Colombia's president remains popular despite growing political scandal

Colombia's president remains popular despite growing political scandal
The Associated PressPublished: February 14, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia: A growing scandal that has sent some of President Alvaro Uribe's political allies to jail has not affected his popularity in the country's biggest cities, a poll released Wednesday showed.

Uribe's approval rating stands at 73 percent, a survey by Gallup Colombia found. This was a rise of three percentage points on the company's last poll in December.

Pollsters interviewed 1,600 people by phone in Colombia's four principal cities — Bogota, Cali, Medellin and Barranquilla — Feb. 7-10. The margin of error was 5 percentage points.

The opposition has questioned the apparent ties of Uribe allies to the far-right paramilitaries, a drug-trafficking organization responsible for some of the worst massacres in the recent Colombian history. The scandal has landed seven politicians in jail on charges of collaborating with the illegal militia.
(snip)

Fissures emerge on Iran's role in Iraq attacksColumnists have joked that Uribe is the "Teflon president," seemingly immune to a series of scandals that have afflicted his administration.
(snip/...)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/14/america/LA-GEN-Colombia-Popular-Uribe.php

Scandal ensnares Colombia politicians

Revelations surface of secret ties between key officials, militias


12:00 AM CST on Sunday, January 21, 2007
The New York Times

BOGOTA, Colombia – The government of President Alvaro Uribe, the largest recipient of American aid outside the Middle East, has found itself ensnared in a widening scandal as revelations surface of a secret alliance between some of the president's most prominent political supporters and paramilitary death squads.

Testimony this week from former paramilitary commander Salvatore Mancuso, who admitted to orchestrating the killing of more than 300 people, as well as a document implicating politicians in a pact with paramilitaries, have injected fresh detail into a slow-burning scandal that has caused Colombia's elite political class to shudder.

Senior members of Mr. Uribe's government and Mr. Uribe himself have said that anyone shown to have had illegal ties to the paramilitaries, which terrorized Colombian cities and the countryside in the nation's decades-long internal war and made fortunes in cocaine trafficking, should be prosecuted.

The scandal already has touched Mr. Uribe's Cabinet, with Sen. Alvaro Araujo, the brother of Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araujo, under investigation for collaborating with militias.
(snip)

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-columbia_21int.ART.State.Edition1.292f25d.html

I am sure the ruling party love him..and if the people got FREEDOM he would be ousted!

They tend to simply imagine the rest of the world is exactly like the U.S., lacking the intelligence, imagination, or mental activity to realize things change dramatically between here and so many other places.

The masses of poor don't have the money for phones, and the poll takers represent people who don't care what they think, anyway! Concerning the racism issue, the poor masses are usually far darker than the elitists who control the governments, and are feared by them. I've read that they are actually AFRAID to go into their neighborhoods.

very impressed by Hugo Chavez and indeed all the leftist leaders in south and central america...may it spread northward and WE get some guts to do what they did, have done, and are doing!

at its film festival which was to be in Vancouver, I believe. They had scheduled it to be shown, and the Venezuelan "opposition" found out and started threatening them, and they simply succumbed to the pressure and let it go.

This doesn't speak well for A-I, does it?

That documentary is available ON LINE now, thank goodness. Here's one of the sites where it can be found:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144&q=The+Revolution+Will+Not+Be+Televised

Right-wingers probably won't be able to suspend their dependency on right-wing propaganda long enough to watch it quietly, actually watching actively, and listening (not for simple entertainment, obviously), as they are undoubtedly very suspicious they have carefully avoided the facts this long, and can't afford to be exposed to the truth. They'd have to revise their loud, obnoxious, misinformed opinions, and they're too far gone to turn back.

Well balanced people no doubt will get a LOT from this film taken by Irish film-makers who were in Caracas when the rough stuff broke out, and just kept filming. Thank goodness they did. They've got a real bit of history, don't they?

on netflix...I find THAT unbelievable...it is 'out there' yet netflix has it on 'save'

On Edit..i would appreciate any other videos you could suggest regarding either Hugo or any of the other leftists in South/Central America...I do not understand spanish so english sub titles would be requried for me to understand. Thanks!

PS...maybe you know of a good site where i could LEARN spanish? enough to understand anyway, and not necessarily be fluent.

playing periodically concerning Cuba, at least, and Chile, both very intense topics which attract Democrats for human reasons, and Republicans for compulsive additiction to "power at all costs to others" reasons.

There are around 5 documentaries on Cuba, Cuba and John F. Kennedy and his secret meetings with Cuban officials near the end of his life, in search of bringing Cuba "into the orbit," and overcoming the problems created by the Bay of Pigs, of an American photographer, Roberto Salas, who went to Cuba and became the official photographer of the events of the Revolution, along with his father, one of Che Guevara, the "Buena Vista Social Club," and the "Cuban All Stars."

There is also a TREMENDOUS documentary which gets repeated on the Nixon-Kissinger/CIA-created coup against Salvador Allende, and the aftermath, and possibly another one narrated by a Chilean who lived through that time.

Maybe another DU'er who has used a Spanish-teaching site will see your post and offer directions for getting there! It's also possible something might be available at your public libary next time you're there. Don't forget to look at video stores, as well for Latin American history documentaries, etc. You might be surprised.

Do a search for Cuba for a listing.

http://www.linktv.org/

There was one called "Young Rebels" that was on the other day, about Cuban rappers. It was pretty interesting.

Have never seen it before a moment ago.

There are a LOT of rappers in Cuba, including quite a few female groups. It's really interesting seeing any news about them. Makes a person wish he/she could understand Spanish a lot better.





The first female rap group, Instinto, and Dúo Obsesión

--I think I got it from Netflix. Incredibly, I have NOT seen "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"--but I'm trying to remedy that (waiting with baited breath for Netflix to cough it up). I don't have DSL (and will never get it, where I live--quite remote), so I can't download videos.

By the way, Bush is going to have a BIG CHECK in hand, when he visits the few countries where he won't get lots of rotten fruit thrown at his limo, in Latin America, in March--if the Democrats in Congress go along with it. $3.9 billion MORE to beef up the Colombian military fascists, and paramilitaries. Added to $1.5 billion already in that pipeline. His itinerary is interesting. Colombia, of course. Mexico (hm-m). Guatemala. Brazil.

Uribe (Colombia) is an interesting case (for a Bush visit), besides all the guns, bullets, tanks and other fun stuff he's bringing for the boys to play with. Uribe has so far refused to participate in Bushite plots against Hugo Chavez, and I think may have some notions of "Latin America for Latin Americans" (which Chavez has pushed with the Bolivarian revolution). Calderon is a corporate puppet, who has brutalized the people of Oaxaca--and they'll have to keep Bush out of the south and out of Mexico City. There is a leftist movement in Guatemala, which is new-ish, or I just heard about it--Guatemala, scene of the slaughter of 200,000 Mayan Indians in the '80s with Reagan's direct complicity, still has a rightwing government (though not as bad as the former dictators). And Brazil? That's a puzzle. Lulu plays some corporate games--something of a Clintonite, but more oriented toward labor and the poor (former steelworker). However, it was Brazil that led the huge third world revolt at the WTO in Cancun a few years ago. So he's not all that Clintonite--and he is a friend of Hugo Chavez. They have very good relations. In fact, Lulu visited Chavez for a big ceremony to open the new Orinoco bridge between their countries, two weeks before Venezuela's presidential election last December--a very pointed visit by Lulu, an unspoken endorsement.

What does Bush want?

Death squads--well-armed and stoked with filthy lucre, in Colombia.
Mexico--oil (privatization).
Guatemala--buffer against the huge leftist movement in South America moving north.
Brazil--divide and conquer--prevent Argentina/Brazil/Venezuela and others from forming a South American 'common market' and common currency (to get off the US dollar). Worth the risk of rotten fruit at the limo in Brazil.

Possible private or US-sponsored (or both) corporate resource war against the Andean democracies (Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela). Paraguay is an interesting omission from Bush's trip. Rumor of total of 300,000 acre Bush Cartel land purchase near US-taxpayer funded US military air base--launching pad for corporate resource war? But Paraguay has a very big leftist movement in progress, led by a former Catholic bishop--so they may feel Bush will not be safe from rotten fruit there. But they may be avoiding Paraguay specifically because of the land purchase rumors and South American's great suspicions about them.

I think they're going to have a hard time selling a corporate resource war to any S/A governments, except Colombia--so it will be covert. Private meetings with billionaire fascists and terrorist military. Bolivia is particularly vulnerable (bordering northern Paraguay, where the Bush junta land is located), and its government has hostile rich elites and landowners who want to break away into independent states--the states rich in natural resources--so the poor don't get any benefit. They will do it by destabilization. They already are trying some things (rightwing thugs attacking peaceful peasant/leftist demonstrations). But Bolivians are no pushover. They have a fabulous grass roots democracy movement in progress, which elected the first indigenous president of Bolivia (and, I believe, the first in South America), Evo Morales. Morales is strongly allied with Chavez in Venezuela and Rafael Correa--young leftist economist just elected president of Ecuador.

