Colombia president has 'constructive' talks with Barack Obama

Source: Agence France-Presse

Colombia president has 'constructive' talks with Barack Obama
Thu Sep 18, 4:17 PM ET

BOGOTA (AFP) - President Alvaro Uribe said he had a "constructive" and wide-ranging phone conversation with Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama Thursday, on the eve of the Colombian leader's trip to Washington.

"A phone call with Senator Barack Obama, Democratic candidate for the US presidency, concluded just a few minutes ago," Uribe told reporters at the presidential palace.

"(It was) a very constructive phone call, covering many issues," Uribe said.

US President George W. Bush will welcome Uribe to the White House on Saturday, as the two leaders press members of Congress to approve a bilateral free trade pact.

Also on the agenda are discussions on reducing violence and fostering peace and security in Colombia, which for more than four decades has fought the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a leftist insurgency.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080918/pl_afp/colombiausvoteobama

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Please be reminded that when Álvaro Uribe told the world he went to Plains, Ga., and secured Jimmy Carter's support for his FTA, former President Jimmy Carter was forced to make a public statement later setting the record straight, and indicating he had in no way expressed support for the FTA at that time.



Álvaro Uribe discusses international
relations with his friend and collegue.

long before this election and I think he was hoping Hillary would win the nomination and WH to secure this deal. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the conditions Bill asked of Obama in exchange for stumping for him was to support the Columbia FT deal or at least "talk" with Uribe. US Labor groups have so far successfully thwarted this deal because Uribe's regime murders union activists in Columbia. What Obama does this deal when he becomes president, we'll have to wait and see.

too, who signed that dandy Plan Colombia, as well as the guy who dropped that destructive NAFTA package on Mexico, which made millions of people destitute, losing their livelihoods, homes, farms, once the U.S. started flooding their country with U.S. taxpayer-subsidized corn (always Mexico's GREAT staple over thousands of years), beans, rice, even sugar cane. All those agricultural workers and farm owners left without a way to take care of themselves in a country which had all too few ways to find work to start with.

Smooth moves.

It was revealed when Uribe was bearing down hard with his pal _Bush trying to get the FTA going, that Uribe has FOUR public relations firms working for him in the U.S., one of them being Mark Penn's firm, the same guy who worked on Hillary Clinton's campaign. Small world, isn't it?

Hope Obama will be wise enough to confer with the many Democrats in Congress who have been serious about blocking the FTA due to the REAL human rights violations in Colombia, as in MURDER of union workers, TORTURE of union workers, MURDER AND TORTURE of indigenous people, theft of their land, voter intimidation by the death squads, verified in TESTIMONY by actual paramilitary members, intimidation of the press, verified in person by death squad leaders like the monster Carlos Castaño, who bragged about it in a newspaper article, REAL suppression of political dissent (last protest march gained the protest organizers a public denoucement by Uribe, followed by death threats from the paras, then the murder of 6 organizers), torture and murder of entire villages, and the SECOND LARGEST HUMANITARIAN DISASTER in the world, second only to Sudan, in the number of people driven out of their homes, off their land, left to wander without shelter, without work to sustain themselves, and too poor, of course, to afford representation, and you surely don't hear a word about it unless you actually go looking for information. That's how deeply an adminstration can bury the facts, and encourage media blackouts on the subject.

Very glad you brought up that suspicion. I'll just betcha it's right on the money.

Include marijuana and cocaine as a free-trade product :evilgrin: