opinion

Álvaro Uribe: Latin America’s
most disgraced president
by Larry Birns --- Council on Hemispheric Affairs

However muffled the language may be, President Uribe is destined to be Latin America’s most scorned president in modern times. Condemned by voice and written denunciations throughout the hemisphere, Uribe did manage to solely win enthusiastic, if almost meaningless praise, from lame-duck President George Bush, who saw nothing wrong with Colombia applying Iraqi-style tactics on Ecuadorian territory. Even the most accommodating analyst would have to inform Uribe that he has just finished the most catastrophic week of an already catastrophic presidency and effectively the demise of his presidency and influence on the hemisphere. There is no question that, ironically enough, Farcista Raúl Reyes has posthumously inflicted the most devastating and lasting defeat on Uribe. Metaphorically speaking, Reyes has scalped Uribe and then hung the Colombian leader’s tattered presidential sash upon a pike and walked the macabre sight through the streets of Latin America.

A heavy burden to bear

At the end of the day, the price of gunning down Reyes will prove to be excessively high for Uribe. Ongoing negotiations for the release of scores of FARC-held hostages, which had been eagerly sought after by Uribe, have been unquestionably terminated, at least for the foreseeable future. Reyes was the FARC figure most identified with the hostage-release dialogue with Colombia and European intermediates. In the past, Reyes was the FARC official most engaged in talks that had taken place with high level figures abroad, working for the release of a number of FARC detainees, particularly Ingrid Betancourt, whose freedom was especially sought after by the French, due to her holding both Colombian and French citizenship. Additionally, Reyes was said to have maintained liaison with Venezuela’s efforts, which had been abruptly guillotined last November, when Hugo Chávez was sacked by Uribe as Colombia’s unofficial negotiator. By ordering the killing of Reyes, Uribe guaranteed that former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt will remain in guerrilla custody indefinitely.

A man for few seasons

Uribe cultivates a hard-line image that brooks no flexibility when it comes to visiting affliction upon the Farcistas, which has won him considerable popularity within Colombia. But it is a popularity that is more broad than deep. As for FARC, it is not a soft and fuzzy organization at all, but it must be understood that all of their actions have an end in mind. Behind the drug trafficking and kidnappings lies a resolve to obtain the freedom of their imprisoned comrades and to guarantee their own securities. Yet here again, Uribe’s instincts were antipathetic to a rational assessment of how to peacefully resolve on internecine strife that had been going on for decades, with honor and with homage to the Colombian nation.

Now prepared to retire from office, the Bush administration already has reached the nadir of its popularity on the Hill and when it comes to its Latin American policy, no one can suggest that it's even faintly credible. In fact, Bush’s policy has been a parody of a policy; in effect, with no exaggeration, it could be called an anti-policy. Uribe is unlikely to witness the US Congress passing a beneficial trade measure on his behalf. In terms of the high price that Uribe is being forced to pay, the toll is there to clearly be seen.

The Colombian president does not have a compelling reputation which can make him proud. Uribe is anything but an apostle of democracy. He is armed with a grim personality that is far more Dick Cheneyesque in its import than Helen Kellerish. He had no problem with packing the country’s Supreme Court after unsuccessfully trying to convince its members to decide in his favor that the constitution in fact allowed him to stand for re-election.

Nor did the United States make much of a fuss when, for a token guilty plea and a minimum prison sentence, AUC vigilantes were guaranteed against being extradited to the United States, even though the extradition policy had been at the heart of Washington’s anti-drug strategy. Another sore point is Uribe’s reputation for playing fast and loose when it comes to personal matters of corruption, and his years of very murky connections to some of the country’s worst rightist extremists. He has worked tirelessly to provide for these AUC extremist vigilantes (classified as “terrorists” even by the State Department), to see to it that their future isn’t bleak. Even now, many of the people whom Uribe protected from doing jail time have gone back to a life of major drug trafficking. In a recurring scandal involving Uribe, some 35 percent of the legislative representatives of his conservative party have been shown to have direct ideological and/or financial arrangements with these death squads. Nor should it be forgotten that even the State Department acknowledges that the AUC was tolerated and afforded sweetheart deals by Uribe while it still was carrying out massacres of trade union leaders and hundreds of other civilians.