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all the more curious. Who is powerful enough to hang Martinelli out to dry in this way? He is not popular. All the worse. Could be Uribe mafia, but I think it would take more than that. I think it's CIA/U.S. State Department and one of their reasons--probably the chief one--is that they are pledged to protect Uribe from prosecution because of what he knows about Bush Junta crimes in Colombia.
Simply ask yourself: What's in it for Martinelli? Absolutely nothing. He furthermore looks like a scofflaw, an autocrat, a disrespecter of other countries and their justice and law enforcement authorities. This is supposed to be a "law 'n' order" guy--rightwing, pro-military, pro-security state, pro-"war on drugs," ha-ha-ha. What's in it for him could be lurking beneath the surface--a future cushy life, or perhaps merely staying alive. But I don't think bribes or threats are feasible at the top level in Panama without the U.S. issuing them or okaying them. (Panama too important to U.S. interests, including trillion dollar-plus cocaine revenue stream to U.S. banksters--it's a major transit point from Colombia.) And why would either party--Martinelli or the U.S.--be so concerned about an indicted spy (and spying witness against Uribe) going back to Colombia?
We shouldn't forget the Wikileaks cable in which the U.S. ambassador to Panama reports to the State Dept. that Martinelli demanded U.S. help in spying on his political enemies. I imagine that the other part of his statement was left out ("just like you're giving to my buddy Alvaro").
To untangle this web, just think back to what was probably the beginning of it: Uribe is tasked, by the Bush Cartel, with consolidating the cocaine trade into fewer hands and directing its gigantic revenue stream to certain places. He says he can't do it (target the disfavored drug lords and little peasant coca leaf/food farms) without U.S. high tech assistance,--including drones, satellites, "Total Information Awareness," the lot--which the Bush Junta provides through the U.S. military and/or U.S. military 'contractors.' The Colombian military and its death squads blow those targets away along with thousands of Uribe "political enemies" (trade unionists, human rights workers, etc.) also targeted and murdered. They are also monitoring and threatening judges and prosecutors, who are onto some of this. (Some 70 of Uribe's closest political cronies under investigation or already in jail, for ties to the death squads, drug trafficking, etc.) Uribe's popularity seems to soar because so many of the opposition are dead, terrorized or displaced (five MILLION peasant farmers driven from their lands by state terror). His fascist bud Martinelli becomes envious. He demands the same "services" from the Bush Junta. The U.S. ambassador in Panama warns Washington that Martinelli knows about the spying in Colombia.
The coverup begins. The ouster of Rumsfeld and defanging of Cheney has meanwhile gone down in the U.S., related more to stopping them from nuking Iran and the Rumsfeld-Cheney war on the CIA, but resulting in a change of governments in the U.S., now that Rumsfeld-Cheney's work of militarization, war and looting has been accomplished. They agree to stand down. Impeachment goes off the table. Their many crimes are immunized--"we need to look forward not backward"--but what about their crimes in Colombia, where prosecutors are pursuing Bush Jr. pal Uribe?
Obama--having accepted a member of Daddy Bush's "Iraq Study Group" as CIA Director (Leon Panetta)--leaves the Bushwhack ambassador to Colombia, William Brownfield, in place, to do that coverup in conjunction with Panetta. Brownfield and Uribe contrive midnight extraditions of death squad witnesses to the U.S.--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections--and their burial in the U.S. federal prison system by complete sealing of their cases in U.S. federal court in Washington DC. They are spirited out of the country in the dead of night. Then Brownfield and Uribe secretly negotiate and secretly sign a U.S./Colombia military agreement that grants "total diplomatic immunity" to all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. 'contractors' in Colombia. These things done, Panetta visits Colombia and stops Uribe from rigging the law again to stay in office, gives him the hook, but promises him immunity from prosecution and "laundering" of his image with academic sinecures at Georgetown and Harvard, and appointment to a prestigious international legal committee, in exchange for him keeping his mouth shut.
The Colombian prosecutors don't give up. Their best handle on Uribe is his vast, illegal spying network. They are about to question his spy chief Maria Hurtado, and, lo and behold, she, too, is spirited out of Colombia, and ends up in Panama, where she is given instant asylum as a "political refugee" by Martinelli--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and, again, over their objections.
The spying is related to the many murders by the Colombian military and its closely tied death squads (including murders by the U.S. military and/or its 'contractors'?). It is also, in my opinion, related to controlling and directing (not stopping) the cocaine trade.
And this may be why Martinelli has made this indefensible decision, to harbor the indicted Uribe spy chief, at great political cost. He has been given no choice, probably by the U.S. (I tend to think it's a threat of some kind, rather than bribery--but it could be both. Threat of exposure of his own crimes; threat of dirty tricks to ruin him?)
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