It's U.S. Supported Colombia's Uribe Who Sounds like the Latin American Dictator

Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet at 12:00 AM on April 26, 2008.

Editor's Note: This originally appeared on AlterNet's blog, PEEK.

If you read the Washington Post as religiously as I do, you probably have a pretty good grasp of the taxonomy of Latin American leaders.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is a brutal dictator whose crimes include saying mean things about George W. Bush, sponsoring leftist terror groups, using Venezuela's oil revenues to sway elections in the region and, perhaps most egregious of all, banning the Simpsons! Oh, and winning a bunch of elections.

He's followed by evo Morales, who is a walking, talking race card and just won't let bygones be bygones when it comes to Bolivia's traditional elites -- those friendly light-skinned plutocrats who own all the land. He's a dictator too.

Then there are "moderates" like Chile's Michelle Bachelet. She might call herself a socialist, but Chile's into "free trade" and has a privatized Social Security system from the Pinochet era, so, meh.

Colombia's Alvaro Uribe, of course, is a close Washington ally, a recipient of massive amounts of U.S. security assistance and is widely regarded as a beacon of democracy. Yes, he's a former narco-terrorist who was a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar, and, yes, labor leaders and protest organizers are routinely assassinated in Colombia. And, sure, Uribe's cousin and close confidant was arrested last week for his ties to right-wing terrorist groups -- joining "More than 30 current or former members of Congress, the vast majority allies of the president, [who] have been arrested for allegedly backing and benefiting from the illegal right-wing bands" -- and, OK, now there are allegations that Uribe himself might have had a hand in the assassinations of 15 lefties in the 1990s.

But he's a bulwark of democracy, dammit, and we have to sign a trade deal with him before those socialists ban The Family Guy.

Then there's Ecuador's Rafael Correa -- young, good-looking and not at all fond of neoliberalism. The LA Times' handy pocket guide to Latin American politics lists him as a "Harvard-trained Chavez ally" (He never attended Harvard, but, you know, the facts don't much matter when reporting on Latin America).

Correa is trying to clean up his intelligence agencies, which he says are "totally infiltrated and subjugated to the C.I.A." He's also booting the U.S. out of an airbase it’s very much enjoyed using for the past decade. According to the New York Times, "the agreement, negotiated under extreme economic distress by a Ecuadorean president who was overthrown months later, includes no rent for Ecuador." Sweet deal, and losing it has ruffled some feathers in the seat of Pax Americana; as our friend the Borev* noted, "the U.S. Southern Command is cutely pretending to 'respect Ecuador's decision' until his plane goes down mysteriously over Panama or something."

Correa's recently been in the news for his high-profile clash with Uribe, whose administration bombed Ecuador last month, possibly with U.S. help. Reuters tells me that Correa is "facing ire" at home for constantly dissing Uribe "because Ecuadoreans want him to focus instead on fighting inflation and spurring an anemic economy."

Correa, whose confrontational style discomfits many Ecuadoreans, still refuses to restore ties or even talk with his conservative counterpart, limiting his comments to a public discourse laced with accusations such as "bare-faced liar."

How bad is the backlash against Correa among the good people of Ecuador?

According to the country's most influential pollster Cedatos-Gallup poll, Correa's popularity bounced at the height of the Colombia crisis in mid-March to 66 percent ... but that support began to erode as the spat dragged on, dipping to 62 percent by April.

God, they friggin' hate him!

(Side note: the first quotes are from the story's lede and the fifth paragraph; the fact that Correa's approval rating has in fact declined just a tad, from a peak of 66 percent to a still-quite-impressive 62 percent, is found buried in the 20th and penultimate graph. Noam Chomsky said that one should always read the final three paragraphs of mainstream news stories first.)

Anyway, all of this is a lengthy preamble to a fascinating interview Correa gave to the Spanish Público, the likes of which you won't find in the WaPo anytime soon. Spanish speakers can consult the original here. The translation below is by Machetera, which you should bookmark and consult on a regular basis. Reprinted by permission of Miss Machetera herself ...

My Hands are Clean and Bloodless, Something Uribe Can't Say - Interview with Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador

Gorka Castillo - Público

Translation: Machetera

The British writer Richard Gott considers Colombia to be the main element in the region's instability. Do you share his view?

This is nothing new, rather something that goes way back. Colombia is the only country that has paramilitaries, guerrillas, drug traffickers, extensive coca cultivation and extensive zones of the country uncontrolled by the state. Paramilitarism and narco-politics doesn't exist in Ecuador. Nor do we cultivate coca. Those are exclusively Colombian terms. I say this regretfully because [the Colombians] are our brothers, but Colombia today is the focus of the greatest instability that exists in Latin America and this hurts all of us.

Do you wish to say that the Colombian government's image in Latin America is not a good one?

Uribe's government is completely discredited. We've already pointed out his lies; now no-one believes him.

In Europe it's not seen that way.

It's true that in the European Union as much as the United States, the backing of his lies by some powerful media has harmed us and for that reason, very soon, I will undertake a tour of Europe to let people know about Ecuador and show that we are a decent government and a peaceful land. What's problematic is on the other side of the border. We're victims of the Colombian conflict. We're not perpetrators nor are we accomplices.

You give the impression that a media war has been launched.

