{"id":29108,"date":"2018-12-10T18:15:26","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T22:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/?p=29108"},"modified":"2018-12-10T18:15:26","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T22:15:26","slug":"clinton-columbian-connection-finally-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/?p=29108","title":{"rendered":"Clinton-Columbian Connection Finally Revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Clinton-Colombia Connection<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Exclusive:<\/strong>\u00a0Despite a grisly human rights record and alleged ties to drug traffickers, Colombia\u2019s ex-President Uribe has been a favorite of Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill, helping Clinton associates turn hefty profits, reports Jonathan Marshall.<\/p>\n

<\/span>By Jonathan Marshall<\/p>\n

On June 29, 2009, one day after Honduran military leaders ousted their country\u2019s democratically elected president,\u00a0President Obama publicly branded the coup illegal<\/u><\/a>\u00a0and denounced it as \u201ca terrible precedent.\u201d Yet even as he spoke, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was\u00a0ensuring<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that U.S. aid continued and that major capitals\u00a0would recognize the new regime<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Human rights activists have long decried her for abandoning democratic rights and values in Honduras. But many have overlooked her cozy embrace of the morally compromised Latin American leader who happened to be sharing the White House podium when Obama made his remarks: Colombian President \u00c1lvaro Uribe.<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/a><\/p>\n

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Obama was hosting Uribe to build political support for the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement, which both he and Hillary Clinton had vigorously opposed during the 2008 election campaign. Obama praised Uribe\u2019s \u201ccourage\u201d and his \u201cadmirabl(e)\u201d progress on human rights and fighting drug cartels since taking office in 2002 \u2014 a controversial claim that Clinton\u2019s State Department would\u00a0certify<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that September.<\/p>\n

A year later, the love affair between the Obama administration and Uribe grew even hotter. After landing in Bogota for an official visit in April 2010, Defense Secretary Robert Gates\u00a0lauded<\/u><\/a>\u00a0the \u201chistoric\u201d progress that Uribe\u2019s government had made in the war against \u201cnarco-traffickers and terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUribe, in my view, is a great hero and has been an enormously successful president of Colombia,\u201d\u00a0Gates told reporters<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Human rights campaigners were aghast. In an\u00a0email<\/u><\/a>\u00a0to Hillary Clinton\u2019s chief of staff, a senior aide to Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern cited Gates as an example of what\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0to do during Clinton\u2019s upcoming visit to Colombia that June: \u201cThe most important thing the Secretary can do is avoid effusive praise for President \u00c1lvaro Uribe, who leaves office in August.\u201d<\/p>\n

McGovern\u2019s aide cited several damning facts:<\/p>\n

\u2013Contrary to claims from Bogota, reports by the General Accountability Office and the U.S. Agency for International Development showed that U.S. aid and Colombia\u2019s anti-drug programs were failing to meet their goals and in some cases were actually stimulating coca production.<\/p>\n

\u2013Military killings of civilians were up \u2014 with as many as 1,486 civilians killed \u201cduring the first six years of \u00c1lvaro Uribe\u2019s presidency,\u201d she noted. (The\u00a0actual number<\/u><\/a>\u00a0was likely more than double that.)<\/p>\n

\u2013There were also \u201cmounting allegations that the President\u2019s intelligence service, the DAS, was put at the service of paramilitary leaders and narco-traffickers; used to spy on and intimidate Supreme Court justices, opposition politicians, journalists and human rights defenders; and employed in a campaign of sabotage and smears against political opponents\u201d of Uribe.<\/p>\n

\u2013Dozens of President Uribe\u2019s political supporters were under investigation for corruption and ties to illegal paramilitary units, she reported. \u201cMany are large landholders with ties to narco-trafficking, the same local leaders who created and fostered the brutal pro-government paramilitary groups that killed tens of thousands of non-combatants in the 1990s and early 2000s. . . Those embroiled . . . include the President\u2019s cousin, Mario Uribe; the brother of his former foreign minister; and individuals whom the President had named to be Colombia\u2019s ambassadors to Chile, the Dominican Republic, and Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

In conclusion, she maintained, the real heroes were not Uribe but \u201cColombian prosecutors, investigators, witnesses and non-governmental organizations trying to uncover the truth about these abuses\u201d under conditions of great personal risk.<\/p>\n

Falling on Deaf Ears<\/strong><\/p>\n

Her advice fell on deaf ears. Just one week later, Secretary Clinton was in Bogota to\u00a0affirm<\/u><\/a>\u00a0the administration\u2019s strong support for a free trade agreement, and underline Washington\u2019s commitment to helping Uribe \u201cconsolidate the security gains of recent years\u201d against \u201cthe insurgents, the guerillas, the narco-traffickers, who would wish to turn the clock back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ex-Colombian<\/a><\/p>\n