The Bushites are terrorists--so what they might do is fund terrorist groups (armed so-called leftists), and drug lords, as well as funding fascist paramilitaries--to stoke up civil war (a la Iraq). They have lots and lots of hidden booty stolen from US taxpayers, along with the billions in US taxpayer funded military aid. (--or I guess I should say future US taxpayer-funded). They can cause lots of trouble. But I don't think they'll win. Latin America is too far gone toward democracy.

my belief I'd EVER get the chance to see it. Some time ago, either from haunting the internet, searching for a way to locate it, or maybe from a tip from a DU'er, can't remember, I learned you can contact an organization, send them a donation, and make arrangement to receive your own copy of the documentary!

http://www.venezuelasolidarity.org.uk/ven/web/dvd/dvd.html
http://venezuelasolidarity.org.uk/form.html

Pretty sure this is da place. By the way, a DU'er who used to live in Caracas is connected to this fine organization.

You are going to be one happy DU'er to see this! It WILL live up to every one of your expectations.

I haven't. Just ordered it!

I was lead to it following some information on a priest who was taken and murdered from a mass he was conducting, and the New York Times completely blocked all information on the event. Felipe Balan Tomas. I had very little luck this time finding anything on him, as almost everything has disappeared for one reason or another.

What I DID find was an unbearable accounting of some unbelievably brutal, hellish massacres I've never heard of, conducted in the 1970's, and 1980's by the Guatemalan military. I am posting this excerpt for general information, and from a state of horror, and because it needs to be known:

One of the foreign governments accused of encouraging serious human rights violations in Guatemala at different stages of the internal armed conflict is the USA. According to information published in Time magazine on 26 January 1968, Colonel John Webber, the US military attache at the time of the Izabal-Zacapa counter-insurgency operations (October 1966 to March 1968), who was later killed by members of an armed opposition group, acknowledged that the operations had been his idea and that, thanks to his initiative, anti-terrorist methods had been implemented by the Guatemalan army in the Izabal area.(67)

Thirty years later, information came to light which revealed how the US Government had facilitated serious human rights violations in Guatemala by providing specialized training in counter-insurgency operations. On 20 September 1996 the US Defense Department circulated information in seven manuals, written in Spanish and used to train thousands of Latin American security force agents, which describe torture, executions and beatings as useful tools in certain circumstances. Trainers and mobile training units from the US Army's School of the Americas used these manuals between 1982 and 1991. Copies of these manuals were distributed in Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru. In 1997 Amnesty International published information regarding these violations and the role of the US Army's School of the Americas in training and providing expertise in counter-insurgency operations in Guatemala.(68)

It is difficult to estimate how many Guatemalan security force agents received training using instructions contained in the manuals. What is known is that between 1982 and 1991 the Guatemalan security forces extrajudicially executed, made to ''disappear'' or tortured tens of thousands of civilians. Guatemalan security agents implicated in human rights violations, some of whom have charges pending against them, are reported to have received training at the School of the Americas. Among them is a colonel implicated in the ''disappearance'' of Efrain Bamaca Velasquez in 1992 and in the killing of the US citizen Michael Devine in 1990, as well as a general implicated in the killing of anthropologist Myrna Mack in 1990.

Verifying allegations that foreign government officials were implicated in serious human rights violations in Guatemala is difficult as both recipient and donor states often go to great lengths to conceal the transactions related to these crimes. However, Amnesty International believes that reports linking foreign governments to incidents of serious human rights violations should be thoroughly and impartially investigated. The results of such investigations, and any other information that may clarify such violations, should be immediately made available to the Guatemalan authorities and the Historical Clarification Commission in accordance with international standards.
(snip/...)

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:fS1RRAEFXewJ:www.amnesty.org.ru/library/Index/ENGAMR340021998%3Fopen%26of%3DENG-2M2+%22Felipe+Balan%22+murdered&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You may recognize the name "Efrain Bamaca Velasquez" as the tortured and murdered husband of American Jennifer Harbury, who has written books on human rights, and a recent on on torture. Democrat Robert Torricelli finally helped run down the information she needed during Clinton's Presidency on what had finally been the end of her husband's life, after he was kept alive and tortured for TWO YEARS.



