place to be a Farc guerrilla. President Hugo Chávez has publicly given Farc his political support and the Colombian army seems unlikely to succumb to the temptation to cross the border in violation of international law.
'All this is true,' says Rafael. 'The Colombian army doesn't cross the border and the guerrillas have a non-aggression pact with the Venezuelan military. The Venezuelan government lets Farc operate freely because they share the same left-wing, Bolivarian ideals, and because Farc bribes their people.'
Then what did he run away from? 'From a greater risk than the one I run now: from the daily battles with other guerrilla groups to see who controls the cocaine-trafficking routes. There is a lot of money at stake in control of the border where the drugs come in from Colombia. The safest route to transport cocaine to Europe is via Venezuela.'
Rafael is one of 2,400 guerrillas who deserted Farc last year. He is one of four I spoke to, all of whom had grown despondent about a purportedly left-wing revolutionary movement whose power and influence rests less on its political legitimacy and more on the benefits of having become the world's biggest kidnapping organisation and the world's leading traffickers in cocaine.
Farc has come a long way from its leftist revolutionary roots and is now commonly referred to in Colombia and elsewhere as 'narco-guerrillas'. Pushed out to the border areas, it has been rendered increasingly irrelevant politically and militarily due to the combined efforts of Colombia's centre-right President, Alvaro Uribe, and his principal backers, the United States, whose Plan Colombia, devised under the presidency of Bill Clinton, has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the Colombian military and police. A large part of Plan Colombia is designed to eradicate the vast coca plantations cultivated and maintained by Farc and other Colombian groups.
However, the impact on Farc has been ambiguous: its chances of launching a left-wing insurrection in the manner of Nicaragua's Sandinistas in 1979 are nil, but then they probably always were; yet it looks capable of surviving indefinitely as an armed force as a result of the income from its kidnapping, extortion and cocaine interests.
Helping it to survive, and prosper, is its friend and neighbour Hugo Chávez. The Venezuelan President sought to extract some international credit from the role he played as mediator in the release last month in Venezuelan territory of two kidnapped women, friends of Ingrid Betancourt, a French citizen and former Colombian presidential candidate held by Farc for six years. But Chávez has not denounced Farc for holding Betancourt and 43 other 'political' hostages.
I spoke at length to Rafael (not his real name) and three other Farc deserters about the links between the guerrilla group and Chávez's Venezuela, in particular their co-operation in the drug business. All four have handed themselves in to the Colombian government in recent months under an official programme to help former guerrillas adapt back to civilian life.
I also spoke to high-level security, intelligence and diplomatic sources from five countries, some of them face to face in Colombia and London, some of them by phone. All of them insisted on speaking off the record, either for political or safety reasons, both of which converge in Farc, the oldest functioning guerrilla organisation in the world and one that is richer, more numerous and better armed than any other single Colombian drug cartel and is classified as 'terrorist' by the European Union and the US.
All the sources I reached agreed that powerful elements within the Venezuelan state apparatus have forged a strong working relationship with Farc. They told me that Farc and Venezuelan state officials operated actively together on the ground, where military and drug-trafficking activities coincide. But the relationship becomes more passive, they said, less actively involved, the higher up the Venezuelan government you go. No source I spoke to accused Chávez himself of having a direct role in Colombia's giant drug-trafficking business. Yet the same people I interviewed struggled to believe that Chávez was not aware of the collusion between his armed forces and the leadership of Farc, as they also found it difficult to imagine that he has no knowledge of the degree to which Farc is involved in the cocaine trade.
I made various attempts to extract an official response to these allegations from the Venezuelan government. In the end Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro made a public pronouncement in Uruguay in which he said, without addressing the substance of the allegations, that they were part of a 'racist' and 'colonialist' campaign against Venezuela by the centre-left Spanish newspaper El País, where I originally wrote about Farc and the Venezuelan connection.
What no one disputes, however, is that Chávez is a political ally of Farc (last month he called on the EU and US to stop labelling its members 'terrorists') or that for many years Farc has used Venezuelan territory as a refuge. A less uncontroversial claim, made by all the sources to whom I spoke (the four disaffected guerrillas included), is that if it were not for cocaine, the fuel that feeds the Colombian war, Farc would long ago have disbanded.
The varied testimonies I have heard reveal that the co-operation between Venezuela and the guerrillas in transporting cocaine by land, air and sea is both extensive and systematic. Venezuela is also supplying arms to the guerrillas, offering them the protection of their armed forces in the field, and providing them with legal immunity de facto as they go about their giant illegal business.
