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US-COLOMBIA:
Uribe Presses FTA in First Encounter with Obama
By Danielle Kurtzleben
and Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON, Jun 30 (IPS) - Long-stalled efforts to
consummate a free trade agreement (FTA) between the
United States and Colombia may be gaining some
momentum, despite persistent questions about
Bogota's human rights record.
After hosting Colombian President Alvaro Uribe at
the White House Monday, President Barack Obama told
reporters that, while "there are obvious
difficulties involved in the process... I am very
confident that ultimately we can strike a deal that
is good for the people of Colombia and good for the
people of the United States."
Uribe himself expressed guarded optimism Tuesday
that Obama would try to move the accord, which was
signed by his predecessor, George W. Bush, two and a
half years ago, through Congress.
"Yesterday, the conversation with President Obama
was very constructive," Uribe told an audience at
the Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars
here. "I found him very interested in moving ahead
with Colombia."
Uribe, a frequent visitor to the White House during
the Bush years, was perhaps Washington's closest and
most favoured ally in South America, particularly
given his prosecution of the U.S.-backed "war on
drugs" and his efforts to defeat left-wing
insurgencies, notably the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC).
Under Washington's Plan Colombia, which was actually
launched by former President Bill Clinton, the U.S.
has poured nearly six billion dollars into fighting
Colombian coca cultivation and cocaine production,
making Bogota by far the biggest U.S. aid recipient
in the Americas.
Bush had long sought a FTA with Colombia and finally
signed an agreement – the United States-Colombia
Trade Promotion Act – on Nov. 22, 2006.
By then, however, Democrats had taken control of
Congress here, and their leadership made clear that
they were most unlikely to ratify the FTA until
Uribe took far-reaching steps to better protect
labour rights and union activists in Colombia.
Over the past decade, hundreds of trade unionists
have been murdered in Colombia. Most have been the
targets of right-wing paramilitaries, many of them
linked to the armed forces as well as major
landowners and drug traffickers. Based primarily in
the major labour unions here, foes of the accord
demonstrated their opposition in a protest outside
the White House during Monday's meeting.
Uribe has pinned his hopes for gaining Congressional
approval of the FTA on his country’s improving
security and human rights record. In his Wilson
Centre remarks, he noted that, under his
administration, some 30,000 paramilitaries have been
demobilised, and some 10,000 former guerrillas have
defected.
He particularly touted his success in reducing
violence against trade unionists. He said his
government had provided individual government
protection to over 10,000 Colombians, including some
2,000 trade union leaders and activists.
Indeed, killings have declined sharply from a peak
of 274 in 1996, and especially rapidly since Uribe
took office in 2002. Uribe said there were 38
unionist killings in 2008 (though the Brussels-based
International Trade Union Confederation puts this
figure at 49), and 17 thus far in 2009. "We want
zero, zero cases," he said Tuesday.
With U.S. support, his administration has also tried
to improve the judicial and prosecutorial systems.
Before he took office, he claimed, only two men
accused of killing unionists had been convicted in a
court of law. Under his administration, nearly 200
convictions have been obtained, he said.
Obama himself commended Uribe's record, noting that
"obviously, we've seen a downward trajectory in the
deaths of labour union (activists), and we've seen
improvements when it comes to prosecution of those
who are carrying out these blatant human rights
offences."
"President Uribe acknowledges that there remains
more work to be done, and we look forward to
co-operating with him to continue to improve both
the rights of organised labour in Colombia and to
protect both labour and civil rights leaders there,"
Obama said.
He also noted more recent controversies, however,
that have contributed to the dimming of Uribe's star
here, including reports by human rights groups that,
even as paramilitary activity has declined,
Colombian army and police have been killing poor
young men and subsequently claiming they were
leftist guerrillas killed in combat.
In one report, U.N. investigators confirmed that
these extra-judicial killings have been taking place
on a "systematic and widespread" basis. Gimena
Sanchez-Giroli, a Colombia specialist at the
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) here, said
that security forces have killed well over 1,000
civilians since 2002.
A more recent scandal – the uncovering of a
large-scale wiretapping and surveillance programme
by Colombia's intelligence service of Uribe's
political foes and critics and their family members
– has also contributed to a decline in his image
here, even though Uribe himself has denied any prior
knowledge, let alone approval, of such an
initiative.
Referring to both the reports of killings and the
surveillance, Obama stressed in his remarks that "it
is important that Colombia pursue rule of law and
transparency, and I know that is something President
Uribe is committed to doing."
For his part, Uribe insisted he was dedicated to
human rights and transparency and said that new
decrees regarding the state security agencies will
be issued in the coming three weeks to "solve the
endemic problems of these institutions for good".
But Uribe insisted that his main priority here was
to gain ratification of the FTA, and Obama offered
him some encouragement in that regard. He said he
had instructed Trade Representative Ron Kirk to
"begin working closely with President Uribe's team
on how we can proceed on a free trade agreement".
Uribe also met with U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary
Locke Tuesday.
Like most other Democrats, Obama voiced disapproval
of such a deal when he ran for president. He
justified his stance by arguing that "we have to
stand for human rights, and we have to make sure
that violence isn’t being perpetrated against
workers who are just trying to organise for their
rights."
FTA proponents argue that it would benefit the U.S.
economy by further opening Colombian markets to U.S.
exports. They argue that this would "level the
playing field", as over 90 percent of Colombian
goods already enter the U.S. duty-free under the
Andean Trade Preference Extension Act. If approved,
the FTA would allow 80 percent of U.S. goods to
enter Colombia duty-free as well.
The FTA would also increase security within Colombia
by creating jobs for poor people who would otherwise
be working in the drug trade or joining the
paramilitaries.
Sanchez-Giroli, however, said early action on the
FTA was unlikely for a number of reasons, including
persistent concerns about the human rights
situation. Just last week, Rafael Antonio Sepúlveda
Lara, a member of the public servants' federation
who was also associated with the national hospital
workers’ union, was murdered under suspicious
circumstances.
Moreover, the paramilitaries, while officially
demobilised, have not been fully dismantled and
continue to operate both illegal and legal
enterprises. An FTA may help many Colombian
businesses and enterprises, but "many of them have
links to these paramilitary networks", said Sanchez-Giroli.
In a recent investigative article in The Nation
here, journalist Teo Ballre detailed cases in which
the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
had provided assistance for the development of palm
plantations acquired through violent or other
illegal means by paramilitaries and drug
traffickers.
*Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read
at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/. |
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