Uribe holds no public office in Colombia and has no status as any kind of ambassador. Yet he claimed "sovereign immunity" from testifying in this case. While the State Department didn't okay this bizarre assertion, they did write to the judge pressuring him to lay off Uribe and implying that it involved "national security."
Now then, what "national security" issue might be involved in trying to keep Bush Jr. pal, former president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, from testifying about Drummond Coal hiring death squads to assassinate trade unionists?
Why not let justice follow its course for this civilian and foreign visitor? He hangs out in the U.S., why shouldn't he should be subject to U.S. subpoenas?
Was the Bush Junta also involved in death squad activity in Colombia?
What was that (Obama/Clinton) State Department "fine" of Blackwater for "training" "foreign persons" IN COLOMBIA "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan" all about? (--little blip in the Corporate News about a year ago).
How come Uribe and Bush appointee U.S. ambassador William Brownfield SECRETLY negotiated and SECRETLY signed a U.S./Colombia military agreement that included "total diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia--an agreement that was later declared unconstitutional by the Colombia supreme court? (circa 2009-2010--Obama administration)
How come Uribe and Brownfield also cooked up a midnight extradition of death squad witnesses, from the Colombia to the U.S., on mere drug charges, and "buried' them in the U.S. federal prison system by complete sealing of their cases (an unusual procedure) out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections?
How come Brownfield got promoted, when he was very likely colluding with Uribe on Uribe's vast, illegal spying operation--spying on judges and prosecutors, on trade unionists, teachers, community activists, political leftists and other advocates of the poor, and reportedly using the spying to draw up "hit lists" for assassination?
Who got Uribe's spy chief, Maria Hurtado, out of Colombia and instant asylum in the U.S. client state of Panama--an outrageous violation of Colombia's legal system? Who is pressuring Interpol not to enforce the Colombian prosecutors' warrant? And, um, guess who Colombian prosecutors want Hurtado to testify about? (Yup, Uribe.)
Who arranged for Uribe--some 70 of whose closest political associates are in jail or under investigation for ties to the death squads, drug trafficking and other crimes, to be bestowed with cushy academic sinecures at Harvard and Georgetown, and appointment to a prestigious international legal commission?
Something's rotten in the imperial state of Denmark, I'm afraid. And "cover up" is its name.
Again, why would a U.S. judge spare this bastard, Uribe, who is notorious for his ties to rightwing death squads, and who was running Colombia (like a criminal enterprise) during the events in question, from being deposed in this lawsuit?
And why would the State Department pressure the judge to keep him out of court? Why don't they just cut Uribe loose? What does he know?
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