Thirty per cent of the 600 tons of cocaine smuggled from Colombia each year goes through Venezuela. Most of that 30 per cent ends up in Europe, with Spain and Portugal being the principal ports of entry. The drug's value on European streets is some £7.5bn a year.
The infrastructure that Venezuela provides for the cocaine business has expanded dramatically over the past five years of Chávez's presidency, according to intelligence sources. Chávez's decision to expel the US Drug Enforcement Administration from his country in 2005 was celebrated both by Farc and drug lords in the conventional cartels with whom they sometimes work. According to Luis Hernando Gómez Bustamante, a Colombian kingpin caught by the police last February, 'Venezuela is the temple of drug trafficking.'
A European diplomat with many years of experience in Latin America echoed this view. 'The so-called anti-imperialist, socialist and Bolivarian nation that Chávez says he wants to create is en route to becoming a narco-state in the same way that Farc members have turned themselves into narco-guerrillas. Perhaps Chávez does not realise it but, unchecked, this phenomenon will corrode Venezuela like a cancer.'
The deserters I interviewed said that not only did the Venezuelan authorities provide armed protection to at least four permanent guerrilla camps inside their country, they turned a blind eye to bomb-making factories and bomber training programmes going on inside Farc camps. Rafael - tall and lithe, with the sculptured facial features of the classic Latin American 'guerrillero' - said he was trained in Venezuela to participate in a series of bomb attacks in Bogotá, Colombia's capital.
Co-operation between the Colombian guerrillas and the Venezuelan government extended, Rafael said, to the sale of arms by Chávez's military to Farc; to the supply of Venezuelan ID cards to regular guerrilla fighters and of Venezuelan passports to the guerrilla leaders so they were able to travel to Cuba and Europe; and also to a reciprocal understanding whereby Farc gave military training to the Bolivarian Forces of Liberation, a peculiar paramilitary group created by the Chávez government purportedly for the purpose of defending the motherland in case of American invasion.
Chávez's contacts with Farc are conducted via one of the members of the organisation's leadership, Iván Márquez, who also has a farm in Venezuela and who communicates with the President via senior officials of the Venezuelan intelligence service. As a Farc deserter who had filled a senior position in the propaganda department said: 'Farc shares three basic Bolivarian principles with Chávez: Latin American unity; the anti-imperialist struggle; and national sovereignty. These ideological positions lead them to converge on the tactical terrain.'
The tactical benefits of this Bolivarian (after the 19th-century Latin American liberator, Simón Bolívar) solidarity reach their maximum expression in the multinational cocaine industry. Different methods exist to transport the drug from Colombia to Europe, but what they all have in common is the participation, by omission or commission, of the Venezuelan authorities.
The most direct route is the aerial one. Small planes take off from remote jungle strips in Colombia and land in Venezuelan airfields. Then there are two options, according to intelligence sources. Either the same light planes continue on to Haiti or the Dominican Republic (the US government says that since 2006 its radar network has detected an increase from three to 15 in the number of 'suspicious flights' a week out of Venezuela); or the cocaine is loaded on to large planes that fly directly to countries in West Africa such as Guinea-Bissau or Ghana, from where it continues by sea to Portugal or the north-western Spanish province of Galicia, the entry points to the EU Schengen zone.
A less cumbersome traditional method for getting the drugs to Europe in small quantities is via passengers on international commercial flights - 'mules', as they call them in Colombia. One of the guerrilla deserters I spoke to, Marcelo, said he had taken part in 'eight or nine' missions of this type over 12 months. 'Operating inside Venezuela is the easiest thing in the world,' he said. 'Farc guerrillas are in there completely and the National Guard, the army and other Venezuelans in official positions offer them their services, in exchange for money. There are never shoot-outs between Farc and the guardia or army.'
Rafael said he took part in operations on a bigger scale, their final objective being to transport the cocaine by sea from Venezuelan ports on the Caribbean Sea. His rank in Farc was higher than Marcelo's and he had access to more confidential information. 'You receive the merchandise on the border, brought in by lorry,' he said. 'When the vehicle arrives the National Guard is waiting, already alerted to the fact that it was on its way. They have already been paid a bribe up front, so that the lorry can cross into Venezuela without problems.
'Sometimes they provide us with an escort for the next phase, which involves me and other comrades getting on to the lorry, or into a car that will drive along with it. We then make the 16-hour trip to Puerto Cabello, which is on the coast, west of Caracas. There the lorry is driven into a big warehouse controlled jointly by Venezuelan locals and by Farc, which is in charge of security. Members of the Venezuelan navy take care of customs matters and the safe departure of the vessels. They are alive to all that is going on and they facilitate everything Farc does.'