Jennifer Harbury

much move to SA...

your perception of Colombia as African or Haitian type poverty is completely misguided. You have never been there and you have absolutely no idea.

Colombia is nowhere as impoverished as you think.

Colombia and Venezuela have similar statistics and Venezuela only has 3 million landlines for 27 million people. CANTV under government control will try to fix that.

"In addition to having a larger GDP than all countries except Argentina, Colombia also has a greater number of phone lines than all of the countries except Argentina. Proportionally, Colombia's number of phone lines is at least double that of the other countries and is only slightly less than that of Argentina."


http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:zyCPcRdxF0kJ:www.american.edu/carmel/HB6458A/telecommunications.htm+colombia+phone+lines&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=18&gl=us

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/ColombiaFacesProspectsofMorePopulationDisplacement.aspx

http://www.tkb.org/Country.jsp?countryCd=CO

In 1997 (even though per 100 makes more sense)

US 64.26 per 1000
Argentina 18.92 per 1000
Colombia 14.75 per 1000
Venezuela 12.8 per 1000

It seems that the difference is quite steep. Only 22% of the US average.

I do get the impression that others are under the erroneous belief that Colombia is full of 40 million campesinos of the Juan Valdez variety.

Thursday, February 15, 2007 - Page updated at 12:44 AM
Colombia seeks U.S. funds for drug-trade fight
By Pablo Bachelet

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — For the closest U.S. ally in Latin America, crunch time is near.

Top Colombian officials have visited Washington in recent weeks in a stepped-up effort to lobby Congress for a new multibillion-dollar anti-drug-trafficking plan and a free-trade agreement that has run into fierce opposition among the Democratic majority in Congress.

Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos met with key Democratic and Republican lawmakers and Bush administration officials during a two-day trip that ended Wednesday. Earlier this month, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos was in Washington.

Both officials pushed a $44 billion anti-drug-trafficking effort, informally known as Plan Colombia II. The United States contributed $4 billion in the first Plan Colombia, unveiled in 1999. Colombia hopes to obtain a similar amount from the United States for the successor program, Francisco Santos told The Miami Herald on Wednesday.
(snip)

But though many Democrats seem to support Plan Colombia, they want Colombia to include stronger labor provisions in the free-trade deal. Vice President Santos said the Colombians are willing to make concessions once they know exactly what the Democrats want.
(snip/...)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003572855_colombians15.html

Plan Colombia Aerial Herbicide Spraying Not Proven Safe for the Environment, Says AIDA

Critique of recent studies by international environmental NGO released to
Congress today

OAKLAND, Calif., and MEXICO CITY, Feb. 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In
December, the Colombian government violated a bilateral accord with Ecuador
by spraying a mixture of herbicides intended to destroy coca crops within
10 kilometers of the Ecuadorian border. To justify the spraying, Colombia
relied on studies by a team from the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control
Commission (CICAD) of the Organization of American States (OAS), claiming
that the spray mixture is safe. However, an independent review of CICAD's
recent studies, released to members of the U.S. Congress today, shows that
the pesticide mixture being sprayed has not, in fact, been proven safe for
the environment, and that Ecuador has substantial cause to oppose the
spraying.

According to the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense
(AIDA), the first CICAD Environmental and Human Health Assessment of the
Aerial Spray Program for Coca and Poppy Control in Colombia, released in
2005, did not assess many of the greatest potential ecological and human
health risks posed by the aerial eradication program in Colombia. Because
of these omissions and the potential environmental risk of the spraying,
the U.S. Congress requested further studies to better assess whether the
mixture is truly safe for the environment.

Preliminary results from the follow-up studies, released in August
2006, show that the mixture is indeed potentially harmful to the
environment, and particularly to amphibians -- the spray mixture killed 50
percent of the amphibians exposed in less than 96 hours. According to
Earthjustice scientist and AIDA's Program Director Anna Cederstav,
"Contrary to what is argued by the government, this study shows sufficient
cause for concern to suspend the sprayings due to potential environmental
impacts, especially considering that Colombia has the second highest
amphibian biodiversity in the world and the most threatened amphibian
species."

Many other key questions about the environmental impacts of the
spraying also remain unanswered, despite the U.S. Congressional mandate to
conduct the studies. For example, the State Department has not provided
adequate information about the location of and risk to sensitive water
bodies and has done nothing to address whether other threatened species are
likely to be harmed. Without these determinations, the claim by the
Colombian government that it is safe to spray along the Ecuadorian border
is misinformed.
(snip/...)

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-14-2007/0004527803&EDATE=