|
July 21, 2003 Blair Hands Blank Check to Uribe Despite significant protests from British trade union leaders, MPs and campaigners, and especially the Guardian's detailed revelations of British military involvement, as well as energetic opposition from Colombian NGOs, as the dust settles on last week's London Meeting on International Support for Colombia one point is clear: British Prime Minister Tony Blair has orchestrated an international breakthrough on behalf of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's ultra-right government. With the UK already the number two supplier of miltiary aid to Colombia, Blair has opened the door for the worst human rights offender in the Western Hemisphere to receive a new round of international loans. The gathering of senior representatives from the EU, USA, UN, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Switzerland, IMF, World Bank, Andean Development Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank was brought together on Blair's personal initiative and fully-backed by Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar of Spain. With this duo once again working in tandem as the pro-U.S. axis within Europe, the details of the initiative were worked out by the British Embassy in Bogotá in close consultation with Uribe's team.
A two-stage tactic was devised. On the first day there would be a pre-meeting consultation with the NGOs resulting in a report that would be delivered to the representatives of governments and international finance institutions participating in the second day's meeting. because the space for criticism of Uribe had to be carefully controlled, just two NGO representatives would have one hour to present their case on the second day and then asked to leave. The remainder of the time would allow Uribe's people to make their sales pitch. And so the manipulation was set up. Through the auspices of the hitherto unknown "European Centre for Strategic Thinking," some thirty representatives of trade unions, peasants, indigenous, womens, peace, and human rights organizations were brought to London. Also present were various employer federations and "foundations"—a code word for a well-funded government or CIA front. At the London meeting, the Colombian government is seeking what it calls "an international coalition for peace in Colombia." What this amounts to is unconditional financial and political support for its war to defeat the leftist guerrilla movements—the FARC and the ELN. According to a Colombian government source, "The violence caused by illegal groups has become the principal obstacle to development and has caused a great loss of human and social capital, as well as a troubling increase in emmigration." Acording to NGOs, under Uribe's "democratic security" policy, "The population is not conceived as essentially entitled to rights, or as the object of State protection, but above all as an instrument of war." Moreover, "President Uribe has publicly declared that he does not believe that the principle of distinction between combatants and civilian population is valid in Colombia." The persecution of rural communities, trade unionists and other groups is a direct consequence of this militarized concept. Uribe does not want peace, he wants foreign aid to win the war. As one human rights defender put it, "There is a fundamental incoherence between the idea of a negotiated political solution to the conflict and Uribe's policy of all out war."
The Commission of Jurists shows how official propaganda deliberately distorts the human rights situation. In March 2003, the office of the vice-presidency published a report stating an increase in the homicide rate in Colombia, as well as a record number of displacements due to the violence. And yet the President's office issued a press release, ostensibly based on this same report, under the title "Significant reduction in human rights violations in Colombia". There are two significant outcomes resulting, from the London meeting. In the short term, Uribe's position has been strengthened because it was agreed that there will be a follow-up donors co-ordination conference "to be organized by the Inter-American Development Bank at a date convenient to the Colombian government and the donor community." The other outcome is that NGOs and the social movements are deeply angry at their manipulation by Uribe and Blair. The pretense that official policy has been agreed in partnership with civil society is a complete sham. There does indeed need to be an international coalition for peace in Colombia, but it should take a very different form than that hatched in the corridors of the Nariño Palace and 10 Downing Street. It should be an alliance centered on the Colombian people and their need to defeat the power of Uribe's militarized state. Andy Higginbottom is a member of the UK-based Colombia Solidarity Campaign. This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).
Copyright © 2003 Colombia Journal. All rights reserved. |
It
is instructive to follow the tightly managed process, to see how
Blair exercises "spin" to get what he wants on the international
stage. The diplomats knew that some fancy footwork was needed because
widespread and well-founded criticism of the Uribe administration
from the trade unions, social movements and human rights organizations
is being listened to outside Colombia. Therefore, the process had
to be seen to be taking the views of civil society into account,
but at the same time it had to contain the impact of those views.
Like the well behaved child in Victorian times, civil society was
to be seen but not heard. 
Uribe
claims there is "a downward tendency" regarding human
rights violations (a claim consistently echoed by the UK government).
However, a report from the Colombian Commission of Jurists reveals
that in Uribe's first year in government there have been nearly
seven thousand political homicides and disappearances, which is
worse than the average during Pastrana's four-year presidency. And
while the number of human rights violations peaked during Pastrana's
last year in office, the argument boils down to whether 19 people
being killed daily under Uribe (July 2002 to June 2003) is any more
acceptable than 20 people killed daily (July 2001 to June 2002)
then.