Rafael described a similar routine with drug operations involving the port of Maracaibo which, according to police sources, is 'a kind of paradise' for drug traffickers. Among whom - until last week when he was gunned down by a rival cartel in a Venezuelan town near the Colombian border - was one of the 'capos' most wanted internationally, a Colombian called Wilber Varela, but better known as 'Jabón', which means 'soap'. 'Varela and others like him set themselves up in stunning homes and buy bankrupt businesses and large tracts of land, converting themselves almost overnight into personages of great value to the local economy,' a police source said. 'Venezuela offers a perfect life insurance scheme for these criminals.'
This 'tactical' convergence between the Venezuelan armed forces and Farc extends to the military terrain. To the point that, according to one especially high-placed intelligence source I spoke to, the National Guard has control posts placed around the guerrilla camps. What for? 'To give them protection, which tells us that knowledge of the tight links between the soldiers on the ground and Farc reaches up to the highest decision-making levels of the Venezuelan military.'
Rafael told how he had travelled once by car with Captain Pedro Mendoza of the National Guard to a military base outside Caracas called Fuerte Tiuna. He entered with the captain, who handed him eight rifles. They then returned to the border with the rifles in the boot of the car.
Rafael said that members of the National Guard also supplied Farc with hand grenades, grenade-launchers and explosive material for bombs made out of a petrol-based substance called C-4.
An intelligence source confirmed that these small movements of arms occurred on a large scale. 'What we see is the drugs going from Colombia to Venezuela and the arms from Venezuela to Colombia. The arms move in a small but constant flow: 5,000 bullets, six rifles. It's very hard to detect because there are lots of small networks, very well co-ordinated, all of them by specialists in Farc.'
Rafael worked directly with these specialists, both in the arms and the drugs business, until he decided the time had come to change his life. 'In June and July I had received courses in making bombs alongside elements of Chávez's militias, the FBL. We learnt, there in a camp in Venezuela, how to put together different types of landmines and how to make bombs. They also taught us how to detonate bombs in a controlled fashion using mobile phones.'
They were training him, he said, for a mission in Bogotá. 'They gave us photos of our targets. We were going to work alongside two Farc groups based in the capital. The plan was to set off bombs, but as the date dawned I began to reflect that I could not continue this way. First, because of the danger from the military engagements we had with the ELN [another formerly left-wing guerrilla group] on the border over control of the drug routes and, second, because it now seemed to me there was a very real risk of getting caught and I believed I had already spent enough years in jail for the Farc cause. It was also highly possible that the security forces in Bogotá would kill me. That was why at the end of August I ran away and in September I handed myself in.'
A European diplomat who is well informed on the drug-trafficking business generally, and who is familiar with Rafael's allegations, made a comparison between the activities of Farc in Venezuela and hypothetically similar activities involving Eta in Spain.
'Imagine if Eta had a bomb-making school in Portugal inside camps protected by the Portuguese police, and that they planned to set off these bombs in Madrid; imagine that the Portuguese authorities furnished Eta with weapons in exchange for money obtained from the sales of drugs, in which the Portuguese authorities were also involved up to their necks: it would be a scandal of enormous proportions. Well, that, on a very big scale, is what the Venezuelan government is allowing to happen right now.'
'The truth,' one senior police source said, 'is that if Venezuela were to make a minimal effort to collaborate with the international community the difference it would make would be huge. We could easily capture two tons of cocaine a month more if they were just to turn up their police work one notch. They don't do it because the place is so corrupt but also, and this is the core reason, because of this "anti-imperialist" stand they take. "If this screws the imperialists," they think, "then how can we possibly help them?" The key to it all is a question of political will. And they don't have any.'
A similar logic applies, according to the highest-placed intelligence source I interviewed, regarding Farc's other speciality, kidnappings. 'If Hugo Chávez wanted it, he could force Farc to free Ingrid Betancourt tomorrow morning. He tells Farc: "You hand her over or it's game over in Venezuela for you." The dependence of Farc on the Venezuelans is so enormous that they could not afford to say no.'
A nation at war
· Colombia, the centre of the world's cocaine trade, has endured civil war for decades between left-wing rebels with roots in the peasant majority and right-wing paramilitaries with links to Spanish colonial landowners.
· Manuel 'Sureshot' Marulanda named his guerrilla band the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in 1966.
· Farc is thought to have about 800 hostages. The most high-profile is Ingrid Betancourt, 45, held since 2002.
· Every Farc member takes a vow to fight for 'social justice' in Colombia.
· About a third of Farc guerrillas are thought to be women.
· Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez is pushing for 'Bolivarian socialism', while Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is a free-market conservative.

