September 20, 2004

With Friends Like These…

by Nick Dearden

The imminent demise of the Labour Party has been the favorite topic of many Brits recently. But, unusually, it's foreign policy; specifically the war on Iraq and Prime Minister Tony Blair's relationship with U.S. President George W. Bush, that has convinced so many grandees that the party they spent so much of their lives fighting for is in turmoil. Blair's penchant for making right-wing friends across the world has been much commented on during his term of office. One particular friendship that is about to move from merely uncomfortable to highly embarrassing is that with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a statesman not noted for his pursuit of social justice.

Last month, the Colombian Armed Forces assassinated three Colombian trade unionists. The killing of labor leaders in Colombia is hardly surprising given that more trade unionists are killed in that country than in the rest of the world. But this particular murder, in the oil-rich region of Arauca, is cause for particularly acute embarrassment. It was the official Colombian army that carried out the killing. The armed forces of the state took it upon themselves to murder representatives of the health workers and agricultural workers unions along with the regional treasurer of the country's largest union, the United Workers' Central (CUT).

Surely, this latest incident is cause for blushes in the Foreign Office—it was only a few weeks ago Bill Rammell, foreign office minister for Latin America, told British trade unionists that in Colombia, "There has been progress in improving the human rights situation."

But progress is in short supply in President Uribe's Colombia. The vice-president called the victims guerrillas. The defense minister described them as "delinquents." This is a country where the president recently claimed that Amnesty International wanted "terrorism to triumph in Colombia." Tony sure hangs out with some fantastic orators.

Some 7,000 people were assassinated for their political activities last year in Colombia. The killers operate with almost complete impunity, while numerous trade unionists languish in jail on charges of subversion, that is, if they have been charged with anything at all. Meanwhile, the British government continues to send military assistance, courtesy of the taxpayer, to the same armed forces that carried out last week's murders. Reports in The Guardian suggest that Britain is the second biggest contributor of military aid to this conflict-ridden country. The reason for doubt lies in the Blair government's refusal to tell the public what this aid consists of and what it is for.

In contrast to Britain's relationship with Colombia, the new government in Spain—which defeated another right-wing friend of Blair's in the recent Spanish elections—has shown its social democratic colors by cancelling a deal to sell battle tanks to the Uribe administration. The Spanish government cited concerns about a possible arms race between Colombia and Venezuela that would threaten to destabilize the entire region.

In Colombia, as in Iraq, Britain is playing First Lieutenant to the U.S. General. It mostly provides the PR, but also wants to show it is willing to getting moderately entangled with the dirty stuff. The Blair government has followed the U.S. administration down a dark alley. And a very dark alley it is too. According to the Colombian Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners, 6,590 people have been detained for political reasons during the first two years of the Uribe administration. This total includes 24 trade union leaders, 29 human rights defenders, 13 indigenous activists, 261 student activists and 38 religious activists.

President Uribe himself is surely an embarrassment. As much as he tries, he simply cannot keep his mouth shut when it comes to human rights organizations, in his own country or abroad. A year ago he called a wide range of them "terrorist sympathizers" and "cowards." Even worse, in late July, declassified U.S. intelligence reports from 1991 detailed links between Uribe and Colombia's Medellín drug cartel, claiming he was a close friend of notorious drug baron Pablo Escobar.

But more embarrassing for those in Blair's own party, is Uribe's vision of society. His contribution to the global war on terror—even though Colombia's Marxist guerrillas have no connection to Al Qaeda—is complemented by a set of rampant neoliberal economic policies. The recent announcement to sell-off $10 billion worth of state-owned companies is part of a wide-ranging austerity plan, which is affecting everything except the armed forces of course.

The result? The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Colombian government's own accounting office said recently that Colombia's development level has declined continuously since 1997, with over 64 percent of the population now living in poverty. While, according to some, the economy is growing, the majority of Colombians are slipping downhill.

Labour Party activists cannot help but see that Blair seems closer to Bush than Democratic candidate John Kerry in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election. Kerry, together with John Edwards and 20 other Senators, recently wrote to President Uribe to express their deep concern with the "continued levels of violence directed at the civilian population," and to urge the Colombian leader to break all links between his armed forces and the paramilitary death squads that carry out most of the state-sponsored violence.

Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell, surely bemused by the sudden prominence of a country that he must have thought would cause him little trouble, declared on July 21: "Categorically, I can say that we are not considering withdrawing our military assistance." So there we are then.

For once, Britain should look to Europe, rather than the United States; to the democrats rather than the republicans; to the social democrats, rather the furthest right politicians. These groups might know how to clear up this mess or they might not. But they've got to be better company than Britain's current friends.

Nick Dearden is a senior campaigner with the British NGO War on Want

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