Uribe admits 'recommending' aides to seek asylum

Uribe admits 'recommending' aides to seek asylum
Monday, 13 June 2011 10:19
Tom Heyden

Former President Alvaro Uribe has admitted that he recommended Maria del Pilar Hurtado, the allegedly corrupt ex-DAS director currently protected in Panama despite Colombian extradition requests, to seek asylum due to a perceived lack of justice, El Espectador reported Monday.

The ex-head of state revealed that he told "several government colleagues," including Del Pilar Hurtado, who had been "complaining that they did not have guarantees of justice, to seek asylum."

Del Pilar Hurtado is wanted in Colombia for her alleged complicity in the wiretapping scandal that has disgraced the Colombian intelligence agency DAS. However, the Panamanian government granted her political asylum in November 2010 and has since refused to remove it despite Colombia calling for an international arrest warrant to be issued by Interpol.

"I know that I have to tell the country with all sincerity...I told them (my government colleagues), 'If you feel that you acted (in good faith) and that you don't have guarantees (then) look for asylum. I cannot cheat my compatriots (by) denying that," said Uribe.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/16929-uribe-admits-telling-corrupt-ex-das-director-to-seek-asylum.html

Panamá, martes 14 de junio de 2011
Uribe admits he recommended Hurtado flee Colombia

Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe admitted Monday that he told María del Pilar Hurtado last year to flee Colombia and seek asylum abroad.

Hurtado, the former security director under Uribe, is wanted in Colombia for allegedly spying on political opponents of the administration, including judges, reporters and politicians. She was granted asylum in Panama in November.

Uribe confirmed yesterday that he suggested to Hurtado that she flee Colombia because "there is no guarantee of justice."

Hurtado has been indicted by a Colombian court, along with another former top official from the Uribe administration, for abusing her power while in office.

http://mensual.prensa.com/mensual/contenido/2011/06/14/hoy/english/news_7434.asp

...who is a Bush Cartel "made man" protected by the CIA.

I think the upshot is that she could put Uribe in jail if he didn't have Bush-class immunity, but she can't put Bush Junta principles in jail (or in peril of being named in legal proceedings or possibly sued), thus she had nothing to blackmail the U.S. with, to extract a "guarantee" and had best get out of Colombia.

Another possible interpretation is that Uribe--a major operative or conceivably even the "godfather" of the trillion+ dollar cocaine kingdom--can ruin or murder anyone who is a threat to him, and he alone is behind Hurtado's flight to Panama and the asylum given her by his pal Martinelly, Panama's prez (a lesser being--lieutenant in the king's army?) but, given the lengths that the U.S. has gone to, to protect Uribe, I don't think Uribe was or is acting alone. He may have issued threats but he did so with backing from the U.S. that is so "guaranteed"--at least in his mind--that he could demand "sovereign immunity" from the U.S. State Department in the Drummond Coal death squad case. He didn't get it but he did get a State Department letter to the judge discouraging the judge from forcing him to testify with implications of "national security." Same thing, just done in a more circumspect way than monarchs would do it (or than "made men" would like it to be done).

That letter to the judge is all-of-a-piece with other U.S. actions to protect and coddle Uribe and "launder" his image--including the extraditions to the U.S. of death squad witnesses and their 'burial' in the U.S. federal prison system by complete sealing of their cases (by action of Uribe in collusion with the U.S. ambassador and the U.S. DoJ), Uribe's cushy academic sinecures at Georgetown and Harvard and appointment to a prestigious international legal commission (CIA?), and so on.

It does not surprise me in the least that Uribe told her that she was not "protected" and had better flee, but it does rather surprise me that Uribe has admitted this much. This may be a "pre-emptive" strike on some coming revelation--i.e., it was going to come out anyway so he needed to put out a cover story. Hurtado (or possibly Martinelly) may be "weakening." The Colombian prosecutors--who have thus far been foiled in nabbing Uribe for his many crimes--have not given up on it. They've already got some 70 of Uribe's closest political cronies under investigation or already prosecuted and in prison--for ties to the death squads, for drug trafficking, for bribery, for illegal domestic spying (which is connected to the Colombian military and associated death squad "hit" lists) and other crimes. And now they've charged Hurtado herself with illegal domestic spying and have obtained an Interpol warrant against her. She isn't just wanted as a material witness. She's a wanted criminal on the lam. This puts Martinelly in an even tougher spot. He's already in serious trouble, within Panama and in the region, for defying Colombia's legal authorities and now he's defying an Interpol warrant.

The possibilities for WHY the U.S. would be protecting and even coddling Uribe mostly have to do with possible U.S. military or U.S. military 'contractor' involvement in the illegal domestic spying, and/or in Colombia military/death squad activity, and/or U.S. (Bush Junta) involvement in King Cocaine. It is VERY ODD that the U.S. government doesn't just jettison Uribe. He's a major criminal--and has been all of his career (tied to death squads from the very beginning)--and U.S. association with him is a huge obstacle to Obama administration foreign policy in the rest of Latin America. And the only explanations for this are that, a) the Obama administration is grateful to him for seeing to the murder so many trade unionists and other opponents or potential opponents of U.S. "free for the rich" (they view this bloody prep as having been necessary); and/or b) Uribe is in a category with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, et al, and thus the Obama administration comes under the same obligation to ignore major and, indeed, horrible crimes. ("We need to look forward not backward" on the crimes of the rich and powerful.) (They teach that at Harvard.)