Legitimidad a cambio de rehenes maltratados
TRIBUNA: JOAQUÍN VILLALOBOS
16/01/2008

Cuando comencé a conocer el conflicto colombiano me costó creer que los jefes de las FARC viajaban en vehículos con aire acondicionado y que sus campamentos tenían muchas comodidades; igual me sorprendió el evidente sobrepeso de algunos de sus comandantes. La guerra civil salvadoreña se explicaba por el exceso de poder del Estado, contrariamente, el conflicto colombiano se explica esencialmente por la debilidad del Estado en el control de su propio territorio. Colombia tiene lugares donde no hubo gobierno durante más de 40 años. Este vacío lo llenaron paramilitares, guerrilleros, narcotraficantes y bandidos que se convertían automáticamente en autoridad, bajo la indiferencia o anuencia de los gobiernos.

Los guerrilleros salvadoreños disputamos en combate cada metro cuadrado de nuestro pequeño país a gobiernos autoritarios sostenidos militarmente por los Estados Unidos. En Colombia, por el contrario, las FARC han sido una guerrilla sedentaria, que sin combatir mucho controló extensos territorios en los que no había gobierno. Por ello llevan 43 años en el monte y algunos de sus jefes han muerto de viejos. Sin embargo, en la misma Colombia, el Movimiento 19 de Abril (M-19) fue la primera guerrilla latinoamericana que, a costa de muchos muertos, negoció reformas políticas democráticas. Ahora el M-19, como parte del Polo Democrático, es la segunda fuerza del país. Es decir, que en Colombia la izquierda podría ganar las próximas elecciones, como ya ocurrió en Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brasil, Perú, Panamá, República Dominicana, Venezuela, Guatemala y Nicaragua.

Hay quienes continúan viendo a Latinoamérica como repúblicas bananeras en las que la violencia política es legítima. El mapa, los tiempos y el dinero de la cocaína coinciden con el crecimiento de la violencia de las FARC en los 90. Antes de eso eran una insurgencia perezosa, y por lo tanto poco relevante. En 1990, al morir su líder político Jacobo Arenas, las FARC se quedaron sin contención ideológica frente a los cultivos de coca que proliferaban en sus territorios. Comenzaron extorsionando narcotraficantes y terminaron de dueños de la mayor producción de cocaína del mundo. Transitaron de última guerrilla política latinoamericana a primer ejército irregular del narcotráfico, convirtiéndose en un reto real para el Estado colombiano.

Los gobiernos de los últimos 20 años tuvieron que comenzar a revertir la debilidad del Estado y a corregir abusos pasados. Primero acordaron la paz con las insurgencias políticas, luego desarticularon a los grandes carteles de narcotraficantes que dirigía Pablo Escobar, seguidamente un Gobierno bogotano inventó formas exitosas de combatir la cultura de violencia, y finalmente iniciaron la recuperación del campo. Propusieron negociaciones a las FARC que fracasaron debido al secuestro de doce parlamentarios que fueron ejecutados en junio de 2007. La fuerza del Ejército y la Policía crecieron y se desplegaron de forma permanente en los 1.120 municipios de Colombia. Los paramilitares empezaron a ser combatidos y desmovilizados. Los jefes guerrilleros perdieron sus vehículos con aire acondicionado y sus campamentos con refrigeradora. Acorralados, incurrieron en el terrorismo. Ciento diecisiete pobladores murieron refugiados en la iglesia de Bellavista cuando ésta fue destruida por las FARC; un coche bomba con 200 kilos de explosivos demolió un club bogotano lleno de familias; esto se volvió cotidiano, y los civiles muertos y heridos sumaron miles. Sin embargo, ahora la violencia de las FARC es decadente y en el 2007 no pudieron realizar una sola toma u hostigamiento a los poblados que controla el Estado. Sus combatientes se desmovilizan masiva y voluntariamente, 2.400 sólo el año pasado, y hay evidencia pública de que algunos jefes guerrilleros han recuperado las comodidades perdidas en el territorio venezolano.

Las FARC no tienen futuro como guerrilla, aunque lo tengan como narcotraficantes. La inmensa selva colombiana les facilita mantener a los rehenes que secuestraron en el pasado y usarlos cómo su último cartucho político. Las duras condiciones en que mantienen a éstos evidencian desmoralización y pérdida de control; ni siquiera sabían dónde estaba el niño Emmanuel. Las FARC hicieron del secuestro, la extorsión y el narcotráfico sus principales actividades, son los mayores secuestradores del planeta. Una insurgencia negocia a partir de la legitimidad política de sus demandas o de la fuerza militar que detenta, pero exigir legitimidad a cambio de rehenes maltratados y amenazados de morir, equivale a pedir respeto por ser malvado. El anti-neoliberalismo no justifica explotar el dolor de las familias de los rehenes. Si Chávez estuviera sólo ayudando a salvar rehenes sería positivo, pero su reconocimiento político a las FARC, reaviva la violencia colombiana, le abre las puertas de su país a la cocaína y lo convierte en protector de unos crueles narcoterroristas.

Tomado de El Pais,
Joaquín Villalobos, quién fuera uno de los máximos líderes de las guerrillas Salvadoreñas en los años 80 y 90.

La muestra de Colombia
Por Teódulo López Meléndez
Enero 2008
Diciembre ha pasado a tener dos características: el mes en que Chávez hace de las suyas y el mes en que la oposición desaparece. Ya vamos por tres semanas en que los opositores no abren la boca y en que el presidente la ha abierto en demasía. Hemos asistido a todo tipo de locuras, desde el espectáculo del flamante canciller pidiendo una prueba de ADN como si se tratase de un niño venezolano o de un hijo de madre venezolana hasta el estúpido de Insulza ofreciendo a la OEA como árbitro genético; desde un cambio de gabinete absolutamente intrascendente motivado –válgame Dios- porque el Jefe del Estado se ha dado cuenta de que su gobierno no se ocupa de los problemas de la gente hasta una demostración colombiana de coherencia.

Es en la nota optimista donde me quiero detener, por aquello de que año nuevo implica resaltar lo positivo. Todo este drama ha tenido, a mi entender, una consecuencia impensada y consiste en que los venezolanos hemos podido mirar a Colombia como nunca. Hemos asistido a la visión de un gobierno absolutamente coherente, con separación de poderes y donde las instituciones funcionan hasta una comprobación –que le hace mucho bien a Venezuela- del drama colombiano. En efecto, hemos verificado como funciona en el país vecino el Instituto de Bienestar Familiar (caso Emmanuel), como la Fiscalía es meticulosa en sus procederes, como sus ministros son gente seria, como es el drama de las FARC (me ahorro los adjetivos porque los venezolanos y el mundo entero ya se los han puesto) y como es el pueblo colombiano, hasta por el detalle de los familiares de los secuestrados que han estado en Caracas.

No pretendo inmiscuirme en la política interna colombiana, pero la comparación entre los dos países ha sido muy dañina para este gobierno que los venezolanos padecemos. Comparemos ambas Fiscalías Generales, comparemos ambas instituciones que protegen a los niños en estado de abandono, comparemos la seriedad de los ministros de ambos países y lleguemos a una conclusión obvia: con todo el respeto para quienes adversan al presidente Uribe la Venezuela actual no admite comparación con la Colombia actual. Colombia se muestra como un país mientras Venezuela se muestra como un campamento. El resultado se nota en cualquier parte donde uno puede escuchar los comentarios de la gente: ha aumentado el afecto por los colombianos, los venezolanos han entendido perfectamente que cosa es la FARC y hasta se ha desarrollado un cierto grado de envidia por la manera en que funcionan las instituciones del vecino país.

Repito que este no es un texto en defensa de Uribe (que da todas las sensaciones de saber defenderse solo), sino más bien un texto de admisión de realidades. Venezuela se ha deteriorado en todos los aspectos hasta el límite de la infamia y la comparación de estos días con Colombia ha sido provechosa. La gente se ha dado cuenta de que estamos muy mal gracias a un episodio dramático. Sería interesante que los hermanos colombianos entendiesen en toda su magnitud este fenómeno que se ha producido, pues abre puertas a granel y establece las bases para una relación más estrecha y fecunda cuando los venezolanos salgamos de esta pesadilla.

Quizás lo de las FARC hay que resaltarlo, pues invita a comparaciones. ¿Eso de que Uribe tenía secuestrado a Emmanuel no les suena a frases como que la oposición venezolana paga a sicarios para matar taxistas y así provocarlos a que tranquen calles? En contrapartida la oposición democrática colombiana ha sido respetuosa y mesurada en todo este episodio. ¿Eso de las FARC en sus comunicados no les suena a un ministro nuestro diciendo que Chávez utilizó bien la palabra “mierda” porque la utiliza el Coronel que no tenía quien le escribiera? ¿Esos comunicados de las FARC no se les asemejan a los dicterios de que los motines en nuestras cárceles son provocados por la oposición? ¿Esa falsificación permanente de la FARC de la realidad no les suena a la negativa constante e impúdica sobre las alarmante cifras de muertos por el hampa en este país nuestro? He aquí una de las consecuencias de todo este desaguisado que se salva con la bendita aparición de Emmanuel salvo y sano: las FARC y el gobierno venezolano hablan el mismo lenguaje, utilizan la mentira como arma predilecta, falsifican las realidades y convierten el desparpajo engañoso en la norma.

