Colombia: President Uribe Dupes U.S.A.

The U. S. has been swept by fearful thinking since the end of the last century. Based on Murphy’s law, in which everything that could go wrong goes wrong, the U.S. has produced a chain of catastrophic suppositions of great consequences. Now, here comes the Colombia “antiterrorism” war.

When fear psychology began to dominate American thinking after 9/11, the Colombian ruling class was ready with a plan to use American anxiety to milk American money. The “Plan Colombia” was a precursor of this scheme. And the man who profited most was the current president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe.

A bit of history is in order. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington said in June, 2000: "The FARC [Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces], founded by Marxist guerrillas decades before the emergence of cocaine production in Colombia, imposes 'taxes' on drug lords and coca farmers to fund their multi-million dollar military operations, its militants are rarely involved in the actual cultivation and trafficking of drugs. In fact, the right-wing paramilitary, which both the Colombian and U.S. governments acknowledge is responsible for 78 % of the nation's human rights violations, is known to be far more deeply involved in narco-trafficking than their leftist counterparts." Now Mr. Alvaro Uribe’s (the twice-elected Colombian President’s) role begins.

The Colombian ruling class makes money even with the armed opposition. The Colombian government portrayed the F.A.R.C. as Marxist-narco traffickers to the U.S. government. Faster than a missile President Clinton and the U.S. Congress came up with the Plan Colombia and the APTDEA bonus. Almost 5 billion dollars later, Colombia’s cocaine production and distribution has maintained its normal levels for years and even increased them, according to White House and OAS’ reports

Mr. Uribe’s profile as a Colombian drug trafficker was revealed in a1991 Defense Intelligence Agency report:

“82. ALVARO URIBE VELEZ – A COLOMBIAN POLITICIAN AND SENATOR DEDICATED TO COLLABORATION WITH THE MEDELLIN CARTEL AT HIGH GOVERNMENT LEVELS. […] URIBE HAS WORKED FOR THE MEDELLIN CARTEL AND IS A CLOSE PERSONAL FRIEND OF PABLO ESCOBAR GAVIRIA. HE HAS PARTICIPATED IN ESCOBAR’S POLITICAL CAMPAIGN TO WIN THE POSITION OF ASSISTANT PARLIAMENTARIAN TO JORGE {{ORTEGA}}. URIBE HAS BEEN ONE OF THE POLITICIANS, FROM THE SENATE, WHO HAS ATTACKED ALL FORMS OF THE EXTRADITION TREATY. “(sic, pages 10 and 11, “Warning: (u) This is an info report, not finally evaluated report classified confidential noforn wnintel. Department of Defense”.)

Nevertheless, Mr. Uribe was mysteriously able to persuade the U.S. Congress and the White House that he was innocent of ties to Colombian drug lords. The U.S. ignored the report. Uribe claimed that the report was false. But he has kept Mr. José Obdulio Gaviria, Pablo Escobar’s cousin, as his right hand adviser and first defender during his entire presidency. Mr. Uribe never denied that he campaigned for Mr. Pablo Escobar, but claimed that “to become a senator from the state of Antioquia, he had to rub elbows with and shake the hands of suspected drug lords, but that doesn't make him one”, as reported by Ms. Maria Tomchick in her article “The Drug Trafficker that Became President”.

As president, Mr. Uribe covered his tracks, asking narco-paramilitaries to cool down in exchange for legal protections, showing kidnapping and assassinations dropping, he protected the drug lords while breaking records in extraditing F.A.R.C.’s and lower rank narcotraffickers. In the internal drug traffickers’ war the growing F.A.R.C.’s control of their business is the biggest threat and Mr. Uribe made his main goal to eliminate it.

Mr. Uribe is convincing the U.S. Congress that the F.A.R.C. are the most dangerous guerrillas in the world, even though the paramilitary, in less than 20 years, had over 70% of all civil and human rights violations compared to less than half of that by the F.A.R.C. in over 40 years. Mr. Uribe is the kind of ally that promises the U.S. that its billions of dollars for the army and his side of the drug war in Colombia will be received with flowers by Colombians. He knows how to melt the hearts and minds of Americans. America’s misdirected anxiety will spread the Colombian civil war with new billions of dollars. Please, don’t blame it on bad intelligence when Colombia turns into another Iraq.

José María Rodríguez González is a U.S. foreign policy researcher.

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