It's not that I'm giving that impression, it's that it's a fact. We know with whom we are dealing; with a militaristic country, with a president who has an imperfect past, with enormous support from foreign intelligence agencies and with an impressive propaganda machine. We have faith that the truth and justice will prevail. We've already achieved that in Latin America, where Colombia has been soundly defeated politically, diplomatically and informationally.

What drives Colombia to accuse its neighboring countries of collaboration with the FARC?

Uribe's militaristic policies began when he became president. First in contradicting the strategy of his predecessor, Andrés Pastrana, who came to embrace Manuel Marulanda. But in came Uribe with the hard line and he wanted us all to do the same. He's like the little emperor who follows his boss's dictates. It's obvious that his political and economic power is based on the struggle against the FARC. Peace is not convenient for Uribe because fighting guerrillas gives the Colombian electorate a secure feeling. What is troubling is that this conflict is spilling over the borders.

But before the bombing on March 1, relations between the two countries were ruled by respect.

Uribe has always shown a lack of respect toward Ecuador. So much so that our territory continues to be fumigated with glyphosate and to the point of frequently violating our airspace with their planes. Anyway, as to the March 1 bombing, there's a question that still remains unanswered.

What?

They had Raúl Reyes' group under their control when they could still be found on Colombian soil. Why did they wait until they passed over to Ecuador to kill them?

Why?

Was it by any chance done in order to involve Ecuador in a conflict that is not theirs? Was it not a matter of intimidation? Could it have been to force us to participate in Plan Colombia? What Uribe didn't count on was our response, nor the condemnation he received from the countries in the OAS. The plan failed because we didn't fall for it.

During the meeting of the Rio Group in Santo Domingo, you showed your hands to Uribe and told him to take a good look at them because they are clean and without blood. What were you referring to?

Uribe has tried to involve us, not only my government, but also the Armed Forces, as supporters of the FARC. Later he alleged that my presidential campaign had been financed by the guerrillas. It's disgraceful. Where does this gentleman get off, after having violating every international law, accusing us of support for guerrilla groups whose actions we've said a thousand times we reject; it's insulting. That's why I told him to look at my hands. Just to highlight the contradiction with Uribe's position, which has been so scandalously related to drug trafficking. His warmongering policy is not going to end the conflict, instead it will exacerbate it and he's going to leave thousands dead as a result. My hands are clean and bloodless. That's something Uribe cannot say.

However they continue to claim that you were aware of the FARC's activities in your territory. They say that you were warned as many as 16 times of guerrilla bases in your territory, and were ignored. Is it true?

This is an unbelievable infamy. All my orders are on record. It's all so coarse and ridiculous that we've decided it's not worth answering. It's just that we don't know why he does it. Just when relations improve with him, something strange happens and you get stabbed in the back. Something in his head's not working right.

How is it possible that this climate of tension has been reached if at the end of the Rio Group meeting, you managed to shake hands?

That's Álvaro Uribe Vélez. Something's wrong. His behavior is terribly psychotic.

Is it true that Reyes had contacted the French in order to negotiate the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt, when he was bombed?

Uribe doesn't want peace, nor does he want hostages released, because Betancourt is a potential presidential candidate. It's true that we'd known that contact would be made in a neutral third country in order to liberate them later on Ecuadoran soil. President Chávez also asked me if we could receive hostages in our territory because a transfer over the Colombian-Venezuelan border had become very dangerous. We were in the middle of that process. Those movements toward liberation of the hostages that the guerrillas entrusted to Reyes were precisely the reason Reyes was destroyed.

Ecuador has just denounced Colombia before the Hague Tribunal for illegal spraying on its territory.

The verdict will still take many years but we hope that a stiff sentence will be handed down to force Bogotá to suspend the aerial glyphosate spraying they've been doing since 2006. These fumigations have caused Ecuadoran farmers on the border to leave their homes, lose their crops, their income, and have caused serious illnesses, even death. However, do you know what the Colombian government's reaction has been up until today? It's to say that our demand that the spraying cease coincides with the FARC's pleas. It's shameful.

The crisis has revealed huge cracks in the Ecuadoran intelligence system that have caused military leadership to be relieved of its duties. What reforms should it undertake?

Something serious is going on with our intelligence services. We still don't have all the firm data but we can say that we have been infiltrated by the CIA and this agency works for Colombia.

There are some who criticize you for being naive in having waited so long to change the military leadership, with its loyalties to the prior regime.

They're probably right. And also for having trusted Bogotá. You might say that we underestimated the threat of external attack once things had been resolved with Perú and we had good relations with Colombia. But we underestimated the fact that Uribe was there.

[SNIP]

Are you thinking of eliminating the concessions for resource extraction by large companies?

The new Constitution that is now being debated in the Constituent Assembly is part of a new legal framework for this issue. We will change the law made by those indescribable bureaucrats at the World Bank, that was such a disaster. It managed to grant more than 4,000 concessions, of which 70% never even managed to start any operation whatsoever. The contracts will be renegotiated. A very short time ago we met with Repsol. The interest is mutual. As long as the workers and the environment are respected and the state is paid the taxes it is owed, there will not be problems and the projects will be profitable. The oil belongs to the state, and we want the contracts to be signed for services rendered.

Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity.

* Many hat-tips to the BoRev throughout.

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.