La lección de Colombia en estos días de tránsito de un año a otro ha sido espectacular. Hemos visto a un país con cinco décadas de violencia que aún así es capaz de ser un país. Uno donde los funcionarios se cuidan, como en el caso de pedir a un laboratorio europeo una prueba adicional de ADN a pesar de tener conciencia de que la hecha en Colombia es definitiva y que estamos ante la presencia de Emmanuel Rojas. La otra arma fundamental para que ahora tengamos una plataforma de futuro colombo-venezolana realmente excepcional, y que deberemos aprovechar en aras de la integración, ha sido la presencia en Caracas de las familias de dos de los secuestrados. Doña Clara González de Rojas ha hecho más que todo un esfuerzo diplomático. Su serenidad, su talante, su dignidad y su equilibrio nos han mostrado a un pueblo. Esa chica Patricia Perdomo – hija de la exparlamentaria secuestrada- con una sonrisa siempre a flor de labios, sin perder el optimismo, sin emitir una queja, sin incurrir en la menor crítica de tipo político, ha sido todo un ejemplo de compostura y de reciedumbre.

Hemos visto a Colombia. Ese ha sido el regalo que nos ha dejado el 2007 y que continúa dándonos el 2008.

Tomado de: A traves de Venezuela
http://www.atravesdevenezuela.com/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=10116

The Washignton Post
Editorials
Wednesday, January 16, 2008; Page A14
Ally to Kidnappers
Venezuela's Hugo Chávez endorses Colombian groups known for abductions, drug trafficking and mass murder.

ON THURSDAY, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), an organization that in the past decade has kidnapped more than 750 people who remain missing, released two captives into the custody of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. The FARC, which decades ago discarded the Marxist ideology it wielded in the 1960s for the mercenary causes of abduction and drug trafficking, is anything but an altruistic movement, so many wondered what it would get in exchange for the propaganda coup it handed Mr. Chávez.

The shocking answer arrived the next day: In a four-hour address to the Venezuelan Congress, Mr. Chávez described the FARC and another Colombian group, the Army of National Liberation (ELN), as "not terrorists" but "genuine armies." He claimed that they possessed "a Bolivarian political project that is respected here," a reference to his own, half-baked "socialism for the 21st century." And he demanded that they be recognized as lawful belligerents by the United States and Latin American and European governments that now classify them as terrorist organizations. In short, Mr. Chávez was endorsing groups dedicated to violence and other criminal behavior in a neighboring Latin American democracy, and associating his agenda with theirs.

It was encouraging to see the revulsion this statement instantly produced in Latin America, where terrorism has caused incalculable damage. But the message the FARC channeled through Mr. Chávez was really aimed at Europeans and Americans. Some in Washington, London and Madrid, where kidnappings are rare, are happy to embrace Mr. Chávez -- former congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II, for example, can be heard in radio advertisements touting his alliance with the Venezuelan leader. The FARC may think it can similarly find allies. Filmmaker Oliver Stone is already sold: He recently called the FARC "heroic."

The answer to this logic was provided by the press office of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who has been waging what is, in fact, a heroic battle against the brutal gangs that for decades have plagued his country. "The violent groups of Colombia are terrorists because they finance themselves through a business that is lethal to humanity: drug trafficking," the press office said. (The FARC exports hundreds of tons of cocaine annually, and an increasing portion of it passes through Venezuela.) "The violent groups of Colombia are terrorists because they kidnap, place bombs indiscriminately, recruit and murder children, murder pregnant women, murder the elderly and use antipersonnel mines that leave in their wake thousands of innocent victims." All these assertions have been well documented by Western human rights groups that are otherwise hostile to Mr. Uribe's government.

No wonder even governments allied with Mr. Chávez, such as those of Argentina and Ecuador, recoiled from his appeal. Latin American leaders who until now have seen in Mr. Chávez a crude populist who buys his friends with petrodollars are faced with something new: a head of state who has openly endorsed an organization of kidnappers and drug traffickers in a neighboring, democratic country. "You can't be legal in your own country and accept illegality in another," said Guatemala's newly elected president, Álvaro Colom. Venezuela's neighbors now must calculate how to respond to a leader who has violated that fundamental rule.

