Obama calls Uribe
Wednesday, 19 November 2008 18:52
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama called Colombian President Álvaro Uribe to express his appreciation for his congratulations, Obama's transition office said Wednesday.
Aside Uribe, Obama called U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and several African leaders.
The transistion office wouldn't say if Obama and Uribe talked about current issues like the pending free trade agreement or Plan Colombia, the multi-billion US-Colombian joint effort to eradicate coca in Colombia that may see cuts, because of the current global financial crisis., but a source close to Uribe told French press agency AFP that the pair spoke for about 10 minutes on NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), the trade pact Obama has indicated he is willing to re-negotiate when he takes office in January.
Uribe had been open in his support for McCain and now faces increased scrutiny over human rights abuses in his nation from Obama, who opposes a US-Colombia free trade pact currently frozen in the Democratic-led U.S. Congress.
http://colombiareports.com/colombian-news/news/2082-obama-calls-uribe.html~~~~~~~~~~~~Uribe Vs. Obama: Much progress assassinating Colombian unionists.
by Mangrove Blues
Thu Apr 03, 2008 at 12:04:52 AM PST
.
El Tiempo, the Spanish-owned newspaper that more often than not acts as the house organ of the Colombian Presidency, reports that Alvaro Uribe "laments... that senator Obama... ignores the efforts made by Colombia," in declarations given in response to Obama’s announcement that he will continue opposing the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia (the one that Bush intends to ram through in the current session of Congress,) on the basis of the continuing violence against trade unionists in Colombia.
The report notes that "since 2001, more than 700 union representatives have been assassinated" and that trade union representatives in Colombia are assassinated "at a rate higher than the yearly murder rate in the rest of the world," but that since Uribe came to power, the number of unionists assassinated has decreased, and in 2007 "only 26" unionists were murdered and that "only a small percentage of these crimes has been resolved."
"I would ask Obama," adds Uribe, "in the name of all Colombians, to be informed of the efforts made by Colombia, of the progress made by Colombia, however these efforts may come short, to get duly informed before making these statements that are so damaging."
Speaking about damaging statements, Uribe’s private advisor, secretary and strategist José Obdulio Gaviria, who is not only the cousin but was a business and political associate to the infamous Pablo Escobar Gaviria of the Medellín Cartel, recently commented publicly that a March 6, 2008 mass mobilization that repudiated the crimes of Uribe’s proteges, the supposedly (but not really) demobilized "paramilitaries," was organized by FARC. It was not, but in the following weeks several of the organizers of the march were in turn assassinated.
The Free Trade agreement is opposed not only by Democrats in the US but by many organizations in Colombia that fear that the opening of the Colombian economy to US corporations will weaken small industry and small farmers that will not be able to compete in a level playing field with them, besides further weakening Colombian workers and increasing the already stratospheric rates of poverty and inequality.
~snip~
Hopefully the Democrats will not eventually cave in on this issue, in the face of Uribe’s pious rhetoric and the onslaught of the public relations firms hired by the Colombian government to pressure the American Congress.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/3/15543/82000/871/489325~~~~~~~~~~~~April 4, 2008, 1:27 pm
Obama Refutes Colombian President
Nick Timiraos reports from Fort Wayne, Ind., on the presidential race.
Sen. Barack Obama pushed back against criticism from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who said Obama opposes the free-trade deal between Washington and Bogota because of election politics.
“I think the president is absolutely wrong on this,” Obama told reporters on his plane Friday morning. “You’ve got a government that is under a cloud of potentially having supported violence against unions, against labor, against opposition.” The Illinois senator has promised to rebuild America’s reputation abroad.
In an interview with the Journal’s Jose de Cordoba published Friday, Uribe said opposition to the trade agreement would deal a serious blow to U.S. relations with Colombia, one of Washington’s strongest allies in South America where anti-American attitudes have been resurging in recent years. “I deplore that Sen. Obama, apparently because he wants to be president of the U.S., ignores all that Colombia has achieved,” he said.
Labor unions have fought hard against the trade deal, arguing that the Bogota hasn’t done enough to quell violence against trade union organizers. Uribe said that the country had made progress, and that the number of assassinated union members and teachers had fallen to 26 last year from 205 in 2001.
“That’s not the kind of behavior that we want to reward,” Obama said. “I think until we get that straightened out its inappropriate for us to move forward.”
More:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/04/04/obama-refutes-colombian-president/?mod=WSJBlog
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