Ex-Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. (Photo credit: World Economic Forum)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Echoing her friend Bob Gates, she added, \u201cbecause of your commitment to building strong democratic institutions here in Colombia and to nurturing the bonds of friendship between our two countries, you leave a legacy of great progress that will be viewed in historic terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clinton had nothing to say about the quarter\u00a0million<\/em>\u00a0victims of right-wing paramilitary groups, many of them backed by the military, as\u00a0reported<\/u><\/a>\u00a0in a November, 2009 cable from the U.S. embassy in Bogota. Nor did she have anything to say about the more than 2,700 union members murdered since 1986 (including\u00a0hundreds<\/u><\/a>\u00a0under Uribe), making Colombia\u00a0by far<\/u><\/a>\u00a0the world\u2019s\u00a0most dangerous place<\/u><\/a>for organized labor.<\/p>\n

Secretary Clinton may have been influenced by her husband\u2019s warm relationship with Uribe. As President, he had signed and implemented a multi-year aid package called Plan Colombia, which contributed more than $8 billion to Colombia\u2019s counterinsurgency wars,\u00a0despite Washington\u2019s full knowledge<\/u><\/a>\u00a0of the military\u2019s \u201cdeath-squad tactics\u201d and cooperation with drug-running paramilitary groups.<\/p>\n

In retirement, former President Clinton deepened his ties to Uribe and Colombia. In 2005, he\u00a0introduced<\/u><\/a>\u00a0Uribe to Canadian mining magnate Frank Guistra, who was a leading donor to the Clinton Global Initiative fund; Guistra was interested in acquiring mineral and oil rights in Colombia. In 2005, Clinton also picked up $800,000 from a Colombia-based group for a speaking tour of Latin America to tout the merits of a U.S-Colombia free trade agreement. (Guistra provided the private jet for Clinton\u2019s tour.)<\/p>\n

To further promote the trade pact, Bogota provided a $300,000 P.R. contract to Clinton\u2019s pollster Mark Penn. As part of his publicity campaign, Penn arranged for Uribe to hold an award banquet in honor of Clinton in 2007. Clinton reciprocated by featuring Uribe as an honored guest at his Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting a few months later.<\/p>\n

When news of Penn\u2019s contract with Bogota got out<\/u><\/a>\u00a0in 2008, Hillary Clinton had to fire him as her campaign strategist, lest she lose endorsements from labor unions. She insisted that her husband\u2019s relationship with Colombia would not influence her stand on the free trade deal, which she\u00a0opposed<\/u><\/a>\u00a0because of \u201cthe history of violence against trade unionists in Colombia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reversing Course<\/strong><\/p>\n

As we have seen, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton reversed course once in office. Clinton may simply have been following the President\u2019s lead, but critics point to her family\u2019s unsavory financial connections as another explanation for her change of heart. As\u00a0International Business Times<\/em>\u00a0reported<\/u><\/a>\u00a0last year:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen workers at the country\u2019s largest independent oil company staged a strike in 2011, the Colombian military rounded them up at gunpoint and threatened violence if they failed to disband, according to human rights organizations. Similar intimidation tactics against the workers, say labor leaders, amounted to an everyday feature of life. . .<\/p>\n

\u201cYet as union leaders and human rights activists conveyed these harrowing reports of violence to then-Secretary of State Clinton in late 2011, urging her to pressure the Colombian government to protect labor organizers, she responded first with silence, these organizers say. The State Department publicly praised Colombia\u2019s progress on human rights, thereby permitting hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to flow to the same Colombian military that labor activists say helped intimidate workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time that Clinton\u2019s State Department was lauding Colombia\u2019s human rights record, her family was forging a financial relationship with Pacific Rubiales, the sprawling Canadian petroleum company at the center of Colombia\u2019s labor strife. The Clintons were also developing commercial ties with the oil giant\u2019s founder, Canadian financier Frank Giustra, who now occupies a seat on the board of the Clinton Foundation, the family\u2019s global philanthropic empire.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe details of these financial dealings remain murky, but this much is clear: After millions of dollars were pledged by the oil company to the Clinton Foundation \u2014 supplemented by millions more from Giustra himself \u2014 Secretary Clinton abruptly changed her position on the controversial U.S.-Colombia trade pact.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving opposed the deal as a bad one for labor rights back when she was a presidential candidate in 2008, she now promoted it, calling it \u2018strongly in the interests of both Colombia and the United States.\u2019 The change of heart by Clinton and other Democratic leaders enabled congressional passage of a Colombia trade deal that experts say delivered big benefits to foreign investors like Giustra.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to a\u00a0report<\/u><\/a>\u00a0this May by the AFL-CIO and four Colombian unions, 99 Colombian workers and union activists have been killed since the trade agreement took effect in 2011. Another six were kidnapped and 955 received death threats. Only a small fraction of those crimes were every solved.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Uribe continues to be a major force in Colombian politics. In April,\u00a0he mobilized<\/u><\/a>\u00a0a street protest against efforts by the current government to bring about a lasting peace with the Marxist guerrilla group FARC; a leading newspaper\u00a0reported<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that Uribe\u2019s protest was backed by Colombia\u2019s largest paramilitary drug-trafficking organization, Los Urabe\u00f1os, which managed to\u00a0shut down<\/u><\/a>\u00a0much of the north of the country for 72 hours after assassinating a dozen policemen.<\/p>\n