ANÁLISIS: Los cautivos de las FARC EL OBSERVADOR GLOBAL
Colombia y el síndrome de Copenhague
Moisés Naím

El asalto al banco no salió bien. Los ladrones que, en 1973, intentaron atracar el Kreditbanken de Estocolmo quedaron atrapados en el banco y tomaron como rehenes a varios empleados. La sorpresa no fue que los criminales tardasen seis días en entregarse; fue que los rehenes se hicieron amigos de sus secuestradores. El episodio dio origen al llamado síndrome de Estocolmo: un extraño proceso psicológico mediante el cual los secuestrados a veces desarrollan vínculos de solidaridad y simpatía con sus captores.

El caso de Colombia, país que es víctima de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias Colombianas (FARC), ilustra una patética variante del síndrome de Estocolmo. No se trata de que los colombianos simpaticen con las FARC, ya que el grupo armado que les hace sufrir desde 1964 es detestado por una abrumadora mayoría de la población. Se trata de la globalización del síndrome de Estocolmo: son los extranjeros, muchos de ellos en lejanos continentes, quienes sufren de un extraño proceso que les lleva a simpatizar con asesinos y secuestradores.

En Dinamarca, por ejemplo, una organización llamada Fighters+Lovers vende camisetas con el símbolo de las FARC y promete donarles parte de sus ventas. Debido a que las FARC es uno de los grupos terroristas que la Unión Europea prohíbe financiar, el Gobierno danés entabló un juicio contra los vendedores de camisetas. Y lo perdió. Los jueces de Copenhague no creen que las FARC sea una organización que aterroriza a un país entero. Según esta lógica, al no ser las FARC un grupo terrorista, los daneses que les envían dinero no cometen crimen alguno.

De esta manera, ahora al síndrome de Estocolmo podemos añadir el síndrome de Copenhague: el raro proceso mediante el cual la ideología y la politiquería se mezclan con la ingenuidad y la ignorancia para justificar crímenes de lesa humanidad, siempre y cuando no sucedan en el país de los afectados por el síndrome.

Es fácil imaginar que los civilizados jueces de Copenhague hubiesen llegado a una opinión muy diferente si las víctimas de las FARC fuesen daneses en lugar de colombianos. Basta averiguar un poco y con algo de honestidad para descubrir que las motivaciones ideológicas que alguna vez tuvieron las FARC ya no existen. Hoy en día la retórica que iguala a las FARC con los movimientos de liberación nacional sólo sirve para ocultar el hecho de que se han convertido en una cruel fuerza mercenaria del narcotráfico.

Pero el síndrome de Copenhague no solo afecta a los jueces daneses. Hace poco, tres congresistas estadounidenses le escribieron una amable carta a Manuel Marulanda Vélez, Tirofijo -el jefe de las FARC-, para expresar su complacencia por haberse dignado las FARC a ofrecer vídeos, por primera vez en siete años, que confirmaban que aún no habían asesinado a Ingrid Betancourt y otros secuestrados. "Fue un paso en la dirección correcta y quisimos mostrar nuestro aprecio", dijo Gregory Meeks, uno de los congresistas firmantes de la carta.

Otro estadounidense, el cineasta Oliver Stone, tampoco tiene dudas sobre quién es quién en esta tragedia: "Uribe miente, y debe asumir su responsabilidad ante el mundo", dijo, refiriéndose al presidente colombiano. Para Stone, las FARC resultan más creíbles que el presidente democráticamente electo de Colombia. Ésta es una convicción que comparte con el presidente de Venezuela: "Yo acuso al presidente de Colombia de estar mintiendo... y haber dinamitado el proceso de canje humanitario", dijo Hugo Chávez al expresar su frustración ante el hecho de que Clara Rojas y su hijo Emmanuel, así como Consuelo González, no fuesen liberados antes de finalizar el año. ¿La explicación? Según ellos, el Ejército colombiano llevó a cabo intensos operativos contra las FARC en las zonas donde se efectuaría el canje. Esto lo ha negado el presidente Uribe, recordando no sólo el largo historial de mentiras y promesas incumplidas por la FARC, sino anunciando que las FARC no podían liberar a los rehenes, puesto que uno de ellos, el niño Emmanuel, había sido entregado a una organización de protección social.

Lo difícil de explicar para Stone, Chávez y otros críticos del presidente Uribe, es por qué les resulta tan difícil a las FARC liberar a los rehenes si esto es algo que saben hacer muy bien: llevan décadas haciéndolo de manera rutinaria, una vez que reciben los pagos que compran la libertad de sus inocentes víctimas. La negociación y la eventual liberación de rehenes es un proceso frecuente, secreto y misterioso. En miles de transacciones previas nunca antes las FARC habían necesitado helicópteros venezolanos, la presencia de observadores internacionales y de centenares de periodistas.

Detrás de todo esto no hay sino la cruel e inhumana explotación del síndrome de Copenhague por parte de las FARC y sus facilitadores. Mientras que el síndrome de Estocolmo se produce por razones psicológicas, el de Copenhague es causado por cálculos políticos muy crudos, donde las excusas humanitarias no son sino eso: excusas para actuar de la manera más políticamente conveniente pero más hipócritamente inhumana.


Por eso, quienes simpatizan con las FARC deben exigir que se libere a todos los rehenes, tanto a los pocos ya famosos como a los muchos aún anónimos. Eso es algo que las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias Colombianas saben hacer y pueden hacer si quieren. Ahora mismo. Sin circo. Y sin payasos.

mnaim@elpais.es

Tomado de Moisés Naím, de El País de España
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Colombia/sindrome/Copenhague/elpepiint/20080106elpepiint_2/Tes#%3Fctn%3DvotosC%26aP%3Dmodulo%253DEVN%2526params%253Did%25253D20080106elpepiint_2.Tes%252526fp%25253D20080106%252526to%25253Dnoticia%252526te%25253D%252526a%25253D5%252526ov%25253D574

Chávez pierde, gana Uribe
José Vales
El Universal -- Mexico

El mandatario colombiano ha mostrado que nadie mejor que él sabe lo que sucede en su país

BUENOS AIRES.— “Las altas probabilidades” de que Juan David sea Emmanuel reavivaron ayer la tensión entre dos gobiernos, el colombiano y el venezolano.
Es notorio observar cómo el proceso de confirmación de la identidad del hijo de Clara Rojas puede poner en vilo a todo un gobierno. Hasta aquí, y hasta que lleguen las contrapruebas a realizarse en España, el poder de Emmanuel parece lanzar un veredicto a favor de la tesis esgrimida por la administración de Álvaro Uribe el último día de 2007.

La reacción del canciller venezolano, Nicolás Maduro, acusando a Colombia de no permitir a técnicos venezolanos tomar otra prueba de ADN al menor, es la muestra palpable de lo incómodo, por no decir descolocado, que quedó el presidente Hugo Chávez, quien prefirió abocarse a la conformación de un nuevo gabinete y a limitarse a decir que la “Operación Emmanuel” seguirá adelante “en otra fase”, sin aclarar si era la de otra excursión con Néstor Kirchner y Oliver Stone a la selva colombiana, o tal vez a los llanos venezolanos esta vez, o al bautismo de Emmanuel una vez esté a la guarda de su familia.

De hecho, Iván Rojas, hermano de la cautiva ex candidata a la presidencia, dijo estar “seguro” de que el niño ubicado en el Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar es su sobrino y de paso pidió la liberación de Clara “para que puedan hacerse el ADN”.

Chávez ha quedado golpeado y los Kirchner, que habían decidido participar del fiasco de Villavicencio para atemperar los efectos de la maleta de dólares venezolanos que se ventila en los tribunales de Miami, no le van a la zaga.

El ex presidente argentino que siempre desdeñó las relaciones internacionales y que lo desconoce todo de Colombia (era la primera vez que la pisaba) pecó de bisoño e inexperto. La pareja presidencial se quedó sin la foto con los rehenes liberados que hubiera ayudado en este complicado debut de gestión (la de Cristina Fernández) y contra los cacerolazos que sonaron en los últimos días contra los cortes de energía.

Por lo pronto, Álvaro Uribe aparece relegitimado internacionalmente, siempre que en los días sucesivos no aparezca nada ni nadie que ponga en duda lo que Luis Carlos Restrepo, el alto comisionado para la Paz, llamó como “un caso humanitario”. La política puede dar para todo.

Hasta aquí, Uribe le gana la pulseada a Chávez y, lo que en su microclima es más importante, a las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), afectadas políticamente después que habían logrado rehacerse —gracias a la necesidad del canje humanitario y al propio Chávez— en ese terreno, por primera vez desde el fin de las conversaciones de paz en 2002.

Con estos resultados, que afectan incluso hasta los cautos gobiernos de Brasil, Bolivia y Ecuador, Uribe ratifica que el centro del escenario político colombiano es suyo sin ambages, mientras Chávez y los países garantes de una liberación que no fue tratan de canalizar el golpe al que los sometió la identidad de Emmanuel.

Sábado 05 de enero de 2008
Tomado de José Vales -- El Universal -- Mexico
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/internacional/56505.html