Ties to Drug Trade<\/strong><\/p>\n

A connection between Uribe, paramilitary groups, and drug traffickers is all too easy to imagine, despite his denials and Washington\u2019s hero worship. Consider a few family connections, among the\u00a0many that have been alleged<\/u><\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2013One of Uribe\u2019s brothers was\u00a0arrested<\/u><\/a>\u00a0this February for allegedly leading a death squad against suspected leftists that was run from the family cattle ranch. A Colombian legislator\u00a0cited<\/u><\/a>\u00a0testimony that \u00c1lvaro himself may have \u201cordered massacres\u201d from the ranch.<\/p>\n

\u2014Another brother<\/u><\/a>\u00a0was arrested (but not convicted) for suspected ties to cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar; his extramarital partner was later arrested on a U.S. warrant for allegedly working with the head of Mexico\u2019s Sinaloa Cartel, Joaqu\u00edn \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzm\u00e1n. Their daughter was also listed by the U.S. Treasury Department as a major money launderer.<\/p>\n

\u2013Uribe\u2019s two sons are under investigation for\u00a0massive tax evasion<\/u><\/a>\u00a0and showed up in the recent \u201cPanama papers\u201d leak as shareholders in a British Virgin Islands tax shelter;<\/p>\n

\u2013Uribe\u2019s campaign manager and former chief of staff was\u00a0flagged<\/u><\/a>\u00a0by DEA in 2001 as Colombia\u2019s largest importer of a key precursor chemical for the production of cocaine.<\/p>\n

\u2013Uribe\u00a0received contributions<\/u><\/a>\u00a0to his 2002 presidential campaign from the country\u2019s largest and most murderous paramilitary organization, the AUC, which was listed by Washington as an international terrorist organization. By the time of Uribe\u2019s election,\u00a0according to one expert<\/u><\/a>, \u201cthe AUC had become the most powerful network of drug traffickers in the country\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uribe arranged a sweetheart deal to allow AUC leaders to escape serious justice with most of their wealth intact, until the nation\u2019s top courts intervened. Uribe\u2019s chief of security from 2002 to 2005\u00a0pleaded guilty<\/u><\/a>\u00a0in 2012 to taking bribes to protect the AUC.<\/p>\n

\u2013And as far back as 1991, a confidential U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report\u00a0called<\/u><\/a>\u00a0Uribe a \u201cclose personal friend\u201d of Pablo Escobar, and said he was \u201cdedicated to collaboration with the Medell\u00edn cartel at high government levels.\u201d It also noted that his father had been murdered \u201cfor his connection with the narcotic traffickers.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the plus side, President George W. Bush\u00a0awarded<\/u><\/a>\u00a0Uribe the Presidential Medal of Freedom.\u00a0 Georgetown University\u2019s Walsh School of Foreign Service named him a Distinguished Scholar. And Rupert Murdoch\u2019s News Corporation named him to its Board of Directors in 2012.<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton clearly sides with the camp of Uribe\u2019s admirers. It\u2019s time to call her out and make her account for that choice \u2014 and for a record that calls into question her professed devotion to human freedom, democratic values, and the rights of organized labor.<\/p>\n

___
\nhttps:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2016\/05\/19\/the-clinton-colombia-connection\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Clinton-Colombia Connection Exclusive:\u00a0Despite a grisly human rights record and alleged ties to drug traffickers, Colombia\u2019s ex-President Uribe has been a favorite of Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill, helping Clinton associates turn hefty profits, reports Jonathan Marshall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmicconvergence.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}